In this article, the authors present three alternatives to the traditional instructional approaches to Black history education at the elementary level: family stories/oral histories, counter-storytelling, and chronological overlaying. They provide a description of the Black Historical Consciousness framework, connect theories that fit within this framework to explain our pedagogical recommendations, and share instructional approaches.
This article offers examples of classroom texts as vehicles for teaching each BHC principle as encouragement for teaching Black histories long beyond Black History Month. For summaries of the texts suggested in this article, see the Pullout in this issue, which pairs each Black Historical Consciousness principle with children’s books and ideas for further investigation.
These text recommendations support multiple principles of King’s Black Historical Consciousness in elementary classrooms long beyond Black History Month.
In this article, the author reflects on his early moments as an educator and the harsh realities he faced, and shares his journey of the change he embraced and enacted.