The Peoples’ Curriculum On Social Studies!: Focused on Our Why (Part 1)
Written by: Sondrea Singleton & Terrence Pruitt
PART 1: On US
“Our reasons for creating social science curriculum are seated in truth telling, community collaboration, and community healing, which are concepts and strategies that are not present in curriculum published by major textbook companies today.”
On Sondrea
I am a native Chicagoan who believes in nourishing the roots you come from. That being said, marginalized people and historically disinvested communities have a special place in my heart. My professional work is a reflection of that. I currently work with youth who are on track to age out of foster care with little to no additional support. My work with this population looks like acting as a member of their support team by providing them with resources, mentors, skills to accomplish goals, and other tools to keep with them as they begin to navigate independence. Another aspect of my professional work includes assisting educators in creating sustaining, relevant, and reaffirming curricula content for marginalized students through The Curricularist, LLC.
My parents sent my brother and I to private school for K-8. My parents sent us to private school because they wanted us to have more opportunities and resources than those provided in our neighborhood public school.Their intentions were good and pure. Our neighborhood school was underfunded and under resourced, which is a condition of public schooling that is still around. Their thought around private versus public school was that my brother and I would be exposed to enriching learning experiences that would make a mark on our lives forever. They weren’t wrong. My brother was a constant victim of zero-tolerance policies, disproportionate suspension practices, and academic scrutiny.
My time in private school provided me with enriched learning experiences, in that I was given the skills to critically interrogate content I was being given. I quickly noticed the lack of positive representation of African Americans in subject areas — especially in social studies. In my early schooling experiences in private school, I was introduced to my ancestors as enslaved humans. At an early age, I was taught that Black and Brown bodies in America are disposable and our value solely depended on our labor and production. I was taught that Black people were commodities. Social studies curriculum repeated the narrative that African Americans were docile, inferior, uneducated, and came from nothing but famine. Social studies content in High school repeated the same narratives of African Americans. My brother was still victimized in the same ways, although, at that point we attended a charter school and I still critically interrogated the content I was being taught. By the time I got to my Sophomore year of high school, I read more about the history of African Americans in this country and I was introduced to W.E.B Dubois’ essays and books. At school, I was given curricula that supported the maltreatment and racism that was alive and well in the hallways of my high school. I knew the messages being communicated in curricula didn’t match my lived experiences. On one hand, I was aware of racism, housing discrimination, and economic disinvestments. On the other hand, I knew I stood on the shoulders of giants. My ancestors and elders, specifically my great-grandmothers Biggie and Margaret, were living proof that Black folx are resistant, resilient, and capable of defying the odds. As a result, I felt more compelled to challenge my teachers’ lesson plans centered on the Civil War, emancipation, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. Some would say I became a rebel for the cause (my detention record would probably support this). My father would argue that it was the start of a militant life. I simply say, I knew Blackness in curriculum deserved to be brought to life and celebrated beyond the 28 days in February. The absence of humanity in social studies taught me that there’s much work to be done to debunk the myths about minoritized people in social studies curricula.
It wasn’t until freshman year of college that I was introduced to imagery of African Americans as educated, rebellious, rich, civilized, and prominent. I took a course titled “African Roots in American Soil”, shout out to Dr. Simpson from Western Illinois University. The focus of the course was to develop students’ awareness around the impact of Afrian civilization on European life and well-being. During that course, I was given the language and tools to critically interrogate curricula content that emphasized American exceptionalism and promoted white supremacy. In creating a social science curriculum today with my business partner, Terrence Pruitt, I hope to give students the same language and tools. Our reasons for creating social science curriculum are seated in truth telling, community collaboration, and community healing, which are concepts and strategies that are not present in curriculum published by major textbook companies today.
On Terrence
Most of my journey begins with Cynthia. Cynthia is my mother, and as my mother her early choices have continued to make an impact on my life, and the lives of those folx situated in community with me. Early in my childhood she had the foresight to know that there would be critical skills that I would need in order to find my way in the earth, so she sought out ways to support me in developing those skills. One key move she made was to introduce me to the power of research. We would be riding the bus talking about all matters of topics, and when I would come to a topic to which she had little knowledge or expertise, she would say the magic words, “Let’s look it up.” I would legit be excited to check the volumes of encyclopedias in the living room, or to make it to our Saturday morning library visits so that I could discover new information and acquire new knowledge. In those moments, my mom unlocked some tools that have served me significantly as a black man in America, a student of the world, and an educator. She engaged my ability to think critically about utilizing resources to close knowledge gaps, she helped me to see my power to self-determine and explore my own interests and passions, and ultimately, she made it tough for my teachers. I learned to no longer see them as the keepers, cultivators, and gatekeepers of knowledge, and in some cases identity, and instead to recognize that all of their offerings to my journey, were merely, “For my consideration”. Even during my years in elementary and middle school, if my teachers introduced a concept or a narrative that didn’t sit with me right, I would run home to begin to research the concept myself. If it turned out that their “offering” was legit, I would trust that educator more deeply. If on the other hand, my research revealed that the teacher was phoning it in, or attempting to serve us that “foo”, that “BS” or that malarkey, I would make it my mission to “enlighten” them. This of course made for some very interesting parent-teacher conferences at times. “Yes, Mrs. Pruitt, Terrence has straight A’s and the highest scores in the school’s history, but he is often a distraction, a disruption to class, and he’s abusive to some of the teachers.”
Cynthia also helped me to begin to understand the power of narrative — to see that everyone, and everything, has/had a story, a narrative, that explains and expresses how, why, and where someone is situated in the world. When these narratives are presented, they can either build, restrict, or tear away at the capacity of the listeners. I think that introduction to understanding the power of narrative was ultimately why of all the subjects that I encountered in my schooling, the one that resonated with me most, was Social Studies. I saw Social Studies as the doorway into understanding how and why the world moved as it did. Unfortunately, as a young student, I frequently encountered narratives in the Social Studies classrooms that were inaccurate, that privileged certain populations, or that attempted to erase folx and their contributions to the world. I in real life remember learning that Christopher Columbus, Henry the Navigator, and Ponce De Leon were “Great Discoverers”. If you are reading this, and you are unaware as to why teaching this to a black boy, or any person of color, would be an example of psychological and psycho-spiritual violence, then the conditioning you endured in school may have been very similar to my own. It wasn’t until High School, shout out to Ms. Hotson, that I encountered an abolitionist educator that was interested in teaching truth and humanity in the social studies classroom. That teacher unknowingly sowed some of the seeds that would lead me to study political science and Afro-American history in college, to fight against narratives and myths that would attempt to debase and tear away at my humanity and the humanity of other marginalized folx, and to pursue developing identity affirming, culturally responsive curriculum.
