Curriculum Representing the Contributions of All People

I was so hungry to learn about my so-called blackness that by the time that I entered my sophomore year, I had stolen the single copy of the Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley at my predominately white high school 15 minutes north of  Detroit, Michigan. I justified the stealing (in my adolescent mind by saying that no one else was going to read it) and began to read and learn more about African American history that year. Last year, during our professional development session, I was asked about teaching a 4th grade Unit on California Explorers. Here were some central questions that I posed to the teacher (while she stared at me wide eyed): 

• Does the curriculum represent the contributions of all people (women and people of color, for example)?
• Who is telling the story of exploration? What would this story be like if it were told by the natives? How would that change how we viewed the events taking place? What would the story be like if it were told through the eyes of the Earth? What would she say? 
• How are you teaching for transfer? What kinds of meaning do you want kids to make from this? 
• What adjustments and modifications are you making for your English Language Learners? How are you including all students in creating a collective story about explorers? 
• What is exploitation? Who was exploited and for what cause? How did explorers view the land as compared to original peoples? 
• What was the land (i.e., California) called before the explorers captured it? Should we honor the previous name? Why or why not? 
• What was the primary motivation for peoples moving west? How did those motivations continue to shape the geography of the state? 
• Who are the "winners" and "losers" of this time in history? 
• Is there one "true" narrative when it comes to this period in history? 
• Should we "celebrate" the explorers? How did they interact with natives? How did natives interact with explorers? Who is telling the story here? 
• What was the impact of "treaties" in the absolution of land? 

By the time I ended my rant, I'm sure that the teacher had dismissed most of what I had said, which caused me to really reflect on my approach on coaching teachers on incorporating diverse perspectives into historical narrative. To be honest, that's a challenge because I am so passionate about this notion about including all peoples stories into the narrative of our past. I also referred her to the Zinn Education Project  and Rethinking Schools . Let's move beyond the STEM  myth to eliminate inequities in education and include multiple perspectives when studying the rich fabric of our nations past. We have to ask ourselves: Who's story is it anyways?