It being February, it has officially been not only acceptable but expected for teachers to educate our young people about black history for 26 days. Only three days left, people! We had better make the most of it. And thank goodness for leap year.
[Side note conspiracy theory: The reason we have February Break in February has nothing to do with heating costs or winter depression. It is so that students will have 7 fewer days in school during Black History Month. How are teachers supposed to truly explore such a complex history or truly delve into all of the important figureheads such as Malcolm X and Shirley Chisolm when there are only 18 days to work with? Factor in weekends and we're down to 16 actual school days. Factor in that we're only slated to teach "Social Studies" two days a week and we've dropped down to 8. Better stick to MLK and Harriet Tubman and then move on, suckas. Another victory for the white majority.]
But I digress... Back to brass tax. During our "official" celebration of Black History, my 4th grade class and I went to see a free children's concert of Toshi Reagon at The Town Hall earlier this month. She sang a variety of traditional black-American songs including "Juba," a slave-children's song, and "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around," by Sweet Honey and the Rock. Before singing a song in the style of traditional black-American blues, she decided to gauge the audience's prior knowledge. What follows is a transcript of that event.
Toshi Reagon: Who here has heard of the blues?
[About 75% of the audience, most of whom are children, raise their hands.]
Toshi Reagon: Well, well, that's certainly impressive. So if you've heard of the blues, who here has the blues?
[About 50% of the audience, most of whom are children, raise their hands. This seems a surprisingly high number for a group of 7 to 10-year-olds. I notice that the student sitting next to me has his hand raised. Let us call him Marley.]
Me: You have the blues, Marley? What do you have the blues about?
[Marley looks at me as if I am completely dense. Apparently, the answer is terribly obvious. With a shrug of his shoulders and wiggle of his head he replies, clearly annoyed by my naivete.]
Marley: Slavery, of course!
I guess that's what I get for having taken the class to the African Burial Grounds two weeks beforehand. Watch out, white America, we've got some soldiers on our hands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYGdczGJTgY
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