Richard Reddick (left), an associate dean in the College of Education at University of Texas at Austin, says K-12 educators can apply culturally relevant instruction in all subject areas. PHOTO BY CHRISTINA S. MURRAY

The high school I attended was named after a Confederate general. I served as co-editor of the Confederate yearbook and contributed to The Shiloh, the school newspaper. My high school resume looks like a tribute to the Lost Cause.

Yet my high school, which occupied a space in the racially diverse barrio of East Austin in Texas, was not a neo-Confederate learning space. I was taught by progressive, caring teachers who prepared us for a society that would judge us not only on our academic achievements, but also on our racial, ethnic and socioeconomic identities.

Today, I realize that the normalization of Confederate Lost Cause figures such as Gen. Albert S. Johnston and postmaster general John H. Reagan — and the lack of critical attention to why these names adorned schools — was a missed opportunity to recognize the complex, confounding and sometimes despicable historical record that American society is slowly summoning the courage to confront.

Now, in 2021, with an incredible opportunity born out of the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many other people of color, we have an opportunity to consider what changes educators and districts should take to empower our youth to envision a racially equitable society.

The answer has less to do with our individual failings and more to do with our curriculum.

A Reform Model

For a model of curricular reforms necessary to create a culturally relevant and sustaining understanding of the world, we might look to 2002 and the beginning of the Social Justice Education Project. Led by University of Arizona professors Augustine Romero and Julio Cammarota and educator Lorenzo Lopez Jr., in partnership with the Tucson Unified School District, the project boasted significantly improved outcomes for students’ academic performance, persistence to graduation and performance on state examinations.

The project’s impact on students in Tucson was impressive. According to Romero’s 2010 article in The Black Scholar, “At War with the State in Order to Save the Lives of Our Children: The Battle to Save Ethnic Studies in Arizona,” SJEP students outperformed all other students in the Tucson schools on the Arizona graduation exam and graduated from high school at rates higher than their white peers. Almost 98 percent of SJEP students graduated from high school and just over 67 percent enrolled in postsecondary education.

The elements that made up the Social Justice Education Project included a critical, validating pedagogical strategy; an asset-based cultural-wealth approach to how students learn about their communities; and an intersectional embrace of the student, family and teacher as a team in the learning experience.

Unfortunately, reactionary political pressures led to a state law that banned ethnic studies in Arizona public schools, ending this initiative in 2011. However, the components of the project and the data proving that curricular reform led to improved outcomes for students enrolled in these courses can provide guidance for others.

»Critical Pedagogy.

This refers to a style of teaching that challenges systems of oppression. It is based on confronting inequality not only in textbooks, but also in the world in which students live. With a pandemic that has disproportionally impacted communities of color and the racial uprising that has seen so many Black lives cut short at the hands of the police, the current moment is opportune for educators to push their own understanding and knowledge of inequity.

Educators and writers such as Ava DuVernay, Daina Ramey Berry, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Carol Anderson, Maria Hinojosa and Adrienne Keene have produced books, documentaries, media and learning tools that provide a more accurate understanding of how systems of oppression have limited human rights and opportunity for Black, Indigenous and persons of color, or BIPOC.

If, like me, you were educated in Virginia, Texas or Mississippi up until the 2000s, it’s unlikely you were taught about the abuse of Native people, the institution of chattel slavery and the true causes of the Civil War. Critical pedagogy requires us to re-examine existing narratives, question stereotypes and construct counternarratives to American exceptionalism. Each of us who educates young people from all racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and immigrant backgrounds has the responsibility to challenge our own education diet.

»Community Cultural Wealth

This refers to a framework created by educational researcher Tara Yosso that posits that young people of color bring aspirational, familial, social, navigational, resistant and linguistic capital to educational settings.

In Tucson, students created their own histories, focusing on their lives, their families, their school, the community, the world and their future. Coupled with dialogue with their teachers and classmates, they recognized themselves as part of the American narrative rather than peripheral to the stories of white, socioeconomically and politically powerful people that dominate historical and literary analysis.

»Intersectional Embrace

Centering students, families, communities and teachers as a team is another Social Justice Education Project strategy for bringing culturally sustaining curriculum to districts. Too often, curriculum and educators are seemingly in tension with students. An instructional program, distant from the lives and concerns of the local community, is seen as a burden or an abstraction. Yet relevant, timely lessons, such as the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous, Latino and Black communities, make literature, history, social studies and science tangible and relevant. These are topics that can move from the classroom to the dinner table.

Co-Constructed History

Given the impressive outcomes of the Social Justice Education Project, it is perplexing that a legislative effort would seek to dismantle ethnic studies in Arizona. Specifically, Arizona’s HB 2281 enables the state to withhold funding if a school district offers courses that “promote the overthrow of the United States Government; promote resentment toward a race or class of people; are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group; and advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

This reactionary law is chilling, invoking anti-First Amendment strategies such as banning books by authors of color such as Sandra Cisneros and James Baldwin. These Bradbury-esque efforts to limit access to literature reek of white fragility and timidity, an inability to grapple with the foundation of white supremacy that pervades our body politic. Political opposition is likely, and school district leaders should be prepared to defend a culturally relevant curriculum for all students.

As students of color are empowered by a liberatory curriculum, white students are empowered by understanding how white supremacy has impacted their own immigration histories and are better prepared for a multicultural world that relies on respect and understanding of other identities that populate this world.

As important as a classroom that embraces the complexity of the American historical record can be, the efficacy is limited without scaffolding and aligned curriculum across subjects. Culturally relevant curriculum does not apply only to the humanities. From the humanities and the arts, to STEM, to the natural world, infusing the contributions of people from varied and diverse identities not only provides historically underrepresented students with role models and exemplars, but also instructs white students that human knowledge has been co-constructed by BIPOC people, possibly limiting the spread of cultural chauvinism or savior complexes.

The stories of resistance — from Native elders, to immigrants who have found ways to raise families and contribute to societies, to those who were on the front lines in civil and human rights struggles — often reside in our communities.

On the Front Line

Structural change will require more coordination and planning. However, we have access to frameworks and strategies to assist in our work. Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Pulitzer-winning “1619 Project” provides curricular tools that can serve as blueprints for culturally affirming, historically accurate renderings of our educational, political and housing systems. Despite legislation such as Arizona’s HB 2281, which was upheld in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2020, ethnic studies programs were launched in California and Texas.

The educational outcomes in Arizona demonstrate that ethnic studies have a multiplicity of positive outcomes for students. As collective educational organizations and as organized private citizens, we must demand that those who have expressed interest in serving as policymakers have a principled, informed understanding of the inadequacies of our present historical records and know how culturally relevant curricula benefits students. These candidates for state legislatures, state school boards and local boards of education should be able to express how they intend to ensure that curricula reflect the rich tapestry of contributions from all identities in our society and eschew nativist and racist beliefs.

Reinterpreting a historical record and bringing forth a curriculum that respects our truth is an incredible task. There is indeed resistance, such as a U.S. president who championed a “patriotic education” that sounds like a Potemkin village history rather than the challenging and truthful chronicle that it truly is. It is but far better for us to have courage as educators and citizens to share honest, hard realities of our national identity.

As educators, we are the front line of truth and reconciliation that might move us toward true reconstruction. Given this socially consequential moment, we don’t have a second to lose.

RICHARD REDDICK is associate dean for equity, community engagement and outreach in the College of Education at University of Texas at Austin. Twitter: @DrRichReddick

Additional Resources

Richard Reddick suggests these informational resources for education leaders on culturally relevant curriculum in schools:

»“At War with the State in Order to Save the Lives of Our Children: The Battle to Save Ethnic Studies in Arizona,” by Augustine Romero, The Black Scholar, Winter 2010. 

»“Dismantling Systemic Racism in Education,” Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation. 

»Schooltaking: Talk Tools for Antiracism and Equity in School Communities by Mica Pollock. 

»“Getting Started with Culturally Responsive Teaching,” Edutopia. 

»Rethinking Schools, a publisher of social justice education materials, including a quarterly magazine. 

»The 1619 Project, The New York Times.