Beyond the Classroom: How Personal Perspectives on History Enhance Collective Learning

As the school year starts to ramp up for students nationwide, the focus on the future tends to shift in favor of getting through the present moment. Assignments, tests, and essays take over nearly every waking moment. An aspect of our lives that we pay even less mind to is our past. Despite the years spent in classrooms, students often graduate from their K-12 education with a narrow understanding of history that omits critical perspectives—particularly those of marginalized and oppressed communities—limiting the ability of the educated American citizen to grasp the socioeconomic and political dynamics of the world they step into after graduation. Students should step into adulthood after school with a sense of context for how the past impacts current events instead of playing catch up outside of classes due to restrictions on curriculum. The tendency of history courses to teach the narrative of the victor shapes how citizens understand global power dynamics and democracy—especially in a world reeling from the effects of colonialism and imperialism.

Growing up in Texas, I am stricken with the reality that our knowledge of history revolves around the battles we won and not the Indigenous people whose land we stole and the people we killed. We Remember the Alamo but not the genocide. Subject matter varies by teacher, state, and class, but the unspoken requirement for histories is to never teach, in-depth, about who we conquered. Those who take AP History courses based in other regions or put a concerted effort into learning alternate histories may gain more exposure to narratives outside of this bubble. 

However, I took several courses on Texas history that primarily focused on white settlers and annexation, with little reflection on diverse perspectives. This country was founded on settler colonialism and through the inhumane abuse of enslaved people. However, in 2020, a CBS investigation found that “seven states do not directly mention slavery in their state standards, and eight states do not mention the civil rights movement” (Duncan, Luibrand, & Zowistowski, 2020). Students in marginalized communities—that is, socially disadvantaged groups of people such as black, queer, Indigenous, people of color, disabled people, and more—encounter a sense of alienation and potential long-term adverse side effects. One critical analysis of epistemic injustice conceptualizes these side effects: the loss of academic opportunities, self-confidence, and educational outcomes. The pervasiveness of one-sided curriculums, culturally ignorant teachers, and restrictive legislation on education in the United States all contribute to this. Teaching history from the perspective of colonizers and the Western sphere not only impacts students’ ability to become informed global citizens but it also harms students’ self-esteem. Limiting education to one perspective causes other groups of students to feel erased every time they step into a classroom due to the dismissal of their history and values.

Systemic desires for control shapes the content of educational curricula, evidenced by recent bans on critical race theory, efforts to suppress protests, and the erasure of settler colonialism’s harmful effect on indigenous culture and history. The attacks on expressing and understanding diverse perspectives at school echo historical attempts to justify damaging ideologies or dismiss the consequences of such rhetoric, such as the teaching of eugenics to legitimize slavery. Patterns like these demonstrate how institutions that are selective about history often use it to maintain power structures. 

In the past four years, Americans have witnessed censorship spread. “Since January 2021, 44 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Eighteen states are imposing these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues” (Schwartz, 2021). Rather than discovering a way to engage a diverse student body in understanding this country’s foundations and reducing the harm to students in marginalized communities, state legislation seems to head in the opposite direction. Political momentum behind these actions lie in conservative lawmakers and politicians claiming that critical race theory in the classroom pushes blame and guilt onto white students. That sentiment, however, leads to pushing the discomfort of having your history ignored onto non-white students.

In addition to the restriction of discussions on race and sexism, more than two thousand books have been targeted based on content considered controversial. The American Library Association informs that “2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color” (Garcia, 2023). Overall, the aim seems to be to rewrite history to enforce the righteousness of the existing power systems despite lost narratives. When students or citizens speak their minds on narratives that upset the power structures that educational institutions often support, higher restrictions on protesting, self-expression, and speech ensue. 

Outside of K-12, universities nationwide are updating their protest and flier posting policies to limit the ability of students to express their opinions. The heightened surveillance and restriction connects strongly to the rise in disruptions organized by Pro-Palestine activists who are protesting administrations to divest from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. All in all, structures of power that benefit from censorship punish efforts to create a collective understanding of history that deviates from the strict curriculum’s Western-centric point of view are often punished. However, this means that it is more important than ever to find other narratives than the one we have been spoon-fed. 

We must actively seek out and amplify narratives from voices of marginalized communities, and increase our media literacy to read between the lines of the sources that schools and news sources give us. Understanding our nation’s history informs how we relate to each other, our values, and how we vote in elections. History repeats itself, so we must find appreciation for oral and written histories from both the losers and “enemies” in conflicts we study in classrooms. As extreme right-wing politicians aim to erase black and marginalized history from schools, and even moderate ones attempt to rewrite American interference abroad as beneficial, we must learn our collective history in order to enhance diverse students’ abilities to succeed and make informed decisions.

Citations

Clarke, A. (2019, October 2). On the importance of teaching colonial histories. Discover Society.  https://archive.discoversociety.org/2019/10/02/on-the-importance-of-teaching-colonial-histories/# 

Duncan, J., & Luibrand, S., & Zawistowski, C. (2020, February 19). 50 states, 50 different ways of teaching America’s past. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-history-how-teaching-americas-past-varies-across-the-country/# 

 Erdman, C. (2021, April 5). History in its entirety: How whitewashed history education leaves much of history, students out. The Badger Herald. https://badgerherald.com/news/campus/2021/04/05/history-in-its-entirety-how-whitewashed-history-education-leave-much-of-history-students-out/ 

Halterman, J. (2023, January 30). A brief history of curriculum censorship. Facing History & Ourselves. https://www.facinghistory.org/ideas-week/brief-history-curriculum-censorship 

King, L. J. (2017). The status of black history in U.S. schools and society. Social Education, 8(1), 14-18. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315695287_Status_of_Black_history_in_US_schools_and_society 

Omodan, B. I. (2023, ). Unveiling epistemic injustice in education: A critical analysis of alternative approaches. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 8(1), 2590-2911. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2023.100699  

Schwartz, S. (2021). Map: Where critical race theory is under attack. Education Week. http://www.edweek.org/leadership/map-where-critical-race-theory-is-under-attack/2021/06 

The Week Staff. (2023, May 27). Censoring ideas and rewriting history. The Week. https://theweek.com/education/1023820/censoring-ideas-and-rewriting-history 

Zimmerman, J. (2020, October 11). Ethnic studies can’t make up for whitewashed history in classrooms. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/11/ethnic-studies-cant-make-up-whitewashed-history-classrooms/ 

Meet The Author

Alika Jimenez