It is Black History Month. Instead of celebrating Black excellence and Black achievement, people are in knots over Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis banning the Advanced Placement African American Studies course. Now, Arkansas, North Dakota, Mississippi, and Virginia are reviewing the course for concerns. Nothing that is happening in Florida or any other state should interfere with anyone’s ability to teach Black history, which is American history.

The first teacher is the parent. As my fellow Indy K12 writer Andrew Pillow recently mentioned, there is not enough time in the year for teachers to cover every subject. As a former English teacher, there were so many lessons I wanted to cover, but there wasn’t time. I would give my students information on what they could learn more about in the summer and hope they did.

Teachers teach standards. When I am writing lesson plans, those lessons are part of units. Those units live inside of academic quarters and semesters. During my planing, I think about how I have exposed my students to diverse content and views while teaching the standards.

I have asked myself questions like this:

• Do I have a balance of male and female perspectives?
• Do I have a balance of content from people from different racial backgrounds?
• Do I have a balance of perspectives from people in America and outside of America?
• Do I have a balance of perspectives from people at the state level and from the city and even community level?

I ask myself questions like this throughout the school year. When a person tries to accuse me of pushing some narrative, I can easily show that I am providing students with a well-rounded education and then I can get back to the business of teaching.

Here is my biggest issue. Why are we spending more time on what people are canceling than on making sure we are providing solid instruction with diverse perspectives?

All some of y’all know how to do is protest. You protest every little thing but can’t execute a solution on a damn thing.

Yes, I will continue to call out issues, but I am tired (so tired) of my time being consumed by issues. I am more concerned about ensuring students are learning. They can learn Black history. They should learn Black history. They will learn Black history if more time is focused on providing a balanced, well-rounded curriculum instead of burning energy fighting with fools.