I was not taught about Juneteenth in school.

And I grew up in New York City’s Washington Heights about 15 blocks past Harlem for the first 2/3 of my schooling.

The most Black History-focused thing from school I remember was being told to watch Roots at home.

Diverse neighborhood. Diverse population. Diverse school. Less diverse set of teachers. Not all-white but less diverse than the student body.

Curriculum can fill in previously untaught parts of history.

But curriculum is not perspective. Curriculum is not lived experience.

My son’s educational experience - by purposeful choice and design - is very, very different. Someday, I’ll write about the diff.

Suffice it to say, I suspect most kids are growing up in a system closer to the one I grew up in long ago than the one my son is growing up in now.
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