Catherine Terry

SPSY 502

Professor Twyford

September 15, 2022

Reflection 2

The topics we covered in the last class have encouraged me to start applying critical

thinking questions to other aspects of my life, which I’m enjoying. The questions that I’m

thinking about and using the most are “who benefits from this way of thinking?” and “ who is

hurt or excluded by this way of thinking?”. I liked the point that Chantell brought up in class

about how in elementary school, we often start learning about black people through the lens of

slavery, which erases so much of who they were beforehand. I had a conversation about it with

my boyfriend because I realized that's how my experience was in elementary school and even to

this day I don’t know any concrete history about pre-slavery black people. My boyfriend is a

huge history nerd so he knew a lot about what was happening in Africa and gave me some

insight, and also brought up that slavery was around far before American colonization. At the

beginning of the discussion, he thought that it made sense that pre-slavery history wasn’t taught

because it wasn’t as relevant or impactful on American growth or culture as European

civilizations were at the time. From his point of view, there is limited time to teach everything in

school, so it makes sense to focus on what is most relevant to America’s history.

Having this conversation made me ask questions and think about “who decided what was

relevant and irrelevant to America’s growth and development as a nation?” and “why is

pre-slavery African history and culture not considered important even though their labor IS the

backbone of so many developed countries?” Thinking about this pulls my mind in many different
directions, and it's hard to come to a clear understanding as to what the most equitable answer

would be. It’s also making me think about the role of emotions in critical thinking because the

readings tell us to operate based on facts rather than emotions and opinions, but don’t we need to

consider people’s feelings when making decisions that impact others? Even if teaching

pre-slavery African history and culture has been decided to be less relevant, do we have a moral

obligation to teach it regardless to help subtract from that educational and historical debt that is

on America’s shoulders?