Mixed approach on Black history

During Black History Month (BHM), high school staff and students shared their thoughts about how the experiences and contributions of Black Americans was incorporated into learning.

Some high school teachers said that they included it in their courses throughout the year.  

“I do racial issues and Black history just about every day of every class,” said economics teacher Patsy DiMonte. “We kind of work into it in whatever we do. This year, it’s juniors- with teaching them economics, we do everything about housing, and zoning and all things of that state,” he said. “So- yeah, no it’s just not about Black History Month, it’s all around us, all the time.” 

Art teacher, Chloe Kesten also infuses Black history into her classes. “I will say I feel like – it’s been woven in. Romare Bearden, he’s an amazing example of a very prolific artist who grew up in Harlem and we do collage projects based around his work… other artists have been sprinkled in into lessons,” she said. Kesten also had her classes do a Black American artist project during BHM, but still saw room for incorporating the Black American experience even more. 

Other high school teachers were less certain about how to add it into their classes. One way some teachers thought they could infuse the Black experience into their classes was to teach about famous Black Americans who have made contributions to the fields that they teach.

“I could do some research on influential Black chemists who have discovered or improvised inventive useful reactions,” said student chemistry teacher John Faurell. 

Theater teacher, Tom Carroll thought about highlighting Black actors. “I would love to do that,” he said. “There have been so many great Black actors and actresses.”

But some high school teachers didn’t think the topic really aligned with their subjects.

Humanities teacher Alina Kalontarov expressed the need to include the Black American experience in school, but didn’t think it matched up to her class. “We don’t necessarily focus specifically on African Americans’ experiences because our course just doesn’t dictate that but I think we explore diversity through the global nature of our curriculum.”

Sophomore Christian Giurgi could not remember learning anything about Black history or experiences of Black Americans from his classes this year. “I feel like maybe later in the month we might start learning about it more in classes, like humanities, cause I feel like it’s an important topic to talk about since it engages a lot of people in America and across the world,” he said. “It should be an all year kind of thing and not cramped in into one month.”

In past years, the Black Student Union (BSU) coordinated projects and events throughout the year, but this year there was no BSU. So, to do something to celebrate, Parent Coordinator Rosie Moyano created an “Honor Trail” like the one she saw downstairs in RFK. Moyano, printed out pictures on printer paper of Black Americans with their bios. Then, with help from a student, taped them up on walls all around the hallways. 

“Usually you hear about this famous artist and that famous artist,” said Moyano. “These are people that nobody knows about and [the students] can see the picture and go ‘Oh! I find it interesting’ and then they can look this person up and that’s what I want them to do.” 

Students had mixed responses to the Honor Trail.

“I did notice there were some papers,” said sophomore Sophia Papadopoulos. “I stopped to read some of them, but usually I don’t have that much time in between classes so I don’t get to read the whole paper.”

Junior Luis Lema agreed. “Yes, they caught my eye when walking down the halls,” he said. Lema expressed an interest in learning more and suggested in the future the papers have QR codes so students could get more information, since there’s no time to read the information in between classes.

Other students, however, didn’t even notice it. Zaylin Brown, a 9th grader and Margo Timin and Brigette Acquah, both 11th graders didn’t notice much going on in the school environment, including the Honor Trials. 

“It’s not an eye-catching idea, but I’m glad they at least tried to still celebrate the month.” said Acquah.