Only a Real Man Can Wear Pink

John Hooker, kindergarten teacher, came to class in a pink shirt one day. In kindergarten, there had been a few occasions of students remarking that a certain toy or activity was “just for boys” or “just for girls.” He and Jen Weiss, his partner, were coming in prepared to do some lessons on gender equity. When the students entered class, one of the boys asked with hesitation, “Is that a pink shirt?”

“Yes, why?” John responded.

“Really?” he started to smirk and cringe his face.

“Yes, pink.”

Just before the giggling could ensue, another kindergartner spoke up, “Only a real man can wear pink.” This, of course, is exactly what the teachers were hoping for and exactly what they needed to start the class off on a day of discussions about biases, stereotypes, and justice.

In the musical comedy, South Pacific, Lieutenant Cable expresses his rage at racism in a sarcastic song, “You’ve Got to be Taught”:

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made

And people whose skin is a different shade

You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught

Before it’s too late

Before you are six

Or seven or eight

To hate all the people your relatives hate

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

We can relate to the sentiment, but my years in education have taught me that Hammerstein got it backwards. Kids do not have to be carefully taught in order for them to pick up the prejudices of their relatives—that happens naturally. On the contrary, they have to be carefully taught to break down the generalizations they inherit from their culture. They have to be carefully liberated into rigorous and creative thinking.

The old textbooks tell us that Christopher Columbus was a great man because he discovered America and made our country possible. The new, practically universal curriculum teaches that Columbus was bad because he enslaved or exterminated the peace-loving Native Americans who had discovered America long before he got here. The truth is more complex than either version of the story. I want students to challenge both textbooks with interesting questions.