Mario Radisic worked as a musician (guitarist, singer, songwriter and DJ) in Berlin for several years and still has his band. He has been an English and ethics teacher at the Waldorf school in Haan-Gruiten, Germany, for the last 12 years. For the past six years he has also been active in teacher education and has given workshops at English Week in Altenberg, Germany, and at the Waldorf teacher colleges in Stuttgart and Kassel, Germany.

Email. mario_radisic@hotmail.com

 

Abstract

This article outlines a unit comprising about 15 lessons on the Civil Rights Movement in the US in class 10. The focus is on authentic material from the 1950s and 60s.

 

Standing up for your rights

“Can you remember a time when you had to stand up for your rights?” This I asked students studying to be language teachers at the Freie Hochschule in Stuttgart, Germany when I explained how I teach the Civil Rights Movement in a unit focusing on the history of the United States. The first answer came from a Russian woman: “In the presidential elections we were told to vote for a specific president in our student dorm. I refused and called different people at the municipality until I was granted my right to vote.” Another answer came from a woman from Cameroon: “In Cameroon you don’t stand up for your rights if you don’t want to end up dead.” A German student said, “Actually, I’ve never had to stand up for my rights because there was no need to. I feel very privileged to be able to say this.” I told my pupils at school about this memorable encounter when we started working on the Civil Rights Movement in class 10.

My pupils generally know about movements like Black Lives Matter or Fridays for Future. However, they know very little about their historical background. This is why I devote enough time to the Civil Rights Movement in the US to really understand different dimensions of this topic and I try to offer a rich variety of original materials. On the one hand, that allows individual responses according to each pupil’s personal disposition and, on the other hand, the emphasis on music reflects my passion as a musician.

Speaking another language always means seeing and experiencing the world from another point of view. The different kinds of texts in this unit offer multiple perspectives on this topic and invite students to understand the struggle against inequality through the eyes of the people who experienced the Civil Rights Movement during Martin Luther King’s lifetime.

I have always been skeptical of trying to relate too artificially to our pupils’ living environment, for example, by asking them to write text messages to imaginary friends. I believe that there are topics and texts, especially for the upper school, that address fundamental issues of our being in this world in ways that go far deeper than contrived imitations of everyday practices. So I do not only teach this topic because of its cultural importance, but I think it is also relevant to young people for the development of their own identities and therefore self-motivating. Certainly, hearing about these three students in Stuttgart really moved my pupils and it was fruitful to talk about what it means to live in different political situations.

 

Music at the beginning of each lesson

I usually start my lessons with a song I generally accompany on the guitar, songs mostly from the 1950s or 60s because I love the music from that era and I am convinced that it is more rewarding for my pupils to learn songs they do not know than reproducing songs they know inside out anyway. In the context of this topic it is especially suitable as music played an important role in the first years of the Civil Rights Movement. There is a huge variety of amazing songs that you can sing in your lessons. The first songs I sing in this unit are very simple versions of gospels: “Wade in the Water”, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child “and “I Wanna Die Easy When I Die”. We talk about the "coded" biblical language and some of the pupils know the story of Moses who led the Israelites through the parted Red Sea ("…God‘s gonna trouble the water"). So we discuss how this story relates to the experience of black slaves singing these songs and expressing their hope of a better future. To me, it is always astonishing how deeply immersed my classes are in the singing of these songs. The music is very old and the texts are even older but still (or for that reason?) the songs seem to connect to a deeper level in their consciousness—there is no other way to describe the reverence in the room when we sing these gospels.

Sometimes I wonder if singing these songs is a form of cultural appropriation. To be honest, I am not sure. But I prefer to see it as a way of paying homage.

 

Step 1: Introduction/Lead-In

How would you introduce the Civil Rights Movement topic? If you used an image or images as a lead-in, what kind of image do you think would be helpful?

I have discussed these questions with colleagues on several occasions and some of them suggested images of slaves on a cotton field in the south of the U.S. Although that would certainly give a background to what is to follow, I personally find a reproduction of images of black people as victims highly problematic. In an impressive interview with the documentary filmmaker Claude Lanzmann about his film Shoah (1985), which is the best documentary about the Holocaust that I know, he explained that he did not use images of people in concentration camps because he thought that it robbed them of their dignity. Dignity is a word that plays an important role when you talk about the struggle for basic human rights, but it is a word that is hard to explain. Understanding it through images and stories is easier.

So when I came across a book review in The New York Times which referred to Frederick Douglass as being the most photographed person in the 19th century in the U.S., I immediately ordered the book (Stauffer et al., 2015) and decided to start my unit with different photographs from different stages of his life.

I do not explain who Frederick Douglass was before showing my pupils the photographs, but I ask them to write descriptions of them. Some of the words they usually use are "serious", "stylish", "intelligent", "impressive", "thoughtful", "proud", "good-looking". Then I explain that Frederick Douglass escaped slavery and became a leader of the Abolitionist movement, famous for his oratory and antislavery writings. I ask them why they think it was important for him to frequently have his photograph taken until the end of his life. They understand that there were certain images of black people that did not match the image that Frederick Douglass’s photographs evoke and it is fascinating to discuss photography as a medium in this particular context.

Even though the introduction works, I sometimes ask myself if the connection to the Civil Rights Movement is a bit abstract. I am sure there are other ways to open the space for what is to come.

 

Step 2: An autobiographical text by Martin Luther King

The first text we read is an excerpt from a collection of autobiographical texts by Martin Luther King (King, 2000). It describes the incident of Rosa Parks’ arrest and how it led to the Montgomery bus boycott, which was the first huge success of the Civil Rights Movement. The text is a beautiful example of Martin Luther King‘s poetic language and at the same time his explanation of the incident offers a deep insight into the humiliating circumstances that sparked the fight to abolish segregation and racism in the US. You can imagine that the level of the text is far above most of the texts my pupils have read up to that point. So it is not only crucial to ask the right questions but also to illustrate different parts of the text and explain others. For example, I draw a bus on the blackboard and ask them to use it to explain what they understood from the text about the segregation in the busses. Also using the drawing, I show them that black people were not allowed to sit on seats in the “white” section even if it was empty and all the seats in the “black” section were taken and how black people had to give up their seats for white people if a white person asked them to do so. I also show them how black people first paid their fares at the front of the bus, then had to get off the bus to go through the back door at the rear of the bus and drivers sometimes just took off without that passenger. You can imagine how these accounts of humiliating practices are perceived by pupils (their own commuting experiences make it easy to understand for them) — and that is why it is important to take the time to explain and visualize the situations as clearly as possible. Usually, most Waldorf teachers I know try not to use comprehension questions as tasks in high school because they are a mere reproduction of a text. I too prefer open questions that invite individual answers. However, in this context I also find it very important and worthwhile for each pupil to express the key moments Dr King describes in this text in their own words. For instance, it is not easy to translate his poetic description of why he thinks Rosa Parks decided not to give up her seat after a long and strenuous working day because the “cup of endurance” had run over as a result of a universal longing for freedom. It is always interesting to see how Dr King’s language is ‘translated’ into my pupils’ understanding of what we have talked about. In short, a set of carefully chosen comprehension questions as their homework helps to set the stage for the next lesson.

 

Step 3: Soundtrack for a Revolution

The next lesson starts with gospels and a revision of the previous lesson by pupils reading out their homework (i.e. their answers to the comprehension questions).

Then we start watching “Soundtrack for a Revolution”, which is a documentary film about the Civil Rights Movement (Guttentag & Sturman, 2009). The documentary combines interviews with witnesses, footage of the different protests and each chapter is accompanied by famous contemporary artists playing the key songs of that period, the ‘soundtrack’ for the revolution. Directly before we start the documentary, I ask my pupils to take notes when we pause the documentary to understand what we have seen. After each lesson, I ask them to write a summary of what we have watched.

The language of the interviews and especially the original footage is extremely challenging for pupils, but the images help them to understand the main ideas.

At the beginning of the documentary an excerpt from a TV programme from the fifties explains how the “problem” of a growing black population in Mississippi has been “solved” by segregation in large parts of public life and these explanations are accompanied by a jolly orchestral piece. This excerpt is not only helpful to understand the idea of systemic racism, but it is also revealing how the music in that excerpt shows that discrimination was accepted and even endorsed by large parts of the population. Asking my pupils about the role of the music in that excerpt raises interesting questions about forms of manipulation with music.

Then the documentary explains why Martin Luther King went to Montgomery and we see images of the ensuing bus boycott, which makes it a perfect follow-up to Dr King’s autobiographical text. The second chapter of the documentary starts with the footage of a group of protesters singing “Wade in the Water”, which connects the documentary to our own singing of the song. Many of the creative forms of nonviolent protest from the mid-fifties until the late sixties are described but also the violence which the protesters endured is shown in different ways. However, the violent protests that were fuelled by the murder of Martin Luther King are not mentioned in this documentary and it is difficult to find suitable material for a class 10 to talk about the complex developments of these years.

It is always remarkable to see how much my pupils understand, and in their written reports I am always astonished by the accuracy of poignant quotes they include — these quotes obviously touch a nerve. All these texts are rewritten individually at the end of the unit to form an overview of the Civil Rights Movement in the US.

 

Step 4: Bob Dylan and his protest songs

Bob Dylan is well known for the iconic protest songs that he wrote in the early sixties. He sang some of these songs at events related to the Civil Rights Movement, most notably the March on Washington before Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Usually we will have started singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” a few lessons before we start this part of the unit. Thus, the pupils know a little bit of his music by the time we start working with some of his songs.

I have chosen three of these protest songs to deepen their understanding of the underlying structures of racism in the US at that time: “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol”, “Only a Pawn in Their Game” and “Oxford Town”. To begin with, we listen to the songs together. Then I ask them to do some research on the songs in groups. Some of the tasks focus on the lyrics as such, some on the events that the lyrics relate to, i.e. the murders of Hattie Carol and Medgar Evers, as well as the incidents surrounding the enrolment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.

It is hard to explain to people who are not subjected to it what systemic racism is but these songs by Bob Dylan really help to explore the structures that lie behind the terrible violence that racism generates. In the second verse of “Only a Pawn in Their Game” Dylan sings,

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

The conversations we have when the groups present their results are very illuminating. And the “game” in which underprivileged working class people are being used as “pawns” for “the politician’s gain” has, in my opinion, not really changed much since Bob Dylan wrote that song in 1963.

 

Step 5: Overview of the early years of the Civil Rights Movement

The next part of the unit is a timeline of important events of the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. It is a chance to add a few events that are not mentioned in the documentary and also gives the pupils a clearer idea of when these different incidents actually occurred.

 

Step 6: I Have a Dream

Reading and watching Martin Luther King’s most famous speech constitutes the last part of this unit. I celebrate it by copying it as an A4 booklet with a front and back cover. It is important to me to read and explain the whole speech before we watch it because I do not want them to focus on the content but on Dr King’s presence in the video. Fortunately, my pupils grasp the beauty of the speech and even though I need to explain a lot of the allusions to the American Constitution and some of the biblical references, there is still a very solemn mood throughout the reading. I read the speech aloud to them and I try to ask as few questions as possible in order to maintain the necessary flow. After reading the speech we watch it together and it is a very intense experience. By now we all know the struggle that led to that exceptional demonstration with Dr King’s speech as its most memorable climax.

After this lesson the pupils have one week to rewrite all the texts they have written so far into an overview of the Civil Rights Movement in the US and hand it in in a folder with a cover they design themselves. It is not an easy task because they have to understand the chronology of the events and decide which details matter in the structure they choose. The final results are always very diverse and it is astonishing how many of the pupils develop a very personal voice in their descriptions.

 

Why do we teach what we teach?

Obviously, we have to feel comfortable with the choice of material and other teachers will look for a focus that suits them and their classes. As I said before, we talk a lot about authentic material that is relevant to our pupils in EFL (English as a Foreign Language). And for me it comes down to the question which topics really matter to the students we teach (themes they can identify with and also themes that they bring –in response to the actual questions they have) and what content we can actually authentically embody ourselves as the ones who teach.

Talking about the Civil Rights Movement in the US has always been an astonishing experience for me. Fighting for one’s fundamental rights and improving the situation through this struggle is something our pupils can relate to and seeing and experiencing this struggle in words and images can be very powerful: Working with topics that offer ideas on how to to fight the injustices of society and to actually contribute to changing the world for the better can give them a feeling of empowerment. And that is something that can give them support and orientation and thus enable them to meaningfully participate in the complex and challenging times they are born into.

 

References

Guttentag, B. & Sturman, D. (Director). (2009). Soundtrack for a revolution. Freedom Song Productions.

King, M. L., & Carson, C. (2000). The autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Abacus.

Stauffer, J., Trodd, Z., Bernier, C.-M. (2015). Picturing Frederick Douglass: An illustrated biography of the nineteenth century's most photographed American. Liveright.

 

Please check the Pilgrims f2f courses at Pilgrims website.

Please check the Pilgrims online courses at Pilgrims website