A Black History Month fail at my daughter’s school taught me lessons I could have lived without.
One February morning several years ago, my then eight-year-old daughter called me from school.
Her tiny voice was near frantic. She begged me to come to school and pick her up. She didn’t want the slave catchers she had just learned about in her second-grade class to find her.
“Wait. Your teacher said what?!”
We have all heard of colossal Black History Month fails. Debacles spark fury over their trivializing take on Black history.
But teacher fails seem to land differently. For me, they somehow hit harder.
Maybe it’s because so many teachers are invested in getting Black History Month right. Good teachers, and yes, I know, there are Good Teachers are committed to going beyond the month of February. These teachers change the conversation about Canada’s Black history. Good teachers work hard to infuse Black history into their everyday lesson plans. They are sharing resources and setting identity-affirming assignments.
With these folks raising the bar, it can make the missteps of others harder to swallow. We know better is possible because good teachers make better look easy.
So, then, where does that leave us? Those of us whose kids get lessons on slave catchers or inappropriate assignments? Or, perhaps worse, whose kids attend a school that ignores Black history altogether or does the bare minimum?
What is a parent to do when their child’s school fails Black History Month?
First and foremost, centre your child
It would be wonderful if your child had the words to tell you the ways experiencing racial trauma impacted them. However, this is not something most children have words to describe.
Even as an adult, I’m not sure I have all of those words.
What we do know is that racial trauma seeks to dehumanize its targets. So a good place to start mending any hurt is centering your child’s humanity in even the simplest of ways.
Whatever your child tells you or expresses, listen calmly and give them space to be heard. Affirm their experience, their feelings, and their reaction. Let your child talk to you about the experience as much or as little as they want.
And if they don’t have words, that’s ok too. Maybe they just want to play video games or watch Black Panther, if so – if so: Wakanda forever.
After a talk, hugs and a snack, seemingly out of the blue my daughter asked to call her grandmother. If I really wanted to dig into it, this request was probably rooted in her need to feel close to the safety, comfort and heritage her grandmother represents.
But I’m not one for over-thinking – she wanted Grandma so we called Grandma. Grandma forever.
Give yourself space and grace to process a Black History month fail
Once you centre your baby and they are squared up, it’s cool to get hot.
After my daughter called me, I reassured her she was safe and told her I was on my way to get her. But as I hung up and put on my coat, I had a feeling I had only heard Amanda Seales aptly describe in one of her prolific Instagram posts. I felt a rage and disappointment “from my soul to my ancestors”.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of our children experiencing the sting of racialized shaming. When it happens at the hands of educators we trust, the hurt is deep.
First, most of us are caught off guard. Many of us build relationships with our children’s teachers and truly believe the best of them. We might even sincerely hope that our child got it wrong.
But this hope is almost always tinged with the nagging awareness that they probably didn’t.
It’s cool to get hot in the face of a school committing a Black history month fail
This leads to what I call “confusion rage”.
Turning my child’s words over in my mind I knew she couldn’t have “made up” the concept of slave catchers. She was just too little and naïve. Then I started to feel genuinely confused. I wondered why and how a teacher who is highly educated, equipped with Black history messaging and Google at their fingertips could possibly think telling an imaginative 8-year old the brutal history of slave catchers was a good idea.
Then came the rage – I mean, TF?
Whew.
It’s been years since this happened, and even writing about the memory, I can still get a little hot about this.
When a teacher makes our child’s Blackness a source of shame or embarrassment in class it can be triggering as hell. Especially since so many of us have our own lived experience being singled out in a misguided Black history lesson, through microaggressions, overt racism, or otherwise.
In the moment, give yourself some grace and time to process. You are right to be mad as hell. Or sad and confused. Or whatever. Allow yourself all the feels.
Once you’ve processed things, only then take a deep breath and get ready for what’s next.
Get involved
As Black parents, after we take off the many other hats we wear, we often put on the advocate cap and wade into a system that may not be ready for us. And that many of us don’t necessarily understand.
After your child tells you about an incident and you have processed your feels the next thing to do is get involved.
The first step to take is understanding the situation. You need to know what happened, what was said and in what context – and it’s best to do so in writing.
Send an email to the teacher (and cc: the principal) to ask the teacher for clarity around the incident, explain your child’s reaction and your initial concern. Be sure to ask for whatever you feel is a good next step, be that an immediate stop to the assignment or lesson, a call, meeting or all of the above.
Get ready for the gaslighting, Black History Month or not
When I raised my concern to my school’s principal about the slave catcher lesson, I was immediately met with denial. The principal gushed to assure me that this teacher was kind, loved the kids and would never have intentionally hurt the children.
*Sigh*
In the moment, I won’t lie, I questioned myself – it was hard not to when my interpretation and concerns were gaslit by the angelic picture painted by the principal.
But then I gave my head a shake and plowed on because intentional or not “curriculum violence” has a negative impact on Black and other marginalized children. And since most educators in this country are white, they have no idea what this feels like.
While we all want to give teachers the benefit of the doubt, it’s important to note that racial trauma in the classroom is real. At best it creates an embarrassing situation and at worst it’s a dehumanizing experience that leads kids to feel shame about their racial identity.
It is important to remember that whether a teacher intends to do harm or not is not really the point. In fact, this wrongly centres the teacher instead of the child impacted – and that’s not okay.
Centering this teacher and her “intentions” at the expense of the impact she had on my child was not happening.
Whether a teacher intends to do harm or not is not really the point … this wrongly centres the teacher instead of the child impacted – and that’s not okay.
As a Black parent, it’s hard enough to bring up an issue. We often don’t feel heard, but that doesn’t mean our concerns are not valid.
After this initial outreach be prepared for things to go a few ways. Your concerns may be gaslit, you might get a heartfelt apology, or you might have to escalate to the school board or beyond.
But until you feel your concern is heard and addressed don’t hesitate to continue to advocate.
In the best case, situations can be resolved with your teacher or principal and within your school. If not, you might need to take further steps. You’re within your rights to raise the incident to the school’s trustee, superintendent or even your member of provincial parliament or the Ministry of Education.
If you feel lost in this process there are avenues for you to seek help – particularly if incidents recur, seem to regularly involve Black children or repeatedly occur with the same teacher. This could be an indication of systemic issues within the school community. If this is the case, you might need to reach out to an organization like Parents of Black Children that supports parents who are facing troubling and systemic issues with their school.
Stay involved after Black History Month fail
Moving on from any one incident, unless your child is mature enough to self-advocate, you are best to stay involved with their school. It is important to make sure this type of thing isn’t standard practice.
I know many parents have many things on their plate and being an advocate isn’t something everyone is ready for. However, regularly touching base with the principal or joining the parent council or committees are good ways to gauge the climate of your school.
Teachers have an incredibly difficult job and for the most part they are deeply invested in their work. That said, Black History month fails do happen and their impact can run deep. The best thing that can come out of any Black History month fail is having your child’s school learn from it and do better.
If you or your child doesn’t feel right about something they have been exposed to in Black History month, or throughout the school year, that’s good enough reason to raise a concern, ask questions and get involved.
Please share in the comments your experiences with Black history month at your child’s school. We want the good, the bad and the wonderful.
