Phila. school mandate: African history

[malachi]

In what could be a unique move nationally, the Philadelphia School District will require every high school student to take a separate course in African and African American history to graduate, beginning with this September's freshman class.

Both national and local officials said yesterday that they knew of no other district requiring such a course, particularly one focused on African history, for graduation.

But the move already has raised the ire of some parents, including Miriam Foltz, president of the Home and School Association at Baldi Middle School in the Northeast, who is white. "Are they seriously telling us that our kids won't graduate without this course? What an insult!

"There are other races in this city," Foltz said. "There are other cultures that will be very offended by this. How can you just mandate a course like this?"

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/11848296.htm

[BlueIris]

1. Okay, I confess. I read about this just today and am PSYCHED.

This was the one major gap in my own world history education before college. My high school courses were actually designed with quite a bit of multiculturalism in mind...except where the history of Africa was concerned. In fact, I really felt like that was the area of the world about which I learned the least before entering the world of higher education. So, I say, go Philly! Good job.

[ima_sinnic]

8. I agree--I still have my little booklet in the shape of Africa

that I made in the 5th or 6th grade, titled "Africa: THE DARK CONTINENT."
It was "dark" not because of the race of its inhabitants but because supposedly so little was known about it--that was in about 1957 or 58.

As a mental exercise I have saved this bookmark to African Geography games--still haven't taken the time to play, but I do need to, my knowledge of African geography is now abysmal:
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/African_Geography.htm

I highly approve of this idea. The back of the world has been turned on Africa for far too long.

[BlueIris]

11. Last year, I MADE myself improve my geography skills.

Determined to be not-just-another-American dumb about geography. I started with Africa, because: Yeah. Abysmal would have been a kind word to use to describe my knowledge of the names, locations and grographical features of the countries there.

[Inland]

18. Isn't Abba Bysmal the capital of Ethiopia? nt

[BlueIris]

26. That's Addis Ababa.

Just FYI.

[pfitz59]

47. Pun-nish me.......

oh make it stop hurting....

[leftofcool]

2. I agree with Foltz..............

If you mandate this one, then also include Mexican history, Irish history, Muslim history etc........... One is no more important than another.

Left of Cool

[libnnc]

3. what if they developed Anglo and Non-Anglo courses of study?

that would cover everybody right?

[leftofcool]

10. Any course of study is good.............

I just think it is bad to "mandate" anyone's history over another since they are all equally important. In fact, the way American history is taught (usually by a guy named "Coach") it is pointless for it to be a requirement as well.

Left of Cool

[Inland]

19. And Coach would get to about 1930 before the semester ended.

Maybe it wasn't that bad, but .....

[funflower]

4. We don't have a history of enslaving Irish people in this country.

It wasn't illegal for an Irish person or a Mexican person to marry and attend school with "regular Americans" in some states when I was a kid.

And, yeah, we probably ought to include some sort of Mexican history curriculum in our schools. Canadian, too.

[shanti]

7. well, in california

i remember learning some mexican history...cortez, etc. not a lot tho.

[XemaSab]

9. What about the Chinese and Japanese?

n/t

[UncleSepp]

12. Actually, we do

Irish people were not only indentured servants, but in some places in America and in the Caribbean, chattel slaves. In many places, discrimination against Irish immigrants in jobs and housing was legal and accepted. This is not well taught and therefore not well known.

However, Irish people have a shorter history of slavery and discrimination in America than do people of African descent. The position of Irish people here went from being worth less than slaves (often free Irish people would be sent to do jobs thought too dangerous for African slaves, since the death of the Irish servant did not represent a loss of valuable property) to being seen as worthy of the Presidency in a very short time. That's probably the reason why the history of anti-Irish discrimination, and of Irish slavery, is not taught - there's no enormous social injustice left to remedy, unlike the social injustice still facing many people of African descent in the present day.

However, there may be another reason for teaching about the past injustices against all people. Teaching about non-black people who have been enslaved and who have been the targets of hatred and discrimination helps black students. Attempting to make the story of slavery, hate, and fear an African or a Black story exclusively has the effect of continuing to segregate black people into a "special" category somehow doomed to second class status. This can be unhealthy for the self-esteem and self-expectations of black students. Learning that any person of any color can be in power or not, learning that people of any race or descent have taken and will take advantage of people of any race or descent including their own, draws out bigotry, discrimination, slavery, and oppression as human issues. This, returning on itself, makes African-American history back into American history as it should be, and not into a one month out of the year, special, segregated event.

(This is of course just my opinion, formed on personal experience teaching a class of elementary schoolkids about serfdom in Czarist Russia, and not something that has any kind of academic study behind it - so take it for what it's worth, and not more.)

[funflower]

28. I agree many Irish were treated terribly, however it's not really

comparable to taking an entire class of people, passing laws making them chattel and refusing them the hope of ever acheiving citizenship or equal protection under the law. The treatment of African-Americans goes far beyond "discrimination" or even apartheid.

Slavery is not an exclusively black experience, but the treatment of African Americans by the American legal system is in a class by itself, even as compared with the de facto discrimination visited upon other groups (which, of course, continues today).

I wish we could integrate African-American history into the regular curriculum, but there just doesn't seem to be time, what with the need to tell all the great achievements of slaveowners. One way or the other, it needs to be taught.

[UncleSepp]

30. We had Irish people owned as literal slaves.

I'd say the experience of being a slave was pretty comparable for the particular slave.

It's not the same on a social level, since it did not involve as many people and did not last as long, and I'm not saying it is. However, there's nothing to be gained from erasing or lessening anyone's history - white, black, or plaid - whether millions, thousands, or hundreds.

Something that might be comparable in the legal sense would be the discrimination against Chinese people by the United States. This was not de facto discrimination, but legally codified racism. Further, the legally sanctioned genocide against native Americans I would say trumps the treatment of African Americans, for having started earlier, continued later, and for having had the express purpose of slaughtering people and destroying entire cultures.

Comparing numbers and years to decide whose cultural experience was worse isn't going to teach the compassion necessary to fix the problem that causes people to do these things to each other, or to look the other way while they are done.

[funflower]

31. So these Irish were enslaved, along with their progeny in perpetuity?

Were they not allowed to marry? Could their children be sold like pigs or chickens?

Were they sent to separate schools during MY lifetime?

I'll agree with you as to the genocide against Native Americans (although the huge majority died of European germs, not European guns).

Other than that, though. I think the story of African Americans is pretty exceptionally bad and pretty exceptionally ignored by traditional U.S. History curricula.

[LostinVA]

37. The answers are "Yes" to some of your questions

While indentured, you could not marry, women were usually raped, children you had would be sold, you were treated horribly and many people died. When your indenture was up, many masters wouldn't allow you to be free, and wouldn't give you the money they owed you. Why should they? They had a legal slave. The life of an indentured servant was horrible, and needs to be taught in the schools more. Many of these servants were Irish, or poor Scots and English. Many were sold by their parents or the government officials.

This is not by any means saying indentured servitude was the exact same thing as slavery, but in many instances it was pretty damn bad. Oddly enough, in some colonies/states, slaves actually had more legal protection than indentured servants.

And, if you go later in American history, you get into the whole mining/textile mill thing. The Irish were treated badly in this country.

[Igel]

38. So much for the attempt

to preserve "privileged victimhood" as a category, when victimhood is actually nicely on a scale. And the scale differs from country to country.

[UncleSepp]

42. Yes, that's exactly what I am saying.

It happened in the US, and it happened in the Caribbean. Irish people were taken from Ireland as slaves on ships to the New World, where they were sold and resold and their children as well. Irish slaves worked alongside African slaves on sugar plantations throughout the Caribbean. They were the absolute property of the slave owners, to be sold, used, or murdered at the slaveowner's discretion. Many died, and some of the English slave owners reported back on this with pride - it would serve two purposes, one to make money on their unpaid labor, and another to get rid of the Irish.

In some places such as Monteserrat, there was a high enough proportion of Irish slaves to African slaves that the Irish language became part of the creole spoken by all of the slaves. Traces of the Irish language and of the Irish slaves can be found throughout the Caribbean. There are records of "Irish" slaveowners as well - these slaveowners were not the same people as the enslaved Irish, but rather were beneficiaries of the English occupation who lived in Ireland.

The worst of what happened to the Irish people happened in Ireland. Yes, as a class of people, thought to be a separate race of "white apes", Irish people were deprived of their land, enslaved, and killed in large numbers. The movement of Irish people from fertile lands to lands where there wasn't enough water to drown a man in nor tree to hang him from was nothing less than an attempt at genocide. This was white people doing this to other white people, only at the time, the white people with the power didn't see the Irish as white or even, really, as people at all.

No, they weren't sent to separate schools duing your lifetime. I'm not sure how that follows from this discussion, unless history that happened before your lifetime is not worth knowing. As I said earlier, Irish slavery in the Americas and anti-Irish discrimination did not last as long nor affect as many individuals.

It seems to me from your posts that you think I'm saying that the story of African Americans is not exceptional. I haven't said that, and I agree with you that it has been pretty exceptionally bad. However, I think that the real story here is of people with power abusing people without power, and of the economic engine which benefits from having a slave class or exploitable underclass. I think we need to teach the history of slavery in the Americas and the history of racial inequality in the Americas, whatever the national origin of the people being oppressed.

[pfitz59]

48. "Niggers and Irish need not apply."

Actual sign in Connecticut as related by my grandfather. He also used to say "A nigger is just an Irishman turned inside out!" Different paths to a common fate.

[UncleSepp]

45. An article you might like

I found a neat article that you might like, with some wonderful quotes in it.

Afro-Celtic Connections
From Frederick Douglass to The Commitments
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/MT/96/Mar96/mta15m96.html

During my stay in Dublin, I took occasion to visit the huts of the poor in its vicinityand of all places to witness human misery, ignorance, degradation, filth and wretchedness, an Irish hut is pre-eminent.... I see much here to remind me of my former condition.... He who really and truly feels for the American slave cannot steel his heart to the woes of others. - Frederick Douglass

"I would adopt the language of the poet, but reverse the imagery, and say 'In the deepest hell, there is a depth still more profound,' and that is to be found in the conduct of the American slave-owners. They are the basest of the base, the most execrable of the execrable." - Daniel O Connell

"the racial angle was more clearly defined against the Irish than against me." - W. E. B. DuBois

In the past, our recognition of our common cause and common destiny has brought us more progress and taught us more compassion than the race to the bottom ever could. Douglass and DuBois understood that. Marcus Garvey understood it, looking to de Valera for inspiration: later on, the civil rights movement in Ireland looked to Martin Luther King's work as a model for achieving their own freedom.

The bright lights of our history show that solidarity, not division, will carry us forward. The struggle for civil rights and for freedom is one struggle, for all people of all the world. To segregate and separate our histories is artificial, counterproductive, and counterrevolutionary.

[funflower]

49. I'll have to read that when a get a minute. Thanks.

[TankLV]

13. We already have that - it's called "History"!

And "European History"

And "Western History"

ANd "World History"

Don't know where you went to school, but the only area left out WAS Africa - except for all the colonial powers and their escapades.

All of our history classes, starting in the first grade, almost went chronologically from Europe, Asia and India, to American, then State, and finally Local history by the time you got to 12th grade.

South American and African history was only mentioned as an extension of the great European colonial powers, if at all.

This is an excellent idea and loooong overdue.

[Massacure]

46. I'm going to be a high school senior next year.

Mexican history was covered pretty well in my American history class, Irish and Muslim history was covered pretty well in World History.

Russia, China, Japan, Central America, the Middle East; nearly any country that interacts with the U.S. has been covered.

Africa got about two weeks since I started middle school. I can only name six African countries of the top of my head, Egypt, Libya, Somalia, South Africa, Congo, and Zimbabwe. South America was also pretty poorly covered, IMO. I think that might even be because we had the stupidest substitute teacher ever teaching about Central and South America while my true history teacher was getting treated for cancer.

[Demit]

5. Philadelphians know to read the "Northeast" section of the city as

the "(Great White) Northeast". I love the Miriam Folz quote--mixing up race with culture with the continent that provided us with the slave labor that built America's early economy. For shame. I think it's an excellent idea for kids to learn more than Ms. Folz apparently does.

(edited because brackets make words disappear, LOL)

[shanti]

6. excellent idea!

this should be required in ALL schools.

[UncleSepp]

14. This is good - but why stop there?

Schools teach European history because "Europe is the soil from which America grew". It's basically "white people history". There are more races in the city and more cultures than just white people. Where was this Foltz complaining about only teaching European history? Or is that somehow not a problem - or worse, is it not taught?

Well, America also grew from African soil, so why not African history? Why not Asian history? Australian history has interesting divergences and parallels to American - that should be taught, too! How about the history of both Americas? Schools teach some of that, but why not all of it, from pole to pole?

The entire world has relevance to America, and America to the world. Teach more history, not less. What in the world is this person Foltz afraid of?

[One_Life_To_Give]

15. 6 Inhabited Continents

US History makes sense and North American History as well. But t orequire one additional continent while not including the other 4 is a insult to those area's as well. The Chinese and Persian immigrants should rightfully feel put out by this action.

[billyoc]

16. Isn't the whole human race from Africa?

I'm just askin'. :shrug:

[Barkley]

40. Yep! We're All African-Americans

Boost for 'Out of Africa' theory
The research bolsters the 'Out of Africa' theory
By BBC News Online's Ivan Noble
May 10, 2001

The theory that the ancestors of all modern humans came from Africa received a boost on Thursday with the publication of supporting research.

Scientists based across Asia, in the US and the UK examined the Y-chromosomes of more than 12,000 people from across Asia and found no traces of any ancient non-African influence.
"This result indicates that modern humans of African origin completely replaced earlier populations in East Asia," the researchers write in the journal Science.

The main alternative explanation of human origins - that modern humans are descended from separate populations which developed in different places - is known as multiregionalism. "This really puts the nail in the coffin of multiregionalism," R Spencer Wells, co-author of the research, told BBC News Online. The value of the new research lies in the scale of the project, he said.

"That's the real power of the analysis. There has been data before but here you're really sampling all of the extant diversity in Asia," he said.

Genetic markers
Spencer Wells and his colleagues, led by Li Jin of Fudan University in Shanghai, spent months collecting DNA samples from a total of 163 different populations as diverse as Karakalpaks in central Asia, American Samoans and Nagas in India.

They tested the samples for a set of three markers associated with a mutation of the Y-chromosome known to have originated in Africa an estimated 44,000 years ago.

If they had found anyone without any of the markers, it would have indicated that the individual might not have been descended from Africans. But they did not, lending weight to the "Out of Africa" theory.

Only men have a Y-chromosome, and so the study looked only at the male line.

'Historical science'
The researchers suggest that investigations of mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed down the female line, might add to the evidence.
Spencer Wells added: "This is historical science. We're limited to studying the diversity which is extant today and examining the pattern.

"It's a question of how many times you have to look at the pattern.
"This is another step down the road to completely debunking the myth of multiregionalism. It's difficult to say when the final nail goes in the coffin, but I think we're getting close," he said.

[Inland]

17. What else is required?

I don't have a problem with learning African history, but I do have a problem if there are more important subjects left out. The whole reading, grammar, literature, mathematics, government, social studies ball of wax.

If there aren't four years of math required, there's no time for an African history course.

[Kadie]

20. Philly Schools to Require African History

Philly Schools to Require African History
By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, June 9, 2005

(06-09) 14:06 PDT PHILADELPHIA, (AP) --


In what could be a first in the United States, the Philadelphia school system will soon require that all high school students take a year of African and African-American studies.


Leaders of the school district, where two-thirds of students are black, hope the course will not only keep those students interested in their academic work but also give others a more accurate view of history.


"We have the opportunity ... to do something under our watch that is really going to do right by our students, to say, 'We've come from some pretty great places,'" said assistant superintendent Cecilia Cannon.


The course, already offered as an elective at 11 of the city's 54 high schools, covers topics including classical African civilizations, civil rights and black nationalism, and teachers say it has captivated students.

more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/06/09/national/a140634D45.DTL

[ugarte]

21. I have no problem with this

Another point of view can only be valuable since the American history in most textbooks is propaganda anyway.

[lenidog]

22. The textbooks are going to come from the same suppliers

so they will screw that up along with American history.

[bluestateguy]

23. reply

I would rather see these topics incorporated into World History and US History, and then create a full elective course for students who want to take a more specific course on these topics.

[NashVegas]

24. It's About Time

We study the history of every continent whose immigrants made a contribution to America's culture *except* Africa.

This is long past due, and shouldn't be confined to Philly.

[bicentennial_baby]

25. Excellent

I recently took Modern African History, and I learned an incredible amount! I can identify all 54 countries on a blank map of the continent! My prof is Ghanaian, and the course was invaluable.

[foo_bar]

27. Philly was the final stop on the underground railroad

In a funny way the City of Brotherly Love needs this civics lesson less than anywhere else in America.

"I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves." - Harriet Tubman

[Celeborn Skywalker]

29. I had an idea in mind similar to that, but for schools across the nation.

I would require a general American History course and a course solely covering traditionally oppressed groups which would include: Blacks, Hispanics, Eastern Europeans, Jews, Italians, the Irish, Homosexuals, women, etc. This would really help our children learn about history outside of the traditional Anglo-emphasized history courses.

[Tomee450]

32. You are naming most ethnic groups.

Are you suggesting that the discrimination suffered by Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans,and the others you mentioned was of the magnitude experienced by African Americans? Funny, I can't recall that any of those groups experienced hundreds of years of slavery, another hundred years of Jim Crow. Most members of those groups had one thing in common, race. It allowed them to assimilate whereas blacks were denied that opportunity and forced into segregation. I don't think members of those groups were subjected to separate but unequal as in education, housing, employment, public accommodations etc. Did members of those other groups have to have Civil rights laws passed to guarantee their right to vote in certain areas of the country? I don't think you have thought about this clearly. It seems that you feel most immigrants who came to this company were oppressed. They made have been initially, but subsequent generations never experienced the oppression that blacks had to endure. They were able to move from the ghettos unlike African Americans. It's time that African American and African history is taught. I learned nothing about either in school but I did learn a lot of American history(blacks omitted) and Western history(European).

[Celeborn Skywalker]

33. No,

I'm not suggesting that the situation of the oppressed European groups was anywhere near that of African Americans. I do agree that most of the class should focus on African-American history but the other ethnic groups could be mentioned, at least briefly.

[RobinA]

34. I'd Be Happy

if the Philadelphia schools could successfully teach basic skills like reading and writing.

[Bridget Burke]

35. Sounds like a good beginning.

I had Texas History, American History & a bit of "World History"--mostly European. I learned NADA about Asia, Africa & South of the Border--except as imperial conquests. But that "learning to read" bit in 1st Grade allowed me to continue my education.

History (& geography) courses could be improved in several ways. Both to broaden the minds of the "majority" students & to include the many kids here who represent other cultures. Contests about who was more "oppressed" are not that relevant.

And get rid of the dread Coach Teachers!

[ProfessorGAC]

36. Mrs. Flotz Needs To Take A Pill

Also, she should just shut up.
The Professor

[BlueIris]

43. How about he shuts up first, then takes that pill.

Jesus.

[ProfessorGAC]

44. Either Way Is OK

Did i read that wrong? I thought Flotz was a woman, not a man. Either way, Flotz should calm down and take a pill. There's is nothing wrong with high school kids learning about the cultural implications of history from a different POV. Right?
The Professor

[Igel]

39. I dislike singling out a specific race for special treatment.

Moreover, I have my suspicions that it's less a history, for understanding the current state of affairs there, and more a combination of two rather different things.

The first is to give kids a sense of self-worth, based not on what they did, but a selective reading of what others accomplished. The second is to provide justification for lack of excellence, not based on what they did, but on what others did.

I also suspect that when it comes to factors impeding success overseas, a certain lack of even-handedness will be lacking.

We must preserve the status quo, after all.

[Neshanic]

41. It ain't necessarily so....

"Both national and local officials said yesterday that they knew of no other district requiring such a course, particularly one focused on African history, for graduation."

We were required to have "Black History" courses in 8th grade, before High School. New Jersey, liberal, progressive township, everyone though it was great. So did I. You had to pass it.

Maybe there should be a course that explores in a semester all races, and is required?