Source Analysis #2: Teaching Hard History (Podcast: Episode 4, Season 2)

The Teaching Hard History Podcast: Episode 4, Season 2 discusses that when teaching elementary-age children about slavery many avoid explaining oppression and only focus on heroic figures. If students do not learn about slavery during early grades this may cause consequences for the rest of their education and educational experience. Dr. Kate Shuster provides an essential guide to navigate through the new Teaching Hard History K-5 framework from Learning for Justice. This framework is further discussed by a few elementary teachers who have already started to implement the framework within their classrooms.

The purpose of this source is to talk about how slavery is a hard piece of history to teach elementary-age children, which isn’t a reason to not teach slavery or even skip out pieces about slavery. The framework that was discussed acts as a guideline for teachers to utilize and implement in their classrooms.

This source helps us understand that our problem is rooted in the fact that many people don’t learn about slavery at all or enough during their elementary-age career. The framework created by Dr. Kate Shuster acts as an essential guide to how to teach an approach slavery to a K-5 audience.

This source is important to us because it shows what resource we can use to effectively address slavery to elementary-aged children.