Week Three Reading

"The truth may hurt for a little while, 

but a lie hurts forever."

This topic on teaching students the actual facts about what is going on or what happened in history is very controversial. I for once am stuck as to which side exactly I agree with the most. As a quote I once heard, “the truth may hurt for a little while, but a lie hurts forever.” Now I am not quite sure as to where or from whom I heard this quote, but I do believe it fits perfectly with this week’s topic. Some people including myself believe that telling kids in general, real world things is horrible. That they should be happy as ever while they are young, but truth is, life is not this perfect place that we want children to believe. Back then there was much violence, yes, but now and days there is also much violence that is not only being heard of but also broadcasted literally anywhere it can be broadcasted. The sad part about that is that children have access to everything now and days and can and will see and know all there is out there one way or another so is there really a point in hiding or not telling all of the truth?

Students, well people in general, have the right to know anything and everything they are being told about or not being told about. Why would anyone want to be “slapped” on the face with just new information that in reality is not new. For example, in this week’s reading, I was very shocked and eventually felt dumb as I read The Politics of Children’s Literature: What’s Wrong with the Rosa Parks Myth. When I was younger, say in middle school, I had an extreme passion in learning anything to deal with African American’s who played a huge role in history such as: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and a personal favorite Ruby Bridges. In middle school there was this huge assignment that had to be done by all sixth grades where we would “study” someone and basically become that person for our “show and tell” to the school. Of course my person was Ruby Bridges and now after reading this article by Herbert Kohl, what if all my information was and is now false? Although my teacher had to check our work, what if he just brushed things off like all my past teacher have done? I was very shocked to know now that I had my facts wrong in regards to Rosa Parks and the bus incident. No-one had thought me that Rosa Parks was not only a seamstress. No-one had thought me that Rosa Parks sat in the first row of the designated section she was to sit at. If I now feel less smart even when I had “done my research” this is just a huge slap on the face.

Now on the flip side to this, I also believe that students should be in a way protected in a way. I am not a mother, but I am an aunt to nine, which I love as my own. As a student teacher, I now see things in a different perspective in seeing how I can better my nieces and nephews education, but sometimes it is intact hard because of that motherly instinct I have. One of my nephews is in kindergarten and one day I asked how was school and what did he learn on that day (typical conversation). At the time Martin Luther King Jr. day was slowly approaching so I had pre planned our conversation knowing that he was probably learning about Martin Luther King Jr. With that being said, yes he did in fact knew who Martin Luther King Jr. was but what I was not expecting him to know was that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Why does a four year old need to know this? Yes, it happened and it should be known but for a four year old to know what and how that happened is just very wrong in my eyes.

The point of this is that yes students should know the whole truth but at a certain time when it is best appropriate and with careful wording.