ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – The landscape of Black history education in Florida has been shifting, with teachers adapting their lesson plans to align with new state standards.
In 2023, Florida updated its Black history standards to include instruction on how enslaved people developed skills that could be applied for their benefit. Despite public outcry, these standards remain part of the 2024 curriculum.
At Tocoi Creek High School, students enter a classroom ready to learn about Black history.
Jake Lankford, a Holocaust and African American history teacher at the school, emphasizes the importance of educating students during their formative years.
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“These kids are essentially learning that African Americans played a very crucial role to this nation, anywhere from building it up to defending it to anything like that. They need to know those key individuals. They need to know those major achievements that they had,” Lankford said.
Music also contributes to teaching Black history. Cyriac Adjevi, a local music teacher, incorporates lessons on Motown and its significance during the civil rights movement.
“I teach about Motown, and I also teach about how that became a big deal during that time of segregation, where the civil rights movement was going on. So I always teach about how there’s something socially like a social issue that was going on at that point and how they tried to rise from that issue,” Adjevi explained.
In 2023, Florida’s education standards for social studies were updated, including a controversial line about enslaved people developing skills for personal benefit.
This aspect of the standards that has sparked outrage applies to grades 6 through 8. However, Lankford notes that these standards do not affect his high school classes.
“What you’re going to find is most of the honors courses for African American history in our state, they’re pretty much the same, just with an actual standard skeleton now, so teachers actually have stuff to go over that the state puts out that I don’t really see too much of an issue with because at the high school level, it’s pretty much business as usual,” Lankford said.
Adjevi aims to stay true to state standards while honoring Black history in his teachings.
“Teaching students about different styles of music is such a big deal because veering back to jazz, spiritual, gospel and R&B, just those types of music, those types of genres of music play a big role within how we implement them into modern day music as well too,” Adjevi said.
In Lankford’s class, students engage in interactive lessons about important figures in Black history. He believes this approach is crucial for maintaining student engagement.
“If you can’t hold kids' engagement, they’re not going to learn anything. The main thing that kids desire from their educational experience today is to have it relate to them,” Lankford said. “Can I teach these kids something that they’re going to benefit from or take away from, or that can add to their cultural experience of the world? Yeah, I think so.”
Lankford ensures his teaching approach is balanced, covering both the challenges and achievements in Black history.
“Yes, we have to teach about racism. Yes, we have to teach about economic inequality and systemic oppression. But there’s way more to black history than just talking about the problems,” he emphasized. “You got to celebrate all these achievements that they’ve done throughout our nation’s history. You got to celebrate the resilience for making it through that time of enslavement and empowering themselves through things like the civil rights movement.”
He believes this balanced approach can be healing and prepares students to be better global citizens.
“If we can really show students that these things matter more than the hatred and the prejudice that was caused, then I think we really are setting them up to be better global citizens that can compete in an international world,” Lankford said.
Reflecting on the importance of teaching history, Lankford added, “If we don’t teach history, it tends to repeat itself. That’s what I have to say about that.”