I once had a student chastise me—gently, but sincerely—for telling my class that Richard the Lionheart might have been homosexual. It isn’t a big deal, except it’s one explanation for why he left no heirs, despite having a lovely bride. It meant we got his half-crazed brother John as king when Richard died. Hence the Magna Carta.
The student stayed after class to share her opinion that kids (in this case 10th graders) should only be told “good things” about famous people. History should be uplifting, she maintained, showing us how to be the best we can be. Knowing that came straight from her father’s mouth, I didn’t argue, but thanked her for her input.
Too many are sliding into that mindset these days. According to some, it’s bad to admit that our country has faults. It makes students feel “ashamed” of their race and their heritage. I have issues with that mindset. First, truth is truth, no matter how much we might dislike it. I admired Bill Clinton as a President, but when I was given evidence that he was a philanderer, I had to accept it. Still a good President; not a good husband. In the same way, the U.S. is still a great country, despite our past misdeeds.
Secondly, I believe it can be helpful to know that our heroes have faults. The myth of perfection doesn’t help students as much as finding that we all have weaknesses, like Julius Caesar, who was pretty successful despite his epilepsy, and Thomas Jefferson, who understood our new nation’s needs so perfectly but didn’t understand that his relationship with Sally Hemings, a woman he owned according to the law of the time, was wrong.
I have trouble with the argument that kids are too young to be dealing with these issues. Evidence suggests that the earlier we’re exposed to differences among us, the less bigoted we are. Contrary to what we hear from the more radical reformers, informing kids about other lifestyles isn’t “grooming” them to be trans or homosexual or whatever. I used to teach Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar every spring. No one ever chastised me for showing my students that assassination can be fun.
A teacher mentioning that some kids have two dads can go a long way toward helping a child who does have two dads feel that she’s okay. And the kid sitting next to her, who has a traditional family, isn’t harmed in any way. In fact, he might have his mind opened up a little bit. “Gee! You mean everyone isn’t exactly like me? Cool.”
Sometimes all it takes to ease or even erase our fear of the unknown is a mention of it from a person we trust. When I was a kid, Onaway had no minority population, so we had zero experience with other races until we went to visit my grandparents, who had moved to Grand Rapids. On the way, my mother told us we’d see people who didn’t look like us. She said we shouldn’t be afraid and we shouldn’t stare. That was all it took. We were made aware of people who looked different from what we were used to; we were told it would be okay. Mission accomplished.
My last argument against hiding the truth is the availability of information. With the internet, kids can find truth (and, sadly, untruth) everywhere, so it’s ridiculous to try to turn our educators into propagandists for one tiny strand of truth. Ban a book; kids can find it. Present whitewashed views of the past, and kids will conclude that school is fake. Pretend certain groups don’t exist, and those groups will get louder and angrier.
School shouldn’t be a place where information is hidden. It should be a place where it’s shared, examined, and discussed, so we all have a better idea of the world outside Presque Isle County.
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