Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen

Today in my class I recieved what is probably one of the biggest rewards that I could recieve. Class started and I asked for responses on the reading and got a variety of "it's too long" or "he kept repeating the same things." I then realized what I was up against and asked my students to challenge themselves to think of what good came out of the reading, what new things they learned.
Most of my students were blown away by how little they are actually taught in history class. Some were very angry and felt that they had been tricked, others didn't quite understand why things were hidden, some exlaimed "it's all about the white man!" If you have read this book, or studied history then you will understand why I saw humor in that statement.

There was one girl in particular though. Now, please keep in mind that this is the sixth day of school and only the fifth day of lessons. She was assigned the chapter "Gone with the Wind": The Invisibility of Racism in American History Textbooks (which was immediately followed by a chapter on the invisibility of antiracism in textbooks). She didn't seem all that moved by the chapter when she first got to class. The chapter highlights the history of racial oppression in our country and addresses how not teaching what is uncomfortable or difficult will get us nowhere. It addresses, like all other chapters, how certain people are chosen to be heroes and others hanged, certain people are crazy for supporting human beings, others celebrated. After class discussion, which was pretty heavy, the kids got into groups based on the chapters they read. I looked over at a this chapter's group: One white boy, two white girls, three black girls. All discussing race relations as a historical matter and what the implications are for the present and future. The girl, a young white girl, began crying while discussing the issues.
In a high school class...she cried.

Now, I am not celebrating making a child cry, that is not what I intend to do.
I do intend, however, to teach things of emotional value. To allow children to learn facts and make choices. She was affected in the same way that I was affected in a college class after learning a lot of information that I had never been privy to. It is a serious emotional experience. I can't believe that on the sixth day of school and after a weekend reading assignment she was moved that much.