This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting. Click here to view all the items in this series.
In this episode we continue our series on the intersection of race and parenting, which we started with Dr. Margaret Hagerman on the topic of White privilege in parenting; then we covered White privilege in schools with Dr. Allison Roda and what parents can do to overcome structural racism as well as talk with their children about race with Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum.
Today we’re continuing the series by learning from Dr. John Bickford about how to actually have a conversation with our child on a topic as complex and difficult as slavery or the Civil Rights Movement, using both primary sources and children’s ‘trade’ books.
During the episode you’ll hear Dr. Bickford and I hatch an idea to develop a resource guide for parents on exactly what sources and books to use to make sure you’re discussing the right issues within these topics: download the guide below!
References:
Bauer, M.D. (2009). Martin Luther King, Jr. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Bickford, J.H., & Rich, C.W. (2014). Examining the representation of slavery within children’s literature. Social Studies Research and Practice 9(1), 66-94.
Bickford, J.H., & Rich, C.W. (2015). The historical representation of Thanksgiving within primary- and intermediate-level children’s literature. Journal of Children’s Literature 41(1), 5-21.
Bickford, J.H. (2015). Assessing and addressing historical misrepresentations within children’s literature about the Civil Rights Movement. The History Teacher 48(4), 693-736.
Bickford, J.H., & Schuette, L.N. (2016). Trade books’ historical representation of the Black Freedom Movement, slavery through civil rights. Journal of Children’s Literature 42(1), 20-43.
Bickford, J. (2018). Primary elementary students’ historical literacy, thinking, and argumentation about Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. The History Teacher 51(2), 269-292.
Marzollo, J., & Pinkney, J.B. (1993). Happy Birthday Martin Luther King. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Southern Poverty Law Center (2019). Anti-racism activity: ‘The Sneetches.’ Author. Retrieved from https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/antiracism-activity-the-sneetches
Southern Poverty Law Center (2019). Classroom simulations: Proceed with caution. Author. Retrieved from https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2008/classroom-simulations-proceed-with-caution
Jen: 00:01:44
Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Regular listeners will recall that we've been talking about the Intersection of Race and Parenting for a while now. We opened by talking with Dr. Margaret Hagerman on the topic of White Privilege and Parenting. And then we heard from Dr. Allison Roda on White Privilege in Schools. In our third episode, one of my listeners, Dr. Kim Rybacki and I interviewed Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum. And we tried really hard to cover a lot of ground on both what parents can do to overcome structural racism and on how to talk with our children about race. But I was very cognizant of the stones that we left unturned that I really wish we had time to address. Now, I reached out to today's guest because I wanted to better understand his work on how historical figures are depicted in children's literature. And he responded, I should be on your show.
Jen: 00:02:31
And after I read his papers, I said, yes, you should. So, Dr. John Bickford is here with us today. I just wanted to mention though that I'm rerecording this introduction because you'll hear in the conversation that we formulated an idea to develop some resources to help parents talk with their children about difficult topics like slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. And we actually went ahead and did that. So, each one is a short PDF that walks you through primary sources were these exist on each topic as well as a collection of children's books. You’ll hear Dr. Bickford refer to these as trade books and if it's been awhile since you studied history, then primary sources or things like photographs and posters of slave auctions and audio recordings of former slaves, which you might not normally consider as things to share with young children.
Jen: 00:03:13
But which Dr. Bickford has actually done very successfully. So, the thing that makes these resources unique is that they use frameworks developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center for teaching young children about these topics. So, it's not just a random collection of books and pictures and videos that we thought were interesting, but together they address what scholars believe to be the most important ideas on each topic. Things like the fact that enslaved people brought rich cultures and traditions with them that continue today and that the Civil Rights Movement was pushed forward by many, many concerted efforts and not just by Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Primary sources do exist for a lot of these ideas, but where we couldn't find any, we supplemented with interesting secondary sources like videos. So, if you subscribed to the show through my website, you'll already have received these resources and the email about this podcast episode.
Jen:00:04:02
If you subscribed through a podcasting platform like iTunes or Stitcher, then I don't have a way to get this to you, but you can head over to this episode's page at YourParentingMojo.com/TeachingRace to download these resources. So, back to the interview, Dr. Bickford received his Bachelor's Degree in History, his Master's Degree in Secondary Education and his Ph.D. in Social Studies Education all from the University of Iowa. And he's now Associate Professor at Eastern Illinois University where he teaches How to Teach Social Studies at the elementary and middle school levels. His research focuses on how social studies and history education is taught at these levels, how students think about history as well as historical misrepresentations within children's literature. And today we're going to discuss a ton of resources to help us teach children about topics related to race. Welcome Dr. Bickford.
Dr. Bickford: 00:04:51
Thank you for having me.
Jen:00:04:53
All right. So, we've started each episode in this series by both me and my guests stating our privileges. And so my guests have heard mine a number of times right now. So, I'm going to state these quickly. These are my Whiteness, my economic status and the upper middle class, heterosexuality, able-bodiedness and my education. And I was actually also reminded by one of my Instagram followers last night that I should acknowledge the native Americans on whose land I sit, and those are the Chochenyo Ohlone. And I actually pay the Shuumi Tax, which is a donation that's acknowledgement of this land used to belong to these people and was taken from them. So, I wonder if you could begin by telling us some of your privileges, please.
Dr. Bickford:
