Racism: Why It Should Be Taught To Children Racism has, and always has had, a great effect on American society. Still to this day, even after the civil war over slavery in the 19th century and the anti-segregation movements of the 20th century, countless peoples still face ridicule over the color of their skin or the shape of their face. If it were to be taught in schools that judging someone based on their appearance is bad, then perhaps there wouldn’t be such an integration of racism in modern American society. Not simply learning ‘don’t be a racist’ in a high school social studies course while half asleep or thinking of what’s for lunch, but the concept of just how much it can affect someone’s life in such a negative way should be taught to children throughout their whole school careers. Without outwardly influence, children are proven to be unbiased. The Katz-Zalk test, branded by Dr. Phyllis Katz and Dr. Susan Zalk, was an experiment coined in the 1970’s which further backed this point. Children are shown imagery of people of different …show more content…
A good example of this would be math; it has solid foundations and much to build upon, from arithmetic to calculus. However, if something is just introduced to a student, they’re less likely to treat it as seriously. I speak from experience. When I took music classes for two years in middle school, I barely gave it any thought. Of course, this also depends on whether the student likes the subject or not. For example, I have never been a fan of math, however I still recognize its importance due to how strong of an emphasis they have in the school curriculum. The main difference between my dislike for math and the disdain I held for music class is that I actually do care for how well I do in the former as opposed to the latter. The emphasis the school curriculum had on music courses was near to none, therefore my disregard for it was