by Dinah Aguilar ‘19

 Around the country, stories have surfaced describing the different methods teachers have used to teach the history of slavery in America that may be surprising. In California, a teacher supposedly reenacted slave ships, and in New Jersey a teacher created mock slave auctions.

 A Teaching Tolerance report done by the Southern Poverty Law Center showed that high school seniors could not identify core aspects of U.S. history involving slavery. Out of a thousand students across 15 states, only eight percent of the students chose slavery as the reason the South seceded, a third correctly identified the 13th Amendment as the one that officially ended slavery, and less than half knew of the Middle Passage.

 U.S. history in MCPS is first taught in eighth grade and includes the study of the political, social, and economic implications that caused the Civil War. Students are shown multiple primary sources representing the perspectives of abolitionists, slaves, women, southern slaveholders, politicians, soldiers, and doctors and nurses during the Civil War. Teachers also show vignettes from MCPS approved sites, like ‘PBS’ or ‘History Channel,’ and instead of creating slave posters, students analyze many authentic posters from the mid-19th century to learn how slaves were used in commercial exchanges. Bret Caison, a history teacher at Silver Spring International Middle School, acknowledges that the topic is “sensitive and painful” but also states why it is very “important to understand historically how populations were not represented in our American government.”

 The MCPS curriculum is continued in high school and begins in the 1880s, after slavery has already ended. This class focuses on the long-term effects that these policies created, the gains in equality that have been achieved since, and acknowledgment that the United States is still grappling with various areas of discrimination. Some key topics such as sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights Era are discussed. The goal in teaching these topics are for students to understand the issues at hand and the inherent discrimination in these policies.

  Many students choose to take AP U.S. History, which has the same curriculum nationwide. In the AP class the causes and effects of slavery in the U.S. are taught with key concepts of economy, culture, and politics creating a complete understand of how slavery is woven into the country’s history. In Beth Shevitz’s AP class, parts of the movie “Roots” is shown and provides students with a visual representation of how people were ripped from rich lives and forced into labor. Some years students are also taken on a field trip to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, and learn that the country built of equality and freedom had leaders who owned slaves.

 With MCPS and AP classes, teachers try not to sugarcoat any subject though it may be uncomfortable. “It is our civic duty to understand our past and actively work to be sure students develop the skills to be the representative voice of a subpopulation that needs advocacy today,” said Caison.