St. Louis Public Radio’s Andrea Y. Henderson spoke to Jameca Falconer, adjunct professor and director of Webster University’s Applied Educational Psychology and School Psychology program, about current ways to teach black history and what aspects of African-American history should be highlighted more. This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
Andrea Henderson: Where would parents or educators start when talking about the many contributions of black people?
Jameca Falconer: Most of that would depend on the age group that you’re speaking to. So, if you’re dealing with little children, you would have to start with the basics like, “Who are you?” “What color are you?” “Do you know that is a race?” and “Do you know that you’re different from the next person, and why?” Then, as you go up in ages, like middle schoolers and high schoolers, you can talk about more complex theories, ideas and movements that maybe younger children wouldn’t understand. But it really depends on the perspective of the person.
Henderson: What’s a comprehensive approach to teaching black history that’s not repetitive or uneventful?
Falconer: The only way you can have a really complex understanding of the role of African Americans is to look at black people all across the span of every area. So that’s the arts, that’s music, that’s literature, that sports. It’s really everything — education and politics. You have to look at all the pieces and not just focus on one era, which most people do, and it tends to be the Civil Rights Movement.
Henderson: What are some specific topics that you feel you must discuss when teaching black history?
Falconer: Starting from the beginning, slavery. When and why did African Americans come to this country? When you start there, it really kind of paints the picture of the whole rest of the story. Talk about the Middle Passage and what that was like, and then you would probably go up through some other political parts of that, like the Underground Railroad, the 14th and 15th Amendments, Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Movement. Then talk about different types of activism and the ways we really have progressed and talk about some of the ways that we haven’t as a culture.
Henderson: Do you feel that it is necessary to talk about African life pre-slavery?
Falconer: I think it could be crucial, but I’m not sure that it’s as necessary when talking about some of the major facts that have occurred in this country.
Henderson: Do you feel that is the parent’s responsibility to teach black history?
Falconer: I think the responsibility of teaching black history should be on the parents, teachers and the community. And I feel like the community does not do a really good job of it. I don’t feel like all the responsibility should fall on teachers because children are only in school eight hours a day, and they are at home the other 16 hours of the day. And for most parents and families, I don’t feel like this should only be going on in February. It really has to occur all year-round.
And for parents who are not African-American, your children have to see you discussing these issues all year-round. Not just in February, but summer, fall and winter. Your children have to see you interacting with black people. They have to see you connecting with other groups of people in order for the lessons to stick.
Henderson: Are there any other aspects that you believe should be highlighted when it comes to Black History Month that we normally forget to discuss?
Falconer: I think what they leave out are a lot of the women, women like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Madam C.J. Walker. Now they talk more about some of the scientists like Katherine Johnson with the movie “Hidden Figures,” but before that, there was really no mention of [women].
Andrea Y. Henderson is part of the public-radio collaborative Sharing America, covering the intersection of race, identity and culture. This initiative, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, includes reporters in Hartford, St. Louis, Kansas City and Portland, Oregon. Follow Andrea on Twitter at @drebjournalist.
Edited for length and reprinted with permission from news.stlpublicradio.org.
