{"id":4304,"date":"2021-06-02T10:06:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T14:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=4304"},"modified":"2021-06-02T10:06:22","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T14:06:22","slug":"an-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2021\/06\/02\/an-apology\/","title":{"rendered":"An Apology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Preparation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I need to apologize \u2013 to twenty-eight years of students.\u00a0\u00a0I taught you:\u00a0\u00a0government and economics,\u00a0\u00a0sociology and current affairs, world and American history.\u00a0\u00a0And I used all of the knowledge I gained through my own education \u2013 twelve years of some of the best public schools in Ohio, four years at Denison University, a Masters Degree in Education from Ashland College, and lots of independent learning and study.\u00a0\u00a0I had confidence that my body of knowledge prepared me to teach you.\u00a0\u00a0But I was wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I knew that there were biases in textbooks.\u00a0\u00a0Our eighth grade history book had more pages on the Texas War of Independence than it did World War I.\u00a0\u00a0It took a while to find out that Texas bought their textbooks state-wide, so publishers wanting to sell thousands of books in Texas made a much bigger deal about the Alamo than the Second Battle of the Marne.\u00a0\u00a0It was about money, not about historic impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coverup<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I did \u201cfight\u201d my own battles against historic \u201ccoverups\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0When I was teaching history in the 1980\u2019s, there was a movement to deny the Holocaust.\u00a0\u00a0I sought out even more information about the what happened, determined to make sure MY STUDENTS knew the truth, and not the revisionist ignorance.\u00a0\u00a0And I made the choice to deal with the causes of the Civil War with truth.\u00a0\u00a0It was about slavery.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s a reality that still creates controversy in public education today.\u00a0\u00a0Here\u2019s how the Ohio Curriculum for Eighth Grade American History defines the causes of the Civil War:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDisputes over the nature of federalism, complicated by economic developments in the United States, resulted in sectional issues, including slavery, which led to the American Civil War.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the media business – that\u2019s called burying the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I did try to research the history of Black people in America.  But I did it through the prism of American individualism. I looked to individuals:  Benjamin Banneker, a Black intellect and contemporary of Benjamin Franklin; Charles Richard Drew the inventor of blood transfusions; Frederick Douglass and the other pioneering civil rights leaders, and of course, Martin Luther King Jr.  I saw history as the \u201cstory\u201d of individuals and how they impacted on the nation around them for folks of all races \u2013 from Washington and Jefferson to John Lewis and Malcolm X. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I did teach about actions against Black Americans.\u00a0\u00a0I taught about the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan, putting the Freedmen \u201cback in their place\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I used my personal experience with Jesse Owens to contrast Nazi racism to American segregation \u2013 but only as a difference in quality instead of just quantity.\u00a0\u00a0My historical bias towards individualism missed a whole section of the American story \u2013 and not a pleasant one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critical Race Theory<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is somehow considered \u201cUn-American\u201d to teach \u201crace\u201d.  For my generation, we grew up on the \u201cSchoolhouse Rock\u201d concept of the \u201cMelting Pot<\/a>\u201d, where we all blend into \u201cAmerican\u201d. But folks of color weren\u2019t allowed to \u201cmelt\u201d, and that kept them from sharing in the American Dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a new movement in education; to teach how race has been institutionalized into our society, laws and government.  That isn\u2019t really new, and it isn\u2019t particularly surprising.  But the reaction of many white Americans to teaching \u201crace\u201d is extreme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s called Critical Race Theory \u2013 defined by Education Week<\/a> <\/em>as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCritical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instinctively I think most Americans recognize that the core concept of Critical Race Theory is true.  We know all about economic \u201cred lining\u201d, when banks and even government agencies refuse to give home loans for folks of color to live in \u201cwhite\u201d communities.  We know that legal segregation separated our schools, and now \u201cde-facto\u201d segregation keeps races apart.  The \u201cdirty little secret\u201d of the suburbs around Columbus is that much of their original growth is as a result of Columbus Schools\u2019 busing for desegregation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that was supposed to be \u201covercome\u201d by American Individualism.  But it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gap<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So we don\u2019t talk about the ongoing racism in our lives \u2013 from employment to education, law enforcement to healthcare.  And by not teaching that \u2013 by sticking to the \u201ctruth\u201d we learned fifty years ago \u2013 we perpetuate racism in our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I participated in that.  I left generations of students with a gap in their knowledge.  And worse,  I left them with the \u201cfeeling\u201d that they had \u201call the answers\u201d.  That gives them \u201cthe out\u201d of denying our societal reality, allowing some to claim that reality is \u201cjust politics\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for that \u2013 to all my students, some now in their sixties \u2013 I apologize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparation I need to apologize \u2013 to twenty-eight years of students.\u00a0\u00a0I taught you:\u00a0\u00a0government and economics,\u00a0\u00a0sociology and current affairs, world and American history.\u00a0\u00a0And I used all of the knowledge I gained through my own education \u2013 twelve years of some of the best public schools in Ohio, four years at Denison University, a Masters Degree in … Continue reading “An Apology”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Apology : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I taught social studies for 28 years. 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