How Some Teachers Handle Race And Politics In The Classroom

Making Connections

The majority of DSA’s 360 students are African-American. It’s a magnet school for fine arts, but students still have to take regular classes, including social studies. That’s where teachers, like Jose Gregory, come in. He teaches U.S. History and Georgia Studies.

“I see events like the unfortunate tragedy that happened in Charleston as an opportunity for us to make history come alive, in some sense, for the kids,” he says. “I do specifically teach about the Georgia flag in 1956 and the controversy that created.”

In 1956, Georgia changed its state flag to one that incorporated the Confederate battle emblem. The move was in response to Brown vs. the Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that integrated schools.

“I also teach them about Charlene Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, who helped integrate UGA, and then, if you looked at some of the interviews that happened in the aftermath of [the Charleston] tragedy, CNN, for example, ended up interviewing Charlene Hunter,” Gregory said. “It’s a good way for my kids to be able to see that what they’re reading is not just something that happened decades ago, but these individuals are still around, playing a role, fighting for social justice, and having their voices heard.”

Another way these teachers approach sensitive topics that deal with race and politics is through class debates. They stress they are facilitators. Their job is to guide students, not push their own ideas. They also say it’s important to establish rules upfront to keep things civil.

“If you let them own it and the fact of ‘how should we have a respectful debate?’ then it sets up the tone for the rest of the day,” says Jeremy Landis, who teaches American Government and Economics.  

Landis says it’s important for students to understand how government works, so they can eventually change what they don’t like about it.

Examining Evidence

If a student becomes upset during a class discussion, the teachers will check in with him after class. During class, however, they teach students how to defend their points of view.

“One of my primary jobs is to help kids learn to evaluate evidence that’s giving them that kind of passion, show them how they can support their assertions or weaken some of the misconceptions through questioning,” says Beth Williams, who teaches World History and Psychology. “Not all sources are equal.”

“We really want them to be like, ‘Where’d this come from?’” Landis says. “’Who’s the author?   What is this website? Who are the authors of this website? Who created this? Where is it coming from?’”

It’s not only their own opinions Gregory says students need to understand.  He says the goal of any social studies course is to get students to see that most issues have multiple perspectives.

“Sometimes it’s perfectly fine that we can agree to disagree, especially when we’re dealing with sensitive issues that might be controversial and that might be emotionally charged as well,” he says. “As long as we can listen to one another and try to understand where they’re coming from and put ourselves in their shoes.”

Students did put themselves in someone else’s shoes last year. That’s when Williams says students staged a kind of protest in the hallway.

“One day, the kids laid down in a class change and said, ‘I can’t breathe,’” she says.

“I can’t breathe” was the phrase uttered by Eric Garner, an African-American, while New York police held him in a chokehold for illegally selling cigarettes. He later died.

As the students lay in the hallway, Williams says the adults stayed out of the way.

“I was really proud of the administration and this school, letting them have their moment and most of the kids when they saw the people who planned it, they laid down with them,” she says.  

The Bottom Line

When the bell rang, students got up and went to class as usual, Williams says. But that doesn’t mean they shook it off.

“I think that some of these issues do hit home really hard with our children, and we can talk about the philosophy of teaching and facilitating the curriculum and bringing current events in as much as you like, but I think we can’t ignore the fact that these children have strong emotions about it,” she says.

These teachers want to create a safe place for students to express all of their emotions.

See the YouTube video of DSA students singing in the cafeteria: