Context is Everything

In the early 1970s ethnic studies classes for high school students were less controversial than today. The term “critical race theory” wasn’t used yet and most of these classes were merely an attempt to tell the truth no matter how difficult or ugly. People were ready. Inclusion was long overdue. 

Working in a school district with high percentages of black and brown students, I inherited a program called “Minority History.” 

This was a one-year course divided into two semesters. The first was an entire semester devoted to black history. The second semester featured teaching units on Native American history,  Mexican American history, Asian American history, and units on Women’s history. Women, as a minority group, was an early attempt to develop and teach a curriculum that dealt with sexism as well as racism. 

I found myself in charge of this program because it originally belonged to the woman I student taught under and because I was a recent College grad with an undergraduate major at UCLA in African American studies. That was based on the first Black history and literature courses offered there. It garnered some notoriety because the celebrated athlete Kareem Abdul Jabber was also in those classes.

While my supervising teacher left me resources and access to her curriculum, I was free to enhance what existed and develop my own as well. A major theme in my course was the relationship between concepts like image, identity, and power. While I had done a fair amount of research on African, Mexican, and Asian Americans, it was difficult to find usable resources dealing with Women. The second wave of the feminist movement was in its infancy then, but materials were being developed urgently. 

I’d gone to a workshop sponsored by the California Council for the Social Studies and picked up some ideas. The woman who led the workshop presented a slide show focused on images of women in literature. Included were some images from First-grade readers. Many of us present that day learned to read with Dick and Jane books. Looking at some of the images that day, after 25 years or so, we easily saw how sex roles were developed and reinforced. The following week I went to the curriculum library at the School of Education at UC Berkeley, where I‘d graduated the year before. I did not find Dick and Jane, however, I did find a more contemporary reader called Janet and Mark. 

As I scanned the pages, my jaw dropped.  Some things became painfully obvious.  Whenever Janet and Mark rode in the car with their parents, the males were in the front seat and the females in the backseat. When Janet wanted to do something independently, she made a cake with her mom "for Daddy." Mark, however, declares in another chapter "I want to make something. I can make something good."  He then proceeds to put together a car from an old wooden box and some wheels he finds lying around. Very skilled and independent is the message. But the coup de gras comes in a story where Mark is shooting baskets at a hoop mounted on the garage. This driveway setup is identical to what millions of kids have and remember. They can easily relate to the graphics. When Mark finally lets Janet take a shot, she throws up an air ball, (missing the backboard entirely) As Janet shoots, the text reads, “Up up, up and down.” The accompanying graphic is Mark laughing, covering his mouth with his hand. When Janet refuses another attempt because she has been shamed, the graphic shows Mark pointing at her while the text reads, "She is just like a girl, she gives up."  I swear that is exactly what it says on the printed page. This sexism is so blatant that it’s difficult, even now, to see how this book made it to publication. 

The following week I put together 35 copies of this story from a First-grade reader and used them in my classes. My students were just as shocked as I had been. We had great discussions about the consequences of these visual images and messages. Others reported that Janet and Mark were the book they learned to read with. 

A few weeks later, a rumor got back to me that I thought so little of my student's skills and abilities that I resorted to First Grade reading level material in my classes. Again, my jaw dropped. Obviously, my use of Janet and Mark had needed to be understood. Again, my classes and I discussed this new issue. In retrospect, I suspect a parent may have seen one of the story copies in their student’s notebook and assumed the worst. Context is everything.