As our nation grapples with discerning fact from fiction, and understanding bias and bigotry, I’m reminded of my 10th grade history teacher who 35 years ago pushed us to think critically and respectfully. That teacher definitely had his own political views. He was a libertarian who bemoaned the abandonment of the gold standard. He liked Ronald Reagan.
Yet, this teacher frowned upon us for simply agreeing with him. “If you do,” he would say, “then when you go to college, you’ll just parrot your next instructor’s ideas.” He challenged us to reach our own conclusions, to find reliable sources and do research using newspapers and journals to support our own ideas.
He pushed us to recognize that stories on one paper’s front page would often get smaller mention in another or be described in an entirely different light. He pushed us to look for biases and distinguish these from evidence-based facts. He taught that winners write the history books so we needed to look deeper on our own to find the truth.
As my teacher understood well, to prevent hate, we need to learn actively, critically and collaboratively. We need to discuss and debate history and current events, not erase them. The statues that don’t belong in our parks do belong in our classroom discourse.
In Chicago’s public schools today, our children learn about historical events, but they also read and discuss the perspectives of the lives these events impacted. They learn about slavery, the Trail of Tears, Japanese internment, Jim Crow, the Holocaust and their lessons are connected to their own experiences now. It’s our best protection against hate.
— Alana G. Baum, Chicago
