Black Studies:
Summary:
The purpose of this class is to educate students on the history of African people and slavery. We will expose false history on the topic. We will focus on African slavery and migration in the “New World”, but also touch other places around the world as well. Not only will we talk about the history of slavery but we will also address the psychological, societal, govermental and overal modern day effects of slavery. Examples on a few topics in this course: Racism, Discrimination, Sterotypes, Colorism, Texturism, Featurism, Culture Appropriation, Etc.
Assignments:
Papers:
- History of African Slavery and Migration on one part of the world. ex: entire New World, America, the Caribbean, Europe, etc.
- Effects of African Slavery: choose an area in the world and also give a summary of effects worldwide. ex: entire New World, America, the Caribbean, Europe, etc.
Group projects: (choose one)
- Pick and research a topic on the one effect of African slavery in modern day society.
- Find 3 false historical stories or events on African slaves, how they were treated or migration and provide the correct information backed up with research.
Classroom debate:
- There will be an organized debate. The topic is chosen by students.
Readings: (will be articles)
- Racism and Discrimination
- Self-Hatred in the Black community
- Psychological Effects of Slavery and Racism
- Etc.
*My hopes are to enlighten you on the issues black people deal with in society so you can help make change somehow. The first step towards change is education.
Your course prospectus is very detailed, concise, and informative. Your course is very enlightening and it would be a course that I would take and recommend others in taking. I know for sure it will also help others understand the complete story of the historic injustices to the black community.
Thank you! Im glad that you found my course interesting and would even consider taking it.
Hi, I think your group project was designed nicely. The research topic is detailed but also provides flexibility. Students can get started easily with the topic in mind while having the freedom to narrow down the research questions while researching.
Thank you I actually wanted to allow freedom for students to choose. I did this because I know that when you have freedom to choose a topic or part of a topic it becomes more interesting. It also allows for students to research something they might have always been curious about when it comes to black history.
I like the design of your class because I feel like it gives the students a lot of room to do their own research and find their own interests within your topic. I especially like that aspect of your course given the context of your course, because I think giving students the ability to choose will make them more interested in the topic, meaning they’ll receive a better education and understanding of racial issues. I also like the broad spectrum of areas you cover, presenting many different subtopics within the broad topic of historical injustices to black people. This is overall a very well designed, and rather interesting sounding course.
Thank you for your feedback. I’m happy you found it interesting. I actually wanted to give students freedom in some aspects so they would more interested when learning about black history. I definitely feel like the subtopics were necessary to discuss and I’m glad you were able to see that.
I liked your course and I think it is a very important topic to be discussed. On the other hand, I believe that you designed the course to have a lot of information and thus not be specific to focus on the learning goals. I would suggest (if it was a real course) to break it down into 2 smaller courses such as history of slavery across time (which might be able to be broken up even more as Baruch does such as pre-modern [beginning to 1450], and modern [1450 to present]) and a course describing slavery and its ongoing affects that are taking place today like discrimination, stereotypes, etc.
I appreciate your comment but this topic is something that comes with a lot of information and cannot be separated. In order to discuss the effects of slavery and racism you must know the history behind it or else you will not have a full understanding of it all. You cannot break this down into two smaller courses because it will leave students confused about certain topics within the course. When discussing the effects of any topic you must know what caused it. There is enough time in the semester to cover all of the information I stated. If there were to be a second course it would be to dive deeper into what this course already discusses and/or touch on details which might have not been fully covered in the course I created. An example of a separate course might be a specific area in the world where slavery took place. All of the learning goals are clearly stated in my project and if it were a real course each of these goals would be fulfilled. Thanks for the suggestion though :).