Black History Month: Teaching Beyond Slavery

The Summer issue of Teaching Tolerance is available online! In addition to these stories, this issue highlights expert voices on teaching about American slavery and Reconstruction, asks three young gun violence activists about the future of the resistance, and much, much more. It also features one of our all-time favorite One World posters (available in both English and Spanish!).
This week, a photograph of a math assignment asking fifth graders to set prices for enslaved people went viral. Assignments like this are clearly harmful. But students can learn about slavery in ways that recover the lives and histories of enslaved people or dehumanize them; celebrate their resistance or erase their agency; recognize how slavery shaped our nation or ignore it completely. Educators can teach this hard history—and teach it well—in any discipline, to students of almost any age. Here are a few examples of how.
When it comes to Native American history and culture, many textbooks are light on relevant content. Learn about a new Smithsonian program and state initiatives designed to support robust, accurate teaching about Native history and contemporary issues.