I've looked at some of the discussions taking place here, and it's clear that what we do not learn in school may never be learned at all. God bless the good historians who have taken time and energy to do the painstaking research to flesh out these pieces of history that could so easily be erased. And God bless the various avenues in which they have started to spread their information in easy-to-access ways.
My first reaction to the first video was anger. I remember so clearly learning about the Englightenment period in 10th grade. I remember as a class we created a colorful timeline and we had to read essays about human nature and write essays on our own responses to the philosophists. My teacher was generally very anti-racist and she usually pointed out racism in our units. So why was the entire history of how the concept of race came to be erased from our curriculum? I wonder if she even knew, if she had ever been taught herself.
I had never learned about the stealing on Native children until I was in college, reading Pigs in Heaven during a school break. It's the sequel to Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, and it goes into depth about how the main character from the first book illegally adopted her Native daughter and how and why that was so wrong. I've worked in several schools and with many youth over the last several years and I have noticed that teachers teach The Bean Trees but never follow it up with Pigs in Heaven, despite the ways it directly addresses important issues in the first novel.
I remember looking at my history book in confusion in 11th grade as I learned about WWII for the second time in my education. I had never heard about the Japanese internment campsbefore, and here was the information- it took up about 3/4th of one single page. My teacher read it to us, said it was unjust and the damage had been resolved. They never went into detail.
I am college educated. I did learn more information over time. I know how to seek out new resources. And still I did not learn the depth of these histories. Many of my high school friends, who dropped out of high school or college wouldn't even know where to begin. I am happy to have these short and accessible videos as tools to teach with now.
