Episode 158: Hard History Lessons with Alysha Butler-Arnold

Hi, this is Larry Pasca, Executive Director of NCSS, the National Council for the Social Studies. This episode features an author published in an NCSS journal. Please enjoy. You're listening to "Visions of Education." A podcast where we take a look at big ideas and education from different perspectives. Hi, I'm Michael Milton, a high school teacher from Massachusetts, and I'm Dan Kretka, an education professor in Texas. We're here to help bridge the gap between educators and the K through 12. And those professors in higher ed, we hope this podcast will bring those fuzzy ideas and education into focus. Michael, hopefully your students are able to use some of the lessons from your classroom, right? The social studies lessons, the history lessons, to like not be surprised by things that happen today, right? Because they know that these things happen in history, and history can help prepare the -- what lessons do you think they take out of your classes? Or do you hope they take out of your classes so they're prepared to understand the things happening in the world? I hope they get more than what are the causes of the War of 1812, because as much as we love the War of 1812, which I really -- No. No one doesn't. No. I feel like that's such a lobe. That's not like the thing that I want to last. You know, I want them to -- I do want them to think about questioning why things happen. I want them to consider various viewpoints to help better understand things. But in terms of like what I want them to walk away, if all they walk away with is the War of 1812, then I did not do a good job. I feel. Well, the lesson could be that the White House can be burned down, right? Like, oh, God. I mean, no, I don't want that to happen. But right, the point is, is like there was a time when people literally burned down the White House, right? And during that war, and that seems unimaginable, right? Like I could not imagine turning on my TV, and they're being like a midst violence that an institution was burning down. But I think the important thing is understanding that these things do and can happen, right? That things can be destroyed. And in fact, I think in the United States, we often -- some of us at least -- can be oblivious because this happens in other countries, right? You see destruction of governmental institutions. You see bombings and air raids and things that destroy things that we assume maybe are going to be there always. Does that right? I mean, can't history in knowing the world -- not even just the past, but the more wide world that exists today help you understand that our world is a bit more fragile sometimes and not as stable as we always like to think it. I feel like we like to -- I feel like we run into an issue when we teach history is dead or history is just passed. I feel like there are ongoing lessons or there are -- things are less black and white, things are less clear cut, things are a lot more murky than your history book tells you. And so kind of like examining that, and I guess I sure, like looking at what's going on in other countries, I guess. But I mean, there's still a heck of a lot going on in the U.S. that I fear many don't really know what happened. And unfortunately, I'm coming over the lesson idea, which is -- Michael's face as I was using the example of like the white house partying or other things was -- he was not comfortable during this discussion. But I do have vision activity. I've talked about it on here and we had Kim Pinnington on. I think in episode three -- I often have students imagine there are ideal classrooms because often the only way to change what schools and classrooms look like sometimes is to kind of get out what you've seen and really dream big about what you're wanting and then move towards those ideals. I can almost see a school lesson where you think about what are some of the worst things that could happen to our country, for example. What are the worst-tech case things? And some of those worst-case things have already happened, right? We've had a past with -- that's been very brutal. That's included a lot of things. But I think students almost -- if they kind of envision what those things are, they might start to think how do we prevent them. And so I don't know. I'm just thinking a lot. Maybe we need somebody else who's got some teacher wisdom to teach us how we prepare students for this world we're living and what do you think, Michael? I think we should definitely welcome our guest. So let's welcome right now our guest and the podcast. Welcome, Alicia Butler Arnold. Welcome. Hello. Thank you all for having me. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it greatly. We appreciate you making it through that whole segment. That might have been miseducative. I apologize. [laughter] Alicia, can you tell us a little bit about who you are in your background in education? Hi. Yeah. So, once again, my name's Alicia Butler Arnold. I am a Florida native South Florida born and raised, living it. Been here in the DC area now for over 11 years. I've been teaching for over 21 years now. I can't believe it's been that long. I feel like it has blinked. [laughter] And here I am. You know, I've taught history, African-American history is my specialty. I particularly really enjoy exploring and learning as much as I can about the period of during reconstruction. I am currently here teaching in the DC area in 2019. It was a pretty good year for me. I was awarded the National History Teacher of the Year Award from Guildelurmin. Same year. Also awarded the daughters of the American Revolution Outstanding American History Teacher of the Year for the District of Columbia. I was also that same year at DC Community Cornerstone Winner as well. Wow. That is a great year. Kind of hard to talk 2019. Yeah. [laughter] So, I think the next step is just for you to run for president, right? I mean, you're already in DC. So that would be, then you can build on your 2018 honors and right into your candidacy. Hey, you never know what's down the road. It's true. That is true. So, can you tell us a little bit about your teaching career? I mean, you talked about focusing. And that's one of my favorite areas. Block history and reconstruction is something I've always been really fascinated with. David Blight from Yale has had a lecture up that I just randomly found when I was in college and I listened to the whole thing and became very interested with it. And I promised Michael today that I'm not going to mention a famous historical figure from who was alive during that era because I mentioned them every episode. But tell us about your classes, what your classes look like and how you got interested in that particular topic. Believe it or not, I got interested in that topic because I was never taught it in high school. The first time I ever learned about reconstruction was when I went to college. And I went to Florida Atlantic University and had an amazing group of historians, professors, and that was the first time I was exposed to. And I could not believe that such an integral piece of the puzzle to really understanding everything after the Civil War was left out of my curriculum. Never once mentioned. And ever since then, I all roads lead back to reconstruction in my opinion. You can't understand anything about American history or where we are right now unless you go back to reconstruction. And I have to admit, whenever I teach it, I'm teaching it now. I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and I'm going and I really feel in many ways we'd be kind of Louis and it's funny that you reference Eric Foner because I know David Blight as your man, I call David I call Eric Foner in my class from the original OG. When it comes to reconstruction history, my kids get a you know they love it but I'm like yeah we're gonna talk about the original OG right now. We're gonna read something from the original OG about you know this has been or that of it from reconstruction. I just think Eric Foner is just amazing to me. So we will make sure to get his reconstruction book in our show notes for people that want to nerd out and hey maybe we'll have a book club. Sounds like Alicia's would be would be willing to join the book club so. Alan. So the reason we're having you on besides that we want to talk about reconstruction for just hours on end and I think I'm kidding I'm really here for it but is you are an article for social education that was just published so first congratulations on your article being published. Thank you. Thank you. It is the first hopefully not the last. So the article was that was published just in this most recent January, February issue of 2021 is titled Why My Students Wart Surprised on January 6th. Can you tell me. Tell us about what inspired you to write the article and what you included in it? Absolutely. Thank you. In reality, I was here. I'm close proximity to the Capitol. And I was horrified by what I saw. I was angry. I had to kind of catch myself because my five-year-old was like, "Mommy, what's wrong? What's going on?" I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. And I sat down that day and I was like, "Well, how am I going to teach us?" What was so ironic was I actually was in the process of creating a lesson for my students the next day because I could not wait to be able to talk about the events that took place in Georgia with the Reverend Raphael Warnock and, you know, Oskar winning the election. And I wanted to prove to my students, hey, you know, we can make a difference. My students are predominantly black and brown. And they have good reason to be quite cynical with everything that they witnessed with this last summer. I wanted to let them know that collective action, organized and grassroots can work. History can be made and to not become disillusioned. And right in the midst of me, you know, getting that lecture ready, that activity together, I'm witnessing, you know, a Confederate flag being walked right into the Capitol, you know, without any resistance, any hesitancy either. Which had never happened, right? That's the story at least I've heard that at no time. You know, you had the Civil War, it didn't happen then or during these periods where you even had, you know, Southern presidents who were Confederate sympathizers or Confederates themselves. It didn't happen then. And for it to happen now, the symbolism is really something to discuss with students. Absolutely. That's not something that we need to kind of gloss over. The fact that a Confederate flag and everything that resembles, you know, and symbolizes, you know, right into our Capitol. And I'm kind of motivated and, you know, I, but more importantly, what angered me more than what was taking place, what's the response is that I was reading, you know, I was reading articles in the Washington Post, I'm watching people on CNN, you know, this isn't us. How could this happen? This isn't who we are. And I want to say, what America have you been living in? And it just kind of goes back to what so many, you know, black, you know, people have said throughout history. There are two Americas right now. There always really has been two Americas. And I just feel like the invasion of the Capitol was the first time for, you know, a lot of white Americans that it was, you know, in their face. There have been play times in history where you have seen, you know, white supremacy and you've seen violence and you've seen a disrespect for the electoral process, you know, happen and terrorized black Americans and black communities. And so that is what motivated me to number one, sit down and to, you know, really think about how I was feeling. So I wrote some things down, but I think what really kind of, you know, motivated me to finish the article was the responses my students had the next day. I was concerned. I was a little worried, but they really, they restored my hope and they actually made me feel like what I was doing mattered. If I ever had experienced teacher burnout, I promised you that, you know, what happened on January 7th and the days after is going to be something that I will always look to to re-energize me and to let me know that I have purpose because a lot of my students and former students that I had that were calling me saying, hey, you know, like angry that's happened. I'm kind of shocked that this happened, but, you know, you kind of prepared this for us and we were able to talk about things that we've learned in the past and say, this is just like, you know, when? This is just like this that you talked about. And I wanted to say like, wow, my students are able to digest what's happening a lot better than a lot of adults were, particularly a lot of white adults. And I was like, that's, that's not right. And I really was feeling that that is a testimony of what's not happening in our classrooms and what's missing from our curriculum and our state standards. Right. I think there's, right. I think like you're saying, there's two Americas. It makes me think it's like there's almost different textbooks that are entering our classes. And I don't literally just mean textbooks with the lectures, the worksheets, the, all the things that teachers do in their classroom. And there's, there's one that that never talks about white supremacy as playing a major role. And there's another that does. And when you, when you talk about white supremacy, you see a continuity throughout American history. And the unfortunately, this, what happened at the Capitol is, is very much in line with a lot of those things that have happened. So what things did you teach your students to where they were not surprised that something like this could happen? Yeah, definitely. I want to actually kind of go back to the point you were making just about even the idea of teaching white supremacy. The last time I checked, and my numbers could be off, but the last time I checked, I was like, I think it was less than five states in our union currently actually even mentioned the word white supremacy in their social study standards. And that's an issue. That's a problem that definitely has to be rectified. But some of the things that I've talked about with my students, you know, we have definitely talked about the cold facts, massacre that took place in Louisiana that occurred in 1873 on Easter day. We've also talked about the Wilmington massacre that took place in North Carolina. We've talked about what happened in the Koei, Florida, you know, that happened in the 1920s. All of these events are all examples of, you know, black people exercising their right to vote, making a difference in the elections and white supremacists not honoring it and using violence and terror to challenge election results and overturn them. Or in some cases prevent black people from even going out and being able to vote. And that's what kind of happened in Ohio, Florida. Right. And there's such a, you know, so much current history intertwined in this, right? Because there's stacey Abrams probably should be the governor of Georgia who would have been overseeing a lot of this too. If it weren't for voter suppression, I've heard said at that time. Can you tell us a little bit, for example, about how you teach the 1873 Koei facts? Yeah, sure. So for that one in particular, what I've done is there are primary sources that you can refer to. Actually, before I go into that, if I could, I would love to number one state that I had never learned about the Koei facts massacre. I didn't until 2007. I love to read. I love historical fiction. And I think what a lot of people need to realize that historical fiction is a great way to be introduced to new events that happened in history. And one of my absolute favorite writers, the leader of the family, she is amazing. She wrote "Kane River," which was just an amazing piece of literature. And she also wrote a novel that followed up to that, which was Red River. And Red River actually was, it's a historical fiction, but she does intertwine her novel with actual true stories of family members that were affected by this massacre. And when I read that novel, I was just like, this was an amazing piece of literature. But then I was like, I cannot believe that this actually happened. I mean, I could believe it, but I mean, it was just, I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard about it. That's what I wanted to say. And immediately after reading that novel, I was like, I've got to learn more about it. And I wanted to definitely introduce it to my students. So if you get an opportunity, Lolita Tammity, it's called Red River. Amazing. And even before that, her first breakout book was "Kane River" is just an amazing piece of literature. If you have listeners out there that are kind of like, okay, Koei facts massacre, I can't really find this. You might find it under Koei facts riot. However, I would argue that that term should not be used. A riot is really kind of just defined as a small disturbance, disturbance of the piece. A massacre is indiscriminate and brutal killing of people. And that's exactly what happened in 1873 on Easter day. Basically, what ended up happening that particular day was in the state of Louisiana. You had just a lot of tensions. It's this almost reconstruction is coming to an end. And the Democrats were very angry, particularly at the Louisiana Governor's Race of 1872. And it was actually contested, but the Republicans, nearly one, and a lot of Republicans over the state were kind of fearful that white militias were going to take over local parish governments. So the Republican office holders, particularly in Koei facts and Occupy, the Koei facts courthouse and urge your supporters to help. And many of the supporters were freedmen who had many of them just voted after passage of the 15th Amendment and they volunteered to defend it. And unfortunately, you had a mixture of various white supremacist groups and acts confederates from local and nearby towns such as the Knights of White Comelia, the KKK. They unfortunately, the Black militia really didn't stand a chance because the white militia, the white supremacist over there, moved a cannon to fire on the courthouse. But the real horror is what happened after these men surrendered at nightfall. They were brutally tortured and executed and it's hard to get an act of red number. We think anywhere, what is it from 60 to perhaps 153 were killed. It's hard to get an act of it number because many of the bodies were kind of thrown in the red river. And that's kind of where the Leda Tammi gets the name from it. But we, in my classroom, we definitely talk about reconstruction and we talk about like the passage of the 15th Amendment. And we use Eric Boner, some of his sources. And the number said, he gives us to talk about how this was a time where you did have a lot of Black men that were able to vote and a lot of Black men did run for office. And we talk about, you had a lot of Black men that held off the Senate seats. But then we talk about the fact that that was not without risks and that was not without a backlash. And that's how we get into what happened on 1873. We take a look at primary sources that real life accounts from what happened court proceedings, survivors. And we talk about the after effects, not only what happened. happened in 1873, but how did that affect black participation later on? And we traced the decline of black political participation after the end of reconstruction. And even compared to today, we talk about how many black people that we have in the Senate and the kids just can't believe the decline from what they saw during the construction. And I use the Colfax massacre as an example of the terror that we felt black people who dared to exercise their 15 minutes. I really appreciate-- thank you for sharing that story with us. And I appreciate also the clarity of language. I'm from Tulso, Clahoma. And of course, Tulso was originally-- that's a whole 'nother story. I'm sure I've talked about it on a number of podcasts. I forget all the things I've said. But the point about the naming, it was often called the Tulso Race Riot, which was an inappropriate name for-- only in recent years that people started called the Tulso Race Massacre. And this is the 100th anniversary coming up this year in just a few months. And so part of what your students then are able to grasp is as they look at the primary sources, they look at the actual terror that black communities faced in the South around the Colfax massacre and these other massacres and instances of violence and voter suppression, that helps them then think about the possibility of these things in the present, right? Do they also, at the same time, learning about the struggle, the challenges, and the tragedy and horror of what happened? Does that also emboldened them to want to do things today? How do they usually react? Well, I think this is where purposeful teaching comes into place. I think teachers need to wake up from me. One of these people became a teacher was because, like I said, when I went away to college and I was able to major in history and some of the books that I was able to read and the people I was able to learn about and the events that black people were over able to overcome, I really felt, really, really, really felt in college. I was like, if everyone just knew about this, this would motivate everybody, like reading the Harriet Jacobs incidents in the life of the slave girl and just learning how this woman press revered and overcame and reading about Frederick Douglass and tricking some of the young boys and Baltimore to teaching him how to read. And just the dedication to making sure that he obtained his freedom. Once you read stories like that, once you learn about people like that, they're, I tell my students, it should make you uncomfortable not doing your best. And I think that's what teaching is all about, particularly for social studies. I'm sorry, that's how I feel. You have to be, it's purposeful. I'm teaching what the purpose, I'm teaching to motivate to inspire. I teach history as an example for people that they know that there is nothing that we cannot overcome and that there's nothing that we are facing that people at one point in history have not faced themselves. And I'm teaching to inspire and I'm teaching also for our students to learn how they can overcome, how they can make better. And also I'm teaching students, with the intent of having them ask themselves, all right now, how are you going to add to our story? What part of our national story are you gonna be a part of? And I think that's what it needs to be, it's no longer just teaching facts. Those days are over and they really shouldn't have been the days before at all. (laughs) - So what advice do you have for teachers? And we actually have a lot of student teachers who listen. What advice do you have for teachers in teaching better? Like how can we continue to, or work to inspire action from students? - That's a great question. The first thing I would say is number one, when you sit down and play your lesson, what is the purpose? What is the why? Whenever I get teacher seminars, I always start off with, all right, what's our why? I'm going to take a couple of minutes to prove to you why I deserve your attention and I do the exact same thing with my students. The exact same thing. And once you sit down and plan what is your why? The next thing that you need to also ask yourself, how does this apply to something that was occurring today? There is nothing that I teach. There's not one lesson that I am not at some point in that lesson drawing a modern day parallel. So I think that's very important in our lessons. What is your why? How can you prove to your students that this is important? And not because it interests you, but because it's something that they should learn in number two. How can you prove to your students that this is not dead history, this applies to something that is happening today and your neighborhood or in your state? And also I've been argued too, what are the missing voices? If you are telling history using the same old examples, I mean, we have issues. Even when I teach, for example, the civil rights, you know, error in history, I love focusing on the children's crusade because I want my students and I'm teaching to realize that this movement involves people that look like them. Because once I do that, their interests is peaked because they're curious, oh my God, how do people, you know, 16, 15, 14, 13 in some cases, 12 years old have the courage to do what they did and what I have the courage to do that. I love asking those, what would you do kind of questions as well? - I absolutely love that. And one way I often frame into my students is thinking of historical figures intersectionally, right? If identity is an important aspect of American history, then whose stories are we telling, right? And from what perspective? And there's so many good books right now, you know, that we have that share stories from different narratives and perspectives, which are often absent in our textbooks, you know, from whether it's, you know, we had an indigenous people's history of the United States for young people, there's queer histories for young people, there's, you know, I think a black woman's history book for young people. Like there's all these really good books that we could use in classrooms that allow students to go and look like, what are different ways to look at this? And in previous episodes, I've pointed out, for example, just even how historical figures, you know, the ways they frame and thought about events and I won't bring up for the Frederick Douglass examples again, Michael. (laughing) - Dan read the Frederick Douglass biography a couple months ago and has talked about it in every episode, which is great. Just, let me tell you, if you're talking about the David Blight, Frederick Douglass, how huge that book is, I don't blame you, every single podcast that would have arrested a man here, you gotta earn the right to talk about it, 'cause that is a massive book, it's amazing, but I don't even think I'm finished yet. It is just, I'm just kidding. - We'll put it on the show notes for people, it's big, good, as it's with every podcast. - We'll give out my phone number. You can call me day or night and I will talk to you about that book. I have so many different things to talk about and not enough people to talk to about so, but the thing that that book did, which a lot of books do, from history, whether it's the many of the books that you've just mentioned, but the nonfiction and fiction ones, is they really address this master narrative that oftentimes is taught in classrooms, and they get you thinking about real things, right? When you think from different perspectives, particularly the people who are most vulnerable historically, you start, I think, asking different questions about the president too. And so I think that's really cool, the work you're doing in your class and your articles are appropriately titled, it sounds like you've really done a great job of not just going through history, but educating your students to be democratic citizens for more just society stuff. So thanks for your work in the classroom. - Thank you, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. - If you do a seminar at NCSS, I will absolutely be in the front row. You're-- - You got it. I'm doing another one next year. I did one this year and I already signed on to do another one next year, so I'm very much looking forward to it. - Thank you. - Well, and yeah, please put that on Twitter and tag @VisionSevad and we will for sure share that because we wanna go, we can have a meet up there. Hey, maybe we'll all be vaccinated. We'll be together in person, like the world used to be. - I love it. I will definitely do that as soon as I learn how to navigate my way through Twitter. I just joined a couple months ago. (laughs) - And, and tweet. - And you tweeted at this article and like everyone retweeted it that's on the internet. - Yeah, I have to admit for someone that has probably less than maybe three posts because like I said, I'm not the best when it comes to Twitter. I'm getting better with it. I was actually quite-- I was very hesitant to do it. I was like, oh, it's so narcissistic. You know, what am I doing? You know, why am I doing this? And I was like, well, you know, maybe it might help someone. And I was really kind of shocked at just how trending it became. - Dan actually DMed me your tweet, but I had already read the article 'cause I saw the tweet earlier. - Oh, wow, that is awesome. - That is very awesome. - Yeah, we probably would have ended up having you on when we got to that episode, but hey, Twitter encouraged us to have you on-center. And you know what, you haven't gotten kicked off yet. So you're ahead of some people. (laughs) (laughs) - That was hilarious. (laughs) - Okay. Thank you so much, Alicia Butler, our old for talking with us today. - Thank you. I appreciate for being here. Really do. Thank you for the invitation. So where can our listeners find you online? If you wanna share that Twitter handle, you were just talking about. - Yeah, so it is Alicia Butler 19, A-O-Y-S-H-A, Butler 19. - Yeah, thank you so much again for joining us today. We certainly hope to continue the discussion by tweeting at you and also jumping on to the NCSS site and reading that open access article, Michael just pointed out to me that's open access. So we check the show notes, we have the article linked there and you can find it. - Thank you, gentlemen. It's been a pleasure. - Good house. Thank you so much. At the Visions of Education Podcast, we're all about sharing the learning. If you're doing something fun or creative in education or you just want a chat, we're here, tweet us at Visions of Ed. We're also on Facebook sometimes and if you haven't already, and really why haven't you and your, family subscribe divisions of education podcast and Apple podcasts stitch your Spotify Google Play and anywhere you want us to be. And if you write us a five star view, we will read it on the air. Michael read a five star view on the air right now. Excellent. This is from Piper Mo love and learn. I've recently been listening to these podcasts because of a class I am taking and have grown to love it. Each time I listen to one of the podcasts I learn more about the topic and about myself Oh, each podcast feels like personal development and I feel as if this is better equipping me to be a fantastic future educator. Man, that is so nice. Really nice. I feel like I'm going to cry every time you get one of those. Thanks people. That's really nice. So yeah, make us cry. Leave us five star reviews. And if you also would like to give out some props and an email to Zach sites of Wiley High School in the University of North Texas or you can tweet him. He does all the editing for this podcast and we appreciate him. You can find me on Twitter. I'm @DarenKrater. And I'm at 42 feet. Until next time, this is the Vision of Education podcast. Side of go.