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Episode 80 – Civil Rights Unit with Teacher Jeremy Stevenson

Sup with the Sup
Sup with the Sup
Episode 80 - Civil Rights Unit with Teacher Jeremy Stevenson
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 Welcome everyone to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s Up with the ‘Sup podcast. I am Superintendent Wendy Dau. For today’s episode, I visited with a social studies teacher at Timpview High School, Jeremy Stevenson, to talk about the Civil Rights Movement, as it is one of the topics both of us love to teach.

 But first, here are our updates.

  • There are five new policies for review on our district website. Go to Provo.Edu, click on Policies, Forms, and Documents. You can click on Review Draft Policies here.
    • You will see a draft of Policy 3500, Students and Extracurricular Activities.
    • Draft Policy 5090, Code of Conduct. This is for employees.
    • Policy 5160, Employee Religious Beliefs or Conscience.
    • Policy 5250, Conflict of Interest Update for Personnel.
    • And Policy 5155, Human Trafficking and Child Sexual Abuse Education.
  • The next school board meeting will be on Tuesday, March 12th. The study session will take place in Boardroom 1, and the business meeting will be held in the Professional Development Center.
    • Public comment is welcome during the business meeting.
    • Please check the district website for start times and the agenda as the meeting gets closer.
  • Right now, the Utah legislative session is still ongoing with two weeks left. We do have House Bill 455, which is about the expansion of the voucher system, which provides for the Utah Fits All Scholarship.
    • We really appreciate the work of Representative Perucci, who has received feedback from our school board members and from district leaders about how to create greater accountability for this voucher program. We appreciate the responsiveness of our legislators and their willingness to work with us as we strive to make things great for public education.
  • Continue watching for my weekly video casts. These video casts provide one place for you to learn about important things happening across the district.

And now let’s talk with Jeremy Stevenson.

Wendy Dau: I’m going to ask you, Jeremy, to give us a little bit of your history and cause I think that’s important for our guests to know if that’s okay.

Jeremy Stevenson: I grew up in Orem, like Orem High.. And, ended up– my dad had lived in Europe and served in the military. And so growing up, we heard lots of stories about the world.

Jeremy Stevenson: And then I spent two years in Korea. Came home from that, really liked it, wanted to be a school teacher and wanted some additional income, so I joined the National Guard as a Korean linguist. At the time, it was 1996, there was no global war on terror, so I joined with a thought, I’ll just get to go to Korea a lot, which I have, and the Army came through on that, but that resulted in three deployments to the Middle East later.

Jeremy Stevenson: So my little brother and I did a study abroad through the Jerusalem Center, so we did two months there prior to that. My two main areas of interest are really East Asia and then the Middle East, just from those experiences. And so, going through BYU, my brother in law tipped me off that a social science composite would be more valuable than a history degree.

Jeremy Stevenson: And then just fell in love with all the curriculum from geography to econ to political science to sociology to psychology. And ended up being– I was in between my study abroad in Jerusalem and an internship in Korea when I got offered a job to intern here at Timpview. So, taught geography, and then taught, world history initially, and then they asked me to start the psychology program and came back from a military assignment, and they asked me to do AP U. S. history, so I’m back feeling like a new teacher. Been a while that I’ve put this much time into a class, but it’s been great. And we’re just, we’ve talked first half of Martin Luther King in the 1950s. And now we’re about to next class period will be part three, kind of my Civil Rights Series for the 1960s.

Wendy Dau: That’s awesome. The Civil Rights Movement was one of those things when I would ask students at the end of the year, what was one of your most favorite units? And the Civil Rights Movement always came up, and I think it’s because it’s just that, you know, maybe if you grow up in the South or something like that, it might be more forefront for a lot of those individuals.

Wendy Dau: But in Utah, it was always something like, wow, I had no idea all of these things happened and that there were great people who stepped up at the right time to make a difference. It’s really powerful. So. What are some of the things that you’re noticing about the students in terms of what are they surprised by?

Jeremy Stevenson: Well, the approach I take, having taught world geography for so long, I find it’s a lot more disarming to start out with civil rights just from a majority minority conversation.

Wendy Dau: That’s a great way to do it.

Jeremy Stevenson: In the Middle East, there’s Qatar is probably the best example, like 17 percent of the population are actually Qataris, and the other 83 percent are third country nationals from South Asia that are there doing labor.

Jeremy Stevenson: Some of the kids that are soccer fans kind of track the building of the soccer stadiums there and some of the issues, but we talk about it in that context. We talk about North Korean defectors in China and the challenges that they face. We talk about Eastern and Western Europe and post colonialism and, you know, refugees or immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East going into Europe and just the interactions.

Jeremy Stevenson: And Apartheid is always a great one to talk about because when they hear it in another context, they’re just like, oh wow I can’t believe that happens.

Wendy Dau: That’s right. That’s so true.

Jeremy Stevenson: And they’re able to like look at it ,and not be defensive, and also not to humanize it, or not to normalize it. But like, human beings are human beings and principles of geography are true no matter where you are in the world.

Jeremy Stevenson: So once we talk about that and then we transition it… One, they’re able to look at it a little more differently. And then two, just the idea– it’s not okay that everybody else did it, but it’s a normal process. It’s played out through world history. And if we want to talk about American Exceptionalism– the idea that what makes us exceptional is– we at least in principle, and eventually in practice– have tried to be better about it than a lot of other places in the world —

Wendy Dau: Amen to that —

Jeremy Stevenson: Where it’s just hey, this is the way it is. I have– like I said, I spent a lot of time in Korea and they have a lot of, Filipinos and a lot of, now more like, Pakistanis and Bengalis that work in their factories. So, same situation in the United States, just different country of, immigrants. And I asked my buddy one day, because Korea’s population rate, their birth rates, I think are now one of the lowest in the world.

Jeremy Stevenson: So they’re quickly shrinking as a genetic population. And I said, all right, so when is Korea going to open up their citizenship policies? Like, and he’s a great guy, really intelligent, but he’s like– we’ll use robots before we let other people become Korean citizens. Now, not all Koreans feel that way, but Korea is a very homogeneous country.

Jeremy Stevenson: And so when you’re so used to just one thing, outsiders feel even more like outsiders.

Wendy Dau: That’s right.

Jeremy Stevenson: So, you know, you brought up Utah earlier, Utah is becoming more heterogeneous, but for most of my life, it’s been pretty homogeneous. And so giving those examples like Korea, where they, and talking in that context and then bringing it here, there’s a lot of circumstances that can transfer and that they can understand.

Jeremy Stevenson: So I find that to be the most disarming way and then they’re able to talk about it and just analyze it. You know, from some principle based or objective based perspectives, and then we get in, I mean, I don’t shy away from the human side of it at all, either, but that’s kind of the first way that we attack it.

Wendy Dau: It allows that entry point, right? And because if they do get defensive about it, then there is no entry point, right?

Wendy Dau: So, what have been the topics that you’ve been talking about most recently, and what have been the interactions of students?

Jeremy Stevenson: You know, there’s lots of controversy all over this country about, you know, what we can and can’t talk about.

Jeremy Stevenson: And so just the art of the historian is, you know, primary and secondary source documents. So during the Civil War and Reconstruction, we just read like black codes and slave codes. There’s a really great, I can’t remember if it’s the Library of Congress, but just thousands of accounts of former slaves.

Jeremy Stevenson: So they had to read, I think, three a piece, those, and then, images too. I try not to like overshock, but just… Like, we did Brown vs. Board of Education, and most of them don’t know that, Linda Brown was an elementary girl.

Jeremy Stevenson: So, I’ve found that pictures have a lot more impact than just words. And we’ve talked about throughout U. S. history as we go from stories to actual pictures to actual video. So, we’re about to talk about Selma. And again, it’s one thing, I give them the example of, they may hear about their favorite musician or their favorite athlete who’s been charged with domestic violence. And they want to tell themselves, well, it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. They tried to downplay it, and then when they see the video, they can’t tolerate anymore. And so just that illustration of, I think, throughout the United States– there was hope you know folks in the south and other places saw it a lot, but other places like, I hear there’s some of that, but it It can’t be that.

Wendy Dau: It can’t be that bad.

Jeremy Stevenson: And so showing it, and teaching AP, you tend to get kids that are a little better read and a little better informed by their parents and other things. And so some are familiar with it, but a lot of them still haven’t ever just seen it. So, I found those to be really effective and to, be able to read those first person accounts with no external narrative and no political agenda, but just like this is what it was.

Wendy Dau: Right. What is your favorite topic in the Civil Rights Movement? What is your favorite story that you really love?

Jeremy Stevenson: I love the connection– I told them the other day, we talked about, we start out with Martin Luther King, but then we track it back to Gandhi.

Wendy Dau: Oh, good.

Jeremy Stevenson: And then we project forward to Nelson Mandela. And Gandhi started out with the idea of if we can understand their own laws and their own systems. And then if we can use the press and television to like, have people hear and see our story– there may be some cold hearted folks, but most people can’t know and not do something.

Jeremy Stevenson: So Gandhi’s idea of nonviolence and then Martin Luther King’s understanding of it, and just like, okay, we’re going to, no matter what happens, we’re not going to react. We’re not going to validate stereotypes about us. We’re just, we’re going to do this peacefully, but we’re not going to go along. We’re not going to obey.

Jeremy Stevenson: But we’re going to do it in a respectful, peaceful manner and then, you know, in some circumstances, violence would follow by the other side and was really counterproductive or people start to see. Well, that person just got arrested, you know, whether it be sitting at a lunch counter sitting on a bus. But they got put in jail for that.

Jeremy Stevenson: People are like, well, that’s dumb. Like, well, they broke the law. Well, maybe that’s a dumb law. And so, and then just their targeted idea of learning how to use the courts can be used for you or they can be used against you. And so like, if you are educated on how America works or any country works, you can either be abused by it or you can use it for your benefit.

Jeremy Stevenson: So just, I love the cultural diffusion from India to the United States to South Africa. And then Mandela, you know, he started out as a a violent protester, you know, the South Africans– or Afrikaners– would have called him a terrorist, but that transition to this is going to be far more effective in the long run, and it’s going to make relationships where we can actually coexist, not like an eye for an eye.

Wendy Dau: That’s right. So what are some of the documents that you have that you feel like are really critical for kids to read, to understand?

Jeremy Stevenson: So I mentioned the slave accounts, you know, Emancipation Proclamation, and then even just talking about the nuances of the Emancipation Proclamation, and then how shrewd Lincoln was about that process.

Jeremy Stevenson: He’s like, if I come out day one and say, we’re going to free all the slaves, it’s all over. Sometimes you have to go slow, and sometimes you have to be patient. Even the way he had the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments ratified like that, that would not have happened at any other time other than a Reconstruction era.

Jeremy Stevenson: They’re about to read the letter from Birmingham Jail.

Wendy Dau: Did they read the whole letter?

Jeremy Stevenson: So, I just — well the things I’ve been trying to show them is how they can use CHAT GPT for good.

Wendy Dau: Good.

Jeremy Stevenson: So, how do you take a historical document that’s really long and in a language you probably don’t understand, and then find a tool that in seconds, you could get a three page summary, because them reading three pages in their level of language is better than them reading the first sentence of that and saying like, I’m out.

Wendy Dau: Right. That’s right.

Jeremy Stevenson: I usually just use excerpts from it or have like take it and put it into a chat GPT and you know, have it put into a more user friendly or more accessible language.

Wendy Dau: That’s great. What are some of the key takeaways that you’re hoping students get from the civil rights movement that are, hopefully be like, these are things that I need to embrace?

Jeremy Stevenson: Again, when people understand the government in which they live, the good and bad, and you know that, but the actual principles based on in the system that the way that it works like separate point– but today we’re just talking about the difference between Kennedy and LBJ. Having been the Speaker of the House,

Jeremy Stevenson: LBJ was able to just make things happen. It helped that he had significant majorities in both houses, but he knew how the system worked, where other folks will just bump up against roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. And again, even back to Gandhi. Gandhi, having been a British lawyer, knew their system and could, you know, when they tried to obstruct, he could just push back like, hey, you know, that’s actually against this and this and this.

Jeremy Stevenson: And so with Martin Luther King and a lot of the other folks involved at that time was understanding how laws are made, what the laws are, what’s unjust about them, and then the court systems and how to work it. And so they’re going to do, you know, US Gov. Next year, but we spent a lot of time about constitutional law and it’s a fascinating time to be a teacher.

Jeremy Stevenson: I was happy and sad that I was gone for COVID and the reconstruction of Timpview, but I was really sad to be gone because like, there’s so much playing out with the first Trump administration, the Biden administration, and the current Trump administration. You could just do a basically a current issues constitutional law class every day and you don’t even have to look anything up, just pull up a headline like, okay, let’s talk about is this legal?

Jeremy Stevenson: Can it be done? And so I try to bring that in. One of the challenges with some of the kids are, Hey, I heard there’s nothing on the AP Test past 1990, so I don’t think that’s gonna be on it. Do we really need to talk about it?

Jeremy Stevenson: And so, helping the kids see that and that, that they can access that. And they, they can research that. They can understand those things. That’s what I hope is that bringing modern day things, even as we’re talking about the Colonial Era– civil War and Reconstruction and the Progressive Era, but just making parallels to today, like history, just the patterns repeat themselves, no matter what country you live in. So, civil rights isn’t just an American issue, you know, immigration is not just an American issue. It changes their perspective, like, Oh.

Jeremy Stevenson: Okay, again, I don’t have to be defensive about this, it’s just part of human nature and every country deals with it, how are we dealing with it, how are other countries dealing with it, and do we have ideas we can share with them or do they have ideas they can share with us?

Wendy Dau: I remember when I would talk to my students, I would say the thing that I love about the United States is I feel like we have such potential to respond to things in a much better way, just because we do have different perspectives here.

Wendy Dau: We do have different experiences. We have a ton of resources. There’s just a lot to be grateful for that. Some countries don’t have those options even to respond in a different way. They don’t have that ability. They don’t have that wealth. They don’t even have the government structure to be able to respond in that way.

Wendy Dau: And so that’s a very powerful thing. I love how you’re comparing too, that these are not necessarily uniquely American situations. Like I was just reading this morning about Germany and their election, and immigration is a huge issue, right? And citizenship is a huge issue in European countries. This is not something that’s exclusively American and it’s important, I think, for our kids to realize that.

Wendy Dau: What do you hope that, in addition to having students understand that there are current events that are tied to all of these principles, what are you hoping that they’re learning from those individuals, and how does that help propel them forward? Because I always wanted kids to be awesome citizens too. Like, I know that sounds really cheesy and ideal, but I do, I want them to engage. I want them to care. I want them to want a great society. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts about that.

Jeremy Stevenson: What I try to– the focus I try to focus on is, you know, if we’re not a melting pot, you know, let’s at least be a fruit salad.

Jeremy Stevenson: Going to Korea was unique in that it was a– I was a minority there, but still like a privileged class minority. Going to basic training was really great. I had a couple of my only friends growing up, but not a tremendous exposure. But at basic training, like as an amateur psychologist dealing with every ethnicity that lives in the United States and, you know, having time to interact with them and get to know them.

Jeremy Stevenson: And again, that idea, humans are humans are humans and their– their basic human needs may manifest slightly differently based off the culture they were raised in.

But it’s the same. And so the leaders that tried to bring people together, the leaders that spent time in other populations and other circles, even if they came from a privileged class, that they spent their time legislating or interacting on behalf of others.

And there’s plenty of examples of American history of like self interest to self interest and that’s part of capitalism, and what makes capitalism work.

Where that balance is in our system, the pendulum swings left and right, so we’re going to go far right, then we’re going to come far left, and as we pass across the middle, good things happen.

Wendy Dau: Yes.

Jeremy Stevenson: And the neat thing is, you know, whether you’re a conservative or you’re a liberal, that you’re going to have your 4 to 12 year run, and then the other side’s going to, and things that have been overdone in one direction are going to come back. And there’s going to be that balance found. Both from teaching geography and psychology and U. S. history, just that idea of like a balanced life. And that, whether that’s politics, whether that’s socially, whether that’s emotionally, whether that’s whether you spend too much time doing homework or too much time playing sports or whatever, that’s a principle that in any subject is you can find that balance between ideas and compromise. That that’s where the most in many of the good things that we still enjoy and benefit from in the United States originate from.

Wendy Dau: I would agree with that. I think to just recognizing that people have these different lived perspectives, right? That’s okay. It’s okay that I see something differently because of my lived perspective. I don’t have to hate the other person for a different lived perspective.

Jeremy Stevenson: But with that, as you learn about their lived perspective, I mean, I met a guy at a military school and he’d mentioned NASCAR and he’s from Tennessee and I’m like, Next, you’re going to tell me a member of the KKK, and he went silent.

Jeremy Stevenson: I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me. So I spent two weeks with this guy, just asking him, all right, tell me about your background. Tell me how you grew up. His grandfather had been a grand wizard, you know? Yeah. So he’d been indoctrinated with a lot of stuff that affected the way he saw the rest of his life and how he lived his life.

Jeremy Stevenson: And yet, as we, got to know him– he– I still don’t agree with many of the things I believe, but at least understanding where he came from and what he thought and why he thought that was very sad, but enlightening. And I could understand him a little better and the same thing with other people.

Jeremy Stevenson: Just the chance to– if you can’t live it yourself, you know, whether it be through reading, whether it be through movies and documentaries, but most importantly, in talking to other people and hearing about their experience, it brings, you know, again, a much broader perspective and understanding.

Wendy Dau: It allows us to humanize one another.

Jeremy Stevenson: If I go back all the way back to my initial college papers of like, I want to be a teacher, like, helping kids make sense of the world and understand it from their perspective, but also understand other people’s perspective.

Wendy Dau: Thank you so much. This has been super fun to talk with you today.

Wendy Dau: Thank you everyone for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s Up with the ‘Sup. As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast@provo.edu. And don’t forget to join us again next week for another new episode of What’s Up With the ‘Sup. Have a great day, everyone. 

Spencer Tuinei
  • Communication Specialist
  • Spencer Tuinei
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