The Moral Arc of the Classroom

Disclaimer: I am an urban, black millennial with gay parents. You can just GUESS my political affiliations.

I really, REALLY didn't want to teach my subjects this year. Like at all. I really love American History. I love this constitution & this country. I teach it with joy. Even the bad parts, because that's apart of the history of this country. How can we grow if we never know the past? But how can I teach little brown kids about a country who appears to have learned very few lessons between 1865-2017?

I realized, half the people (on both sides) have zero, or next to zero, knowledge of history. This gives me purpose. Someone has to teach history. All sides. Someone has to give all the facts.

I also realized that my energy is wasted trying to change old, white folks minds. Like I tell my students, no one who HAS power and likes the way it is wants to give it to you. It's really easy to get stuck and comfortable. You have to go within the systems to dismantle systemic oppression from the inside. You gotta beat old white folks at their own game. You have to be even smarter than Obama, more eloquent than MLK, more forceful than Malcolm.

We can't keep looking to people in the system, who benefit to give us the equity we so want. In a Facebook battle, I finally saw the light. People love to say MLK was non-violent and then use that to condemn every protest that isn't March on Selma or the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I gave the the historical argument for MLK's displeasure with the white community, citing his criticisms of the "white moderate" who likes "peace" more than "justice". A white male made a return comment let me know all I needed to know: "Yet those same moderate whites passed legislation eliminating Jim Crow laws and protecting the black community." So now we should praise the white moderate for giving us something that was constitutionally ours (at least black males) for 100 years and women for 40 years? The white moderate was complicit to Jim Crow. The white moderate didn't burn the crosses or kill the families, but the voted for the people who continued to give power and prestige to the KKK and the Citizens Council. We should praise the white moderate for finally lifting their feet off of our necks? I realized, thanks to this white male, that the minds of the the older white moderate can't be changed.

The generation that grew up in the age of civil rights tremendously failed in one area. Many people thought the battle was over and the war had been won. That's what I learned in school. They didn't teach every, single kid that the roots of racism, anti-semitism and hate are entangled with the revolutionary zeal, beauty and pursuits of freedom and individuality at the base of America. They told us the world was "color blind" and "racism is over" and "everyone is equal". It's not true: as a country, we never really believed that the world was a color blind and everyone had blended into a beam of white light whose color can only be seen when refracted through the ugly prism of hate and discrimination (shout to my elementary science teacher & ELA teacher for that cross curricular metaphor). We have to fight to suppress them: we all have to fight to dismantle these systems. We can't ignore them. We must fight. Everyday. All day. Every generation.

My contribution to the struggle is that 100+ seniors will leave me this year more empathetic, more resourceful, more thoughtful, and smarter than they came. They will read the founding documents of this country, they will examine the failures and the successes of the country. They will look, with a critical lens, at what famous men and women have presented as America's greatest challenge. They will dig into the generations, they will take men (and women) as the sum of both their words, their time, and their society. They will know who has come before them and the work that has been done. They will know the work that still has to be done. If nothing else, they'll be able to look the demons of the American past in the face and say "This is America's history, but it doesn't have to be America's future".

"Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Jefferson trembled when he thought of slavery and remembered that God is just. Ere long all America will tremble." -Theodore Parker , Unitarian Minister (1853)

With Hope & Knowledge,
Chelsee