Teaching critical race theory is good trouble
We believe all students should have the opportunity to evaluate the scope of American history, examine its present-day manifestations and discuss the tough questions that it inspires.
Americans across the country were divided on how to recognize October 11 — or whether to recognize it at all.
Some people, like President Biden, celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day while others doubled down on celebrating Christopher Columbus — despite the well-documented atrocities he committed against indigenous populations.
As we celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November and subsequently celebrate Thanksgiving, these questions of how to acknowledge and address our histories remain at the forefront of the national conversation.
Our country has only begun to reckon with the uncomfortable facts of its founding. Confederate statues have been removed from public spaces and racist mascots from sports teams in the quest to make those more welcoming to all Americans.
But as the late civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis taught us, whenever there is progress, we must expect resistance. That’s what we are seeing across the country with bans on schools teaching the truths of America’s history.
CRT addresses the lingering effects of racism
Effective this school year, the Tennessee General Assembly banned several teaching methods and ideas from our classrooms. Senate Bill 623 is known as the “critical race theory” bill, although those words never appear in it, instead listing a litany of things teachers cannot do without risking public funding for their schools.
The law says teachers cannot promote that an individual should feel “discomfort, guilt or anguish” because of their race. The law also gives authorities the power to suspend, revoke or deny individual teachers’ licenses if they teach one of the prohibited concepts.
Reactionaries have seized upon the phrase critical race theory to describe what they see as the unwelcome intrusion of diversity, equity and inclusion into our educational system.
They are spreading fear that teaching the truth about American history — including the widelystudied eras of Jim Crow or legislation like the Indian Removal Act — is somehow un-american. Too often, conversations about the dynamics of race and power are left out of conversations in classrooms in favor of texts that sanitize and erase uncomfortable parts of our country’s history.
Educators across the state and the country are worried about the consequences of bills like this. Some may shy away from teaching about how race and racism show up in American history entirely and, as educators, we cannot accept this.
Proponents of the Tennessee law argue that it is inappropriate to discuss American history through the prism of race—that simply acknowledging the role that race plays in our society teaches students to feel guilty about the color of their skin or the injustices committed by their ancestors.
Even if we never recognize the presence of race, our children know and perceive it. Research from the American Psychological Association suggests that infants can distinguish among different races and can start to develop beliefs about racial groups before they turn 5 — regardless of what they are taught.
This is because our children perceive systemic differences and unequal treatment, too. Our children will witness systemic racism whether we teach it to them or not.
Without addressing it in the classroom, they won’t have the tools, guidance and context to help them understand why disparities between groups of people exist or how to work towards eliminating them.
Having the tough conversation is necessary for growth
As ground-breaking and unique a success as the American story has been, our history is not perfect, and some of its most shameful moments have been marked by the oppression of our fellow citizens.
The First Amendment is America, and so is the Trail of Tears — which forcibly displaced the Indigenous People from their land in the name of expansion. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is America, and so is the Three-fifths Compromise — which counted each formerly enrecently, slaved individual as less than a whole person.
At North Nashville’s Purpose Preparatory Academy, the school I founded, we have begun "theory and query" sessions that engage our teachers in the difficult, yet necessary discourse about race and privilege in our nation— past and present.
This, in turn, equips us to facilitate lessons that encourage our scholars to think analytically, question assumptions and draw their own conclusions. That includes evaluating the scope of American history, examining its present-day manifestations and discussing the tough questions that it inspires.
We believe all students should have the opportunity to do so. We strongly encourage Tennesseans to defend ourselves against the censorship of educators who are striving, every day, to give students the best education possible: one full of the open inquiry, critical thinking and debate that has always been at the heart of this country’s promise.
We further applaud the Metro Nashville Board of Education’s unanimous vote for its resolution rebuking the law, and standing with educators to declare that “all students deserve to see accurate representations of themselves in their education.”
This Thanksgiving, as you share food and fellowship with your loved ones, let’s acknowledge America’s complex history that is full of pain and promise, and give thanks for those who make good trouble to change it.
Lagra Newman is the founder and head of school at Purpose Preparatory Academy in Nashville.