The Importance of Teaching the Truth to our Students

The best intentions can sometimes lead to unexpected consequences. As a teacher, I am always looking for fun, creative, and hands-on ways to make the process of learning engaging for my students. When I taught second grade many moons ago, we spent a whole class day celebrating Valentine’s Day by making card mailboxes and cards that the students delivered to each other. It was a very fun experience. Was it educational? Sure, there were skills that I worked into the activities. We talked about spelling and vocabulary words, reading strategies, punctuation, and plenty more. However, did I provide the students with any sort of accurate history or background on the holiday and why it is celebrated? No, I left that out. I didn’t get into the fact that one of the St. Valentine’s recognized by the church was a priest from the 1400s who secretly helped couples wed when the act of doing so was punishable by death because the emperor had outlawed marriage in Rome. I didn’t talk about how Valentine’s Day has since become more of a commercial holiday to make money for card and candy manufacturers. I also didn’t mention how there was more than one St. Valentine that the day could have been named after. I left out the truth because I didn’t think it was relevant. I left out the accurate history of the holiday because I thought that second graders couldn’t handle this kind of truth. I didn’t cover the history behind Valentine’s Day because I was worried that it would upset my students and their families. I wasn’t ready to do the hard work of being an effective and great teacher when I first got into the profession. I didn’t want to upset the status quo of how things had always been done. Why tarnish a beautiful day celebrating love with stories of death and money, I thought back then. My intentions were pure but ignorant and misguided, and the consequences of my actions have potentially been far reaching. It is possible that my students never learned the truth about the holidays we celebrated back when they were in second grade. I hope they had a future teacher strong and brave enough to teach the truth about these special days, but if not, they will forever be in the dark. To those students I worked with early in my teaching career, I apologize for not equipping you with accurate information regarding our world’s history. I will try to do better.

Fortunately, my eyes have been opened. I now see the error of my ways. I am now brave enough to teach the truth. I am now wise enough to do the research and provide a true account of holidays and history covered in my class. I don’t whitewash or sugar coat any events or holidays for my students anymore. I provide the truth from multiple perspectives and then allow them to form their own opinions. This change stemmed from a long journey that I’ve been on since I became a teacher 20 years ago. Talking to colleagues, attending conferences, researching topics to teach, being a father to a Black son, and reading lots of professional resources have all worked together to guide me to becoming the mindfully, socially, culturally, and historically aware teacher that I am today. However, this journey is far from over, as I know there is still much to learn. I can do better and be a better Social Studies teacher for my students, which is why I chose to read Unpack You Impact by Naomi O’Brien and LaNesha Tabb this summer. And, oh my gingerbread am I glad I did.

The professional text Unpack your Impact explores the power teachers have to share accurate information about our world and its rich and complex history. The book provides numerous examples and ways in which educators can cover and teach Social Studies content in meaningful and engaging ways in all classes, not just Social Studies. Through personal anecdotes and interesting historical facts, the authors paint a beautiful picture of how all teachers can have positive and powerful impacts on their students by teaching them the truth about the culture, history, geography, and sociology of our world. Not everything in life can be explained with rainbows and unicorns. The truth can be hard to swallow at times, but it is the goal of teachers to find engaging and meaningful ways to impart this knowledge unto their students. The prose was easy to read and the book was organized into chapters that made sense and broke down the ideas into manageable chunks. The authors were also very careful not to point fingers or place blame on their fellow teachers for not accurately teaching the truth about our world’s complicated past, as they too are on a journey of enlightenment. They made these same mistakes in teaching Valentine’s Day and Thanksgiving that I’m sure we have all committed at times in our teaching careers; however, like we ask and expect from our students, we, and the authors, have learned from our mistakes and rectified the errors in our teaching. We are now engaging our students in wonderful discourse on the truth about Columbus Day, Groundhog Day, and all the other wonderful holidays that make teaching so much fun for many teachers. I highly recommend this book for all teachers looking to continue their journey towards truth and knowledge. It is an eye-opening, enlightening, engaging, and quick read.

As I read this fantastic text, my brain was constantly working overtime trying to make sense of the ideas presented. I was always thinking about how I could apply the author’s suggestions and advice to my class. How could I bring more culture to my fifth-grade classroom? These are the ideas and thought nuggets I developed as my mind swam through this fine book.

• In the book, the authors emphasize the importance of sharing cultural knowledge with our students. We must teach them the traditions, languages, foods, religion, and all other ingredients held within the crucible of culture for each new place, region, country, or continent we cover in class. We need to dive deep when teaching these Social Studies concepts to our students. We can no longer stay on the surface and teach the happy things that everyone knows. We need to teach our students the truth about the indigenous peoples in our country. We need to let them know how the early settlers and immigrants to our country treated the Native Americans. We need to explore the cultural traditions celebrated by Indigenous peoples. The authors also talked about how we should also welcome our students into this conversation by having them share their culture with us and their classmates. They talked about starting the year with a project on culture, during which the students would share some of their cultural traditions with the class. This sharing helps the students bond and grow close as a community while also helping them to understand the value and importance of culture for all people.
  • This got me thinking. What if I change up my Social Studies class and make culture our focus for the year? What if I begin the year discussing and exploring culture with my students? We could talk about what the word means and the many puzzle pieces that make up culture. I could then have the students work with their families to learn about their cultural traditions, which would then lead into the students completing a presentation about their culture. What is important to them? What can our students teach us? I love it! I am totally going to do this in September. While I usually begin the year with a unit on Our Communities, I’m totally going to postpone that so that I can begin the year talking about culture. When we understand and value culture and what it means to us as people, it will help us be empathetic and open to learning about and respecting other community’s cultures and traditions. I’m so excited to kick off Culture Con 2021 in September. I now need to change my wall and bulletin board displays to reflect this change and my new ideas.
  • Although beginning the year with a unit on culture is exciting and will help me emphasize the importance culture holds for all communities and people around the globe, is that enough to really help my students see and value the idea of culture? No, I need to do more. I need to make culture a fun and engaging topic about which we talk and explore. In the book the authors introduced the concept of a Culture Corner that provides a space and time for students to continue sharing about their culture throughout the year. What a brilliant idea! How can I make that happen in my class? What if we kick off every Friday Current Events discussion, lesson, or activity with a Culture Corner sharing opportunity? A student or two could dive into the deeper waters of their culture and share something special with the class. Perhaps a student might make and share a special desert or food that showcases his or her family’s traditions. Or maybe a student might want to talk about a religious holiday their family celebrates. This could be a weekly happening and take about 10-15 minutes. It would also be a great segue into current events, as culture is usually the cornerstone to most big ideas discussed during our weekly news conversations. This way, we can keep the concept of culture alive and thriving throughout the entire year. Oh yeah! This is going to rock!
• While teaching the difficult truth about our country and other parts of the world can seem daunting and complicated, it is essential in helping students broaden their cultural, historical, geographical, and sociological perspectives on our world. We need to talk to our students about how our country was formed by individuals who committed acts of treason against Britain, which can be and feel challenging as treason is a very serious crime. We need to explore how Japanese people were held in internment camps in our country following WWII, even though it may bring up ideas of concentration camps and unjust practices. We need to dig into how other countries have treated their citizens throughout time, no matter how difficult it will make us feel. We need to do the hard and right things as teachers to accurately prepare our students to be compassionate and educated global citizens. We need to be comfortable being uncomfortable because it is what is best for our students. While I’ve never shied away from covering the difficult topics in any class, I need to keep reminding myself to dig deep for the truth when covering current events and units in Social Studies. I need to teach the truth and its multiple perspectives to my students.
• When teaching about the Middle East region to a former class of mine a few years ago, many of the students noted, “Why do the women wear face coverings? That seems so weird.” My response was, “People have all different ways of celebrating their culture. It’s important to have a Growth Mindset when learning about new places so that we can learn as much as possible about the people that live in these communities. While it may seem weird to us, people from another country or culture may think that it is strange that most Americans wear clothes.” While this answer seemed to satisfy my students at the time, it didn’t feel good enough to me. I wanted a better way to explain how other people do things differently and that’s okay. Then came this book, and wow! In the text, the authors explain it this way: “Different people do different things in different ways.” So simple and elegant. I love it! That makes total sense to me. I want my students to see all new communities and cultural traditions in this same light. I want them to see that different people do things in different ways and that is amazing. I want to focus on different being good and not weird. This will be one of my many mantras for this upcoming school year: “Different people do different things in different ways.” Not everyone celebrates the same religion or eats the same types of food, and that is wonderful because it provides opportunities for us to learn and grow as humans. I want my students to be open to new ideas, and this message about differences being accepted and embraced seems to be a fantastic way in which to help guide them towards a Growth Mindset when learning about other communities and people.
• The authors talked about finding creative and fun ways to inject more geography into the classroom, which got me thinking. How can I go about doing that? While I have several maps covering the walls in my classroom and we talk about geography in Social Studies class, how can I make geography more engaging and fun for my students during other times of the day? That’s when I came up with the idea of Globe Ball. We could play Globe Ball as a Morning Meeting activity. The students would take turns passing the inflated globe to each other. When they catch it, they have to name the location, city, country, physical feature, or body of water one of their fingers is covering. They then have to share a fact about that place or feature. If they don’t know something about that place, we will do some quick research as a class to learn a new fact. It’s a quick and fun way to get the students moving and learning more about geography in an engaging and hands-on manner. Love it!
• During the most recent presidential election, I read several articles written by educators about how teachers need to share their political beliefs and and feelings with their students to help properly educate them. While 99% of me totally disagreed with this stance on the issue, I did wonder about it for a while. Should I share my political affiliation and beliefs with my students? How would that help properly educate them? Wouldn’t it just provide them with only one, biased perspective? So, I stood my ground and kept my beliefs and ideas on issues out of the conversation so that students could form their own thoughts and opinions on issues. While I didn’t have any evidence to support why what I was doing was best for my students, it just made sense to me as an educator. Then, I discovered Unpack your Impact and found just what I was looking for. On page 148 in the book, the authors state: “As the presenter of the information as well as the facilitator of classroom discussions, you have to be the objective party. As much as possible, we have to keep our feelings and personal beliefs out of our social studies lessons.” So I’m not alone. Adding our personal opinions to discussions could taint our students as they journey towards enlightenment and form their own thoughts and feelings on our world. As a teacher, I need to be unbiased when teaching all topics. I should not try to influence my students by sharing my belief systems and/or personal thoughts on the ideas covered. My students need me to be an objective teacher.

So there you have it. My thoughts on the book Unpack your Impact. If you’re looking for a good resource on how to be an inclusive and unbiased educator when teaching current events, Social Studies topics, or anything new, then I suggest you read this book. It’s interesting and full of fun, historical facts. Did you know that some apples we buy in stores could be almost a year old? I may now think twice before buying an apple at my local grocery store, as I’m not okay with that. Instead of teaching the same lessons in the same fun, yet superficial way we’ve always done it, it’s time to mix things up and find more accurate, truthful, and engaging ways to teach our students about the world around them.