Across the country, history and social studies teachers are grappling with balancing the strictures of the public education system alongside their own visions for what their students need and deserve to know. For educators of color, particularly Black teachers who primarily educate students of color, the importance of ensuring that their lessons are reflective of all of the histories, backgrounds, and stories is magnified. Among the educators doing this work are Ariel Alford, a high school social studies teacher who has taught in Philadelphia as well as Washington, D.C.; Mansur Buffins, a high school humanities teacher based in Boston; and Kyair Butts, a seventh-grade English Language Arts teacher working in Baltimore. 

Prism reporter Tamar Sarai joined the three in a roundtable conversation about how they use resources beyond traditional textbooks to build a more radical and reflective curriculum. 

These discussions are part of a series titled “Teaching Truths: Educators Speak on Justice and Liberation in the Classroom,” where Prism, in partnership with the Zinn Education Project, aims to center teacher experiences as they work to bring critical discussions to the classroom. 

This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

Tamar Sarai: Are your students typically entering with a knowledge of some of this subject matter? If so, where are they getting their information from, and what resources are you using to fill in any gaps?

Kyair Butts: For my seventh graders and even when I taught sixth grade, one of the Zinn Education Project lessons that really stood out and that I still like to use to fill in some gaps is about Jamestown [The Color Line], and we read “Blood on the River.” The People vs. Columbus lesson is [also] really eye-opening for a lot of students. We do it as a mock trial where, essentially, we put Columbus on trial for murder, and it’s really interesting to go through the process. For one, there are a lot of great skills that we develop, but there’s also a lot of knowledge-building. It’s eye-opening for the students because you can kind of see that there is a white prism through which they understand history that sort of neglects everybody else. So, to make sure that we build a solid knowledge base, there’s a lot of work to be done, but that’s why I find the Zinn Ed Project really helpful. 

Mansur Buffins: I second the point that they’re coming in with what I consider to be very limited knowledge in terms of Black Studies and African American history. There’s a very limited understanding of the institution of slavery, and I can tell that they [have] received that standard story about Black oppression in a very negative light [with] no stories about resistance.

Ariel Alford: I think it really has depended on the population. I’ve taught in schools that have been like 99 to 100% Black [with students] from different countries: Some students are from Jamaica, some are Nigerian, some are African American. But even in those spaces, I think sometimes they assume that they know all there is to know just because of their identity. What has been most interesting in some spaces is that the students feel like it’s too much [or that] “we’re always talking about Black stuff,” and I’m [then] helping them confront this internalized anti-Blackness. I don’t think that people address that enough, especially in some of these spaces that are almost 100% Black: How are those students learning this new content? If they’re already checked out of learning, they might even be checked out of [these lessons] that are Black and revolutionary.

Sarai: Have any of you received pushback from your district or even specific schools that you’ve worked at because of your approach to these lessons, and have you seen statewide conversations and debate policies trickle into your classroom in any way?

Alford: I was teaching in Virginia when they were going through the whole “teaching divisive content” debate. There was a hotline set up where parents, students, and community members could report teachers who were teaching “divisive content,” critical race theory, or all these other things. So, I think you could feel in the air that students felt empowered or emboldened to report teachers.

Butts: On the flip side, I’ve had a lot more families to speak out in terms of gratitude. I’ve only ever taught in Baltimore, and there’s a very limited knowledge base of just a lot of history. So there’s a lot of knowledge-building going on in class, and I’m not worried about what I say. When families learn about what we’re talking about and how it’s being talked about in class, a lot of [them] are really appreciative of the conversations that we’re having and are feeling that they’re necessary.

Buffins: I think I’ve been fortunate to teach in schools and spaces where my principal and [other] staff who may be in positions of authority have generally allowed me the freedom to engage in my own pedagogical visions in the classroom. Of course, there are always mandates from the district and the state in regard to testing and things of that nature. When I was teaching in Georgia, there was a particular instance where we were presented with examples of images that we shouldn’t be showing [in class] and then also examples of things that we need to be showing for the sake of preparing them for the tests. 

There was this one image that [we should] show students [because] they’re going to see it on a [standardized] test and it’s that famous image of a white woman going across the West, and the native people are in the shadows and [it’s about] Western expansion and manifest destiny. That image is really popular, but it’s an image that I do not want my kids to see—I don’t want to bring that type of energy into this space. I definitely questioned it, but I was never penalized for not actually following through with showing that white supremacist imagery. I [also] remember there being another image of a political cartoon of Uncle Sam [that was] critical of imperialism and this is something that we were urged not to show. But that was an image that I was using in the classroom, specifically when teaching about what was happening to Hawaiian folks. Boston is more liberal in general and so up here, I haven’t necessarily felt that energy, but like I said, I am fortunate to be in a classroom space that recognizes me as a professional who can teach true and real history to students who deserve to know.

Sarai: I appreciate that you brought up standardized testing and some of the restrictions it creates. How do you balance creating a curriculum that is antiracist and relies on resources outside of the textbooks with also meeting all of the requirements of high-stakes testing? What challenges does testing pose?

Buffins: Generally, I would ignore the test, resist, and withstand the test at times, but I also understood them as significant to the schooling journey of students, especially in spaces like Massachusetts, where you have to pass this test to graduate high school. [Meanwhile] testing in Atlanta wasn’t as high-stakes. For example, when I was teaching U.S. history [in Atlanta], I would teach the fullness of U.S. history and make sure that it was culturally sustaining for the students in front of me, most of whom were African American, but a good segment of whom were Mexican American. So, I would teach a more full history and include a lot of African American and Mexican American history into the larger quilt that is American history. 

A lot of great learning happened in that class over the course of the year. For example, in a unit about the Civil Rights Movement, I introduced the Los Angeles student walkouts. We [used] documentary footage and had discussions about the important and monumental work that was going on to create opportunity for folks. I don’t think there was one question on that U.S. History test at the end of the year that had anything to do with Mexican Americans, but I don’t regret teaching that.

Sometimes, at the end of the year, we will, for lack of a better term, do some cram sessions, which is a skill that they’re going to need for when they graduate and go to college anyway. 

Alford: I’ve taught some classes that have specific state tests that go with it. My goal in teaching is to subvert white supremacy, so I’m just subversive [while] I still prepare them for the test. If the standard is that students need to be able to defend a historical argument, then that historical argument is going to be something revolutionary. So, if, for example, I had to teach about the Great Depression when I was teaching U.S. history. That’s cool. We’re going to talk about Mexican American deportation during the Great Depression. So, yes, I’m going to cover all of the basic things about the flappers and the music and all of that. But then we’re also going to talk about Mexican American deportation during that time using materials from the Zinn Education Project. We’re also going to talk about African American culture and improvisation with jazz in that era. So, I’ve still covered what they said to cover, but what we’re going to talk about goes beyond that. 

One thing that I have found frustrating is that in all of the yapping that all of the districts have done about 21st-century education and diverse narratives, one thing they are not going to do is make these tests more equitable and more representative.

Butts: I’m not a big believer in teaching to the test. Good teaching prepares students for the test. Most of us [here] can probably agree that nine times out of 10, the person who wrote the test looks nothing like the students taking it nor do they care about the lives of the students. So I’m going to do what I need to do to prepare students to go out into the world and face whatever realities we have facing us, and that means that you’ve got to go off script. A really great coach told me to make my apologies later—if I even care to apologize at all—and I don’t tend to apologize for doing what’s right for kids.

Alford: Another thing that I’ve noticed with testing, in general, is a lot of these initiatives around testing and data and new instructional approaches are to justify other people’s jobs because education is like the new venture capitalism. You think of a new idea that’s not new but you just call it something new and now get paid to do these things. They’re just trying to find ways to pay for companies to get more contracts with school districts, to produce tests and then to produce training manuals—people also forget the capitalism that is within public education.

Buffins: Yeah, the capitalist system in which this testing structure exists is so real and the children are suffering.

Sarai: I’m curious to hear what shifts you have observed in discussions about antiracist education since 2020., As educators, how would you best like to be supported?

Butts: After 2020, the world—or a particular faction of the world—did a really good job. It was a great piece of showmanship from allies [saying] we’re advocates and we’re disruptors, and look, Baltimore experienced the same thing too, in 2015 with the murder of Freddie Gray. There was a moment of “this is a national catharsis, and we’re going to have real and lasting change,” and then you hear the record scratch, and you’re like, ‘Ah, just kidding.’ I don’t think it’s because of lack of willingness. I think that some people want it, but the forces to deny the change are so strong and omnipresent [that] it’s hard to [make] two steps forward without the three steps back because of the stranglehold that white America and capitalism have. I’m not a cynic, but sometimes we have to figure out the reality first, before we can get to the defying gravity part.

Buffins: What I can offer now is a message to the folks who defend the status quo is to question why they are defending it and how their experiences and their learnings are informing their mindset about these things that do need a change. There’s people pushing for the changes but there’s a whole lot of folks that want it to remain the same. 

Alford: I could think of three supports that I would need. One is administrators who are not cowards, who are not bought, or fake, or social justice influencer educators because that’s a lot of who is in charge now. 

I also need more community support and for society to step in and be involved in the cultivation of children from a place of liberation, abolition, and revolution. A lot of people are not aware of what’s happening in the schools and how hard this job is becoming for teachers. 

The third thing that I always recommend that has been a support for me, is spaces for revolutionary educators to convene, because there are a lot of us, but not enough of us know about each other. That would ensure a lot of our longevity in the profession. It feels like the Bois Caiman ceremony before the Haitian Revolution, like we’re all sitting around a fire like “what we finna do?” That’s what those spaces feel like.

“Teaching truths: Educators speak on justice and liberation in the classroom” will be published through mid-November, and you will be able to find each piece here. Learn more about the Zinn Education Project here.