Courses to teach black history proposed for Durham Public Schools, Duke

New efforts to teach black history may be coming to Durham Public Schools and the Duke curriculum.

Paul Scott, a local minister and founder of the Messianic Afrikan Nation, called for black history elective courses to be taught at all Durham middle schools and for black history to be a graduation requirement for high school students at a recent meeting of the Durham school board. Scott said he hopes that learning about black history in school will give black students a greater sense of self-identity, increase student engagement and reduce violence in black youth.

“[Teaching black history] has been an idea that has been presented in Durham for more than 20 years,” Scott said. “But now in the climate of Black Lives Matter, a lot of people are saying that black history matters as well.”

Scott’s proposal was supported by Durham residents Cheryl Smith and Anita Keith-Foust and former school board member and city councilwoman Jackie Wagstaff, who also spoke at the meeting.

Heidi Carter, chair of the school board, noted that many Durham schools already have electives that relate to minority studies and black history, although they are not currently mandatory.

“I think it’s an excellent idea for our students to be more aware of African American people,” Carter said. “Our students and society in general could benefit from a better understanding of race and studies about race.”

She said she did not know whether the best way to increase understanding would be through a single required course, or through integration of black history into the general curriculum. Carter also noted that new mandatory courses would require additional resources, which the state likely would not provide.

“An ongoing challenge is adequate funding for all the classes that we would like to provide,” Carter said.

Durham Public Schools announced Thursday that it will likely have to cut 140 positions in order to offset a funding shortfall.

Scott said he did not think monetary concerns should matter.

“There have been budget cuts before,” Scott said. “I don’t think it’s going to affect African history [courses]. We hope that people will see the urgency of African American history in the classroom, budget cuts or not.”

Scott explained that he did not believe that the courses he proposed would require greater staffing. He plans to continue reaching out to local officials, candidates for local school boards across North Carolina and the North Carolina State Board of Education to advocate for his plan.

Scott noted his efforts aim to combat the erasure of black history and make Durham a leader in its instruction.

“Durham has such a rich [black] history... We think that Durham can be the mecca for promoting black history in the classroom,” he said.

Efforts to increase racial awareness in education have also impacted Duke’s ongoing curriculum review process.

The Duke Experience course—one of four possible new requirements proposed in a framework laid out by the Imagining Duke Curriculum Committee to the Arts and Sciences Council—might include a theme such as race and inequality.

Junior Tara Bansal, Duke Student Government vice president for academic affairs, has worked with administration and faculty and organized focus groups to plan for the Duke Experience.

“In a lot of primary and secondary schools, black history is often edited or cut out, so I think that we don’t have as comprehensive of an understanding about what diversity means,” Bansal said. “I think that we should have a bigger emphasis on minority culture and really learning about what [diversity] means in the context of Duke, Durham and the United States.”

The proposed Duke Experience course would be a 10-month, team-taught flipped format class that would aim to provide a common experience for incoming students, with smaller seminar style discussions and larger lectures. It may also include different pathways, such as statistics or philosophy, to expose students to broader opportunities at Duke. The idea was met with contention from faculty when initially proposed at the Arts and Sciences Council meeting Jan. 14.