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When I was in fifth grade and new to suburbia, my teacher introduced the concepts of racism, civil rights and fairness. And she began the task of helping 10-years olds—all of us white—learn how to talk about race in constructive ways. I’d moved from a gritty urban neighborhood where whites, blacks and Puerto Ricans lived together rather warily. My parents maintained a chilly silence on the issue of race, although they forbade racial epithets; on the street I heard plenty. In this place, the black kids came mostly from the projects, the Puerto Ricans lived in apartments and the better-off among the white families might have an entire house. I knew that race divided.

General Mills recently ran an ad for Cheerios cereal featuring an interracial couple and their child. This is cause for celebration and an opportunity to help students explore race and expand media literacy. Unfortunately, not all viewers saw it that way.

Don’t sugarcoat history in teaching the civil rights movement. Students deserve the full truth about both the racial bias that caused it and our hesitant steps toward freedom.

Q: Some of my world history students have taken to drawing Confederate battle flags on their homework assignments. What should I do?