It takes two to speak the truth — one to speak, and another to hear.
H.D. Thoreau
After 30 years in education, I know my way around an essential question. With retirement from public schools slated for the conclusion of this year, I wanted to deepen my knowledge of Civil Rights, enslavement and the works of Thoreau, to find ways to make these topics compelling and relevant for students.
I was selected for three fantastic programs designed to give educators tools to teach “hard history”: Civil Rights Educator Workshop, co-hosted by the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta; George Washington Teachers Institute: Lives Bound Together, Slavery at Mount Vernon, Virginia; and Approaching Walden: Studying Thoreau, in Concord, Massachusetts.
Luckily, best practices can also provide job security. In Atlanta and Mount Vernon, our cohorts talked about how teachers in many states might be able to address these indispensable parts of history, under threat of discipline or dismissal for teaching about Civil Rights, enslavement, and racism. One Georgia teacher attended a training devoted specifically to keeping your job while teaching “divisive topics.” She asked to remain anonymous for fear of disciplinary action. Her takeaway: primary sources, original documents, and artifacts that provide first-hand evidence of a historical event, topic, or period are the key. “Present information factually and let students come to their own conclusions,” she was told. “Read the law for yourself and use good common sense.”
Using primary sources has been a popular and effective approach to practice investigation, critical thinking and reflection with students. Also, pairing a structured investigation of a historical letter, painting, song, or poster with a “thinking routine” works to help students be close observers, reason thoughtfully, and reflect on how they are making sense of things. These routines come from Project Zero and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
These workshops gave me more tools and more access to important artifacts of history. For example, each location offered in-depth work with archives — Martin Luther King’s archives at Morehouse College, Washington’s archives at Mount Vernon, and Thoreau’s archives at Walden Woods. And truthfully, a lot of energy and inspiration comes from being in a historic place and hearing about the heroism of our people — King and the Civil Rights organizers, the enslaved people at Mount Vernon who resisted as they could, and Henry David Thoreau, who wrote unequivocally about the evils of enslavement and the importance of fighting for human rights.
The cohorts of teachers and the spaces of history and learning reinforced my belief that teaching is a civic act, that we must curate the truth and an inclusive history, no matter how disturbing it is, with artifacts. Most importantly, we must encourage and offer a safe space for diverse students to bring their experiences, no matter how well they speak English or their background.
At the risk of being overly optimistic, the colleagues I met in these programs, competent and hard-working, are poised to teach students how to think, not what to think. They are ready to fight for critical thinking so our students can find the truths of the past and present.
Allison Baxter teaches English as a Second Language at West Chicago High School, serves as secretary of Sisters in Crime Chicagoland, and you will see her walking her cute but naughty poodle mix, Max, around the streets of Oak Park.