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Here are the notes from this
past week in class:
Throughout the
week, students were assigned to complete reading from Chapter 2 of Zinn's book.
"Drawing the Color Line." The following information
provides important facts to know and understand from the reading.
The early
history of slavery in America began with Columbus. Columbus
brought sugarcane plants to the Caribbean (from the Canary Islands
off of the coast of Africa) and needed slaves to work the
plantation. About 2.5 million African slaves were made to work in
the Caribbean on sugarcane plantations.
1n 1617, the
first tobacco cargo was sent to England from Jamestown, Virginia
(Jamestown was the first English settlement in America). All
Native people of that area were part of the Eastern Woodland
Indians. The Algonquian was largest and was the group
of Natives that lived in the Jamestown area.
In 1619,
the first Dutch ship came to America carrying 20 Africans. Also in
1619, the House of Burgesses was formed as the first
established government. People (called Burgesses) were elected to
decide on local laws and local taxation. However, only
white men with a specific amount of land/wealth could vote.
The French,
English, and Dutch companies got slaves in Africa. In 1637, the
first American slave ship sailed from Marblehead, SC. Slavery
grew in the south as the plantation system grew. By 1763,
there were approximately 170,000 slaves in Virginia -- that was about
half of the population of Virginia at that time. Eventually,
there were as many as 3 million African slaves in the south. The
south maintained slavery for about 250 years.
In class, we
began to think about what we can do in schools to facilitate
the conversation about racial diversity with children. It is
so important to talk about differences with children. They need to
be able to understand both similarities (emotions, feelings,
needs) and differences (race, class, gender). When we have
conversations such as this with children, it is critical that we
work to have students accept differences in others. I read a book
called All the Colors We Are and we watched a
short film clip that showed a school called the
Happy
Medium School in Seattle, Washington. In the film, the teacher
worked to have students begin to understand race differences in a
kindergarten classroom. The clip that I showed in class was part
of a longer film called, Starting Small:
Teaching Children Tolerance. For more information about this film
and how to obtain a free copy of it for yourself, you can visit
http://www.tolerance.org.
When thinking
about how we can facilitate conversations regarding these issues
in an age appropriate way to young children, it is best to work
toward eliminating biases that young children may have although
they may be unaware of their own attitudes about the differences
they notice in others. Teaching students to appreciate sameness
AND differences in others is so important.
That's all for this week
in class. Keep reading, keep learning and keep coming to class!
~Kim
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