As the population of minorities grows, both students and teachers at Pleasant Valley High School are questioning the almost non-existent representation of minorities in Pleasant Valley’s curriculum.
Pleasant Valley High School focuses on the inclusivity of all of its students, yet there are areas that require more improvement. Courses being taught in classrooms help show students their identity and help them discover their historical background and societal impact.
This brings in the question of representation: do the students from minority groups feel that they are being appropriately represented in the courses given at the Pleasant Valley High School?
Mariah Martinez, a senior at PV who identifies as African-American and Mexican, answered this question. “I don’t believe there is representation in the courses being taught in the PV classrooms. When you look at courses, they don’t talk about the real history that America had, instead they focus on material that comes from white-textbook versions,” she said.
Pleasant Valley School District, both staff and students, should collectivity work together on fixing and improving the curriculum currently in place. The teachers in the English department are not required to teach literary works by people in minority groups.
However, Dr. Lynne Lundberg, a professor in the English department, believes that representation matters in the classroom. “We always should be looking at representation. We should be looking and making all of our students feel that their heritages matter, their voices matter, that who they are is important, and that all aspects of their identity are important.”
Lundberg has encouraged both herself and others on the staff to continue to show representation through the works being taught. Last year, she taught a Pulitzer-winning play written by an African American author.
This simple choice of literary work made an impact on one of Lundberg’s students. “One of the comments I got from a student was that it was the first time she felt really represented in a text,” she said.
Pleasant Valley High School has made major improvements regarding the inclusivity of its students who are part of minority groups. However, there is still more Pleasant Valley can do to better represent all of its students and staff through the education and curriculum being taught.
