Today I will welcome 23 Sixth Graders for two classes followed by 15 Seventh Graders for one 45-minute whirlwind. As if that weren't daunting enough, today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in my school with an enrollment which includes only one Black American student. Each year, it is important to me to prepare a lesson with various perspectives in mind: my own, my students', and those of the Black community who honor Dr. King as the dedicated leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
My own perspective was probably first shaped by geography. My parents chose to live on the east side of town; that simply meant our odds of attending more racially diverse schools were higher. Aaron Heartfield was the first Black American whom I can remember from grade school. I just adored him because he made me laugh (he looked and acted much like a young Kenan Thompson of SNL fame), and I honestly was somewhat intrigued by his one bad eye. Aaron's comedic antics at the lunch table were legendary, like when he would put an entire sugar cookie or hot roll in his mouth in one bite. Few things worse than getting tickled in the lunch room with a stern elementary teacher staring you down.
What I did not know about Aaron is that the school year in which he and I were born was the same year that Rosa Parks held her seat on that Montgomery bus. I also had no clue that when Aaron and I were four that he could not have sat at a soda counter with me and had ice cream. And clearly, it had not occurred to me that Aaron would not have been in my First Grade class or my Second Grade class or even my Third Grade class. He was in the segregated Lincoln School because that was the law. Until 1965.
In junior high, my perspectives were broadened by choir and volleyball and track as the natural blending of voices and athletic skills made us teammates. Debra Collins, Shirley Sneed, Rose Thompson, Sharriel Asbury, Margaret Jackson, Mary Brandon, Joann Tippens.....people. They wore those yarn ribbons in their hair just as I did (you know the ones if you had girl hair in the late 1960s). But even then, I was unaware that the 1968 riots in Detroit involved racial strife. I was naive about social prejudices. I could not experience blackness because I was white. The best I could ever hope to do was to see us as people and as friends.
As for student perspectives, well, those have always created a teaching tightrope for me. How do I approach current event issues involving race, religion, or politics with 11 and 12-year-olds? The balancing bar on this tightrope must include some objectivity but also the reality that at this age their minds are being molded by many sources: their families, their peers, and social media. I am juggling all of that input in trying to point out that this lesson on Dr. King matters. Lessons on social issues matter. History and current events go hand in hand to guide these students as they discover truths from their own studies, which I hope will involve reading, listening, observing, thinking, and traveling.
This is why I teach on Dr. King's birthday. His story is not mine or my students' experiences, but the Civil Rights Movement is a part of our country's story.
Throughout the years of classroom teaching, I have heard the usual murmurs with regard to acknowledging MLK Day or Black History Month. "Did we really have to rename streets after him?" "Why don't we have White History Month?"
That brings me to the final perspective that I want my students to consider--the journey of those who are not like themselves when it comes to race or religion (or absence of). Dr. King spent far more time in positive affirmation of what could be rather than in negative rhetoric of what was (church bombings, brutality, discrimination). He would not want January 15 to be about him. He would want this day's activities to draw attention to common sense values of kindness when dealing with all people. Dr. King would want us to work together peacefully as he did, finding the common ground amid the natural differences that exist. This Baptist minister from Atlanta would hope that one designated day in January would translate to 365 days of being individuals who dwell on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute..." (Phil.4:8)
In the beginning, there was no mention of the color of Adam's skin.
Remember that the next time you check your mirrors.
Editor's Note: Don't all 13-year-old adolescent girls sign their own yearbooks "Sweetie"?
What I did not know about Aaron is that the school year in which he and I were born was the same year that Rosa Parks held her seat on that Montgomery bus. I also had no clue that when Aaron and I were four that he could not have sat at a soda counter with me and had ice cream. And clearly, it had not occurred to me that Aaron would not have been in my First Grade class or my Second Grade class or even my Third Grade class. He was in the segregated Lincoln School because that was the law. Until 1965.
In junior high, my perspectives were broadened by choir and volleyball and track as the natural blending of voices and athletic skills made us teammates. Debra Collins, Shirley Sneed, Rose Thompson, Sharriel Asbury, Margaret Jackson, Mary Brandon, Joann Tippens.....people. They wore those yarn ribbons in their hair just as I did (you know the ones if you had girl hair in the late 1960s). But even then, I was unaware that the 1968 riots in Detroit involved racial strife. I was naive about social prejudices. I could not experience blackness because I was white. The best I could ever hope to do was to see us as people and as friends.
As for student perspectives, well, those have always created a teaching tightrope for me. How do I approach current event issues involving race, religion, or politics with 11 and 12-year-olds? The balancing bar on this tightrope must include some objectivity but also the reality that at this age their minds are being molded by many sources: their families, their peers, and social media. I am juggling all of that input in trying to point out that this lesson on Dr. King matters. Lessons on social issues matter. History and current events go hand in hand to guide these students as they discover truths from their own studies, which I hope will involve reading, listening, observing, thinking, and traveling.
This is why I teach on Dr. King's birthday. His story is not mine or my students' experiences, but the Civil Rights Movement is a part of our country's story.
Throughout the years of classroom teaching, I have heard the usual murmurs with regard to acknowledging MLK Day or Black History Month. "Did we really have to rename streets after him?" "Why don't we have White History Month?"
That brings me to the final perspective that I want my students to consider--the journey of those who are not like themselves when it comes to race or religion (or absence of). Dr. King spent far more time in positive affirmation of what could be rather than in negative rhetoric of what was (church bombings, brutality, discrimination). He would not want January 15 to be about him. He would want this day's activities to draw attention to common sense values of kindness when dealing with all people. Dr. King would want us to work together peacefully as he did, finding the common ground amid the natural differences that exist. This Baptist minister from Atlanta would hope that one designated day in January would translate to 365 days of being individuals who dwell on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute..." (Phil.4:8)
In the beginning, there was no mention of the color of Adam's skin.
Remember that the next time you check your mirrors.
Editor's Note: Don't all 13-year-old adolescent girls sign their own yearbooks "Sweetie"?
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