"Depressed? What the hell are you talking about? Over a ten week period in 1985, nine young Indian men hung themselves at the Wind River Reservation. And in some places the suicide rate among young Indians is ten times that of the rest of the population. Don't talk to me about depression - I don't have time to be depressed." Owns-the-Sabre, a member of the Lakota nation.
Welcome to the Teaching Social Justice blog. This blog is for teachers who want to teach social justice. The ideas and opinions posted here are mine, but I invite the comments and reflections of any and all who read it. Dialogue will move us all forward.
I spoke with Owns the Sabre, a Lakota writer and painter, one day in the Mission District, and never forgot what he said. His words changed the way I thought about teaching Social Studies. To illustrate, let's talk about a young student teacher in Salinas, because her plight so clearly demonstrates what we are up against. She works in a small district with 76% white students and 24% children of color. Her students are learning about Columbus the Good, the Good Pilgrims and Good Johnny Appleseed in their Social Studies classes. Her "master" teacher claims there is no time to teach "diversity" because there are so many tests to give. Another teacher at the school has remarked, "There's no need to teach about other cultures because all these children (of color) are bussed in and can't afford to live here anyway." (In this district there are 44 white teachers and 1 teacher of color.) To celebrate Thanksgiving, the "master" teacher uses this poem:
Indian Children
Where we walk to school each day
Indian children used to play
All about our native land
Where the shops and houses stand
And the trees were very tall
And the there were no streets at all
Not a church and not a steeple-
Only wooden Indian people
Only wigwams on the ground
And at night bears prowling around
What a different place today
Where we live and work and play.
Such poems and such views are typical. Many teachers use such ugly, demeaning material and don't know - or care - about its effect on their students. It is handy and available. It does not question the status quo. It is widely prevalent. It is part of the myth.
Myth? Of course. To sustain themselves and indoctrinate the young, societies make myths that express and idealize their values. Our society is no different. In order to build modern American society, it was necessary to expropriate and occupy the land of North America and find people to do the actual work of building it. Native tribes had to be eradicated, and cheap labor - including slave labor - had to be imported. Africans were forcefully brought to America, and working people from Europe and elsewhere were recruited, kidnapped or attracted with the promise unlimited opportunity and Social Justice. What they found, in most cases, was oppression, prejudice, and abject poverty. It was these people who built America, all to the profit of a few. This all had to be in some way sanitized and justified. We all know the Myth because it was taught to us - "Progress," Columbus the great Navigator, brave Pilgrims at Thanksgiving, White Founding Fathers, The Big Four, Making the World Safe for Democracy, and on and on, up to and including the Great Lie of WMD in Iraq.
It is this myth that textbooks tell; its great actors are explorers, generals, Presidents and businessmen. Great White Men. Workers,soldiers,women and people of color are largely ignored, with the implied message that they are mere spectators, not active participants, in our society. When you think of it, textbook writers have the most difficult of tasks: to present America as a egalitarian society, when 1% of the people own 40% of the wealth; as a Land of Opportunity where a new baby of low income parents is three times as likely to die before the age of one as a baby of affluent parents; as the Land of the Free where a young white man with a felony conviction has a better chance to get a job than a young man of color with a clean record.
Thus, a big part of our work is critical. We must examine the materials we use in Social Studies and make sure they are truthful, inclusive and supportive, not demeaning, not exclusively about White European men. As we question the material we use, we must as well pass on the habit and tools of critical thinking to our students. They should learn to question what they are told, and question as well all the messages of advertising, television and popular culture which bombard them from all sides. Since the overwhelming majority of Americans and our students are from working class families, our lessons should talk about history from their point of view, and the point of view of women, and of people of color.
There are of course, many good reasons to teach social justice and popular history in your classroom. Social justice is inclusive. Every community has a story. All peoples and working people of all races have mounted movements for justice and self-defense. All have heroes who have spoken up, who have organized and struggled to improve their lives and the lives of others. The workplace has often been the focus of those movements. And all of the gains made by working people in general and people of color in particular have come because they organized and demanded them. This is what we must teach as well as subject matter - how to cooperate, how to organize and how to work together for the good of all.
These are all excellent reasons. But there is another, a big and compelling reason - The Nine Indians referred to by Owns the Sabre, the young suicides. Is there anything that bodes worse for a society than that their young lose all hope? The tragedy is that it was no longer necessary, as it was in earlier times for anyone to murder these nine young men. So complete was the domination of American values, so complete the domination of the American Myth that they killed themselves. On the continuum of hope, these young men were at the farthest and lowest extreme. They had no hope. Their education - both in and out of the classroom, taught them their hopelessness. They were not participants in American history - far from it. They were its victims. They learned the lesson well.
You've heard the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." It's a nice thought and a nice,profound message, right? Unfortunately, it's just as accurate to say that it takes a nation to break a child. Over and over again, in many different ways, our young people of color, our children from working class families, our girls, are taught how little they matter, how invisible and unwanted they are, except - perhaps - as childbearers and cheap, disposable labor. Their hope and initiative are left behind, and in one way or another, they drop out and leave the decisions and the important work of building and directing society to others. Just as surely as the nine Indians, they come to the conclusion that they do not matter, that politics and social justice and participation in the issues that affect and direct their lives is far beyond them. If their response is not as extreme, it is just as clear. History, which includes the Present, the least favorite of all their subjects*, excludes them, and they remove themselves from making it.
Where are your students on the continuum of hope? Will they follow so-called "leaders" mindlessly into wars and die by the thousands? Will some enlist in the wars that wrack our city streets? What of the girls? Will they get a chance at a full and fulfilling life? Will they accept without thinking or caring the falsehoods of a society that makes them its prisoners? Or will they try to change it,and make history themselves?
The answer depends in a big part upon our work. Educate for democracy. Educate participants, decision-makers, and organizers who will stand and fight for their communities and demand justice for everyone. If you ever doubt or get depressed, remember the Nine Indians. Owns the Sabre had it right. We don't have time to get depressed; our work is far too important.
This short video is entitled "Native Americans Through the Eyes of My Children"
* See James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Taught Me
