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Day 8: What We Teach
Today, we will examine how textbooks, curricula, and state education mandates, collectively “what we teach,” impacts our world view and understanding of history. Textbooks are designed to teach us a common set of facts about who we are as a nation. What happens when our history is only told from one perspective - one that is predominantly male, white, and heterosexual? How do we locate ourselves, our roles, and our value when we don't appear in these teachings or our stories are not told from our perspective or experience? What happens when histories or historical moments of change are omitted or altered in "what we teach?" Two popular statements (attributed to many) take us into today's learnings: "Are those who don’t know history, destined to repeat it? - or - "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
TODAY’S CHALLENGE:

IF YOU HAVE:
The Genocide Education Project provides teaching resources, survivor testimonials, and multiple resources to support the teaching of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. We invite you to explore these comprehensive resources as our community works to disrupt the cycle of genocide in Armenia and advocates for #peaceforarmenia.
Read how history textbooks in California and Texas teach students two very different versions of the same pivotal moments in American history - and reflect on how those histories shape the worldviews of students.
Textbooks are supposed to teach us a common set of facts about who we are as a nation. What happens when our history is only told from one perspective - one that is predominantly, male, white, and heterosexual? Read this article to see how history textbooks reflect America’s refusal to reckon with slavery.
Glendale non-profit, CARE: "Comfort Women" for Redress and Education has worked hard to ensure that the largest sex trafficking case in history is documented and taught in our history books so that this atrocity is never repeated again. “Comfort women” is a euphemistic term for the hundreds of thousands of young women and girls who were coerced, abducted, and imprisoned as sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces as part of their militaristic expansion in the Asia Pacific region, beginning in 1932 until the end of World War II. As stated in House Resolution 121, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007, the “comfort women” system constituted one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century and one that was unprecedented in its cruelty and magnitude.

Learn more about their work to have this history incorporated in California textbooks (which became part of California's History-Social Science framework in 2017) and through their powerful community education campaigns that include peace monuments in public spaces, including here in Glendale's Central Park.
PROCESS WEEK ONE OF THE CHALLENGE - TODAY AT 3:30PM PST ON INSTAGRAM LIVE

Join YWCA Glendale's CEO Tara Peterson for a live conversation with parent, educator and activist, Elizabeth Vitanza. They'll be discussing the first week of the 21 Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge content and activities and diving into the importance of personal reflection in this learning experience.
735 East Lexington Drive
Glendale, CA 91206
Phone: 1-(818) 242-4155
YWCA is on a mission to eliminate racism and empower women