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On page 26 of the Howard Zinn text, a quote really stuck out at me. "Then they were packed aboard the slave ships, in spaces not much bigger than coffins, chained together in the dark, wet slime of the ship's bottom, choking in the stench of their own excrement."
This quote was extremely graphic as I found myself getting a visual in my head of these slaves when I read. Did anyone have any sort of reaction to this as they read it?
That quote also caught my attention as I was reading the Zinn text. As a high school student, I remember seeing pictures of the conditions of the boats that the slaves had to live through. It is absolutely shocking and terrifying that humans can put other humans through such terrible circumstances. I cannot even imagine what I would have done if I was a slave on one of those ships.
I feel that educating students of such instances in history will aid in future generations not allowing history to repeat itself. Yes, it is cliche, but I know that learning about the reality of the slave ships makes me never want to instill that pain on anyone in the future. I'm sure that if other students found out about the real situation, they, too, would never want anyone to go through that agony either. One person can turn into two people, two people can turn into three people, and so on...
On a separate note... The article entitled "Taking Multicultrual, Anti-Racist Education Seriously" really bothered me. I understand the point of the interview with Enid Lee was to better define what multicultural/anti-racist education is and how it works; however, Lee comes off extremely strong with her point of view. I felt as if Lee looks down upon every single teacher, school, district, and state that does not use this "multicultural/anti-racist education."
She states, "If you don't take multicultural education or anti-racist education seriously, you are actually promoting a monocultural or racist education" (ROC, pp. 15). After reading this comment I felt that if we do not include every other cultrual perspective or every "voice of the people who are frequently silenced," then we are not "taking it seriously." But, it's not possible to include every single culture or every single voice in the curriculum. There just isn't enough time to do something like that. So, my question, then, is are we promoting a false pretense of multicultural or anti-racist education? And, does it mean that we are not taking it seriously??
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