U.S. History Through a Social Justice Lens

Course Overview: U.S. History Through a Social Justice Lens

• This course uses U.S. History as a framework to cultivate critical thinking skills and explore social justice issues.
• The instructor believes education should play a crucial role in fostering a more just, equal, and democratic world.

The Purpose of Education

• Traditional view: Education is a means to an end (certificate/diploma leads to employment, social mobility).
• Limitations of a narrow focus: Learning can become passionless and shallow, potentially contributing to high dropout rates (e.g., 1 out of 4 students in the U.S.).
• Core of social justice education: Emphasizes critical thinking, which is often lacking in American educational institutions.
• Bell Hooks's argument: Students' passion for thinking diminishes when education prioritizes conformity and obedience.
• Conformity education: Leads to passive, disengaged students who never experience meaningful learning.
• Meaningful learning: Occurs when students engage in critical thinking, discovering the "who, what, when, where, and how" of things and utilizing that knowledge to determine what matters most (Hooks).
• Developing critical consciousness: Requires self-awareness, self-determination, and a thorough analysis of one's conditions and the struggles of others.

Problem Areas in Learning History

• Challenge: Learning history varies for each individual, there are three main on-going problem areas.
• Eurocentric perspective: U.S. History is often taught from an upper-class and Eurocentric perspective.
• Lack of connection to current issues: Textbooks and instructors fail to connect historical themes to students' current conditions.
• Memorization of low-level facts: Students are often forced to memorize names, dates, and other superficial information.
• Consequences: These issues discourage critical thinking and contribute to U.S. citizens' ignorance of their country's history.
• National Assessment of Educational Progress finding: Only 12% of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency in U.S. history.
• Further concern: Only 2% of that 12% could identify the social problem that Brown v. Board of Education was meant to correct.

Banking System of Education

• Paolo Friere's argument: Memorization of low-level facts is similar to a "Banking System".
• Teacher's role: Teachers "deposit" information into students' heads.
• Student's role: Students are required to regurgitate that information on exams.
• Shift in power dynamics: This course aims to shift power to students, encouraging research, analysis, questioning, argumentation, and discussion.
• Goal: To enable students to reach higher levels of consciousness.

Challenging the Dominant Narrative

• Most U.S. History textbooks and instructors continue to focus on the traditional dominant narrative (upper-class, Eurocentric, male).
• Focus: History of the "victors" and "conquerors".
• Howard Zinn's argument: Academics either lie, omit facts, or employ a quieter method of minimizing uncomfortable truths.
• Example: Discussing Christopher Columbus, the colonization of the Americas, and the genocide of indigenous peoples.
• Historians' approach: Presenting facts but burying them in a mass of other information, implying that mass murder is not that important.
• Consequence: Other narratives are reduced to an inferior status.
• Effect: Leaving the historical analysis incomplete and inaccurate.

Alternative Historical Narratives

• Course approach: Analyzing U.S. history through a race, class, and gender perspective.
• Focusing on marginalized voices: Enslaved Africans, poor indentured servants, exploited workers, displaced Cherokees, suffragists, draft dodgers, student activists, anti-war protesters, and immigrant labor organizers.
• Goal: To provide a more balanced and accurate understanding of history.

Connecting History to the Present

• Course materials and discussions: Connecting historical themes and concepts to current issues and the conditions of the student population (Laney College).
• Making history relevant: History becomes part of the present, relevant, and meaningful.
• Student empowerment: Students become self-aware and empowered when they see their history and experiences reflected in their learning experience.
• Analyzing historical patterns: Students analyze historical patterns to understand their current conditions.
• Encouraging solutions: Students are encouraged to argue solutions to critical issues.
• Impact: Learning history begins to have profound importance.

Critical Thinking and Activism

• Developing critical thinking skills: This approach to history allows students to develop and strengthen their critical thinking skills.
• Activism as the end goal: Empowering the mind is not the end goal; activism is.
• Critical consciousness: Provides the tools to make well-informed decisions and encourages active participation in society.
• Educator's role: Not to dictate how to participate in society, but to discuss and highlight individuals, organizations, and movements that contributed to social justice and influenced radical change throughout U.S. history.