In the U.S. February is Black History Month. This month is meant to celebrate Black history and acknowledge the brilliant success and achievements of the Black community. It originated in 1926 when it was called “Negro History Week”. This celebration was sponsored by a group now known as the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). As the Civil Rights movement grew and awareness of racial issues started to spread, “Negro History Week” grew into “Black History Month” and was named an official celebration in 1976 by then U.S. President Gerald Ford. Today, most schools and colleges in America recognize this celebration and include it as part of their curricula, as special courses, activities, and lectures.
As we know, Black History Month is not specifically celebrated in our school. The principles of our curriculum are rooted in the American system of education and based on those of an American school called “Exeter Academy”. As a result, a large amount of GZAAT students end up going to college in the U.S. Therefore, it would seem logical that we would recognize Black History Month just like any other American school would. That said, most of the students and teachers at our school are Georgian and don’t have the direct connection to Black history as their American counterparts do. As a Georgian school, it is significant that we devote time in our courses to learn about Georgian culture and history. So, the question is: should we recognize Black History Month in our school, and if so, how should this be done? It is hard to come to a steady and fixed answer without collecting some data.
With this in mind, I created a survey for the students. I emailed a form to all students currently enrolled at GZAAT in which I asked them to answer a series of questions about Black History Month. Here are some results:
As can be seen, a large percentage of the students who responded want Black History Month to be celebrated in our school. These results were quite surprising to History teacher Levan Ghambashidze, however, once I explained that only around 60 students filled out the form, his reaction changed. Levan argued that most of the students who filled out this form are most likely students who are active and educated about such topics. He believes the results would be different if every single one of the school students filled out this survey. Mr. Levan believes that celebrating Black History Month is not essential at our school: “I think that every kid from our school, if they go through the whole process of education at GZAAT, will feel comfortable in any part of the world because our school guarantees to push ideas which will not lead to oppression and discrimination.”
Mr. Levan would rather devote such a large amount of time to talking about certain issues that affect Georgian students’ and teachers’ lives more directly than something like Black History, for example, religious diversity.
Lasha Bezhanishvili, also part of the History Department, is more open to devoting time to acknowledge Black History Month: “I think it would be nice if kids made posters and drawings to hang around the school.” When I asked him if he would be willing to add this month to his curriculum he said, “If I were to add this celebration and make it part of my curriculum, I would assign a small project that would take around 2-3 days. Nothing major.”
Gvantsa Zhuruli, a member of the English department, has a slightly different point of view. She says: “I think it would be great if we were to start such traditions where we acknowledge and talk about diversity in Georgia and then go to Black History Month. This would be more genuine because these kids first live in Georgia and they need to celebrate and acknowledge our diversity here. First, they have to recognize the discrimination that they live with and experience daily. Just by reading fiction, I don’t think they truly feel the essence of certain problems, because we don’t talk enough about the discrimination that we live with right now. So I think it would be a great tradition [Black History Month] but I don’t think it should be the only cultural heritage month that we acknowledge.”As we can see, the answers amongst the teachers vary. However, it is possible to come to a general conclusion that the teachers would rather devote a larger amount of time to educating students about local issues that affect the students directly and are present in Georgia today, before moving on to more global/international issues.
To get more insight, I asked some students their opinions as well. Mariam Kvaratskhelia (10th Grade) says: “I think it’s crucial to teach Black history to all students and I don’t have as much knowledge as I’d like to, so I’d be happy if it was incorporated in our classes. This being said, I wish it wasn’t admitted to just one month because it’s a very important part of world history.”
Another student, Giselle Rein-Hagen (8th Grade), says something similar: “I think that in other American schools located outside of America they probably celebrate this month. As I know our school celebrates a lot of things that other Georgian schools don’t necessarily celebrate but foreign schools do. Besides, Black History Month is a really important celebration and even though it’s not necessarily linked to Georgian history, I still think that it’s really important to acknowledge it.”
Some students’ perspectives differ from those of the teachers. Then again, to know for sure and have full and accurate results, every student and teacher in the school would have to be interviewed individually. However, based on the data that we currently have, the teachers would consider recognizing Black History Month in some capacity, and a small, but outspoken, group of students would strongly support this decision.
Edited by Mariam Begiashvili
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