My Students’ Call to Action
(Credit: Reddit, Alexis Delilah)
“I like history, but sometimes I feel like you could be more concrete as a teacher—like, just tell us the facts, just what happened,” complained a young Black student in my world history class.
“If history were concrete, history would only show us in chains. History should be about constantly breaking down and pulverizing the ‘concrete,’ so that we actually exist—in our fuller truth,” I responded.
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Over the years, I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching history, but I spend a great deal of my time being frustrated. It is disheartening when students just merely want to be told stories or the so-called “facts” (which are oftentimes widely accepted myths). This is not history.
At the beginning of every school year, I find myself spending the first two weeks de-mystifying my field of study, championing its greater cause as part of something larger, more dynamic. Over and over, I say to my students that history is supposed to make you think. It is supposed to force you to ask more questions. It is supposed to make you want to raise hell, to do something.