From the time the first kid attended school I would guess there has been
a parent somewhere protesting the curriculum. Once upon a time only
male royalty, and those who were so disgusting as to earn their own
wealth, were educated. There was a wet nurse for feeding, a nanny for
child care and many tutors who were paid quite handsomely to teach in
the home. There were no schools. If you wanted an educated child, you
paid a tutor. Even so, respect and equality within class took time to
achieve. It was only when it was realised that the royals had only
titles but no cash and the merchant class had cash but no title that the
situation became mutually beneficial.
Uneducated, poor children were put to work at an early age to help earn
an income to support the family. Chimney sweeps, maids, stable boys,
kitchen helpers, miners etc. The lower class also had no legal recourse
against the upper class. The upper class owned the land their homes
sat upon and the lower class was required to pay for their continual
inhabitation. Have anyone in the household do something untoward and
you could find your family in the streets without a penny.
It was only in the Industrial Age that finally saw sweeping reform and
the enactment of the Child Labour Laws. Yes, it was not a considered a
right for poor Caucasian children to be educated; literate. Their
parents fought for the right to learn about the world. They fought for
the right to learn how to socialise with the upper class in the hopes of
gaining a better position in life. The fought for the right to be
educated into a brighter future for the generations to come. The day
the first child attended school was the day poor whites gained a light
at the end of the tunnel where the future did not seem quite so bleak.
Thus is history. It seems to have been forgotten in some households
that education was not a RACE privilege but a CLASS privilege.
In early American history, the plight of the lower class was not over.
The slave owners were part of the upper class and poor whites were
treated just one step above a slave. When the slavery laws were first
enacted if a white woman married a black slave she too became a slave
and any child of their union was a slave. It was only when the law was
clarified that only any person of African descent could be considered a
slave was this status lifted legally but the treatment still occurred.
It is one of the origins of "nigger lover". Many lower class whites
could not afford to send their children to school as consistently as
upper class whites. Children were needed to help out at home with
chores and siblings. It took the US government making school mandatory
for lower class whites to finally achieve educational equality with the
upper class. This is history that has been forgotten.
During segregation, lower class whites were finally receiving equal
education with middle class whites while the upper class whites
continued with private schools and tutors. Now that the fight for
equality of class was over, they forgot how hard their forebears fought
for what was now becoming common place. Some became part of the IN
crowd and forgot what it was like to be on the outside looking in,
having to fight for the right to dignity and pride of self. Now that
there was finally a tentative equality within race, many sided against
people of colour who were now demanding their right to equality.
Before the civil rights movement, it was illegal for anyone of African
origin/descent to be educated, yet, in order to quell any uprising
within the Native American community it was thought prudent to
assimilate their children into society. To "Americanize" them and
educate out any affiliation with their native culture. Length of hair,
language, clothing, and yes, religion. Anything a child did that might
be construed as remotely Native American was met with punishment. The
Indian Citizenship Act took it all one step further and granted Native
Americans US citizenship to make sure they did not legally have any
standing as separate nations and ensuring that any hostile action would
be treason. This is history that has been forgotten.
Education for women, while not outlawed, was not encouraged. Young
girls were usually only educated to a certain level, taught curriculum
society thought was appropriate for women such as sewing, household
management, child rearing and cooking then returned home or sent to a
finishing school.. Finishing school was unlike the colleges where men
attended as the curriculum for women contained only deportment, dancing,
formal dining skills, hosting skills and other skills necessary for
upper class society. Women were sent to finishing schools by parents
hoping to attract the eye of a wealthy, and perhaps titled, husband.
Young girls were quickly married off and the cycle began anew. As long
as the curriculum reflected society's view of a woman's place, there was
no gender equality. It took the Women's Suffrage Movement to finally
start American on the road to equality in education, voting, employment
etc. Unfortunately, women have still not achieved this goal. If not
for the Women's Movement there would be no girls in school.
Before the civil rights movement, though there was equality in race with
the white community and quality teaching materials, the communities of
people of colour had a shortage of materials. Chalk was a precious
commodity along with text books, paper and other necessities. Sometimes
even a school house was not available so a church would be used. These
two communities did not live in separate states, they lived a block or
two away from each other so children and parents were able to see the
inequalities of education. The fight for equal education began with
Brown vs. Board of Education that struck down the previous US Supreme
Court ruling of "separate but equal" of Plessey vs. Ferguson and school
integration began. Or tried to begin.
Two different groups of children attending the same institution with the
same goal of education yet so different. There are so many different
groups of people of colour; Native Americans, African, Asian, European,
Middle-Eastern and Latin Americans. Different family structures,
different languages, different cultures. Regular school curriculum
consisted of Math, English, History and Science. If a teacher was so
learned as to fluently speak a foreign language that language was
offered for study. Social Studies classes evolved to compensate and to
teach the newly integrated students about each other to achieve the
equality within community that occurred during the struggle for equality
within race. America was now a nation of races, religions and cultures
descended from multiple nations. In order to maintain equality and
respect, no one race, creed, or religion was elevated above all else.
We have classes on culture due to the descendants of the many nations of
people that immigrated, willingly or not, whether in the 1600s, 1800s
or 1900s. These classes on culture are not about teaching the culture
of foreign countries but about teaching the many different cultures that
MAKE America. Erasing any culture out of an American textbook is
erasing a part of American History. From the Asian immigrants who died
creating the first trans-continental railroad; to the immigrants from
the Mediterranean who died erecting the skyscrapers of New York; to the
Native American code breakers in WWII and the African slaves who fought
the British during the Revolutionary War. These classes are to promote
awareness that regardless of differences between class, race, wealth,
religion, and culture; everyone is American.
Today the fight now is for equality in sexual orientation and the
continued call for equality of gender (identity and expression). The
opposition to this are stuck fast within the "differences not allowed"
genre of history. Again we see inequality and a distinct lack of
respect. Today, unlike yesteryear, we can no longer exclude and
ostracize a group as unworthy of an education so we protest the
curriculum instead. We have learned from history that the quickest way
to diffuse hostility to any societal difference, is education about
those differences, which in turn promote respect instead of distaste.
No one remembers the reverence towards hatred of the lower class, women,
and people of colour. What history remembers is the atrocities
committed by those who deemed such hatred worthy of their embrace.
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