The Need for Heroes

This past Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Around this time, elementary schools across the country incorporate lessons about Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as about racism and other famous Black Americans. For teachers, it's tempting to check the box and say, "okay, we talked about MLK. Multicultural education, done." I know I've seen some of my friends do this. But multicultural education, talking about diversity, can't be limited to just Heroes and Holidays. It's not enough to use Martin Luther King, Jr., as the one example of Black culture, Cinco de Mayo as the one example of Latino culture, etc. This needs to be a conversation that continues throughout the year.

At the same time, once you understand that we have to talk about more than Heroes and Holidays, it can be tempting to overlook those heroes. "We talk about diversity all the time," teachers might say, "so I don't need to spend extra class time on MLK when my students are already behind in math." This is at least as much a fallacy as only focusing on the heroes. Students need heroes. We all need heroes.

Throughout history, we've always been drawn to epic tales. The Greeks listened for hours to the adventures of Odysseus; the English look to Arthur, the Once and Future King; in the modern day, we flock to movie theaters to take in the latest installment in The Hobbit or the story of Iron-Man. As humans, we look to the epic hero in an attempt to connect with the part of ourselves that is capable of great, story-worthy deeds. Without the inspiration of a hero standing up to a monster, persevering against all odds, we may not find the strength inside ourselves to persevere through hard times or stand up against oppression. The hero shows us that anything is possible.

In order to have this power of inspiration, the hero must look something like us. A hero from a different culture may still inspire us, but not as strongly. From what I have seen, this is especially true for people who have been historically disempowered. A male hero might inspire men, but a woman could look at that same hero and think, "if I tried to do those same things, I would be stopped because I'm female." Students need to see heroes that look like them: their gender, their ethnicity, their culture, their religion, their sexual orientation . . . the list goes on. The story of any hero is inspiring to all of us, but is especially inspiring to someone who sees the hero do something they never thought possible: stand up to racism, for example.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the heroes of modern America. His story is worth telling, and re-telling, in the most honest way possible. The heroes of the Civil Rights movement can inspire us, and our students, today in the same way that Gandhi inspired King. We must tell those stories. We must keep alive the faith that, as our heroes have shown us, anything is possible.