{"id":1351,"date":"2025-03-04T21:24:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T02:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/?p=1351"},"modified":"2025-03-04T21:24:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T02:24:41","slug":"methods-for-approaching-sensitive-topics-in-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/2025\/03\/04\/methods-for-approaching-sensitive-topics-in-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Methods For Approaching Sensitive Topics in the Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone! I hope that everyone has had a nice couple of days and is looking forward to a fun and relaxing break from classes next week. Monday\u2019s class focused on teaching sensitive topics, specifically emphasizing slavery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Many teachers are not properly guided on how to approach teaching about slavery. Further, they were also not taught about it themselves while they were in school. Therefore, a cycle of avoidance, disregard, and even purposeful misinformation is engrained into our curriculum, textbooks, and picture books. While this instruction may be wrong, it does not always come from a place of malice, but rather lack of research and avoidance of the uncomfortable. However, teachers have a duty as educators to teach about this sensitive topic in an accurate, but age-appropriate manner.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the major takeaways I took from this class was the importance of facts, which can be largely exemplified in a classroom through primary source documents. In class, we looked at maps that demonstrate the concentration of enslaved individuals in specific states and how this changed throughout time. These maps were especially insightful in explaining the true cause of the Civil War, as they clearly show the South having a dense population of enslaved people while they were gradually freed from northern states. We were also shown sites for where we might be able to find more maps that can be used for instruction and analysis by students. What were some major takeaways you took from Monday\u2019s lesson regarding methods in which you will teach students about the history of enslaved people in this country?<\/span><\/p>\n

Another guide for teaching slavery is the 10 key concepts presented by Ira Berlin in his book <\/span>Teaching and Understanding American Slavery.<\/span><\/i> The concept that most stood out to me in this novel is the final one: \u201cBy knowing how to read and interpret the sources that tell the story of American slavery, we gain insight into some of what enslaving and enslaved Americans aspired to, created, thought, and desired.\u201d I believe this concept to be noteworthy, as it both emphasizes the importance of analyzing primary source documents and expands upon why these are so important to teaching an accurate depiction of what life was like for enslaved people. Is there any concept (a list is provided on the lesson\u2019s Google Slides) that stands out or do you think is especially important for students to be aware of?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While I still have a lot to learn about sensitive topics such as this, this discussion served as a helpful guide for creating culturally conscious and accurate lesson plans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone! I hope that everyone has had a nice couple of days and is looking forward to a fun and relaxing break from classes next week. Monday\u2019s class focused on teaching sensitive topics, specifically emphasizing slavery.\u00a0 Many teachers are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6542,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[208128,85869],"tags":[208085,40198,144],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-reflection","category-student-post","tag-african-american-history","tag-primary-sources","tag-us-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1352,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions\/1352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/elemsocialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}