Carol Lee’s article provides a concise framework that can help guide us in confronting age-old questions about teaching and learning. Specifically, she situates the K-12 curriculum within the realm of civic imperatives, insisting that public education must encourage students to explore complex philosophical and historical questions, so that they become well-equipped to confront public problems and pursue civic ends — an idea that strikes me as akin to Paulo Freire’s (1985) notion of “reading the world and reading the word.” And to keep this goal in sight, Lee argues, teachers must consider two essential questions: What should students learn, and how should they use what they learn? Lee calls for teachers to help students see the utility of the content they study. They should understand how that knowledge will help them pursue civic ends in the world, and not just to perform well on tests, quizzes, and standardized assessments.
However, I would like to highlight another dimension of Professor Lee’s framework, which she hints at in her piece: the need to infuse racial realism (Bell, 1992) into the questions students pursue in schools. Racial realism is a philosophical orientation to racism that treats it as a durable, ever-changing, entrenched, and complex institutional phenomenon, one that isn’t going to fade away as soon as it’s confronted. If they are to be well-prepared for civic life, students should understand that racism tends to recapitulate itself over time. For example, let’s say that a group of high school students learns about ecological racism, including the frequency with which groundwater has been polluted by factories that have, over many decades, disproportionately been placed near communities of color. In turn, imagine that those students go on to advocate for city ordinances that will help make tap water safe in their neighborhoods. As Lee might point out, these students will not only have gained important historical, scientific, and legal knowledge but they will have learned how to put that knowledge to civic use, perhaps even leading to tangible changes in their city. However, those students shouldn’t be too quick to declare victory over ecological racism — they should know that their civic work is far from done. Over time, city and state officials might easily backtrack on their promises, ignore local ordinances, and put the community’s water safety at risk yet again.
Similarly, racial realism should inform the work of school improvement itself. If local students, teachers, and community activists succeed in creating the sort of ideal school that Lee describes, that doesn’t mean the work will be over. In past decades, there have been many times when African Americans have successfully agitated for their school systems to provide a more inclusive curriculum, only to see Eurocentrism and traditionalism resurface after a number of years.
For example, consider today’s attacks on teaching about race in the public schools. From the perspective of racial realism, it is no surprise that such a backlash has occurred after a period of relative progress, in which many school systems began to rethink the problematic ways in which the traditional K-12 curriculum depicted the experiences of African Americans (if it focused on African Americans at all). It was only a matter of time before we saw the fabrication of a narrative suggesting that the curriculum now focuses too much on race and diverse cultures.
For those of us who are committed to social change, the work of troubling and correcting the K-12 course of study — and implementing a culturally relevant curriculum — is never-ending. No doubt, we have entered into a new phase of anti-Black activism in the public schools. However, that should only lead us to redouble our efforts to push for the kind of civic-orientated education that Lee proposes.
References
Bell, D. (1992). Racial realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24 (2), 363–379.
Freire, P. (1985). Reading the world and reading the word: An interview with Paulo Freire. Language Arts, 62 (1), 15–21.
This article is an invited response to “A curriculum that promotes civic ends and meets developmental needs” by Carol Lee, part of Kappan‘s Reimagining American Education: Possible Futures series, sponsored by the Spencer Foundation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony L. Brown
ANTHONY L. BROWN is professor of curriculum and instruction in the area of social studies education, and affiliated faculty in African American Studies, and the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, at the University of Texas, Austin.
