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Mannish Water - The Book, New York, New York. 12 likes · 15 talking about this. In this rare collection of new and previously unpublished essays, this nonfiction anthology features Black, scholarly...

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The history of Juneteenth acknowledges hard history while also empowering students to be advocates for change.

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ISS DEIJ Learning to Action Institute for Int'l School Leaders | Resources

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ISS DEIJ Learning to Action Institute for Int'l School Leaders | Resources

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Each Rising Voices Library provides students with high-interest, culturally relevant texts that give context to today's world while celebrating the stories of the historically underrepresented. These books, paired with innovative teaching materials aligned to the CASEL framework, build a classroom community that broadens the perspectives of students from all backgrounds and enables deep discussions about inclusivity, social justice, and empathy for others.

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Rising Voices Library | Culturally Responsive Instruction

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Each Rising Voices Library provides students with high-interest, culturally relevant texts that give context to today's world while celebrating the stories of the historically underrepresented. These books, paired with innovative teaching materials aligned to the CASEL framework, build a classroom community that broadens the perspectives of students from all backgrounds and enables deep discussions about inclusivity, social justice, and empathy for others.

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This focus bulletin explores translanguaging from the perspective of four educators, spanning kindergarten through high school. Translanguaging, a common practice among multilingual people, can be explained as using all languages and language varieties available to communicate and understand the world around oneself.

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Laura Hamman, Emeline Beck, and Aubrey Donaldson, Language Magazine

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One day at recess, a distraught five-year-old approached me and proclaimed angrily, “Fulanito me tagó.” Confused, I attempted to understand her meaning: “¿Te tocó?” (“He touched you?”) She shook her head. “¿Te atacó?” (“He attacked you?”). No again, thankfully. Frustrated, the student replied, “Me t…

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EAL Journal

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'Translanguaging' - the use of different languages together - can be a powerful tool for learning ... but it can also go against the grain for language teachers who are used to supporting learners to master the intricacies of a single language. In this post, we ask what the research tells us about 'translanguaging' and how it can be used to support EAL learners in the classroom.

Picture the scene: two students are sitting together, working intently on a handout. They have different first languages but some shared knowledge of the words and phrases of each other's languages, so they are moving in and out of English to get their message across. Another two students are sitting together nearby. Both of them are Spanish speakers, but are very strong in English and often use it as their main language. At other times, as now, they blend Spanish and English together.

Are either of these examples of translanguaging?

In both cases, yes. The young people are using resources from different languages together, with very little regard for what we might call the 'boundaries' of named languages such as 'Spanish' or 'English'. They are using elements of each language together to communicate more effectively. This is translanguaging: it's about using the all your language resources to communicate.

Translanguaging is the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative potential.

Ofelia García (2009: 140)

Translanguaging is about communication, not about language itself. There are times when we need to be language teachers, focusing on accuracy in English so that our learners can pass exams and be taken as proficient speakers in wider society. Much of the time, though, we are working with students to explore concepts, add to their knowledge, make connections between ideas and to help them make their voices heard by others. This is often about communicating, and this is where using all our language resources can be very valuable.
A (very) brief history of translanguaging ...
Translanguaging is nothing new - it can be a very natural way for multilingual people to communicate - but as a focus of research it emerged in the 1980s in Bangor, north Wales. Cen Williams and colleagues were investigating strategies for learners to use two languages (Welsh and English) in a single lesson. They came up with the term 'trawsieithu' to describe reading or hearing input in one language (e.g. English) and writing or speaking about it in another (e.g. Welsh, or vice versa). The term was translated into English (and popularised) as 'translanguaging' by their colleague Colin Baker (see Lewis, Jones and Baker 2012).

Since then the term has expanded to cover the use of multiple languages in many contexts. It is one of a series of related terms (such as polylanguaging and flexible multilingualism) and the subtle differences between them suggest the wide range of academic work investigating how multiple languages are used - especially for learning. We can use 'translanguaging' as our general term.
The beginnings of a translanguaging pedagogy
Translanguaging pedagogy challenges what Jim Cummins (2008) called the 'two solitudes' approach to bilingualism, in which languages were kept strictly separate. It sees languages as a property of the community: the language resources that are relevant to the classroom are those shared by the students and the teacher. This separates the languages of the classroom community and the language of the test or the curriculum. We can use our classroom repertoire to learn, share and communicate, coming to focus on the language of the curriculum (highly formal and accurate English, for example) as necessary. It means making a distinction between forms of learning that require display (such as essays, often written in 'best English') and forms of learning that do not (such as worksheets). We can move between them within a lesson: perhaps using all our repertoire to discuss and to draft, moving into more formal/correct English to report to the group, back into translanguaging to revise the work-in-progress and into a very formal register for the final written product.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the strongly monolingual slant of recent education policy, much work into translanguaging pedagogy has been done outside mainstream classrooms. Creese and Blackledge (2010), for example, have looked at Gujarati and Chinese complementary schools. Li Wei and Zhu Hua (2013) studied learners at university, but connected translanguaging to migration and identity development in ways that are very relevant to school-based language policies. Hornberger and Link (2012) look at children the US, with an explicit focus on the restrictive language policies of that country, and offer ideas that are very applicable to the UK. A good starting point is García and Li Wei (2014) - a recent and very readable (only 165 pages) discussion that has a strong focus on translanguaging and education, with one author based in the US and one based in the UK.

The first issue of the EAL Journal (published in September and free to all NALDIC members) features Li Wei writing about translanguaging and the EAL classroom. Click here for information on how to join.
Recent developments
García's recent work has focused on translanguaging pedagogy as a political act, a critical response to the monolingual bias of current education policy. Earlier this year the South London EAL Group (part of NALDIC's national network of regional interest groups) discussed García's work on translanguaging stance - a teacher's political commitment to encouraging bilingualism in her classroom. The video below features Constant Leung discussing this approach and explaining how it connects to the UK context:
Constant Leung discussing Ofelia García's work on translanguaging, at NALDIC's South London EAL group. But what about exams?
Very often, we meet the colleagues who are keen to encourage multilingualism in their classroom (even experiment with a translanguaging pedagogy), but who are worried about how it will affect their students' exam performance.

A translanguaging approach is entirely consistent with high expectations in exams - if we recognise the difference between language and communication.

testing the proficiency of children in a language must be kept separate from testing their proficiency in language.

(Otheguy, García and Reid 2015: 299)

Translanguaging pedagogy is about you and your students. It draws on the languages you have available to your group - so even if you don't speak all (or any) of the other languages your students do, you can welcome them and encourage the learners to use them in the classroom. You can then make a distinction between your classroom approach to languages and the language resources the students will need to use in exams. If you have used a translanguaging pedagogy in your classroom (even if that wasn't the term you used for it) we would love to hear from you.
References
Creese, Angela and Adrian Blackledge (2010). Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching? Modern Language Journal 94 (1), 103-115.

Cummins, Jim (2008). Teaching for Transfer: Challenging the two solitudes assumption in bilingual education. In: Jim Cummins and Nancy H. Hornberger (eds). Encyclopedia of Language and Education Vol. 5: Bilingual Education (2nd edition edition). Boston: Springer Science + Business Media.

García, Ofelia (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In: Ajit Mohanty, Minati Panda, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, pp.128-145.

García, Ofelia, S. Johnson and K. Seltzer (forthcoming). Translanguaging Stance. In: Ofelia García (ed.). The Translanguaging Classroom. Philadelphia, PA: Carson.

Lewis, Gwyn, Bryn Jones and Colin Baker (2012). Translanguaging: origins and development from school to street and beyond. Educational Research and Evaluation 18 (7), 641-654.

Li Wei and Zhu Hua (2013). Translanguaging Identities and Ideologies: Creating Transnational Space Through Flexible Multilingual Practices Amongst Chinese University Students in the UK. Applied Linguistics 34 (5), 516-535.

Otheguy, Ricardo, Ofelia García and Wallis Reid (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281-307.

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Interested in translanguaging and what it means for EAL? We look at the research and share the essential info.

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Decolonizing Translanguaging Research Methodologies: A commentary and self-reflection by Prem Phyak

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Decolonizing Translanguaging Research Methodologies: A commentary and self-reflection by Prem Phyak

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Abstract

This article discusses translanguaging methodologies from a decolonial perspective. Drawing on tangsing, I have argued that the research methodologies to investigate translanguaging should not only push linguistic boundaries but also question the relevance of Western/colonial research methods that reproduce linguistic insecurity and epistemic inequality for Indigenous and racialized/ethnic minority communities. My claim is that translanguaging methodologies should not just pay attention to "collecting" language practices, they should also be concerned with visibilizing the epistemologies and epistemic positionalities of the people that translanguage to respond to unequal linguistic environments across spaces.

View full text

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This article discusses translanguaging methodologies from a decolonial perspective. Drawing on tangsing, I have argued that the research methodologies to investigate translanguaging should not only push linguistic boundaries but also question the relevance of Western/colonial research methods that reproduce linguistic insecurity and epistemic inequality for Indigenous and racialized/ethnic minority communities.

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Juneteenth: Symbolis, Ritual and Meaning

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Juneteenth: Symbolis, Ritual and Meaning

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Brown University: Choices Program

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On June 19, 1865-more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation-Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, with 1,800 Union troops. Among other orders, he issued General Order No. 3, which reads as follows: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free."

On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a law establishing June 19, known as Juneteenth, as a national holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. While the observation of Juneteenth has come to the attention of many Americans in recent years, celebrations have been happening in Texas since 1866 and spread throughout the country since then. This lesson introduces students to the history of Juneteenth and its symbolism, ritual, and meaning. The lesson is part of the Choices Program's curriculum unit Racial Slavery in the Americas: Resistance, Freedom, and Legacies.

Objectives

Students will:

Learn about the history of the holiday of Juneteenth in the United States.

Analyze text sources that reveal important symbolism and rituals in Juneteenth commemorations.

Examine text sources that reflect upon the significance of Juneteenth as an American holiday.

Research local celebrations of Juneteenth.

Recommended Reading

Though this lesson can be completed as a stand-alone activity, students will have a richer learning experience if they have used/read the Racial Slavery in the Americas unit, available in digital format from the Choices Program for free through June 2022.

Resources

In the Classroom

1. Introduce the Lesson

Ask students if they have heard of the holiday called Juneteenth. If yes, ask students what they know about it. Using the Juneteenth Fact Sheet for Teachers, introduce the history of Juneteenth. You may also wish to show one of the videos ( The Washington Post or Voice of America) that provide an introduction to Juneteenth.

Tell students they will be examining contemporary sources from African Americans that reveal important symbolism in Juneteenth commemorations and reflect upon the significance of Juneteenth as a holiday. Review with students key concepts such as commemoration and symbolism.

2. Work in Pairs

Divide the class into pairs and distribute Juneteenth Sources and Analyzing the Sources to each student. Student pairs should work through and discuss the questions pertaining to each set of sources. Have one member of each pair record the responses on the worksheet.

3. Class Discussion

Lead the class in a discussion about their findings. You may want to focus on certain quotations to emphasize important elements of symbolism in Juneteenth celebrations and various interpretations of the meaning or significance of the holiday for African Americans.

After the class has discussed their findings, pose the following questions for discussion. Which quote stood out to them as particularly significant and why? If most students had not heard of this holiday before this lesson, why do they think that is? For students who had heard about Juneteenth before, what did they learn that was new or surprising? What is significant about calling Juneteenth the "Black 4th of July" or "African American 4th of July"?

Now that the federal government made Juneteenth a national holiday (like the 4th of July), what message do you think that sends to people in the United States? Based on everything they have learned about the history of racial slavery in the Americas, what do they think is important to commemorate on Juneteenth and why?

4. Research Local Juneteenth Celebrations

(Note: If you teach outside of the United States, you may want to adapt Extra Challenge #2 for a concluding aspect of this lesson).

Tell students that they will be examining Juneteenth celebrations in their community, region, and/or state. This part of the lesson requires the ability to conduct internet research in the classroom (if this is not possible, this part of the lesson could be assigned as homework). Write the following instructions on the board and direct students to work in their pairs to research local, regional, and/or state Juneteenth celebrations.

- Find out when and where Juneteenth celebrations are held near your community. (If there are no local celebrations, direct students to search for the celebrations closest to their communities or search for celebrations in nearby major cities.)
- Find out what types of events, activities, and commemorations take place during these Juneteenth celebrations.
- Find images or video clips of Juneteenth celebrations from your community or nearby areas.

You may want to direct students to specific websites, such as local newspapers, local TV news, and other sites that cover community events in your region.

You also may want to review with students key tips for conducting research using internet search engines: such as putting quotation marks around key terms, limiting searches by date, and site-specific searches (e.g., site:nytimes.com on Google). Have students present their findings. If any students found particularly revealing quotes, images, or videos, you may want to show them and discuss as a class.

Extra Challenges

1. Oral History

If students expressed familiarity with the Juneteenth holiday, or if Juneteenth celebrations are common in your community, instruct students to conduct an interview with someone they know who has participated in Juneteenth commemorations. Have students ask the interviewee what they know about the history of the holiday, what they know about the symbolism or rituals of the holiday, and what the holiday means to them. You may want to instruct students to record their interviews with their phones. Have students present their findings from their interviews to the class. If familiar with video editing, you may have students work in groups to create edited videos that highlight important parts from their interviews.

2. Research and Report on Other Emancipation Days

Emancipation Day in Caribbean nations predates the Juneteenth holiday, as the first celebrations were held in 1838 upon the abolition of slavery in British colonies. Assign students in groups (or individually) to research both the origins of Emancipation Day in Caribbean nations and how the holiday is celebrated today. You may want to assign different countries to each group/student. Instruct students to identify at least two examples of (1) symbolism or rituals in Emancipation Day commemorations; and (2) participants commenting on the meaning or significance of Emancipation Day for their communities. If assigned individually, have students write a short essay that introduces the history of Emancipation Day and analyzes the symbolism and meaning of the holiday. If assigned to groups, have each group present their findings to the class.

Image: Texas African American History Memorial on the Texas State Capitol grounds in Austin. The central portion of the memorial depicts Juneteenth in Texas (June 19, 1865). Photo by cmh2315fl on flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

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Juneteenth: Symbolism, Ritual, and Meaning - Choices Program

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Juneteenth has been designated as a national holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. In this lesson, students learn about the history of the Juneteenth holiday, analyze text sources that reveal important symbolism and rituals in Juneteenth commemorations, and research local celebrations of Juneteenth.

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Diverse Educators UK

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Courageous Conversations Toolkit | Diverse Educators

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In courageous conversations, individuals are encouraged to express their views openly and truthfully rather than defensively.

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Lee Ann Jung

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We provide research-based professional learning internationally that facilitates equitable opportunities for students with and without disabilities.

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5 International Texts for Promoting Diversity in Secondary ELA

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5 International Texts for Promoting Diversity in Secondary ELA

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One tool for promoting diversity in the classroom is using texts by international authors. Here are 5 texts from around the world your students will love!

Note: This is a guest post, written by Abena. She's a writer and educator who focuses on promoting diversity in the classroom. Check out her blog, DiversityInMind, and follow her on Instagram @diversity_in_mind. Now, enjoy her text recommendations!

What is Cultural Diversity In the Classroom?

When I taught in the UK, texts from other cultures were part of the curriculum. Often, this meant British-Africa, British-Asian, and so on. It felt like minority cultures were only being validated in part because of their relation to 'Britishness' rather than their own individual cultural experiences. (I see this reflected in diverse book lists from other places, like the USA, too.)

As time went on, I realized these 'diverse' stories are not enough. They need to be supplemented with tales told by people from other places and in those places.

Now, as a teacher in an Asian international school, I also realize I have a responsibility to provide books where all my students see characters they can relate to for the positive and neutral experiences of life, as well as the struggles.

The teenage years are crucial in terms of identity formation, and we want to give all young people the opportunity to explore their own backgrounds and come away with pride and hope. That cannot happen if all they see in books are people they identify with being oppressed, murdered, dislocated, or discriminated against. Although these stories are often about overcoming such challenges, our students also need to see characters of all backgrounds with their every day (nontraumatic) difficulties and triumphs. A little humor doesn't hurt, either!
"Diversity" in the classroom doesn't just mean diversity of culture, but a diversity of individual experiences, too.
Here, I share some starting points to add characters from diverse backgrounds to your secondary school (11-18) bookshelves. I have selected each text because it challenges dominant narratives, thereby allowing both windows and mirrors for our students (and ourselves). These writers have grown up in places unfamiliar, perhaps far away from 'the West', and yet their works speak to the universal human experience. I invite you to challenge your students (and yourself!) in exploring something different and, along the way, broaden horizons for all your readers regardless of their heritages and perspectives.

Text Recommendations to promote diversity in the classroom:

The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf (Malaysia, Novel)
Kirkus Young Readers Award Finalist 2020

"FOR A WHILE after the witch drew her final breath the ghost sat very still, wondering what to do next. Theoretically, he knew what was supposed to happen: he was a pelesit after all, and a pelesit must have a master. And since he was bound by blood, his new master had to be of the same blood as the old."

This highly sensory and surprisingly dark fantasy (magic-realism) centers around a young Malaysian girl, Suraya, whose recently deceased grandmother's pelesit - a spirit or ghost - bonds to her. The being, who she names Pink, at first seems to be a splendid companion for this child with no father and a distant mother. However, pelesits have a dark side. Soon, Suraya realizes she has to use all her strength and willpower to save them both from malevolent forces within and around them.

Set in Malaysia (where I currently live and teach) and infused with Malaysian folklore, this story is beautifully descriptive. It authentically evokes the sensory experience and rhythm of this tropical land. Suraya herself is a Muslim Malaysian and the development of her first genuine friendship with Jing Wei - a Chinese Malaysian - highlights the connections and contrasts in Malaysian society. We can't help but get caught up with Suraya's interactions and journey.

The themes this story touches on (friendship, dysfunctional family dynamics, religion, and death) range from heartwarming to disturbing. It's listed on Amazon as a book for 8 to 12-year-olds, but I recommend evaluating which groups it might be best suited for in your context. You know your students best.

For sure, the story is much more complex than a straightforward folktale or myth, and even older students will enjoy following the unexpected turns this story takes.

For high-schoolers, don't miss The Weight of Our Sky, also by Hannah Alkaf and available to read here as a Webtoon.

Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai (Sri Lankan, Novel)
Lambda Literary Award 2006

Swimming in the Monsoon Sea is Selvadurai's first YA novel and it's set in the lush backdrop of his childhood country during the 1980s. This fictional story follows orphaned but cheerful Amrith - a 14-year-old boy immersed in the lively oasis of his aunt and uncle's home. His primary focuses are auditioning for his school's production of Othello and learning to work with his uncle's business. But when his Canadian cousin - Niresh - moves in, Amrith begins to fall in love with the new arrival. Cleverly interwoven against the theme of Othello is a coming-of-age story, involving themes of jealousy and identity confusion.

What I enjoyed was that, although there is some homophobia from other characters, the plot is not driven by pain and victimization. Instead, this is a tender and beautiful YA LGBTQ story that follows a young man on a journey of self-discovery and growth while immersing the reader in a world they can almost touch and smell.

Coconut by Kopano Matlwa (South Africa, Novel)
European Union Literary Award Winner 2006

"I attend this ancient church because I am comfortable here. I understand nothing of the history of the church. I do not know what the word 'Anglican' means nor can I explain to you how the church came to arise. It is simple. I come here because I feel I belong. That is all. The traditions of the church are my own. I do not have any others."

This excerpt from the opening chapter of Coconut raises one of the most important themes of the story - the inexplicable nature of how we are often unquestioningly bound to our past. I have to admit the opening of this book didn't grab me but, as I continued, this story of two Black girls in a White world resonated deeply. 'Coconut' is a term given to people who have dark skin but are (inside) culturally White or who have internalized their own non-White status, often as 'less than'.

Set in post-apartheid South Africa, this story follows two young women from different sides of the tracks - Ofilwe and Fiks. Their shared story unites them. A story of eschewing their 'Blackness' - with greater or lessor reluctance - to succeed in a society that still values light skin. Their struggles with identity, discrimination, and finding their place in the world will be relatable to minorities the world over. Themes of equality versus inequality, self-perception versus self-actualization, and wealth versus acceptance are artfully explored in this novel.

Many Western teens will experience Coconut as a window into a different world. For others, it serves as a much-needed mirror of what it means to fit into a society that sees you as an outsider. Most teen readers will identify with the universal challenges of trying to find their place in the world as they move toward adulthood.

Those Who Wait by Ruby Yayra Goka (Ghana, Novel)
Burt Award Honour 2012

I couldn't resist this short book when I came across it, mainly because it's set in Ghana, the land of my father. This short novel tells the story from the perspective of Patience Acolatse, a 12-year-old schoolgirl. As a character, Patience is immediately endearing because of her childlike view of the world. Goka peppers the narrative with 'facts' that bring a smile to your face and force us to reflect that stereotypes go both ways between cultures.

"Sandra Wilson, my best friend, says Fantis love English things, like watches with chains, hats with feathers and English food like puddings."

Feathers and food aside, the story centers around Patience's relationship with her cousin, Rowena, who comes to live with Patience's family. It's not long before conflict arises between the girls in predictable and unpredictable ways. It's a story told with both quiet and laugh-out-loud humor and has a powerful sense of place and time. The narration is straightforward, with clever observations and experiences all middle-schoolers can relate to.

Those in Western classrooms will appreciate how we are all different in our own ways and all so much alike. While the story introduces different aspects of Fanti and Ghanaian culture and language, it does so in a way that is accessible to younger readers. Dealing with topics of friendship, family dynamics, jealousy, and kindness, this is a younger middle school tale with heart.

John Agard was born in British Guiana (now Guyana) and moved to England as an adult. Half-Caste is the titular poem of his 2005 anthology. In it, the speaker assumes the role of a naïve inquirer who is trying to work out the meaning of the often-considered offensive label 'half-caste' - a term used to describe those of mixed ethnic heritage. Written in the dialect of Agard's home country (Guyana), and set in England, the stanzas humorously (and satirically) explore what 'half-caste' could possibly mean. He introduces parallels that draw out the absurdity of something being 'half' anything:

The poem is one of many in this much-celebrated anthology of Agard's poems. One aspect of teaching this anthology that I enjoy is how it challenges everyday assumptions in unexpected ways. Often playful, always challenging, this poem (and the collection to which it belongs) offers many opportunities for rich discussion. The collection is also rich in allusion and intertextuality, meaning we can interpret it at different levels depending on the age and experience of the reader. Whether your students are poetry-reluctant or poetry lovers, they will have a hard time resisting the appeal of John Agard and his entertaining performances.

Final thoughts on promoting diversity in the classroom:

While I work in an international school representing over 64 nationalities (and immeasurable diversity within those rather trivial categories), I believe the more we all read across cultures, the better we understand each other and ourselves.

Whether your classroom is monocultural or multicultural, prioritizing diversity in the classroom is a gift to your students in so many ways. From seeing characters 'like them' to gaining insights into other ways of being, access to such stories can only enhance our understanding of what it means to be human. I encourage you to use these texts as a starting point to increase the diversity in your classroom. And remember, you don't have to work alone! You can recruit parents/community members to ensure your collection grows intentionally and in relation to the context around and beyond your own.

Danielle here:

If you want more text ideas for increasing diversity in the classroom, check out this list. It has short stories, TED Talks, YA/MG novels, nonfiction, music, TV, and more!

I know as a teacher it's hard to keep up with all the new releases in YA & MG. That's why I created The YA Cafe Podcast, along with with my wife Amanda. Each episode is roughly 30 minutes, and is spoiler-free for the first half! We give you the rundown on YA novels by Queer and/or POC authors so that even if you don't have time to read the book, you can decide if it's a good choice for your classroom library.

And lastly, check out this post on how to get free books for your classroom library, because striving towards more diversity in the classroom doesn't have to break the bank.

Happy teaching!

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5 Texts to Promote Diversity In the Classroom

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One tool for promoting diversity in the classroom is using texts by international authors. Here are 5 texts from around the world your students will love! Note: This is a guest post, written by Abena. She's a writer and educator who focuses on promoting diversity in the classroom.

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Diverse Easy Readers for Emergent and Early Readers

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Diverse Easy Readers for Emergent and Early Readers

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You may have noticed that most easy readers contain animal main characters. While diversity has gotten a little better in some categories such as realistic beginning chapter books and realistic middle grade books, we still aren't seeing much representation in early readers. (Or in other genres like fantasy, mystery, and science fiction.)

However, there are some!

You'll find some really great culturally and racially diverse books for early readers on this list.

(We know there are many more kinds of diversity, neurodiversity, and physical diversity, for example. This list is focused on culture and ethnicity.)

Use these books for your kids who are learning to read. These books represent the diversity in our world.

Remember, emergent and early readers need several things to grow: explicit, direct instruction, good books, and practice.

We can help our growing readers ages 5 to 7, in kindergarten, 1st grade, or 2nd grade, to grow by reading good books and giving them time to read.

NOTE: If your child is learning to read or struggling with reading (or you teach growing readers,) I highly recommend Reading Simplified's resources and membership site.Dr. Ginsberg streamlines the reading research into understandable activities that get results!

You might also like: DIVERSE BEGINNING CHAPTER BOOKS.

Diverse Easy Reader Books for Developing Readers

by Candice Ransom, illustrated by Erika Meza
Siblings, brother and sister, watch the flakes falling outside the window. When school is cancelled, they'll get to play outside with their friends. This continues their easy reader book series which also includes Apple Picking Day, Pumpkin Day, and Garden Day.

Baseball Buzz(Sports Illustrated Kids Level 1 Readers) by CC Joven
In this simple story with one sentence per page, Jackson likes baseball. In the game, everything goes well until a bee comes along and he gets distracted.

Nick and Nack Build a Birdhouse by Brandon Budzi, illustrated by Adam Record
Clever Nick and Nack eat a lot of ice pops then use their popsicle sticks to build a birdhouse. Help them find the materials they need by searching for the hidden objects. The combination of an interesting story with a diverse main character, the interactive hidden pictures, and the integration to STEM concepts is a sure-fire win for kids.

Surf's Up (Moby Shinobi and Toby Too!) by Luke Flowers
A beach adventure with Moby, a ninja, and his dog! They discover that no matter what they do such as building a sandcastle, if they work together, they'll have more success. Rhyming, easy-to-read text, adorable characters, and fun adventures make this a new must-read series for early readers.
You Might Also Like: Beginning Chapter Books with Diverse Main Characters All Easy Reader Book Recommendations

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Diverse Easy Readers for Emergent and Early Readers

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You may have noticed that most easy readers contain animal main characters. While diversity has gotten a little better in some categories such as realistic beginning chapter books and realistic middle grade books, we still aren't seeing much representation in early readers. (Or in other genres like fantasy, mystery, and science fiction.)

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Preparing Staff for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives 

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Preparing Staff for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives 

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Getting teacher buy-in is the most important step, and laying the groundwork for frank conversations will help administrators start.

The racial reckoning of the last year has caused many schools to reexamine their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and priorities. Often, one of the biggest challenges that schools face in doing this work is getting their entire faculty and staff on board. When there isn't agreement on why these initiatives are needed or what they should try to accomplish, it lessens the possibility of systemic implementation.

For DEI work to be systemic in schools, schools need to establish professional learning communities (PLCs) working together to tackle the most pertinent items in their school context. But this type of work isn't easy. I have personally witnessed faculty meetings erupting in anger around race and privilege when conversations weren't framed respectfully and agreements were not made beforehand by each of the participants. Although it's normal for difficult conversations to create tension and discomfort, I don't believe there's ever a place for us to break collegiality by harming others with our words. It doesn't create healing or get us closer to the purpose of DEI.

Having Difficult Conversations

You'll want to start small because systemic change takes time. Therefore, set realistic goals and focus on small, high-leverage steps that yield tangible shifts in the interpersonal dynamics between the staff. Improved discourse between educators and making faculty meetings intellectually safe spaces are two important goals. This way, teachers and staff won't be afraid to voice their views and get constructive feedback.

An important takeaway here is that the adults collectively need to take the necessary time to create positive change in school-wide climate, culture, policy, routines, and rituals before it can occur with students.

Successful outcomes in school climate and culture will require conversations, resources, and actionable steps both in faculty meetings and classrooms.

Difficult conversations in schools pertinent to DEI vary depending on school context (e.g., population demographics). Some may include, but are not limited to, defining antiracist work, improving inclusion for various groups, managing diversity for making schools safe, carrying out equitable practices, and enabling diverse narratives across the curriculum.

When dealing with topics involving race or others where the adults don't agree (e.g., social justice, emotionally charged current events, systemic racism), it's critical to establish equity of voice, set ground rules for continued discussions, and define microaggressions in order to develop a school-wide culture of inclusivity that is free from harm for all. The term microaggressions often refers to both intentional and unintentional verbal, behavioral, and environmental insults perpetrated against people of color.

It's important to note that microaggressions are not just about race. Dr. Derald Wing Sue wrote in his paper on the subject, "While microaggressions are generally discussed from the perspective of race and racism, any marginalized group in our society may become targets: people of color, women, LGBT persons, those with disabilities, religious minorities, and so on."

Try using circle practice to provide structure for difficult conversations between educators. To make a safe and inclusive environment for staff, these are some of the transformational norms and agreements I encourage school leaders to model and implement with their staffs during circles:

1. Everyone participates. This does not mean that everyone will speak, but it does mean that everyone will look and pay attention to whoever is speaking.

2. Don't require people of color on staff to share their traumatic experiences or lead the work. Instead, provide us the opportunities to contribute according to our comfort levels, and be mindful not to tokenize us. Consider bringing in experts who have checked their own biases and who have valid DEI expertise-regarding research, methodology, and facilitation.

3. Speak from the heart, and be open to feedback. Staff members are encouraged to speak their truth respectfully. They will also need to be open to receiving feedback when their perspective needs to change because it limits students and thus causes harm to them and other colleagues.

4. Listen from the heart. Staff members are encouraged to listen to their colleagues without allowing their personal views to write them off completely. This will be difficult, but the structure and norms will allow for constructive feedback and dialogue to occur over time, which will cause some people to eventually change their limiting beliefs (implicit biases) that harm students.

5. What is shared in the circle stays in the circle. Often staff members do not express themselves for fear of how their words may land, or they lack the confidence to advocate for themselves or others. By everyone agreeing to leave what's shared in the circle, trust is established over time.

Curating Reputable Resources

To keep these conversations going, educators must commit to continuous growth (individually and collectively) and also to working with students. This requires excellent resources along with structure for their use.

These should include videos, how-to blogs, published research, and replicable activities for the classroom and teacher professional development.

Before undertaking this work with students, the adults will need to do their homework. We can't be the lead teachers on DEI issues and learn alongside the kids. We need to be deeply informed about the systemic structures and barriers that have marginalized the folks we are trying to empathize with-along with the effects (data) of the inequities and trauma caused.

A simple structure like the text-based seminar or circle practice, along with tweaks to the abovementioned norms and shared agreements, works well for small and grade-level PLCs doing professional development. Here are readings and resources covering multiple contexts.

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Preparing Staff for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives

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Getting teacher buy-in is the most important step, and laying the groundwork for frank conversations will help administrators start.

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Integrating Components of Culture in Curriculum Planning

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Integrating Components of Culture in Curriculum Planning

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Why the term DEIJ is slowly but surely being retired
***Can the person who submitted this tell us more and/or include the article you are referencing here please? Thank you so much!

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Finding Strength in Diversity: Recruiting a Board Range of Candidates is Essential for a Company's Success 

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Finding Strength in Diversity: Recruiting a Board Range of Candidates is Essential for a Company's Success 

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February may be over, but there are plenty of opportunities to continue teaching and learning about Black history.

As educators, we hold a position of power within our classrooms and sometimes even within our communities. It is important to reflect on how we use our positions of power and influence to honour and support all students and not just the dominant social groups. We need to continue reflecting on whose voices we are honouring and prioritizing and whose voices we are “othering”. This will not only allow for a more fulsome understanding of the global majority’s lived experiences but also enable students to think critically about their and other lived experiences.

bell hooks describes love as a combination of six ingredients and our actions must reflect these six ingredients. “The question of love is the question of what to do,” (hooks, b. 2017). As we know, teaching is an act of love and hooks’ six ingredients are able to hold us accountable to how we show our love for our students and each other.

CareCommitmentKnowledgeResponsibilityRespectTrust We have a responsibility to our students and the communities we serve to not limit Black history to 28 days. Instead, we should incorporate Black creators and thinkers into our everyday learning and be mindful of the narrative we reinforce of the Black diaspora.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the danger of a single story and the messages they communicate. If we center students’ understanding of Black people around  enslavement and oppression, then we reduce Black experiences to that single story. Black history didn’t begin with enslavement. As Rachel Cargleexplains, “it was indeed scientists, story tellers, grandmothers, and composers that were taken from our homelands.” Who were we before enslavement and colonialism, and how can educators honour that part of our history as well?

Adichie mentions “how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children.” (Adichie, C. 2009). Stories hold power, the power to influence a whole generation of thinkers. It is our responsibility as educators to embed Black contributions within our curricula in ways that honour and celebrate the achievements and contributions of Black people that have come before us and ones that continue to walk with us in the fight to justice.

It’s also important to reflect on whose voices are unheard even within the Black community. The Black diaspora is full of people from all walks of life, cultures, religions and varying identities.  It is important to centre Black Muslim women like Hodan Nalayeh, Ginella Massa and Dr. Afua Cooper and their lived experiences. This not only affirms Black students in your class but also Black and Muslim students.

It is important to not erase Afro-Indigenous voices when talking about Black history. Voices such as Tasha Spillett, Justin Alexander Holness, and Larissa Crawford and their work to honour Black and Indigenous students. Being mindful to also highlight Black queer voices like Ravyn Wngz, Jackie Shane, and Trey Anthony and their influence in not only the Black community but also the queer community at large.

Stories are a powerful tool, ones that can transform minds and lives. Rudine Sims Bishop notes that “books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author.” She acknowledges that, “children from dominant social groups have always found their mirrors in books but they too have suffered from lack of availability of books about others.” Using literature that reflects our people and communities in an authentic way can enable a deeper, more informed understanding of diverse Black experiences.

As always, nothing comes easy but when we know better, we do better. You can continue to consult our Library of Black Literatureas well as the Canadian Black History resources to support you in learning alongside your students, not just during the month of February but throughout the entire year.

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These Black History Month resources are so valuable that we are are posting them twice! 

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These Black History Month resources are so valuable that we are are posting them twice! 

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Thank you, Mante Molepo.  We admire all your wisdom and your generous resource libraries.

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Black History Month Resources | Mante Molepo

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How Inclusive is Your Classroom Library Really?

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How Inclusive is Your Classroom Library Really?

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In 1981, my family moved eighteen miles from northeast Philadelphia to the suburbs. Because I had just turned five, my parents decided we needed to move into a better school district. This meant moving from a predominantly black neighborhood to a predominantly white one. I didn't know it then, but it would be my first lesson in how segregation works.

My parents emigrated from the Philippines in the 1970s. They were part of a professional class that came to the United States in a wave of Asian immigration after the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Like many immigrants, they came for a better life, for themselves and for their families. And so when they could afford to move to a better school district for my brother and me, they did.

Throughout elementary and middle school, my brother and I were among only a handful of students of color-and, if my memory is correct, we were two of only three Asian Americans in the building, in our classes, on the playground. We went to parochial school, and though I always knew I was different, I had a good experience. I did well in school, slept over best friends' houses on the weekends, and played township softball in the spring.

When I think back to those years, I feel lucky for the education I received and grateful to my parents for the sacrifices they made. It was only later, however, when I read W. E. B. Dubois in college-read his definition of double consciousness- that I could identify the most important lesson my education afforded me.

I learned to assimilate.

Most of my lessons in assimilation came through the books I read in school-and I loved to read. As an introvert, I lost myself in the world of books. But into whose worlds did I enter?

Not a single character in any book I read for school-not any book that was recommended to me by a teacher-included a character who looked like me, who shared similar conflicts related to my identity as a student of color. I studied Shakespeare and Milton, Fitzgerald and Twain, Hawthorne and Steinbeck. (I'd always considered myself "well-educated," but recently I've realized that "well-educated" has a rather narrow definition.)

This was the 1990s. Twenty-plus years later, I wonder how much has changed. Meanwhile, our society certainly has. According to census data, less than three years from now in 2020, students of color will make up the majority of the children sitting in our classrooms. Those schoolchildren will graduate and go on to work within and among the most diverse generation in history.

* * *

I share my story because I believe our past experiences in school shape the teachers we become-in profound and insidious ways. When I first started teaching, my assimilationist tendencies pervaded my teaching too. I didn't understand that too often to assimilate meant to erase. I did not question what I was asked to teach; I didn't wonder (with the urgency I should have) about voices that were absent or silenced. Teachers are human; we like our comfort zones. How many times, after all, have we used or heard our colleagues reason, "That's how I learned X!" or "When I was in school, Y worked for me!"? We teach what we know, what we were taught-but what we know is incomplete, and what we were taught could be damaging to kids.

I don't think my story is unique, and in talking with other educators of color, it isn't. It took years for me to realize how much I had missed in my own schooling; I think we owe it to the kids in our classrooms to not make the same mistakes.
Toward Inclusive Practices
Reading and writing can be powerful tools for agency and liberation, which is why making sure our practices are grounded in inclusion is so important. What do I mean by inclusive practices? Inclusive practices are those that guarantee the perspectives and contributions of all people-especially of diverse backgrounds who have been traditionally marginalized such as LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, and people of color-are given equal recognition, attention, and care in all learning environments.

Inclusive practices consist of both curricular materials and teaching methods. It assumes that because the aim of education is to empower students, decisions regarding curricula or methods are always political in nature. When our teaching practices are not inclusive, we perpetuate systemic inequalities.

View the full pdf here
Eight Questions to Ask Yourself
So what can we do? As educators, we must ask ourselves tough, uncomfortable questions about the ways in which our experiences have led to biases that have affected-and infected-our practices. We must start by looking at ourselves.

Below are eight questions for self-reflection. As you answer these questions, pay attention to how you might be feeling as you respond. Set aside some quiet time to reflect on your responses-or, better yet, consider inviting a trusted colleague to respond and discuss together. You might also work in small groups at a department or faculty meeting to discuss as well.
How inclusive is the media you consume, personally and professionally?

What do you read by people of color, LGBTQ+ authors, and writers with disabilities? What books, news articles, publications?

What television programs, films, podcasts, and other multimedia do you consume and who creates that media? Whose voices are privileged?

What professional literature do you read? How often and in what ways do you extend your professional reading to include all voices? How diverse is your PLN and PD?

How inclusive is your curriculum?

In what ways is your curriculum shaped by your own educational experiences?

Whose voices are centered in the texts you teach? Whose voices are marginalized or missing?

How do you recognize and celebrate the backgrounds of diverse authors already included in your curriculum?

In what ways do you integrate cultural and racial literacy in your instruction?

How often do you conduct an audit of your curriculum? In what ways has your curriculum changed to meet the needs of today's students? To what extent do you regularly examine and revise your curriculum to search for problems or gaps?

How inclusive is your classroom library?

How does your classroom library mirror your own reading preferences versus those of your students?

Do you know which voices are represented on your bookshelves? Which voices are missing?

In what ways do you include-and how do you find-#ownvoices titles to add to your library? How are these voices integrated versus othered in the way you organize or share titles?

How inclusive are your mentor texts for writing?

What writing-and whose voices-do you hold up as mentors of excellent writing and for what purpose?

What is your definition of good writing? In what ways does that definition include or exclude particular voices or linguistic varieties?

How inclusive is your language?

How often do you use gendered versus non-gendered language?

How do you model respectful and asset-based language (versus deficit language) to describe others, both with students and colleagues?

How inclusive are your class discussions?

How equitable are your class discussions? In what ways do you ensure all student voices are heard?

How do you scaffold class discussion to encourage courageous conversations?

How do you model inclusive thinking for your students?

How often do you show (think aloud) inclusive thinking when discussing your decisions and responses to texts?

In what ways do you demonstrate intellectual and cultural humility in front of students?

How often do you discuss inclusive practices with your colleagues?

In what ways-and how often-do you and your colleagues reflect on your practices to ensure all voices are recognized and respected?

How do you ensure the voices of educators of color are heard and appreciated?

In what ways do you advocate for inclusive practices beyond your classroom?

Of course, these questions are by no means exhaustive. Many educators have been doing this work longer and have written extensively and brilliantly about these issues (see list at the end for additional resources).

As you read these questions, you may find yourself questioning your practices. Or you might feel defensive about them. But try to look objectively at your teaching. Step into whatever discomfort you might feel-and ask yourself, honestly, why you're feeling that way.

This work isn't easy. It takes time and patience and a relentless commitment to being critical of ourselves and the systems around us. I have often caught myself falling into bad habits, and I must continue to work actively to decolonize my own assumptions of what is considered valuable.

While these questions are structured in list form, inclusive practices cannot be reduced to a checklist. For example, an inclusive curriculum cannot be achieved by simply checking off a list of diverse authors and texts. Instead, inclusive practices must infuse every part of our pedagogy.

Asking ourselves these questions is a necessary first step-yet it is only a step. The real work begins when we take action.

Tricia Ebarvia is a 2016-2018 Heinemann Fellow. Tricia has spent the last 15 years as a classroom educator with a student-driven approach to teaching reading and writing. Through her career, Tricia has applied the philosophy of the teacher-as-researcher while applying best practices to "cultivate independent learners" through independent reading and student choice. "For better or worse, "well enough" doesn't satisfy me. I approach each school year, each course, each unit with fresh eyes." Follow Tricia on twitter @TriciaEbarvia.

Additional resources:

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Tricia Ebarvia: How Inclusive Is Your Literacy Classroom Really?

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In 1981, my family moved eighteen miles from northeast Philadelphia to the suburbs. Because I had just turned five, my parents decided we needed to move into a better school district. This meant moving from a predominantly black neighborhood to a predominantly white one.

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Just Choosing Diverse Books is Not Enough: Let's Make Curriculum Connections

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Just Choosing Diverse Books is Not Enough: Let's Make Curriculum Connections

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Dr. Towanda Harris

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Reading Recovery Council of North America

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Just Choosing Diverse Books is Not Enough: Let's Make Curriculum Connections - Reading Recovery Council of North America

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however, not one character looked like her. As a matter of fact, all of the characters in everyone's stories were white. She gasped and paused as our class nodded in agreement about similar experiences that we have had.

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Finding Diverse Books for Students' Reading and Learning

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Finding Diverse Books for Students' Reading and Learning

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Thank you, Heather Purcell!

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In 2014, children of color became the new majority in America's public schools, so now more than ever, it's important that classroom books and materials reflect today's students.

Particularly for beginning readers, literacy learning should include multicultural content that affirms identity for all students.

How does a literacy coach or educator refresh or build a collection that reflects and celebrates today's classroom and the uniqueness of each child?

Know that each title doesn't need to represent all facets of our children and communities. Across a collection and reading levels, look to add a balance of gender, race, cultures, and family dynamics to recognize the diversity of today's classroom and experiences of today's students.
"Diversity is essential for students learning to read because they are for the first time stepping out of their world into a world that exists outside of themselves. As authors, we can put readers in the proximity of others. When we are around others, we can begin to understand different cultures and appreciate others' differences. We write to extend boundaries. Each group has a gift. If we collect all of the gifts and put them together, we know love. As an author, I write to celebrate this-the heritage of cultural diversities."
- Gaylia Taylor, retired Reading Recovery® and Bebop Books author, in her recent interview Creating Diverse Books for Leveled Reading: An Interview with Gaylia Taylor
How do you evaluate multicultural books for your Reading Recovery® collection?
Some of our current favorite guides for identifying quality diverse books (and avoiding pitfalls) here:

Read more from the experts:

Learn more about our new Reading Recovery® Bebop Books collection and get in touch!

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Resources to Find Diverse Books for Reading Recovery®

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In 2014, children of color became the new majority in America's public schools, so now more than ever, it's important that classroom books and materials reflect today's students. Particularly for beginning readers, literacy learning should include multicultural content that affirms identity for all students.

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Finding Diverse Books for Students' Reading and Learning

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Finding Diverse Books for Students' Reading and Learning

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Thank you, Heather Purcell!

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In 2014, children of color became the new majority in America's public schools, so now more than ever, it's important that classroom books and materials reflect today's students.

Particularly for beginning readers, literacy learning should include multicultural content that affirms identity for all students.

How does a literacy coach or educator refresh or build a collection that reflects and celebrates today's classroom and the uniqueness of each child?

Know that each title doesn't need to represent all facets of our children and communities. Across a collection and reading levels, look to add a balance of gender, race, cultures, and family dynamics to recognize the diversity of today's classroom and experiences of today's students.
"Diversity is essential for students learning to read because they are for the first time stepping out of their world into a world that exists outside of themselves. As authors, we can put readers in the proximity of others. When we are around others, we can begin to understand different cultures and appreciate others' differences. We write to extend boundaries. Each group has a gift. If we collect all of the gifts and put them together, we know love. As an author, I write to celebrate this-the heritage of cultural diversities."
- Gaylia Taylor, retired Reading Recovery® and Bebop Books author, in her recent interview Creating Diverse Books for Leveled Reading: An Interview with Gaylia Taylor
How do you evaluate multicultural books for your Reading Recovery® collection?
Some of our current favorite guides for identifying quality diverse books (and avoiding pitfalls) here:

Read more from the experts:

Learn more about our new Reading Recovery® Bebop Books collection and get in touch!

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Resources to Find Diverse Books for Reading Recovery®

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In 2014, children of color became the new majority in America's public schools, so now more than ever, it's important that classroom books and materials reflect today's students. Particularly for beginning readers, literacy learning should include multicultural content that affirms identity for all students.

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Black History Month Compass - Teaching for Black Lives

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Black History Month Compass - Teaching for Black Lives

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As you immerse students in Black History Month studies and continue antiracism work as school communities, we wanted to let you know of ongoing efforts to offer you learning, teaching and professional resources in our ISS Antiracism Padlet.  You will find a column/shelf titled Black History Month as well as numerous other lenses for these vital collaborations and journeys (This Padlet):

https://padlet.com/lbenson3/antiracist

| How to Be an Antiracist (*Inspired by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's book)Brave Books, Critical Conversations, Expanded Heartspadlet.com

I also want to share some needed and powerful insights I recently gained from my reading of Teaching for Black Lives in a book club and think tank co-facilitated by our brilliant and generous ISS colleague Adrienne Waller from Cayman International School.  While each of us and each of our communities are in unique growing places and while some of the following recommendations need and warrant specific and responsive cultural considerations for our school contexts and missions, I offer these ideas in friendship, hope and invitation for us to collectively work together to nurture and sustain antiracism and inclusion for all.

Teaching for Black Lives

Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian and Wayne Au (2018)

A Rethinking Schools Publication

Quote (page 20)

"#BlackLivesMatter doesn't mean your life isn't important - it means that Black lives, which are seen as without value within white supremacy, are important to liberation."

How to Make Black Lives Matter in Our Schools (page 21)

Provide a social justice, anti-racist curriculum that gives students the historical grounding, literacy skills, and space to explore the emotional intensity of feeling around the murder of Black youth by police.  At the same time, deep discussion of heavy issues needs to build on strong classroom community.  Students can't launch into discussions of racism without a basis of trust and sharing among students and between students and teacher/s. That is the slow, steady work of meaningful classroom conversation, purpose group work, reading and writing about critical social and personal issues, shared writing, and more.  Teachers need to nurture communities of mutual respect and empathy.

Support students who want to have conversations about the Black Lives Matter movement outside the classroom, in school forums or school clubs.  Educators supporting the word of Black Student Unions in schools across the country (and world) have helped transform the school climate.  Black students' sense of pride and self-worth have helped ignite this new civil rights movement.

Raise the Black Lives Matter movement with other teachers at our schools and in our unions.  It's not enough to provide students with historical lessons.  History is being made today by teachers planning Black Student Lives Matter forums, advocating for hiring more Black teachers, and participating in many other actions around the country (and world). *Co-create these efforts with students, not just for them, too.

Additionally (page 25)...

Support ethnic studies in all schools.

Replace zero-tolerance discipline with restorative justice practices.

De-track classes within the school to undo racial segregation that is reinforced by tracking.

And...

Six-Point Program to Confront Injustice (pages 34-35)

Equality for all regardless of race, gender, class, social standing and/or sexual orientation - both in and out of the classroom as well as the community.

Increase of unity within the community.

Academic equity for students.

Provide (edifying) and adequate (professional learning) for teachers, staff and administrators to effectively interact with students (and offer them respectful and informative feedback).

Oppose segregation through classism.

Getting others to see that institutional racism does exist in our community, city, state/country, and world.

"I can’t make people not afraid of black people. I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t explain what’s happening in your head. But maybe if I show up every day as a human, a good human, doing wonderful things, loving my family, loving your kids, taking care of things that I care about—maybe, just maybe that work will pick away at the scabs of your discrimination. Maybe that slowly will unravel it. That’s all we have, because we can’t do it for them, because they’re broken.

"Their brokenness in how they see us is a reflection of this brokenness. And you can’t fix that. All you can do is the work."
Michelle Obama

Warmest friendship, hope and respect,
Laura Benson
Director of Curriculum and Professional Development
International Schools Services
A non-profit organization
Office:  Centennial, Colorado USA
Email:  lbenson@iss.edu
Twitter @LBopenbook

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Black History Month Library from Mante Molepo

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Black History Month Library from Mante Molepo

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Thank you to Mante Molepo and Bob Stearns!  Be sure to read Mante Molepo's story - Incredibly inspiring.

https://www.mantemolepo.com/black-history-month?s=08

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Book Club Facilitation Guide: How to be an Antiracist - Simple Book Publishing

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Book Club Facilitation Guide: How to be an Antiracist by Olaolu Adeleye is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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Black Past

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Belgian parliamentarian Bertin Mampaka was born in the capital city of Kinshasa in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), on April 6, 1957. He is the son of a traditional Kasai chief and politician. Early on Mampaka exhibited a penchant ... Read MoreBertin Mampaka (né Bertin Mankamba Mankamba) (1957- )

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Belgian parliamentarian Bertin Mampaka was born in the capital city of Kinshasa in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), on April 6, 1957. He is the son of a traditional Kasai chief and politician. Early on Mampaka exhibited a penchant ...

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Black History Month: What is it and was does it matter?

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Black History Month: What is it and was does it matter?

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BBC News

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October marks Black History Month in the UK.

The event began in the US in the 1920s, and was first celebrated in the UK in 1987.

It also takes place in Canada, Germany and Ireland.

When is Black History Month and what is it?

In the UK, Black History Month happens every October.

It gives everyone the opportunity to share, celebrate and understand the impact of black heritage and culture.

People from African and Caribbean backgrounds have been a fundamental part of British history for centuries. However, campaigners believe their contribution to society has often been overlooked or distorted.

How did Black History Month start?

The event was the brainchild of Carter G Woodson, known as the father of black history.

Born in Virginia in 1875 to parents who were former slaves, he had limited access to education and job opportunities. But he was able to study at one of the few high schools for black students after saving money earned by working as a coal miner.

Woodson went on to gain various qualifications, including a PhD in history from Harvard University, and became a professor at Howard University.

Throughout his life, he worked tirelessly to promote black history in schools.

In 1926 he launched the first Black History Week, set in February to coincide with the births of former President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Both men played a significant role in helping to end slavery.

The event was expanded in 1970, and since 1976 every US president has officially designated February as Black History Month.

A separate holiday - "Juneteenth", held on 19 June - commemorates the end of slavery in the US.

How did Black History Month start in the UK?

The first Black History Month in the UK took place in 1987, the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean.

It was arranged by Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, who came to the UK from Ghana as a refugee in 1984. Like Woodson before him, he wanted to challenge racism and celebrate the history of black people.

October was chosen partly because it's traditionally a time when African leaders gather to talk about important issues, and partly because it was at the start of the school year.

How is Black History Month celebrated in the UK?

When Black History Month first began, there was a big focus on black American history. Over time the event has prioritised black British history and key black figures from the UK, such as:

Walter Tull, the first black officer to command white troops in the British Army, and one of English football's first black players

Malorie Blackman, bestselling author and the first black Children's Laureate

Shirley J Thompson, leading composer and conductor

Lewis Hamilton, the only black driver in Formula One

Black History Month is also celebrated in local communities, where museums, care homes and workplaces explore a broad range of topics, from Britain's colonial past to migration and music.

For 2023, people are being encouraged to find out more about the exceptional achievements of black women, especially those who have been forgotten.

There is a national poetry competition, open to primary, secondary, college, and university students across the UK.

The contribution of the Windrush generation is also being celebrated, 75 years after the arrival of passengers on HMT Empire Windrush to the UK.

Is black history taught in schools?

For many children in the UK, October is the only time of the year they will learn about black history.

Wales became the first nation in the UK to introduce mandatory changes to its curriculum in 2022, including lessons about black history, racism and contributions of figures from black, Asian and other ethnic minorities.

Education is a devolved issue and in England there are no such plans to make changes.

The UK government says black history is an important topic, and that schools have the freedom to teach it within the existing history curriculum, from primary-school age onwards.

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Black History Month: What is it and why does it matter?

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First proposed in the US in the 1920s, the event was first celebrated in the UK in 1987.

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National Geographic Kids

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Every February, people in the United States celebrate the achievements and history of African Americans as part of Black History Month.

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Blackhistorymonth.gov

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February is Black History Month. Paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.

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Children's Defense Fund

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Celebrating Black History Month The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) is founded, powered, and inspired by the legacy of Black heroes-it is the through-line that has carried our work for children for nearly 50 years. Founder and president emerita Marian Wright Edelman calls CDF "the grandchild of Dr.

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The History Channel

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Black History Month 2023: Facts, Origins & More | HISTORY

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February is dedicated as Black History Month, honoring the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history.

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Virtual Events That Celebrate Black Culture

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Virtual Events That Celebrate Black Culture

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Thank you, Liz Duffy and Desiree Bryant!

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Virtual Events That Celebrate Black Culture | Eventbrite

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This curated events collection showcases Black excellence in its many forms: food, film, comedy, music, literature, and more.

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Thank you, Desiree Bryant, Director of Human Resources, International Schools Services!

We all must have learned about American life and history when it comes to studying African American people. But, it was not beyond slavery or the US civil war and civil rights movement.

People from the African Diaspora (term used to denote the African people dispersed during the slave trade) have made immense contributions in many ways. Yet, people in the UK and US did not recognize black history and innovations. It was given less importance or dimly acknowledged.

As a result, Black History Month came into existence in October 1978 in the UK with the leadership of Ghanaian analyst Akyaaba Addai-Sebo. He worked for the Greater London Council.

Whereas the US celebrates Black History Month every February. In 1915, a historian named Carter G, Woodson, and four others founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). This was the beginning of African American Studies in the US.

Almost ten years later, it was announced the Negro History Week in February. But, the same week collided with Abraham Lincoln’s and Frederick Douglass’s birthday. So, they extended the event into a month-long celebration.

And in the year 1976, president Gerald Ford seized the opportunity to honor the neglected accomplishments of black Americans. And hence, Black History Month came into existence in the US.

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This Book is Antiracist:    20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work 

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This Book is Antiracist:    20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work 

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By Tiffany Jewell and Aurelia Durand
*We are studying this book for our ISS Book club in March of 2022

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Zaretta Hammond on Equity and Student Engagement

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Zaretta Hammond on Equity and Student Engagement

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Zaretta Hammond, a former teacher and college writing instructor, is an influential curriculum designer and trainer who works with school districts on issues of equity, literacy, and culturally responsive instruction. She is the author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students (Corwin, 2014), which positions culturally responsive teaching as a method for honing cognitive capacity in students and supporting independent learning and agency. She is currently working on a book on instructional equity.
Where do you see student engagement fitting into instructional equity?
For me, equity is about making sure every student is a powerful learner-that's the equity goal we should be shooting for. So, I don't see instructional equity merely in terms of system metrics like getting more kids into AP classes or advanced algebra. Because if we get more kids in advanced algebra, but they can't carry the cognitive load required for advanced algebra, that doesn't help anybody. When we think about equity as making sure every student reaches their intellectual capacity so they can carry a heavier cognitive load-so that they can take part in deep learning that is rigorous, for example-then we see how critical it is to create the kind of intellectual curiosity and engagement that allows us to kick-start students' information processing and meaning making. And I mean true intellectual engagement, not just having fun. Too often we reduce engagement to hands-on "activities" or to a lesson that's fun and interactive, but we don't necessarily connect that interactivity to academic rigor or cognitive capacity building. And that's the thing that's so important. For me, the question is: Do we do enough to create classroom environments for students to be intellectually curious? The problem is not typically with the kids, who always come in with intellectual curiosity on some level. It's with the environments we are creating.
What common mistakes do you see schools making in terms of student engagement, particularly with respect to students who may be struggling?
I think one of the biggest mistakes we make, particularly for struggling students, who are disproportionately children of color, is that we employ a pedagogy of compliance. I mean, if you look at what's being put in front of these students sometimes, it's kind of mind-numbing. There's no complexity to the work. It lacks any real-life context to address the typical student question of "What's the use of me learning this?" The learning is too decontextualized and compartmentalized. By contrast, you could use something like place-based learning, where students are trying to solve a local problem-for example, a water issue in the community, or a land-erosion pattern, or even a problem like too much garbage in the cafeteria. Take the example of the organization Agency by Design Oakland, which has a whole curriculum (in collaboration with the Culture of Repair Project and Maker Ed) around the concept of "repair" in the community. The questions they have students asking are real, complex, and interesting. Teachers create a compelling context for having students use the skills and information they are learning to build and preserve things of value.

Falling into a pedagogy of compliance that values orderliness over the messiness of complex work means we miss the opportunity to ignite engagement naturally. What we know from the science of learning is that when human beings try to figure something out, the brain is fired with intellectual curiosity. The brain loves a puzzle-that's the type of complexity that stimulates engagement.

Schools say they are doing different types of inquiry-based or project-based learning, but too often it's just a series of one-off activities for struggling students to do something "fun," but not cognitively interesting. Then, after the activity, we're back to compliance-focused pedagogy-meaning teachers do most of the talking and thinking, while students aren't creating anything or actively processing what they are hearing or reading. We need to be orchestrating curiosity. Why not start class with a provocative question or a puzzle related to the topic to ignite that intellectual curiosity? Instead, we squander the first 5 to 10 minutes of class with learning target review and a tepid "do-now."

Another mistake we make, again especially with struggling students, is over-scaffolding instruction. Remember, the curiosity we're trying to spark comes in the wondering, in the process of trying to figure something out, in the complexity of seeing connections between things that don't seem like they go together. But we edit out opportunities for this productive struggle and in the process make the content bland. We over-scaffold for our lower performers because we don't have enough trust in their ability to struggle productively without stressing out. So we micromanage their experiences. We scaffold out the curiosity and complexity, which is actually what ignites their brain.
Are there specific principles educators can glean from the science of learning-another long-time focus of yours-to set the conditions for greater intellectual curiosity and engagement?
I think number one is that we have to create a community of learners. We have a tendency to focus on relationships and community-building as purely social-you know, the culture of the classroom, kids getting along, that sort of thing. But what we don't do is create a set of studio habits for learning in community. Think about what artists do when they come together in a studio. They create a community of practice. They learn skills to develop their craft. They learn to critique and analyze each other's work. They extend and stretch themselves cognitively to get better through feedback provided by peers as critical friends. But in classrooms-again, especially in those with students who are low performers-we are afraid of critique or feedback that asks them to level up their skills or stretch themselves. Everything is very nicey-nice. We are afraid of damaging kids' self-esteem. But the reality is that students already know they are struggling, and that's what's damaging their self-esteem.

We have to instill community habits for growth in learning. Competence precedes confidence. When I'm a competent learner, I have the confidence to engage in intellectual endeavors that might stretch me, might confuse me, or might lead to productive struggle. That's precisely what the science of learning tells us makes the brain grow and allows us to carry a greater cognitive load. But if I'm just coasting and everybody's afraid of challenging me, I'm not getting anywhere cognitively, and I disengage. So now you have a pedagogy of compliance mixed with a culture of niceness. Sometimes they mask one another. Neither allows students to grow as learners.
You've talked of trying to marry the science of learning with culturally responsive teaching. Where do you see the need for convergence?
Actually, it's not a matter of convergence. They are just two sides of the same coin-that's what I want educators to see. We need to understand that the responsive part in culturally responsive teaching is the schema part of the zone of proximal development: It's this area of prior knowledge we can build on. I think educators get caught up in the culture part of culturally responsive teaching, and they mistake the whole thing for antiracist education or multiculturalism. That's not what culturally responsive teaching is. Culturally responsive teaching is about tapping the schema, or the funds of knowledge, that the student brings in; it's not just about trying to build self-esteem because his racial or linguistic identity is superficially represented in a text. As a teacher, I need to recognize, honor, and actually use students' funds of knowledge to make learning sticky. The science says learning for understanding happens when we integrate new knowledge with our existing knowledge. So, the more the teacher knows about a student's schema, the more she then can start to engage that student by making "cognitive hooks" between the learner's context, interests, cultural knowledge, and the new content in the curriculum. If the teacher wants to make material sticky, she contextualizes it-she uses metaphor and analogy. But if she doesn't know who those kids are, she won't pick the right metaphors to use. She doesn't know how to connect the new to the known.
From an equity standpoint, how do you think schools can best address the issue of "learning loss" or instructional gaps from the pandemic?
The reality is that students have unfinished learning. When we understand that this is unfinished subject-area learning, we see it's not "learning loss." Brains are learning machines. That is what they do. The reality is that all our students learned something during the pandemic. The problem is that we're not leveraging that. So, answering the question of how do we leverage that home-based or community-based learning becomes the starting point for how we get back to subject-area content. It's kind of an anchor and twist strategy. We anchor in one element-"Oh, I know that"-and then we move to connect to the new thing that we want them to know or learn. This is how all learning happens. So first we have to stop staying that students lost something, then we have to try to figure out what they did learn and use that as part of the schema that allows us to make connections.
How concerned are you that the focus on loss might make schools double down on compliance-driven education?
Very concerned. That's what's happening now-we talk about equity, but we go back to a pedagogy of compliance, especially for BIPOC students who may be behind. We see it in talk about high-dose tutoring and more pull-out programs focused on remediation. Schools say they don't have time for project-based learning, or maker spaces, or any of that because they have so much ground to make up. But we make up ground by actually using intellectual curiosity to turbocharge students' engagement. We need to water up the curriculum and instruction, not water it down.
What's your advice to school leaders to avoid watering down learning?
One recommendation is to bring in the tech tools that some kids were using in remote learning. Lots of classrooms used collaborative programs like Padlet and Jamboard, which were very interactive and gave kids more of a voice than they may have had previously. It gave them opportunities to be in discourse-not just talked at. That can create bridges between academic content and students' interests. It's a small way of not doubling down on what's been lost but instead building on kids' strengths and what's relevant to them. That speaks to this larger idea of building on students' curiosity, bringing in those multi-modal elements to the intellectual life of the classroom, so students start to see learning as not just the purview of school but also of life.

Another piece of this is to help students think about how they learn-again, so instruction is not just being done to them. We need to give them some ownership of their learning and ways of tracking their own progress. As humans, we love to know where we are in relation to a goal or achievement-there's a part of our mental make-up called the progress principle that ignites this kind of motivation. We need to help kids exercise this habit of mind. Let them see where they are and how they are getting better, so we're not just talking about what they lost but how they can grow. As kids start to see they're moving toward competence, they become more confident and engaged. That's the motivation cycle, and it can accelerate learning without an emphasis on "loss."
As an instructional expert, what makes you most hopeful in what you are seeing as schools reopen this year?
I'm hopeful about the discussions I'm seeing around reimagining schools through more engaged teaching and learning. I think educators have recognized that we can trust students to carry more of that cognitive load when we coach them around learning skills. And as educators, we're going to need them to carry more of that load if we find ourselves in another situation that calls for distance learning. When we trust them so that they trust us enough to be in a learning partnership, we help them grow into their potential. When trust is there, students give us permission to push them to higher levels. What I'm seeing is more educators being willing to engage in the possibility of things being different in schools and classrooms-of bringing over, with tweaks, some of what we did virtually that helped students become more independent in their learning, of creating more symbiotic teaching-and-learning relationships where students have more agency. Things are still in flux, and school leaders and teachers have a lot on their plates right now, but I am hopeful that we're starting to see more thinking around what authentic, engaged learning might look like in the near future.

Editors' note: This interview has been edited for space.

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Zaretta Hammond on Equity and Student Engagement - ASCD

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Zaretta Hammond, a former teacher and college writing instructor, is an influential curriculum designer and trainer who works with school districts on issues of equity, literacy, and culturally responsive instruction. She is the author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authe

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Conrad Hughes

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By Conrad Hughes, Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva, La Grande Boissière

"The work to purposefully and intentionally 'tackle' racism has begun in schools and universities across the world. What does this work look like and how will we hold ourselves accountable to each other and for the young people we are educating? Conrad Hughes describes the actions educational institutions can take to 'decolonise the curriculum'
-Jane Larsson, Executive Director, CIS

The modern idea of a curriculum, which is to say a published and detailed scheme of work that lays out what students will learn, is relatively recent. It was only after the 1850s and the expansion of compulsory education that schools and universities began to detail the aims, objectives, assessment, and structure of courses systematically and massively.

Needless to say, the act of designing a curriculum is political, economic, cultural and social: curricula do not fall out of the sky, they are designed by people.

Some curricula, early on, had clear philosophical and even ideological aims: the teaching of national history, for example, was explicitly to unite students under common references to symbols, dates, and legacies so as to reinforce nationalist sentiments. Educational programmes of the colonial and war periods were full of jingoistic, nationalist, political and even propagandistic prerogatives. In general, many history textbooks were and continue to be subject to strong biases.

Looking at education this way-as something that carries an agenda so to speak-is relatively recent and can be situated with the birth of postmodernism and postcolonialism.

In the wake of World War II, from the late 1940s through to the 1980s, three important forces would change the relationship with history and knowledge:

Decolonisation: countries across Africa and Asia became independent and started to question the way that political, historical, and economic relationships had been forged and normalised over the centuries. The need to recount African and Asian histories became more prevalent.

The end of World War II led to an explosion of existentialist and feminist thought in Europe: the violence of the Holocaust put Enlightenment, rationalist convictions into doubt. Previous deterministic convictions were questioned, and cast-types were seen more as social constructs than fixed identities. People were free to choose their lives and what they wanted to become.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Civil Rights movement in the United States led to social justice uprisings and awareness movements including Black Consciousness, Women's Rights and, later, Gay Rights.

Running through these intellectual and social reforms, two key philosophical movements emerged: postmodernism and postcolonialism.

Postmodernism, best expressed by French thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, and Gilles Deleuze, is the idea that knowledge works in tacit, hidden ways, through codes and assumptions, unstated systems and constructions. An agenda of patriarchal, rationalist, and capitalist thinking has essentially characterised the formation of knowledge over the last four hundred years. Although postmodernism is often derided as being obtuse and over-intellectualised (which is a fair criticism), its impact on the way we look at the world cannot be overlooked. From now on, knowledge could be 'deconstructed', in other words, pulled apart to show how latent strata of power and ideology lie behind it.

Postcolonialism is a similar project in that it seeks to deconstruct knowledge, but it does so with a specific emphasis on the way that colonised nations have been dominated culturally, linguistically, and economically. The whole enterprise of knowledge, from a postcolonial perspective, is deeply embedded in colonialist power and economic imperatives. The main authors of this view are Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Ngugi Thiong'o, Arundathi Roy, Homi Babba, and, more recently, Achille Mbembe. Postcolonialism seeks alternatives to Western paradigms of knowledge, referring instead to non-Western philosophies of social cohesion, cyclical time, and ancestry.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, many universities, particularly liberal arts colleges in the United States, saw postmodern and postcolonial thinkers disrupt what was seen as a continuity of patriarchal, Western, imperialistic thought, urging for booklists, courses, guest speakers and faculty to express a more balanced opinion and not merely the Western, masculine canon. Acronyms such as WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) and DWEM (Dead White European Males) were used to describe the hitherto dominant paradigm.

A number of famous artists, activists and public figures embraced some elements of this movement: the Black Panther Angela Davis (who is still an activist, concentrating on the carceral system in the United States); Muhammad Ali with his questioning of white supremacy and, like James Brown and Malcolm X, his efforts to give black people a sense of pride and identity outside the constructs of a white world; Bob Marley and Fela Kuti's Pan-African philosophies, James Baldwin's deconstruction of American sociology and Women's Liberation leader Gloria Steinem's work on female identity and male-female relationships of power.

Postmodern and postcolonial ideas were accelerated in the 21st Century through the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. Although, at face value, they may appear to have erupted onto the scene after heavily mediatised events such as the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the killing of George Floyd, they are part of a longer historical development of revolt and subversion.

So, what does it actually mean to decolonise the curriculum?

Schools and universities are no longer merely trying to transmit knowledge and culture, they are fostering critical thinking. This is widely seen as an important educational aim for the individual and for society. Critical thinking features in most 21st Century skills designs.

Decolonising the curriculum does not mean, as detractors might suggest, rather disingenuously, a superficial and rushed replacement of authors on book lists or merely throwing the Western canon out the window for the sake of doing it. The project has been slow in the making-even if it is something of a bandwagon today-and reposes on those central goals of education, which are to think deeply, to consider multiple perspectives, and to situate knowledge in time, power and politics.

We can no longer get away with telling students that the Ancient Greeks invented mathematics, that Columbus discovered America, that the Declaration of Independence was truly democratic, that European and American literature and history are essentially the only humanities worth knowing, or that it is somehow understandable that historical heroes and leaders in the history books have been almost entirely white men. It also seems difficult today to present the philosophies of Kant, Hegel, and Auguste Comte without some critical reflection on the strongly racist ideology running through their convictions and writings. There must be some distancing from these issues, some critical thought, some reflection on why history has been presented the way it has and why some discourses have been promoted over others.

And what are we doing in educational circles to rethink discourses around discoveries and origins? For example, do we explain that Pythagoras' theorem was actually discovered much earlier in Babylon; that the Cyrus Cylinder and the edict of Asoka can be seen as the earliest formal statements on human rights and tolerance; that Jesus was not white; that the first universities were in Morocco and India; that Pushkin has African ancestry; Alexandre Dumas was mixed race; that Chinese discoverer Zengh He had navigated far more extensively and earlier that European navigators; and do we teach about the ancient queens Hatchepsut, Nefertiti, Artemisia, Zenobia, Boudicca, Cleopatra or ancient female poets such as Enheduanna and Sappho?

To be even more postcolonial, to what extent might the canon of history and performativity, a type of global competition of Great Man History constructed by narratives on the first, the strongest, the best, be overturned altogether? Are these competitive and intrinsically imperialistic trajectories not part of the problem in the first place? Ancestral approaches such as that of Ubuntu tend to deconstruct this view entirely, placing the study of humanity in a more inclusive and less exclusivist modus operandi. Perhaps one day the past will not merely be a description of war, discovery, and dominion but, as authors such as Howard Zinn has attempted to do, a story of common people.

Here are four questions for educators and leaders that will help guide the decolonisation of the curriculum:

Review each course outline or scope and curriculum sequence documentation. Imagine what this would look like from the perspective of postcolonial thought and try to 'deconstruct' the dominant narrative. What do you see?

Investigate the extent to which cultural references, historical facts, authors, and discoveries are presented as Western, male and European. Why is this?

Ask what sort of discussions are happening in the classroom to ensure critical thinking and deep reflection on the power of representation in the way that textbooks present materials to learners.

Reflect on the extent to which the curriculum offers students views and stories from First Peoples, Africa, Asia, Pre-Colombian civilizations, the Middle East, and Oceanic regions. What do you see?

And here are three suggestions for action:

Consider project-based learning as an opportunity for students to investigate their own ancestry and to present their findings to their classmates.

Consider guiding questions for discussions, presentations and written assignments that focus on the sociology of knowledge ("Why do we think this is important?"; "What are other cultural perspectives on this same question?")

Only present the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution with full understanding and reflection on slavery and colonisation.

Decolonising the curriculum is about being more accurate, more inclusive, and more interculturally responsive. It is not about forcing one ideological perspective on students, it's about telling both sides of the story.

Related content:

Explore the following blogs and more on topics associated with inclusion via diversity, equity and anti-racism (I-DEA)

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What does it look like to purposefully and intentionally 'tackle' racism in schools and universities? How will we hold ourselves accountable to each other and the young people we are educating? Conrad Hughes describes ways educational institutions can 'decolonise the curriculum'.

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Designing instruction that removes barriers and allows access for all students.

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Learn about CAST’s Universal Design for Learning framework, fostering inclusive educational experiences and improving learning outcomes for all learners.

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Maximizing Student Voice to Achieve Equity in Classroom Participation

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Maximizing Student Voice to Achieve Equity in Classroom Participation

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Mary Davenport, Edutopia

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I once heard someone say, "The person doing the talking is the one doing the learning." This statement carries even more weight as we seek to dismantle systems of inequity in middle and high school classrooms, since it translates to: "The person doing the talking is the person with the power."

Who has the power in our classrooms? How do we ensure equity in access to that power? We do it by ensuring equity to air space.

Changing Ourselves as Questioners

One way we can ensure equity to air space is by minimizing the generic questions that we throw around to anyone who will take us up on answering. These generic and nontargeted questions ensure that students who are confident in their answers and who are outspoken are the only ones with the voice. This convenient default mode is dangerous because it subliminally communicates to students that answering questions is about getting the right answer rather than actively learning. It also undermines the best practice of ensuring wait time so that all students can formulate their thinking.

When I operate from this default mode, it also means that some students feel invisible; I can watch students leave my class after a period realizing I only "noticed" about half of them... the dominant voices. I hate those days. Ultimately, questions that are intentional in their design and target are the questions that ensure all voices are honored.

Changing Our Students as Conversationalists

Our classroom is full of students who have inherent conversational tendencies. Some dominate the conversation. Some are active listeners. Some sprinkle in their thoughts here and there. Some are distracted. Being intentional in creating equitable air space benefits all of these types-and more.

In any healthy working environment that is built on quality collaboration, those who are dominant need to build self-monitoring skills to transition from vocal participation to strategic facilitation. The same is true for students who do not like to participate. Students who are shy need a safe space to build the confidence and courage to share their thoughts and ask their questions. When we create a classroom dedicated to equity of verbal space, we model healthy collaborative practices that build sensitivity and awareness of one another.

Before I continue, I want to be clear about the difference between equity and equality in air space. Equality would mean all students are talking the same exact amount. But, far richer yet more difficult to achieve, equity protects all students' right to be heard. It is not about frequency; it is about presence. This allows for people's natural conversational styles to be honored but still sends the message that every single person's voice in the class matters and is worthy of being heard. Here are some ways to do just that.

Setting Up an Equitable Air Space

In the beginning of the year, focus on building connections through community builders and establishing healthy participation norms. Be redundant and explicit with the messages that verbal processing is a necessary part of learning, that all voices matter and deserve to be heard, that mistakes and questions are welcome and honored, that struggle is messy but collaborative and rewarding.

Even more important than these messages is the tone that they are delivered in. When participating in class becomes a punitive grade opportunity ("You'll lose points if you don't contribute"), a healthy verbal space is undermined. Rather, the invitation should be just that: a warm welcome to truly be here, in this community. Another easy action to build equitable air space is to reduce teacher talk; our classrooms should be dominated by the voices of students and only facilitated by ours.

Another essential way to ensure equity in air space early on is to get to know our students as individuals. I do this through several surveys at the beginning of the year. One of them asks students to tell me about their participation style. For those who self-indicate they are dominant, I conference with them about the importance of developing their listening and leadership skills in conversations. For those who are reserved, I conference with them about the importance of verbal engagement and how I can support them in their growth.

Strategy and Design

It's not enough to establish the foundation for equity in air space; it must be nurtured intentionally throughout the year. For this, I rely on protocols. Yes, they can come with baggage, but I have come to see through my own experience and through the experience of my students that protocols protect participation.

More often than not, I build in think time. This means students have quiet time to mentally process and/or write in preparation for our discussion. This encourages students who speak too quickly to add depth and complexity to their thoughts, while also giving the reserved students confidence and courage.

I find that a modified think-pair-share protocol is a great extension of this. Students have time to gather their thoughts, then they share with a partner, and then I ask students to share out not what they said, but what their partners said.

It's important here to point out the difference between a discussion and a share out. Whereas a discussion offers students the chance to spontaneously volley their thoughts among one another, a share out offers more space for students who are reserved to have the chance to offer their voice. Another boost to those students is to give them a heads-up that I will ask them to speak.

Lastly, I always make sure as much as possible that I offer choice and variety. For example, I offer eight to 10 questions that require a variety of thinking strategies but allow students to pick the three that most interest them.

Through intentional design and follow-through, even the shyest of students can feel verbal success. In these classes, everyone speaks. Every voice matters. Everyone has the power.

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Maximizing Student Voice to Achieve Equity in Classroom Participation

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I once heard someone say, "The person doing the talking is the one doing the learning." This statement carries even more weight as we seek to dismantle systems of inequity in middle and high school classrooms, since it translates to: "The person doing the talking is the person with the power."

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Helping Kids Celebrate Diversity Through Authentic Portraits ~ Edutopia

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Helping Kids Celebrate Diversity Through Authentic Portraits ~ Edutopia

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Why do kids often draw self-portraits that don't look like them? Says art teacher Libya Doman, kids internalize messages early on "that thin bodies are to be celebrated... that straight hair is the norm" and that "white is right."

What can teachers do to help their students, especially BIPOC kids, draw themselves, and others, more authentically? Doman offers several practical strategies for helping kids "slow down the looking," so they can see and draw differences. She also stresses the importance of stocking inclusive art supplies.

For additional tips on supporting kids to see in "more color-expansive ways," download this comprehensive action guide from EmbraceRace, a nonprofit that provides resources for parents who want to raise their children to be more thoughtful and informed about race.

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Helping Kids Celebrate Diversity Through Authentic Portraits

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Why do kids often draw self-portraits that don't look like them? Says art teacher Libya Doman, kids internalize messages early on "that thin bodies are to be celebrated... that straight hair is the norm" and that "white is right." What can teachers do to help their students, especially BIPOC kids, draw themselves, and others, more authentically?

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At The Black Curriculum, our arts-focused learning practice is centred around the retelling and rediscovery of stories. Just like you, our team is continuously learning - have a read of our thoughts and join us on our journey!

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At The Black Curriculum, our arts-focused learning practice is centred around the retelling and rediscovery of stories. Just like you, our team is continuously learning - have a read of our thoughts and join us on our journey!

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Doing the Deep Work of Antiracist Pedagogy: Toward Self-Excavation for Equitable Classroom Teaching

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Doing the Deep Work of Antiracist Pedagogy: Toward Self-Excavation for Equitable Classroom Teaching

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Teacher educators of antiracist pedagogies must begin by asking ourselves the question: How do issues of race, class, religion, and sexual orientation live within us? At George Floyd’s memorial— televised live in the United States— the Reverend Al Sharpton pled in his eulogy for law enforcement and government to “take their knee off our collective necks.” What a palpable request. Long after the Civil Rights move-ment of the 1960s, racism remains as insidious than ever. It is capitalistic, sexist, gendered, and classist in  ways  that  continue  to  frighten  and  overwhelm  us.  The  structure  of  institutionalized  racism  and  bigotry is alive and consistently unsettling the lives of people who have historically been discriminated against for generations.All  of  this  is  foregrounded  in  the  heart  and  minds  of  many  scholars  of  color  and  has  become  pivotal  to  the  scholar-  activist  lives  they  lead.  This  paper examines the lived experiences of two women of color, academics at the same institution who are both activist scholars. Through our work, we hope to impact how schools, teachers, and places of teach-ing and learning integrate professional development as a learning agent and tool to facilitate practices of antiracist pedagogies and understanding.So where do we begin? We have to begin with ourselves.  Always.  Lyiscott  (2019)  uses  a  story  from the Harry Potter series to help us consider this important  work.  She  shares  about  the  part  where  Harry  encounters  the  Mirror  of  Erised—  a  magical  mirror  that  reflects  our  deepest  desires—  and  asks,  “Do  we  have  the  ability  to  stand  before  a  mirror  One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist.—    Ibram X. KendiWe  are  at  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  United  States  when  race,  class,  and  culture  weigh  heavily  upon us. We are still healing from the Trump pres-idency,  during  which  the  continuing  disparities  of  inequity  were  glaringly  spotlighted  by  the  global  pandemic of COVID- 19.The  memory  of  George  Floyd  dying  on  video  is horrendous, traumatizing, and brutal. Listening to Floyd  tell  the  police  that  he  could  not  breathe  is  a  stark  echo  of  Eric  Garner’s  exact  words  six  years  earlier. And still the police are not listening. Hearing Floyd call for his mama with his last breaths tore at the  hearts  of  (Black)  mothers  worldwide.  What  is  this injustice that still haunts Black and Brown bod-ies across the globe?All   of   this   is   backdropped   by   a   global   pandemic—  the  coronavirus—  that  is  erasing  clus-ters of people in nearly every country. At the time of this writing, nearly a year and a half since the advent of the pandemic, we are still locked in, shut down, and in isolation, frantically trying to save ourselves. Amid this health  crisis,  Black and  Brown bodies,  who are most vulnerable to the virus, continue to be persecuted and terrorized by their fellow humans.
Doing the Deep Work of Antiracist Pedagogy (2021)
https://library.ncte.org/journals/la/issues/v99-1/31410

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NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English

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Celebrating Multilingualism in International Schools | Global Take

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On Childhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library by Glory Edim

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On Childhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library by Glory Edim

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*Thank you, Liz Duffy, for this book recommendation.

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On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library a book by Glory Edim

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“When you look over your own library, who do you see?“Since founding the beloved Well-Read Black Girl book club in 2015, Glory Edim has emerged as a literary tastemaker for a new generation. Continuing her life’s work to brighten and enrich American reading lives through the work of legendary Black…

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My Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph 

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My Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph 

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Colfax Ave - Open Every Day 10am-6pm

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November 2020 Indie Next List

"A great addition to your personal anti-racism shelves and your store's. This book is personal and illuminating, with input from an impressive number of activists and artists covering a range of perspectives in important conversations. Like Stamped, this should be required reading beginning with age 12 and going all the way up; although marked for teens, adults will get so much out of it, too. I also recommend it for book clubs and community read programs."
- Tegan Tigani, Queen Anne Book Company, Seattle, WA

Description

The instant New York Times bestseller!
Writing from the perspective of a friend, Frederick Joseph offers candid reflections on his own experiences with racism and conversations with prominent artists and activists about theirs-creating an essential read for white people who are committed anti-racists and those newly come to the cause of racial justice.

"We don't see color." "I didn't know Black people liked Star Wars!" "What hood are you from?" For Frederick Joseph, life as a transfer student in a largely white high school was full of wince-worthy moments that he often simply let go. As he grew older, however, he saw these as missed opportunities not only to stand up for himself, but to spread awareness to those white people who didn't see the negative impact they were having.

Speaking directly to the reader, The Black Friend calls up race-related anecdotes from the author's past, weaving in his thoughts on why they were hurtful and how he might handle things differently now. Each chapter features the voice of at least one artist or activist, including Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give;April Reign, creator of #OscarsSoWhite; Jemele Hill, sports journalist and podcast host; and eleven others. Touching on everything from cultural appropriation to power dynamics, "reverse racism" to white privilege, microaggressions to the tragic results of overt racism, this book serves as conversation starter, tool kit, and invaluable window into the life of a former "token Black kid" who now presents himself as the friend many readers need. Backmatter includes an encyclopedia of racism, providing details on relevant historical events, terminology, and more.

About the Author

Frederick Joseph is an award-winning marketing professional, media representation advocate, and writer who was recently selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. He's also the winner of the 2018 Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, given by Comic-Con International: San Diego, and was selected for the 2018 Root 100 List of Most Influential African Americans. He lives in New York City.

Praise For...

For young white people who want to be better, who want to be anti-racist, who want to be people who are striving to recognize and even take down the structures of racism.
- Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning, on NPR's Morning Edition

With clear, powerful prose and a gentle dose of humor, The Black Friend is essential reading for anyone wishing to be part of a better world. I absolutely loved this book.
-Julie Klam, New York Times best-selling author

The Black Friend is THE book everyone needs to read right now. Frederick Joseph has written an essential window into the movement toward anti-racism. Read it, absorb it, and be changed because of it.
-Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give

For every white person who ever wanted to do better, inside this book, Frederick Joseph offers you both the tools and the chance.
-Jacqueline Woodson, Winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award

Toward the end of The Black Friend, Frederick Joseph writes that his book is 'a gift, not an obligation.' I respectfully disagree. This book should be an obligation for white people, especially white parents, because we must raise anti-racist kids who will never be perpetrators of or bystanders to white supremacy and who will never mistake tolerance or appropriation for respect. Don't skip the painful parts-read every word.
-Chelsea Clinton, author, advocate, and vice chair of the Clinton Foundation

Typically, books on being an antiracist methodically walk readers through systemic racism and its related terminology, but Joseph takes a more personal, and perhaps more effective, approach, sharing stories from his time in school and college to provide cultural history and opportunities for reflection...To reinforce many of his points, Joseph includes interviews with writers, activists, and other influencers from multiple intersections. Finally, he calls on white people to become active accomplices, rather than passive allies, in the fight. Readers can find more explanations of terms and movements in the concluding "Encyclopedia of Racism," as well as a "The Black Friend Playlist" and "People and Things to Know" roster. A hard-hitting resource for action and change.
-Booklist (starred review)

Gearing this volume toward white people "who want to be better," Joseph offers anecdotes about his experiences with racism and white supremacy...Interviews with author Angie Thomas, journalist Jemele Hill, and others contribute discussions on the problem with "color blindness" and the importance of personal growth, among various topics. In a genial, assured tone, Joseph invites and encourages readers to reflect on their own behavior, move toward anti-racism, and implement change.
-Publishers Weekly Online (starred review)

Part memoir, part guidebook, this title explores scenarios of interpersonal and institutional struggle to introduce the next generation of White youth to anti-racism...The language strikes a congenial yet firm tone, recognizing that those who have made it this far are to be met with genuine intention; his message is that it's about becoming better and understanding how your own behavior and knowledge are critical to leveraging the change needed to overhaul oppressive systems. Joseph navigates the sensitivity of such a project and poses a sincere question that challenges the long-held promise of reading amid widespread injustice: "If I show people how they're hurting others, will some of them be willing to change?" Here's to many readers digging in to find out. A smartly researched, well-intentioned provocation to inspire change.
-Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN: 9781536217018
ISBN-10: 1536217018
Publisher: Candlewick
Publication Date: December 1st, 2020
Pages: 272
Language: English

Recommended Reading Level

Minimum Age: 12
Maximum Age: 17
Minimum Grade Level: 7
Maximum Grade Level: 12

Categories

Related Editions (all)

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The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person (Hardcover)

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The instant New York Times bestseller!Writing from the perspective of a friend, Frederick Joseph offers candid reflections on his own experiences with racism and conversations with prominent artists and activists about theirs-creating an essential read for white people who are committed anti-racists and those newly come to the cause of racial justice."We don't see color."

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Books That Push Readers Beyond Biases and Stereotypes

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Books That Push Readers Beyond Biases and Stereotypes

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Jessica Lifshitz

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Conrad Hughes, Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva, La Grande Boissière

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By Conrad Hughes, Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva, La Grande Boissière

"The work to purposefully and intentionally 'tackle' racism has begun in schools and universities across the world. What does this work look like and how will we hold ourselves accountable to each other and for the young people we are educating? Conrad Hughes describes the actions educational institutions can take to 'decolonise the curriculum'
-Jane Larsson, Executive Director, CIS

The modern idea of a curriculum, which is to say a published and detailed scheme of work that lays out what students will learn, is relatively recent. It was only after the 1850s and the expansion of compulsory education that schools and universities began to detail the aims, objectives, assessment, and structure of courses systematically and massively.

Needless to say, the act of designing a curriculum is political, economic, cultural and social: curricula do not fall out of the sky, they are designed by people.

Some curricula, early on, had clear philosophical and even ideological aims: the teaching of national history, for example, was explicitly to unite students under common references to symbols, dates, and legacies so as to reinforce nationalist sentiments. Educational programmes of the colonial and war periods were full of jingoistic, nationalist, political and even propagandistic prerogatives. In general, many history textbooks were and continue to be subject to strong biases.

Looking at education this way-as something that carries an agenda so to speak-is relatively recent and can be situated with the birth of postmodernism and postcolonialism.

In the wake of World War II, from the late 1940s through to the 1980s, three important forces would change the relationship with history and knowledge:

Decolonisation: countries across Africa and Asia became independent and started to question the way that political, historical, and economic relationships had been forged and normalised over the centuries. The need to recount African and Asian histories became more prevalent.

The end of World War II led to an explosion of existentialist and feminist thought in Europe: the violence of the Holocaust put Enlightenment, rationalist convictions into doubt. Previous deterministic convictions were questioned, and cast-types were seen more as social constructs than fixed identities. People were free to choose their lives and what they wanted to become.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Civil Rights movement in the United States led to social justice uprisings and awareness movements including Black Consciousness, Women's Rights and, later, Gay Rights.

Running through these intellectual and social reforms, two key philosophical movements emerged: postmodernism and postcolonialism.

Postmodernism, best expressed by French thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, and Gilles Deleuze, is the idea that knowledge works in tacit, hidden ways, through codes and assumptions, unstated systems and constructions. An agenda of patriarchal, rationalist, and capitalist thinking has essentially characterised the formation of knowledge over the last four hundred years. Although postmodernism is often derided as being obtuse and over-intellectualised (which is a fair criticism), its impact on the way we look at the world cannot be overlooked. From now on, knowledge could be 'deconstructed', in other words, pulled apart to show how latent strata of power and ideology lie behind it.

Postcolonialism is a similar project in that it seeks to deconstruct knowledge, but it does so with a specific emphasis on the way that colonised nations have been dominated culturally, linguistically, and economically. The whole enterprise of knowledge, from a postcolonial perspective, is deeply embedded in colonialist power and economic imperatives. The main authors of this view are Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Ngugi Thiong'o, Arundathi Roy, Homi Babba, and, more recently, Achille Mbembe. Postcolonialism seeks alternatives to Western paradigms of knowledge, referring instead to non-Western philosophies of social cohesion, cyclical time, and ancestry.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, many universities, particularly liberal arts colleges in the United States, saw postmodern and postcolonial thinkers disrupt what was seen as a continuity of patriarchal, Western, imperialistic thought, urging for booklists, courses, guest speakers and faculty to express a more balanced opinion and not merely the Western, masculine canon. Acronyms such as WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) and DWEM (Dead White European Males) were used to describe the hitherto dominant paradigm.

A number of famous artists, activists and public figures embraced some elements of this movement: the Black Panther Angela Davis (who is still an activist, concentrating on the carceral system in the United States); Muhammad Ali with his questioning of white supremacy and, like James Brown and Malcolm X, his efforts to give black people a sense of pride and identity outside the constructs of a white world; Bob Marley and Fela Kuti's Pan-African philosophies, James Baldwin's deconstruction of American sociology and Women's Liberation leader Gloria Steinem's work on female identity and male-female relationships of power.

Postmodern and postcolonial ideas were accelerated in the 21st Century through the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. Although, at face value, they may appear to have erupted onto the scene after heavily mediatised events such as the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the killing of George Floyd, they are part of a longer historical development of revolt and subversion.

So, what does it actually mean to decolonise the curriculum?

Schools and universities are no longer merely trying to transmit knowledge and culture, they are fostering critical thinking. This is widely seen as an important educational aim for the individual and for society. Critical thinking features in most 21st Century skills designs.

Decolonising the curriculum does not mean, as detractors might suggest, rather disingenuously, a superficial and rushed replacement of authors on book lists or merely throwing the Western canon out the window for the sake of doing it. The project has been slow in the making-even if it is something of a bandwagon today-and reposes on those central goals of education, which are to think deeply, to consider multiple perspectives, and to situate knowledge in time, power and politics.

We can no longer get away with telling students that the Ancient Greeks invented mathematics, that Columbus discovered America, that the Declaration of Independence was truly democratic, that European and American literature and history are essentially the only humanities worth knowing, or that it is somehow understandable that historical heroes and leaders in the history books have been almost entirely white men. It also seems difficult today to present the philosophies of Kant, Hegel, and Auguste Comte without some critical reflection on the strongly racist ideology running through their convictions and writings. There must be some distancing from these issues, some critical thought, some reflection on why history has been presented the way it has and why some discourses have been promoted over others.

And what are we doing in educational circles to rethink discourses around discoveries and origins? For example, do we explain that Pythagoras' theorem was actually discovered much earlier in Babylon; that the Cyrus Cylinder and the edict of Asoka can be seen as the earliest formal statements on human rights and tolerance; that Jesus was not white; that the first universities were in Morocco and India; that Pushkin has African ancestry; Alexandre Dumas was mixed race; that Chinese discoverer Zengh He had navigated far more extensively and earlier that European navigators; and do we teach about the ancient queens Hatchepsut, Nefertiti, Artemisia, Zenobia, Boudicca, Cleopatra or ancient female poets such as Enheduanna and Sappho?

To be even more postcolonial, to what extent might the canon of history and performativity, a type of global competition of Great Man History constructed by narratives on the first, the strongest, the best, be overturned altogether? Are these competitive and intrinsically imperialistic trajectories not part of the problem in the first place? Ancestral approaches such as that of Ubuntu tend to deconstruct this view entirely, placing the study of humanity in a more inclusive and less exclusivist modus operandi. Perhaps one day the past will not merely be a description of war, discovery, and dominion but, as authors such as Howard Zinn has attempted to do, a story of common people.

Here are four questions for educators and leaders that will help guide the decolonisation of the curriculum:

Review each course outline or scope and curriculum sequence documentation. Imagine what this would look like from the perspective of postcolonial thought and try to 'deconstruct' the dominant narrative. What do you see?

Investigate the extent to which cultural references, historical facts, authors, and discoveries are presented as Western, male and European. Why is this?

Ask what sort of discussions are happening in the classroom to ensure critical thinking and deep reflection on the power of representation in the way that textbooks present materials to learners.

Reflect on the extent to which the curriculum offers students views and stories from First Peoples, Africa, Asia, Pre-Colombian civilizations, the Middle East, and Oceanic regions. What do you see?

And here are three suggestions for action:

Consider project-based learning as an opportunity for students to investigate their own ancestry and to present their findings to their classmates.

Consider guiding questions for discussions, presentations and written assignments that focus on the sociology of knowledge ("Why do we think this is important?"; "What are other cultural perspectives on this same question?")

Only present the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution with full understanding and reflection on slavery and colonisation.

Decolonising the curriculum is about being more accurate, more inclusive, and more interculturally responsive. It is not about forcing one ideological perspective on students, it's about telling both sides of the story.

Related content:

Explore the following blogs and more on topics associated with inclusion via diversity, equity and anti-racism (I-DEA)

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What does it look like to purposefully and intentionally 'tackle' racism in schools and universities? How will we hold ourselves accountable to each other and the young people we are educating? Conrad Hughes describes ways educational institutions can 'decolonise the curriculum'.

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Stojana Popovska

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Stojana Popovska

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Educator Resources for Lesson Planning and Learning

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Educator Resources for Lesson Planning and Learning

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Facing History and Ourselves

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Our topic areas provide starting points for engaging with complex moments in human history that shape our present.

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Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice 

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Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice 

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Alissa Alteri Shea, Edutopia

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Anyone who's spent time on an elementary school playground knows that young children already know a lot about injustice. He took the tire swing from me! She cut in front of me in line! They won't let me play. That's not fair! And so it goes. Injustice is something children see every day, and fairness is something they care deeply about.

Early elementary school is the ideal time to build on children's natural awareness of fairness and justice. I do it by taking a look outside of the schoolyard and into our country's history and present circumstances when fairness is not necessarily the norm.

In first grade, during Women's History Month, I introduce a social studies unit called Justice Heroes. I always launch the unit with some sort of exercise that prompts my students to think hard about what fairness is (and how upsetting unfairness can be). From there we create a chart and write down responses to the following essential questions that will guide the unit:

What is fairness?

What does it mean to work for justice?

What are the characteristics of a Justice Hero?

Age-Appropriate Ways to Teach the Concept of Injustice

Introduce 'Young Justice Heroes': Using examples of young people who have stood up to injustice in the past is a great way to help children see that even young children can make a difference in the world. Check out a short video from Scholastic called Can Kids Change the World, about a brave 7-year-old girl who participated in a lunch counter sit-in during the civil rights movement. Another example is a video about Ruby Bridges, one of three young girls (the McDonogh Three) who desegregated their public school in Louisiana in 1960.

Make a timeline: After learning about these young Justice Heroes, children can create a timeline of their own lives to reflect on important events that have happened in their lifetime and times when they had to be brave. They can draw pictures of something that happened when they were born (e.g., the rise to prominence of the Black Lives Matter protest movement in 2015), something important that happened in the recent past, and something that is happening today. Defining terms such as "in the past," "in the present," and "in the future" is important for helping young children understand what it means to study people and events in history.

Define fairness: Children usually have lots of ideas and anecdotes about what fairness means. A video about fairness can prompt them to think about and discuss what it means to be treated fairly. Have them write and draw what they believe fairness looks like, both on the playground and in the world around us. Students can share their stories or even act them out for the class.

Introduce books about Justice Heroes: Choose quality read-aloud books about real people from different ethnicities and historical periods who worked for equality, and read one every day. Reading true stories can inspire children to see what is possible when one works for justice. Try these:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, activist for women's voting rights: Elizabeth Leads the Way, by Tanya Lee Stone

Esther Morris, first woman justice of the peace: I Could Do That!, by Linda Arms White

Sojourner Truth, abolitionist and women's rights activist: So Tall Within, by Gary Schmidt

Emma Lazarus, Jewish American author and activist: Emma's Poem, by Linda Glaser

Abraham Lincoln: I Am Abraham Lincoln, by Brad Meltzer

Jackie Robinson, first Black man to play in baseball's major leagues: , by Peter Golonbock

Ayanna Najuma, civil rights activist: Freedom on the Menu, by Carole Boston Weatherford

Ruby Bridges, civil rights activist: The Story of Ruby Bridges, by Robert Coles

Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, labor and civil rights activists, Side by Side, by Monica Brown

Create a Justice Heroes comic book: Using evidence from the texts above, describe each hero's qualities and distinctive traits. Define essential words like equality, segregation, injustice, boycott, protest, immigration, courage, and achievement. I like to engage my students in a discussion about how being fair means doing something good for everyone involved, as well as about how fairness is fundamental to justice.

Look for ways our heroes showed courage and fairness in working for justice. Have the kids brainstorm words that our Justice Heroes might have said to lead others to justice, like "These people will be free!" "Women have every right to vote!" "Sí, se puede!"

From there, have each student create a comic book page dedicated to just one Justice Hero each day. Then, at the end of the unit, each student has their own comic book capturing the stories of all the Justice Heroes.

Make a Justice Hero timeline: Create a timeline that places each Justice Hero in the order of events that took place in American history. On the last day of the unit, try reading about a person working for justice in the present; I like to use the video of Vice President Kamala Harris reading aloud her book Superheroes Are Everywhere. Recite the Hero Pledge from her book so that every kid is inspired to think about how they can wear their own super cape someday. Finish the activity by having each child add a picture of themselves to the Justice Hero timeline for in the future.

Make a mobile: As a closing project, each child can choose their favorite Justice Hero and make a cardboard cutout of the person. They can write a few sentences explaining why they admire that individual and how they saw them show courage in fighting for justice. Hang the cutouts in the classroom so that Justice Heroes from the past and present fill the classroom.

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Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice

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Anyone who's spent time on an elementary school playground knows that young children already know a lot about injustice. He took the tire swing from me! She cut in front of me in line! They won't let me play. That's not fair! And so it goes.

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It may be for Homeschooling but I found excellent resources for teaching Finding Langston here. There are also documentaries.
http://www.africanamericanhomeschoolmoms.com/

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Almost Emancipated: The Civil War and The Port Royal Experiment

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Almost Emancipated: The Civil War and The Port Royal Experiment

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Teach Rock

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Almost Emancipated: The Civil War and the Port Royal Experiment - TeachRock

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How does the Union occupation of Port Royal highlight the complex issues behind the Civil War? In this lesson, students learn about the Civil War and the Port Royal Experiment, a military reconstruction effort that demonstrates the possibilities that existed for the full citizenship and participation in society of newly freed African American populations in the Southern states.

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Math Equity Toolkit

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Resources and guidance to support Black, LatinX, and Multilingual students to thrive in grades 6-8 A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction is an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx, and Multilingual students in grades 6-8, addresses barriers to math equity, and aligns instruction to grade-level priority standards.

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Gholdy Muhammad

@GholdyM
https://twitter.com/GholdyM/status/1348995085095022592/photo/2

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Some resources for parents- read alouds with questions to ask your children. #cultivatinggenius @ScholasticEd 

Responding to our children's histories, identities, literacies and liberation.

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Some resources for parents- read alouds with questions to ask your children. #cultivatinggenius @ScholasticEd 

Responding to our children's histories, identities, literacies and liberation. https://t.co/qmtvtrcprL

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Some resources for parents- read alouds with questions to ask your children. #cultivatinggenius @ScholasticEd 

Responding to our children's histories, identities, literacies and liberation. https://t.co/qmtvtrcprL

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Some resources for parents- read alouds with questions to ask your children. #cultivatinggenius @ScholasticEd 

Responding to our children's histories, identities, literacies and liberation. https://t.co/qmtvtrcprL

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Some resources for parents- read alouds with questions to ask your children. #cultivatinggenius @ScholasticEd 

Responding to our children's histories, identities, literacies and liberation.

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Ben Proudfoot & Kris Bowers, New York Times

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transcript

All right. It's a real pleasure to welcome Kris Bowers, our composer, who has written a concerto, "For a Younger Self." Welcome. [APPLAUSE] Can I ask a question? All right, Granddaddy. Can you tell me, just what is a concerto? So it's basically this piece that has a soloist and an ensemble, an orchestra. The two are having a conversation. And so sometimes that conversation can be this person speaking, and now this person speaking. Sometimes the conversation - It's a question. - is at the same time. Yeah. And it really depends on how the composer wants to, or how I want to frame that conversation. Did you ever picture yourself doing what you're doing now? Huh. [MUSIC PLAYING] [APPLAUSE] I'm very aware of the fact that I'm a Black composer, and lately actually I've been wondering whether or not I'm supposed to be in the spaces that I'm in, or supposed to have gotten to the point that I've gotten to. Well, I can tell you one thing. Never think that you're not supposed to be there. Cause you wouldn't be there if you wasn't supposed to be there. It goes back to slavery. [MUSIC PLAYING] My grandfather, who I found out has cancer a little while ago, I wanted to spend some more time with him and talk to him about his life, about our family, ask him as much as I can before he passes. [BELL RINGING] Granddaddy. Mm-hm? Need a bit of help with this. Do what? Getting this seamed out for the show. OK. Don't step on the pedals. Push it right in the corner. OK. Wow. OK. We're going to make it real handsome here. You're going to be ready to go. Thank you, sir. Growing up in the South was quite a thing for me. Bascom, Florida, as far back as I can remember, I think the plantation was the Bowers plantation. All 13 of you all grew up in that house? Mm-hm. Wow. How all of us stayed in two rooms, I don't know. We would start on the porch singing. And there were people, I don't know how they could hear it that far, would come drive in the front yard and listen to us sing at night. People in that area was, the Blacks were Bowers, and the whites was Beavers. Beavers had the grocery store. But when Dad would walk in the store, this kid about my size, small kid - How old were you about this point? Like how old? I probably was 6 or 7 years old. Oh, wow. And he would go up to my dad and say, what could I get for you, boy? That stuck with me forever. Why are you calling my dad a boy? And Daddy would answer him, sir, yes sir, no sir. But it was something that stayed with me because I knew then when I got of age I was going to leave there. I didn't want no parts of the farm. I didn't want no parts of that part of the country. I just wanted to leave. Wherever I could get a ride to, that's where I was headed to. [MUSIC PLAYING] What was that process like, hitchhiking as a Black man in America in the 1940s? I had to be crazy. Now, the first place I remember being is in Detroit. A man picked me up. He was saying that he could get me a job and a place to stay and all this. I asked him, does it snow there? And he said yes. And that was the end of that, because I didn't want to be any place that was cold. But I hitchhiked from there to Denver, Colorado. And I was in this Greyhound bus station, cause they had two counters, white and Black. So I could get something to eat. And I heard somebody say, Los Angeles, California. I said, that's where I want to go. Never heard of Los Angeles before. I had $27 or $28. I didn't know how I was going to make it, but I knew I was going to make it. So I said well, I'm going to pretend to be an employment agency and call around to get a job. Wow. I got the telephone book, started at the A's. A Cleaners. And I don't think I made more than five calls, and the phone rang, and it was the A Cleaners, and they said they needed a presser. I got all the information. I said, OK, I'll send someone right out. And that was me. [LAUGHING] That's where I met your grandmother. [MUSIC PLAYING] How old were you when you bought the cleaners? I was 20. Wow. So within two years I had gone from homeless to I was in business. [MUSIC PLAYING] But I never could get a loan. And I owned the place. I said, something wrong with this picture. I told them I come in for the loan, and he said no, I don't have anything. And I left later, and picked up an application, and I mailed it in. A few days later, I got a call, your loan is approved. I said, it's the color of my skin. I said in the South they tell you. In Los Angeles they show you. From then on we started buying property, I would get things at the cleaner, everything, but nobody ever saw me. Everything was done by mail. People are constantly throwing up things to stop you in life. But you've got to know you cannot stop me. [MUSIC PLAYING] My name is Kristopher Bowers, and I want to play "Shining Star in Atlantic City." My parents decided before I was born they wanted me to play piano. Literally, I think it's called like "Piano Sampler No. 5" that they used to put on my mom's stomach every day. Actually, one of the first pieces of music I ever wrote was on this piano. And I remember, you know, just playing around here all the time. But we were up at a restaurant one, I believe it was a Sunday. At Marie Callendar's? Marie Callendar's. They had a piano in there, and I asked the guy could you play it. And they said yes. I carried you over there, and you were playing it, and I was proud of you. [LAUGHING] [MUSIC PLAYING] There aren't that many opportunities for young kids of color to showcase their talents or to interact with other kids of color playing music and doing those things, and you talking about being my manager, essentially, from the very beginning. If I didn't have that, I probably wouldn't have been as confident pursuing music. I remember - where were you in school at that I was up there? What, in New York? At Juilliard? Juilliard? Wherever it was, you enjoyed it. So that's all I was thinking. If you enjoyed making a living at it. I knew that, boy. And the winner is Kris Bowers. "Green Book." [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC PLAYING] [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC PLAYING] What do you think your biggest challenge is today? My biggest challenge today, being honest, is my health. It's just trying to stay healthy. That would be my challenge today. [MUSIC PLAYING] I've got a few more years to go, but I'm almost to the top. [LAUGHING] Ten more years, I'll be at the top. [LAUGHING] So now I just keep trying to do the best I can. Yeah. And enjoy seeing my children and grandchildren being successful. That's glory in itself. It's just something that I hope I had a little something to do with it. [MUSIC PLAYING] [APPLAUSE] (SINGING) Then sings my soul, my savior, my God to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art. You did it! You did it! You did it! [LAUGHING] See, it surprised you. [LAUGHING]

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Video: Opinion | A Concerto Is a Conversation

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transcript All right. It's a real pleasure to welcome Kris Bowers, our composer, who has written a concerto, "For a Younger Self." Welcome. [APPLAUSE] Can I ask a question? All right, Granddaddy. Can you tell me, just what is a concerto? So it's basically this piece that has a soloist and an ensemble, an orchestra.

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International School of Dakar

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Roots ConnectED

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Roots ConnectED

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12 Questions to Ask When Designing Culturally and Historically Responsive Curriculum

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12 Questions to Ask When Designing Culturally and Historically Responsive Curriculum

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Gholdy Muhammad

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Ready to subscribe and get all the features TIE has to offer? Click here >>

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL APPOINTMENTS

Tweets by @teach_overseas

By Proserpina Dhlamini-Fisher

I have to echo my shock and sorrow after reading Forrest Broman's article entitled "Ending Racism in America" in the April 2015 issue of The International Educator newspaper. However, I must also mention that, sadly, educational racism is not only alive among students in the U.S., but among some international educators worldwide.

As an African woman, who is an international educator and leader, my educational journey of over 20 years has been exciting, interesting, frustrating, and inspiring. I have met awesome mentors, colleagues, and friends from all over the world along the way, but sadly, more often than not, I have also come across people who judged my colour before judging my person, qualifications, and abilities. I am proud to be Swazi, as I am proud to be from Africa.

But I believe the saddest of all my experiences has been the ignorance of colleagues who continue to refer to Africa as if it were a country, generalising about peoples of over 50 different nations, cultures, traditions, and customs in Africa, ignoring that there are personal, tribal, and linguistic differences in so many individual countries on the African continent.

I am not naïve to ignore the fact that international education has been developed from a western perspective, with western ideologies, philosophies, and strong influences. I am also conscious of the fact that, to promote mobility among our future leaders (present students), it is important to teach them content and skills that will prepare them to return to their countries and contribute to those economies, while giving them the option to live and work anywhere in the world. Do we really have holistic thinking, open-minded and innovative leaders and educators for these roles?

I do know that the educational debate in many countries today is based on questioning the relevance of education as it is, but more importantly the practicality of the education we offer our students locally, internationally, and globally.

As we move forward in being innovative in our teaching, it is paramount that we look within ourselves and ask how we are contributing as international educators to ensuring that the students we teach from all parts of the world pass through our classrooms and schools feeling confident about who they are as individuals, nationals of their countries and followers of their religions. Are the movers and shakers in international education truly representative of all the stakeholders who teach and learn the curricula we continue to develop and innovate? How much of our "stuff and baggage" do we leave outside the doors of our schools, to avoid interference in offering the best international educational experiences to our students?

I am still saddened that when I walk into international educational gatherings and schools, I still see shock amongst my esteemed colleagues, hear inappropriate references to local people, and still hear our international educators and leaders (who normally only speak one language), wanting to punish students for speaking in their mother tongue, in their own countries during school hours!

Thank God the International Baccalaureate emphasizes the importance of host culture languages, but I would like to remind them that there are still countries in this world that have several host culture languages.

As we continue to develop international education in the 21st century, let us go back to basics and ask ourselves who are we as educators, and are we really teaching, inspiring, and reaching all our students in international schools equally without showing prejudice to those who are different from us as international educators...

Dare I mention that I am still surprised and amazed that international schools dare to put adverts up stating that "only candidates with U.S., UK, Canadian, and Australian citizenship may apply"? For jobs in International Schools...

I might be the ignorant person here, but I have seen other jobs advertised in local and international newspapers across the world with a preference for local before international. It seems that the one profession that emphasizes international awareness and respect is promoting exclusion already among the staff. It makes me wonder if "paying families" from the excluded countries are also excluded at these schools?

Well if this is what is still out there, then maybe I should not be surprised if some of my western colleagues are still shocked when they see me attend leadership conferences, recruitment fairs, and speak at international educational gatherings.

Are our international educators as internationally minded as our students?

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Racism in International Education | The International Educator (TIE Online)

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Ready to subscribe and get all the features TIE has to offer? Click here >> INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL APPOINTMENTS Tweets by @teach_overseas By Proserpina Dhlamini-Fisher I have to echo my shock and sorrow after reading Forrest Broman's article entitled "Ending Racism in America" in the April 2015 issue of The International Educator newspaper.

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Learning for Justice

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This guide offers advice to adults about how to respond to biased remarks and the use of stereotypes—and how to teach students to speak up as well.

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Diverse Middle Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry 

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Diverse Middle Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry 

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Rebecca Flansburg

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{Guest post By Tonya Duncan Ellis}

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

April is National Poetry Month.

Whoo-hoo!

Clearly, my poetry writing skills are lacking, but I love reading and hearing poetry.

Started by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month was created to celebrate poets and poems. I was excited to include " Dreams," a poem from Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes, in my book, Sophie Washington: My BFF.

According to Scholastic, poetry benefits children in many ways. Exposing kids to poems:

Builds early literacy skills.

Encourages them to play with language.

Makes reluctant readers less intimidated by literature, since poems generally use fewer words than prose.

Give kids an outlet to share feelings.

In recent years, there's been an increase in middle-grade books written in verse or poetic stanzas. The list below includes some diverse middle-grade titles, written in verse, or that celebrate poetry, to check out.

Diverse Middle-Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry

Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander - Written in both prose and verse, this inspiring book chronicles the famed boxers growing up in Louisville, KY, where I was born and raised. Becoming Muhammad Ali showcases the fighter's motivation, strong work ethic, and drive.

- Eleven-year-old Simon Barnes uses his rap talent to make a difference in his community in this book, written in prose. The author is a fourth-grade teacher from Chicago and creator of a viral back-to-school video "Welcome to the 4 th Grade."

Tonya Duncan Ellis is the author of the bestselling, award-winning Sophie Washington children's book series, geared toward readers ages 8-12 and is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and the Authors Guild.
www.tonyaduncanellis.com
Like Us on Facebook: @tonyaellisbooks
Follow Us on Twitter: @tonyaDEllis
Follow Us on Instagram: @tonyaellisbooks

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Diverse Middle-Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry - Multicultural Children's Book Day

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Guest post By Tonya Duncan Ellis} Roses are red. Violets are blue. April is National Poetry Month. Whoo-hoo! Clearly, my poetry writing skills are lacking, but I love reading and hearing poetry.

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Toolkit for Creating a DEI Action Planning Team

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Toolkit for Creating a DEI Action Planning Team

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D. A. Williams

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Georgia Kostelecky

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Georgia Kostelecky

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Ideas for Teaching English Language Arts to Promote Diversity and Empathy 

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Ideas for Teaching English Language Arts to Promote Diversity and Empathy 

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Georgia Kostelecky

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A variety of resources including Ted Talks, books to promote diversity and empathy, and emerging technologies such as VR.

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Georgia Kostelecky

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Georgia Kostelecky

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Georgia Kostelecky

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Dani Bostick, Learning for Justice

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A whitewashed history of the ancient world lays the foundation for white supremacy across the curriculum.

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Digging Deep into Social Justice Standards

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Digging Deep into Social Justice Standards

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Learning for Justice

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The Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards are the anchor standards and learning outcomes created to guide teachers in curriculum development and make schools more just, equitable and safe. Our standards are designed to be used alongside state and Common Core State Standards in all content areas to reduce prejudice and bias and advocate for collective action.

These standards are divided into four domains: identity, diversity, justice and action. This final entry of a series that began in the Spring 2019 issue of Teaching Tolerance walks through the "action" domain to help you give students the skills to take what they have learned about identity, diversity and justice and apply it by taking action in their communities.

Understanding Action

What Is Action?

Behavior, conduct, an act of will

The bringing about of an alteration by force or through a natural agency

Merriam-Webster.com and Dictionary.com
In the context of the Social Justice Standards, "action" includes taking steps to honor and celebrate identity and diversity, as well as taking steps to bring about justice.

Exploring Action

In the feature " We Won't Wear the Name " in this issue, TT Senior Writer Coshandra Dillard tells the stories of students and alumni who took action to change the names of schools honoring Robert E. Lee.

The story explains how the students and recent graduates of these schools acted against an injustice they saw, even though they were at times intimidated or even threatened for using their voices.

When talking about action with students, it's important to remember that anyone can find a way to take action against injustice-students included. Throughout history, change has happened not because heroes have acted alone but because communities have acted together.

To introduce students to the domain of action, you can adapt our teaching strategy " Say Something." Put students into pairs and have them take turns answering the following questions:

What counts as action?

What do you think motivates people to take action against injustice?

When is a time you or someone you know has taken action to address an inequity or injustice?

Each student should have a minute to ask follow-up or clarifying questions. After a few minutes, pairs can share out with the class. To explore examples of action, you can use some readings from our text library. For example, K-5 students can read the story " Gloria and Rosa Make Beautiful Music " about two students who work together to raise money for a school music program. They can consider the following questions:

What injustice do Gloria and Rosa see? What does Gloria's school have that Rosa's school does not?

What obstacles do Gloria and Rosa face when they decide to take action?

What action do Gloria and Rosa finally take? How will it address the injustice they have recognized?

Students in grades 6-12 can read about a different form of action with the informational text " The First Americans," a 1927 letter to the mayor of Chicago calling for better teaching of Indigenous history. They can discuss these questions:

What injustice do the letter writers identify? What examples do they name?

What action are they taking against this injustice?

Do you think this injustice has been addressed? Why or why not? How are people today working to fight similar injustices? How might you?

Finally, have students discuss the concept of action together. Divide students into groups of three or four and ask each group to brainstorm answers to this question: "What are some of the ways young people have taken action to fight for justice?"

Have students record their responses and, using our teaching strategy " Text Graffiti," have them respond to one another's ideas. (This strategy can work in class by having students record their responses on graph paper or remotely by having them record their responses in a shared document.)

After a few minutes, bring the class back together and have them share ideas that stood out to them. Discuss the following questions:

What are some reasons that prevent people from taking action?

Do people have an obligation to take action against injustice, even if it doesn't directly affect them? Why or why not?

Action Standards

Anchor Standards 16-20 of the Social Justice Standards

16. Students will express empathy when people are excluded or mistreated because of their identities and concern when they themselves experience bias.

17. Students will recognize their own responsibility to stand up to exclusion, prejudice and injustice.

18. Students will speak up with courage and respect when they or someone else has been hurt or wronged by bias.

19. Students will make principled decisions about when and how to take a stand against bias and injustice in their everyday lives and will do so despite negative peer or group pressure.

20. Students will plan and carry out collective action against bias and injustice in the world and will evaluate what strategies are most effective.

Next, consider how the action standards show up in the following scenarios.

Scenario #1

Marcus has noticed some of his classmates using phrases such as "That's so gay" or "Don't be gay" when joking around. He has also noticed that some of his queer friends tend to get quiet or walk away when these classmates are nearby. One day, Marcus finds his classmates after school and asks if he can talk with them. He explains that equating being gay with something shameful demeans people who are LGBTQ and can make them feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. Marcus shares that his dads are gay, and he says very clearly that jokes about gay people aren't OK. After his classmates apologize, he invites them to their school's GSA meeting the following week.

Which of the five action standards are demonstrated in Marcus' conversation with his classmates?

Scenario #2

Kia is a Deaf sixth grader who wants to join her school's chess club. But Mr. Blake, the club sponsor, tells her she probably shouldn't because she "just wouldn't be able to participate on the same level as the other students." Kia challenges Mr. Blake by telling him that this is unfair and unjust.

Catherine has been in the chess club ever since she started middle school. Now, as an eighth grader, she is the leader of the club. She witnesses the conversation between Kia and Mr. Blake. After Kia leaves the room, Catherine finds Kia and asks how she can support her. Kia tells Catherine that it's critical to create safe spaces for all students in their school, regardless of their ability. With Catherine's help, Kia organizes the other members of the chess club to boycott meetings. The news of the student protest eventually makes it to some parents and guardians, who decide to sponsor a new chess club. They work with the school to ensure that a sign language interpreter is available at all of the club meetings moving forward.

Which of the five action standards are demonstrated in how Kia communicates both with Mr. Blake and Catherine?

How do Kia's and the club members' actions illustrate their understanding of the connection between justice and action?

Essential Questions

You can incorporate the action standards into your curriculum by writing essential questions for your units of study. You'll find two examples for different content areas below.

Sixth Grade Science

A.19, A.20: How can the work of young people such as Mari Copeny (also known as Little Miss Flint) be used as an example for students taking action in fighting for environmental justice?

Answers will vary. Mari Copeny rose to prominence advocating for safer water in her hometown of Flint, Michigan. She helped bring Flint's water issue into the national spotlight by writing to then-President Obama. Through her activism, she has raised awareness for other cities across the country impacted by pollution and climate change.

To take action in their own communities, students can test the water purity at their homes or schools or in nearby waterways. They can plan ways to take action, including designing campaigns to write or call elected officials, regulatory bodies and private corporations.

High School Math

A.16, A.18: How can students analyze data about differences in school budgets and resources to advocate for equity?

Have your students research publicly available data on school budgets. Start with your own school. How much gets spent every year on facilities? Maintenance? Supplies? Technology? Staff? Then, have them compare that data with other schools in your district or city. What is similar? What is different? What inferences could be made about the disparities in budgets? Have your students brainstorm ways to address inequities. You could even share the Spring 2020 Teaching Tolerance story " They Deserve Better," about students in one underfunded Mississippi high school who organized to rally support for a local bond issue that funded a renovation of their building.

Now you try! Write an essential question based on one of the five action standards for your own grade level or content area.

Additional Resources

Our free film Mighty Times: The Children's March tells the story of how, in 1963, young people in Alabama banded together to protest segregation-and won significant victories.

In the Fall 2020 story " School as Sanctuary," TT Senior Writer Cory Collins highlights educators, school leaders and advocates who pushed to gain stronger protections for immigrant students and their families. The accompanying toolkit provides concrete ways you can take action to support immigrant students and families in your school community.

And " Responding to Hate and Bias in the West," a story by TT Senior Writer Coshandra Dillard published in the Spring 2020 issue, explains how a group of parents and caregivers worked together to fight racism in their children's Las Vegas school.

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Digging Deep Into the Social Justice Standards: Action

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The Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards are the anchor standards and learning outcomes created to guide teachers in curriculum development and make schools more just, equitable and safe. Our standards are designed to be used alongside state and Common Core State Standards in all content areas to reduce prejudice and bias and advocate for collective action.

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Bringing Black Lives Matter into the Classroom

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Bringing Black Lives Matter into the Classroom

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Jamilah Pitts, Learning for Justice

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In my article " Don't Say Nothing," I warn about the dangers of teachers being silent on the issue of racial violence. And what I love about this profession is that, when teachers do speak, when we take a stance and choose to engage in the political, we plant seeds for the next generation. When we teach in ways that promote respect, love, empathy and understanding-despite the difficulties we may face in doing so-we have the power to influence young people who will eventually become doers and leaders in this world.

Teaching about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement allows each of us to chew on multiple injustices simultaneously. We are able to teach not only about racism, its history and its present manifestations, but we also are able to point to solutions and methods of action so our students don't become disillusioned. When students are overcome with doubt, we can draw parallels to Standing Rock and say to them, "This is how people are fighting for change in spite of the obstacles they are experiencing." We can talk about sexism and patriarchy, but we can also leverage conversations about sexuality using gender-neutral and affirming language.

Teaching about BLM isn't just about police brutality and the ways an organization is seeking to end it. Bringing this movement to the classroom can open the door to larger conversations about truth, justice, activism, healing and reconciliation.

The work required to teach about Black Lives Matter is extensive and heavy, but this topic can be addressed effectively in classrooms-at any grade level.

Elementary Applications

Trinity Thompson and her colleagues, who teach second grade in Harlem, knew they wanted to teach about the BLM movement. However, a couple of false starts made it clear that, for their efforts to be sustained and successful, they needed to establish safety and provide students with context. They decided to form a Cultural Competency Committee to educate themselves about social justice issues, build lesson plans and incorporate family input. The committee developed a six-month curriculum that focuses on education professor Bree Picower's six elements of social justice curriculum design: self-love and knowledge, respect for others, issues of social injustice, social movements and social change, awareness raising, and social action.

"I think for me the biggest thing was providing both windows and mirrors," Thompson explains, "having their community and their history, even in Harlem, reflected in what they're learning ... but also providing them windows. We looked at Stonewall, we looked at South Africa and we looked at Palestine."

Thompson used text-based culture circles to initiate conversations about police violence and Black Lives Matter-a format she had already used with them throughout the curriculum. She began by reading to her students an age-appropriate text about what to do when bad things happen, then guiding them through a discussion, providing them the space and language they needed to process what they were experiencing. Thompson even took her students through Campaign Zero, a data-driven platform dedicated to ending police brutality in the United States. She admits that this was a difficult task, but she was able to make it work by referring to pictures on the Campaign Zero website.

Karen Shreiner, a second-grade teacher in Oakland, California, is another example. Shreiner works for a charter school network committed to equity and social justice. Because her students-like Thompson's-are so young, Schreiner has found creative yet age-appropriate ways to immerse them in the discourse necessary to understand and process such serious subject matter. She embeds current topics into pre-planned units, allowing her to meet content and curriculum demands while also teaching pressing issues in meaningful ways. To introduce students to her unit on activism, she used an activity her students were familiar with: gallery walks. In this case, she used images that captured moments of resistance.

"I have pictures of everything from the March on Washington to when the Bay Bridge was shut down because of Black Lives Matter protesters a couple years ago," Shreiner says. She has students go to each photo, then use questions and sentence frames they've practiced. "They can say things like, 'I notice that _____' or 'I wonder why this person is _____' or 'I think this person feels _____ because _____.'"

Schreiner is careful not to tell her students what to think about the images, letting them come to their own conclusions. "A lot of them will notice things like, 'Some of these pictures are from a long time ago. Some of them are from now,'" she recalls. "'A lot of these pictures involve the police. A lot of the pictures involve the police treating people in ways that aren't nice.'" If she hears students say things that reflect assumptions or implicit bias, she interrupts them to ask that they provide evidence. Her approach works, she says, because she establishes trust in her classroom and prepares students all year to talk about issues of identity, diversity, justice and action.

A Middle School Approach

Middle school students attending after-school programming through Breakthrough Providence learn about Black Lives Matter not from classroom teachers but from other students. Dulari Tahbildar is the executive director of this Rhode Island-based chapter of a national collaborative focused on the needs of middle-level students from low-income households. The organization offers supplementary curriculum developed and taught by high school and college students who are preparing-with the support of Breakthrough-for careers in teaching. Tahbildar says the organization was unanimous in its decision to focus on Black Lives Matter during the 2016-17 school year.

"A lot of people don't really recognize the voices and contributions of our youngest students," Tahbildar says. "We're working with 16- to 22-year-olds who don't have any formal teaching experience, and we basically give them a crash course in 'What is a lesson plan? What is an objective? How do you develop trusting relationships with students?'" The organization also emphasizes to its young teacher-students the importance of driving critical thinking and not telling students what to think.

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Bringing Black Lives Matter Into the Classroom | Part II

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In my article " Don't Say Nothing," I warn about the dangers of teachers being silent on the issue of racial violence. And what I love about this profession is that, when teachers do speak, when we take a stance and choose to engage in the political, we plant seeds for the next generation.

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A Myth that Disguises Racism: Asians and Math

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A Myth that Disguises Racism: Asians and Math

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https://ideas.ted.com/why-saying-asians-are-good-at-myth-isnt-a-compliment-its-racism/

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High Quality Curriculum as a Transformational Tool for Equity

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High Quality Curriculum as a Transformational Tool for Equity

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ASCD

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Scott Hartl and Christina Riley

A pervasive and powerful part of our American democracy is the belief that though we may be born into unequal and unjust circumstances, these factors should not predict our ability to fail or succeed. Education has the potential to be a powerful engine for disrupting structural inequities and fulfilling our nation's promise of equal opportunity for all, but in reality, the system was built to maintain a status quo that perpetuates economic and racial inequality.

Many educators committed to working for equity have similar goals, but we often have varying ideas about how to reach those goals. Because educational inequity is such an enormous beast, we grasp at different parts of the problem. Some of us may be working to address the ways in which school discipline policies negatively affect Black and Brown students. Others may be working to improve family engagement or address opportunity gaps that emerge in test score data. These efforts are worthy, but for lasting change, we need to get our arms around the entire animal. The way to get a grip on inequity, in our eyes, is with a high-quality curriculum and accompanying professional learning for teachers.

The Promise of Curriculum

Curriculum is the heart of the solution to educational inequities because it is a container for so much that happens during each school day. The design of curriculum shapes pedagogy, and pedagogy affects how a student experiences school-whether they believe it is engaging or boring, challenging or easy, and even if it feels fair and just. A high-quality curriculum includes lessons that empower students and develop their critical thinking and communication skills, which in turns creates a classroom culture that nurtures students' leadership and agency and encourages critical analysis of the world. Such curriculum gives us a way to put equity into action day in and day out.

There are three primary ways in which our teaching and learning nonprofit, EL Education, is meeting the urgency of the current moment: integrating equity-focused social-emotional learning into curriculum; designing curriculum with "windows, mirrors, and doors"; and ensuring that curriculum is scalable and accessible as an open educational resource.

Integrating Equity-Focused Social-Emotional Learning into Curriculum

Students learn best in classroom environments where they have an opportunity to build connections with their teachers and peers (Darling-Hammond, Flook, Cook-Harvey, Barron, and Osher, 2020). A holistic education that integrates strong relationships, social-emotional learning, rigorous and engaging content, and precise pedagogy is most supportive of young people's developing brains.

Designing curriculum with integrated, equity-focused social-emotional learning (SEL)-versus a skills-based SEL "program" that is not explicitly focused on equity-builds on students' existing assets, lifts voices, promotes empowerment, and nurtures a sense of belonging among students from historically marginalized groups. Further, it supports all students-including those in dominant groups-to analyze systems of oppression and understand avenues for their own civic action.

Educator bias is a significant barrier to Black and Brown students' achievement and sense of belonging in the classroom (Ford and Grantham, 2003, Riddle and Sinclair, 2019, Steele, 2011, The Education Trust, n.d.). Often, this bias is unconscious, but its impact is felt by students in big and small ways. The benefit of a high-quality curriculum is in its curation of diverse texts and topics that affirm students' varied identities and in its integration of equity-focused SEL into daily lessons, which can mitigate some of the unconscious bias that prevents teachers from fully embracing the genius in every child. In this way, curriculum can be its own form of professional learning for teachers as it walks them and their students deep into content and toward a greater sense of agency.

Take for example, three of the main pillars of any literacy curriculum: texts, topics, and tasks.

Texts give students opportunities to learn social-emotional skills as they build knowledge of historical or contemporary events or analyze fictional characters' actions and reactions throughout a story. Curriculum that offers students collaborative ways to reflect on what motivation drives events and characters, such as racism or homophobia, allows students to think about how a text may be affecting their peers and analyze the systems that are catalysts for events. In the process, they practice empathy, compassion, and critical thinking.

Tasks throughout lessons and units can help students to practice essential social-emotional skills like collaboration, respect, and responsibility. Discussion protocols, for example, promote equity of voice and support students to listen to one another with respect. Tasks also can encourage students to reflect on their own lives. For example, analyzing texts through the lens of how oppressive systems and structures affect the people in students' communities develops critical consciousness. Long-term, culminating tasks may bring in community members as experts or engage students to creating projects for the community, such as writing and recording PSAs.

Topics of any curriculum are the driving force behind the tasks and texts and present opportunities to not only build students' knowledge of a diverse world, but also to build their social-emotional skills, so that they feel the responsibility over their learning to understand how to take action on a topic. This is healing for students, and especially important for those who have experienced trauma. For example, the topic of the ratification of the 19th Amendment provides students with the opportunity to understand that period in history through the lens of the oppressive systems and structures for women and people of color, and to make connections to current events and persisting inequities.

In the accompanying video, you can see how designers of the EL Education K-5 Language Arts Curriculum (first edition) brought text, task, and topic together with equity-focused SEL into one 5th grade lesson. As they discuss the text Esperanza Rising and the topic of human rights, students practice collaboration, empathy, and respect for one another. Notably, the lesson is heavily weighted toward students talking with each other in small groups using a discussion protocol, rather than simply responding to the teacher. This is one example of high-quality curriculum as a form of professional learning for teachers as these key instructional moves are intentionally built into the lesson. The curriculum is an opportunity for teachers-new and veteran alike-to learn instructional techniques.

Designing Curriculum with Mirrors, Windows, and Doors

A high-quality curriculum offers students texts and topics that contain mirrors, windows, and doors: mirrors that affirm and celebrate their own identities and cultures, windows that help them learn about and understand others, and doorways that present them with opportunities to be agents of change. Choosing these texts and topics is an enormous responsibility because it affects students' sense of belonging in their learning community.

A curriculum with mirrors has the potential to appeal to students' interests and also reflect their lives along various axes of identity so that they feel connected to the books they read and the topics they study. It is equally important for students to see new worlds-these are the windows they look through that develop social-emotional skills like empathy and respect for others. Helping students look through those windows, particularly at events in the past, with a critical eye for how they are connected to life today is key to equity work.

When working for equity, perhaps the most impactful part of the mirrors, windows, and doors trifecta is ensuring that curriculum offers students doors to walk through. Scholar Shawn Ginwright argues that when students can meaningfully engage with the very problems in their communities that have caused them trauma, they become "agents in restoring their own well-being" (2018). They can think carefully about the complexities of such issues as environmental racism, the Holocaust, or human rights. Analyzing how systems of oppression affect students as well as their peers, their families, or their communities inspires students to work for change. And when lessons are integrated with equity-focused SEL, they are equipped with the skills they need as engaged citizens and young activists. Ginwright calls this " Healing Centered Engagement."

In the accompanying video, see how students in Detroit extended their learning from Esperanza Rising and human rights to solve a real problem. Eight schools teamed up to support literacy as a civil right, designing, building, and stocking Little Free Libraries to reduce the number of "book deserts" in their community.

Making High-Quality Curriculum Scalable and Accessible

If a high-quality curriculum with equity at its heart is our goal, then we can't stop once the curriculum is written. We must think beyond who the curriculum is written for-students and teachers-to the school and district level, where issues of access and equity play out on a much larger scale. We must ask: Who will have access to the curriculum, what resources are required to use it, and how will it be distributed?

We must do two things to ensure that a curriculum continues to advance educational equity on a large scale: 1) disseminate it in a way that ensures that schools in historically underserved communities can access it, and 2) support teachers with professional learning opportunities so that they can maximize the potential of the curriculum to build agency and belonging in their students.

High-quality curriculum that is available as an open educational resource levels the playing field by offering free material that teachers can use and customize. Choosing texts that are affordable for schools to purchase as classroom sets-with no expensive textbooks or anthologies-increases access. And integrating social-emotional learning into academic curricula, in addition to the benefits for students' developing brains, may have real financial benefits for schools if it can obviate the need for additional social-emotional learning resources. Districts can repurpose any excess funds to provide cohesive professional learning opportunities and coaching for teachers, which is critical to ensuring that teacher and student learning is deep and purposeful.

In the end, what we want most is for all students to have an equal chance in a world that has historically had extensive resources and support for some students while consistently creating barriers for others. Our educational system has reached an inflection point. If we truly want it to be the engine that drives changes to deeply embedded structural inequities, we must focus on the details of the daily instructional experience. In more than 27 years of pursuing this goal, we have found no stronger entry point than a high-quality curriculum, especially when it is combined with accompanying professional learning and coaching for teachers. Such a curriculum will challenge, engage, and empower our students in just the way the world most needs.

References

Darling-Hammond, L., Flook, L., Cook-Harvey, C., Barron, B., & Osher, D. (2020). Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development, Applied Developmental Science, 24(2), 97-140. DOI 10.1080/10888691.2018.1537791.

Ford, D. Y., & Grantham, T. C. (2003). Providing access for gifted culturally diverse students: From deficit thinking to dynamic thinking. Theory into Practice, 42, 217-225.

Ginwright, S. (2018). The future of healing: Shifting from trauma informed care to healing centered engagement. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/@ginwright/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c

Riddle, T., & Sinclair, S. (2019). Racial disparities in school-based disciplinary actions are associated with county-level rates of racial bias. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 116(17), 8255-8260.

Sims Bishop, R. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives, 1(3), ix-xi.

Steele, C. M. (2011). Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do. New York City: W. W. Norton & Company.

The Education Trust. (n.d.). Social, emotional, and academic development through an equity lens. Washington, D.C.: The Education Trust.

Scott Hartl is the president and CEO of EL Education (formerly Expeditionary Learning), a K-12 nonprofit with a pedagogical model of teaching and learning that builds students' academic achievement and character development.

Christina Riley is the director of curriculum design at EL Education. She was a lead designer on the nationally renowned EL Education English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum.

More on This Topic: History Lessons for Hard Times: Why We Can't Just Teach SEL

ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 14. Copyright 2021 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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High-Quality Curriculum as a Transformation Tool for Equity

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Scott Hartl and Christina Riley A pervasive and powerful part of our American democracy is the belief that though we may be born into unequal and unjust circumstances, these factors should not predict our ability to fail or succeed.

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UNESCO

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Diverse Middle-Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry

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Diverse Middle-Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry

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Tonya Duncan Ellis
Multicultural Children's Book Day

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{Guest post By Tonya Duncan Ellis}

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

April is National Poetry Month.

Whoo-hoo!

Clearly, my poetry writing skills are lacking, but I love reading and hearing poetry.

Started by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month was created to celebrate poets and poems. I was excited to include " Dreams," a poem from Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes, in my book, Sophie Washington: My BFF.

According to Scholastic, poetry benefits children in many ways. Exposing kids to poems:

Builds early literacy skills.

Encourages them to play with language.

Makes reluctant readers less intimidated by literature, since poems generally use fewer words than prose.

Give kids an outlet to share feelings.

In recent years, there's been an increase in middle-grade books written in verse or poetic stanzas. The list below includes some diverse middle-grade titles, written in verse, or that celebrate poetry, to check out.

Diverse Middle-Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry

Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander - Written in both prose and verse, this inspiring book chronicles the famed boxers growing up in Louisville, KY, where I was born and raised. Becoming Muhammad Ali showcases the fighter's motivation, strong work ethic, and drive.

- Eleven-year-old Simon Barnes uses his rap talent to make a difference in his community in this book, written in prose. The author is a fourth-grade teacher from Chicago and creator of a viral back-to-school video "Welcome to the 4 th Grade."

Tonya Duncan Ellis is the author of the bestselling, award-winning Sophie Washington children's book series, geared toward readers ages 8-12 and is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and the Authors Guild.
www.tonyaduncanellis.com
Like Us on Facebook: @tonyaellisbooks
Follow Us on Twitter: @tonyaDEllis
Follow Us on Instagram: @tonyaellisbooks

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Diverse Middle-Grade Books That Celebrate Poetry - Multicultural Children's Book Day

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Guest post By Tonya Duncan Ellis} Roses are red. Violets are blue. April is National Poetry Month. Whoo-hoo! Clearly, my poetry writing skills are lacking, but I love reading and hearing poetry.

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Georgetown University

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EDI: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Equity: A measure of fair treatment, opportunities, and outcomes across race, gender, class, and other dynamics.

Diversity: The range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical ability or attributes, religious or ethical values system, national origin, and political beliefs.

Inclusion: Refers to the intentional, ongoing effort to ensure that diverse individuals fully participate in all aspects of organizational work, including decision-making processes. It also refers to the ways that diverse participants are valued as respected members of an organization and/or community. (University of Washington Racial Equity Glossary)

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Books, resources, and links to help fight racism. This is a living document that serves as a launching point for more extensive study and action.

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Racial Equity Tools Glossary

Words and their multiple uses reflect the tremendous diversity that characterizes our society. Indeed, universally agreed upon language on issues relating to racism is nonexistent. We discovered that even the most frequently used words in any discussion on race can easily cause confusion, which leads to controversy and hostility. It is essential to achieve some degree of shared understanding, particularly when using the most common terms. In this way, the quality of dialogue and discourse on race can be enhanced.

Language can be used deliberately to engage and support community anti-racism coalitions and initiatives, or to inflame and divide them. Discussing definitions can engage and support coalitions. However, it is important for groups to decide the extent to which they must have consensus and where it is okay for people to disagree. It is also helpful to keep in mind that the words people use to discuss power, privilege, racism and oppression hold different meanings for different people. For instance, people at different stages of developing an analysis tend to attach different meanings to words like discrimination, privilege and institutional racism. Furthermore, when people are talking about privilege or racism, the words they use often come with emotions and assumptions that are not spoken.

Many of the terms in this glossary have evolved over time. For example, given the changing demographic trends in the United States, the word "minority" no longer accurately reflects the four primary racial/ethnic groups. The terms "emerging majority" and "people of color" have become popular substitutes. Also, the terms used to refer to members of each community of color have changed over time. Whether to use the terms African American or Black, Hispanic American, Latinx or Latino, Native American or American Indian, and Pacific Islander or Asian American depends on a variety of conditions, including your intended audiences' geographic location, age, generation, and, sometimes, political orientation.

SOURCE: Project Change's "The Power of Words." Originally produced for Project Change Lessons Learned II, also included in A Community Builder's Toolkit - both produced by Project Change and The Center for Assessment and Policy Development with some modification by RacialEquityTools.org.

The main source for each definition is noted with its term below. Some definitions are paraphrased or updated. If you plan to use a couple of the terms in your materials, we encourage you to keep the SOURCE citation(s) that we have listed for them.

You can download a PDF version of this glossary . Please feel free to share the RET Glossary PDF or post a link on your site. We request that you use the following citation: Racial Equity Tools Glossary, MP Associates, Center for Assessment and Policy Development, and World Trust Educational Services, July 2022.

For guidance on evaluation terms in particular, see .

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Words and their multiple uses reflect the tremendous diversity that characterizes our society. Indeed, universally agreed upon language on issues relating to racism is nonexistent. In this way, the quality of dialogue and discourse on race can be enhanced.

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Center for the Study of Social Policy

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Smore

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Book Tasting Premiere Invitation

Make your "guest" feel special with this, Book Tasting Premiere Invitation

Cinabistro Book Tasting Menu

Print this, Retro Cinabistro Menu, and have it ready for the movie premiere, when your guest(s) arrive, to get them pumped about the premiere!

Cinabistro Book Tasting Order Form

Ask your kiddos to "place their order" after the book premiere, using this form.

After reading their selection, children may fill out a book review and post it to help guide their friends/siblings in selecting their next book.

10 Book Series with Diverse Characters

Jaden Toussaint, The Greatest

Gaither Sisters Trilogy (Box Set)

Planet Omar

If you have a kid who's a fan of the "Wimpy Kid" or "Big Nate" books, it's time to introduce them to Omar. He's an affable Pakistani Muslim boy living in England, and he's just started school in a new town. He faces prejudice from a class bully and a cranky lady next door, but Omar somehow finds the funny in almost every situation. A book for younger readers that isn't afraid to tackle real issues head-on in its own, inimitable, Omar-ish way.

- Betsy Bird, librarian and book critic
Purchase Planet Omar 3 Books Collection Set: Accidental Trouble Magnet, Unexpected Super Spy, Incredible Rescue Mission

Dyamonde Daniel Series Box Set
Purchase The Dyamonde Daniel Boxed Set
Third grader, Dyamond Daniel was forced to move from Brooklyn to Washington Heights when her parents got divorced. Dyamonde is intelligent, especially when it comes to numbers, and sometimes her confidence makes her seem cocky. Deep down, Dyamonde is like most other kids: She longs for friendship and wants to fit in but it's her refreshing spunk, can-do attitude, and ability to stand up for what she believes in that sets her apart from the crowd! This third grader is here to make friends, reconsider what she really needs in life, and question the narratives she's hearing at school. This fun series will teach young readers the importance of looking for the best in others and finding ways to help those in need around them.

Best Book Series 2021 For 2nd Grade

Best Book Series For 2021 2nd Grade (Lexile range 400-850) includes a short synopsis of each book series. Pique the interest of students and encourage self-selection of independent reading books! This book tasting could even lead to small group book clubs!

The Dream Channel

Affiliate links provided

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Make your "guest" feel special with this, Book Tasting Premiere Invitation Print this, Retro Cinabistro Menu, and have it ready for the movie premiere, when your guest(s) arrive, to get them pumped about the premiere! Ask your kiddos to "place their order" after the book premiere, using this form.

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University of Michigan

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Skip to main content

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Introduction

This guide will provide information about people, groups, and projects dedicated to building inclusive and caring communities. The intention is to provide a starting point for developing a vocabulary to discuss anti-racism through readings and other media and to be better prepared with research and information seeking strategies. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the anti-racist resources available.

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Subject Guides: Anti-Racism Resources: Home - Definitions & Terms

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Aspen Ideas Festival

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"The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it - and then dismantle it," writes professor Ibram X. Kendi. That is the essence of antiracism: the action that must follow both emotional and intellectual awareness of racism.

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7 Myths Debunked, a quick intro to the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXejDhRGOuI

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Thank you, Paul Turner!

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BIPOC Voices in International Education / Schools DEIJ Statement and Progress - 2020/2021

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Decolonizing Reading Instruction for Black Boys

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Decolonizing Reading Instruction for Black Boys

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Michael Lowe, ASCD

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Michael Lowe

History enlightens our path on the road to educational freedom. Strict anti-literacy laws were once tethered to every Black person, both free and enslaved, in the Antebellum South. According to the Alabama Law Archives of 1833, Slave Code 31 stated that anyone who attempted to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read, or write would "be fined in a sum not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars." That fine today would be equal to roughly $7,600. A white supremacist society wanted to keep books out of the hands of Black people because literacy challenged the very fiber of enslavement. Reading liberates, empowers, and ennobles. Throughout the centuries, Black people have used literature as a tool to elevate their futures.

Yet, more than a century later, Black students are still seeking liberation around literacy. In contrast to the historical foundation of literacy in Black communities, Black students, especially Black boys, bear the burden of being labeled as non-proficient readers. Black, Latino, and American Indian students carry the weight of scoring lower than their White and Asian peers on literacy aptitude tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress. (In 2014, only 14 percent of Black boys read proficiently by 4th grade compared to 42 percent of White boys-which is the standard by which students are judged as on track to graduate).These grim statistics are interwoven into the fabric of underserved schools and say more about a lucrative system of curriculum writing, school turnaround models, and frameworks that benefit from Black students' failure and less about the brilliance of our Black boys.

Colonized Reading

Access and equity in the classroom rests on beliefs and practices that empower all students to participate meaningfully. As such, it is vital for teachers and school leaders to pay more attention to the kinds of texts that children are reading. Classrooms have always had both representation and positive self-images of White characters, but this has not been the reflection or experience of children of color (Wright & Counsell, 2018). If teachers want to decolonize their approaches to reading, they must reflect on and refine the images that are projected in what they give Black boys to read.

The stark deficit of the diversity and representation in children's literature has been well-documented. Of the illustrated children's books published in 2018, approximately 10 percent of the characters in those books were African, African-American, or Black, 27 percent were about animals, and 50 percent were White (Cooperative Children's Book Center). Publishing houses of these books must confront the question of why Black stories continue to be underrepresented and offered limited roles in print.

Over the past decade, we have seen improvements in the diversification of children's literature, but misrepresentation still abounds. Distorted portrayals of Black characters can create a problematic understanding among audiences that include general antagonism toward Black males, lack of identification with or sympathy for Black males, as well as exaggerated views related to criminality and violence (Ramasubramanian, 2011). It doesn't help that schools' selections up through high school are often limited to "classics" by White authors with White characters, like Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

Many of the young boys whom I have worked with in elementary school complain about not finding any connections to themselves or their lives in the books that are introduced to them. Some sit in frustration, turning page after page, and ask, "Where are the Black boys in this book?" As a young child, I, too, sat in reading circles with books that told stories of animals named George and Garfield or characters who solved mysteries named Sherlock, Encyclopedia Brown, and Sally. They were White and always outwitted bullies and criminals. These texts diminished my view of what heroism and intelligence looked like for Black people. School curriculum never presented the opportunity for me to read about a Black scientist or hero unless February (when the country celebrates Black History Month) appeared on the calendar.

Illiteracy-defined as the inability to read or write-isn't the issue in the case of our Black boys so much as aliteracy -the unwillingness to read even if able to do so. If the text does not pique the reader's interest or connection, how can they be expected to cultivate a love-and therefore a skillful practice-of reading?

Choose Texts That Enable and Engage

A student's ability to become a proficient reader is dependent upon their ability to see the interconnectedness and engagement with what they read. Black students need greater access to books that celebrate their identity culturally and academically and feature them as major characters. A healthy self-identity and developmental approach to agency begins with reflective texts, which Rudine Sims Bishop coined "mirror" books (Bishop, 1990).

Teachers across schools and classrooms should use what Tatum calls "enabling texts." A text that embodies the aspects that enable should do the following:

focus on the collective struggle of African Americans

promote a healthy psyche

reflect an awareness of the real world

serve as a roadmap for being, doing, thinking, and acting (Hughes-Hassell et al., 2012, p. 6).

In numerous professional learning meetings, I have detected a hint of surprise from teachers as they realize that many of the texts in their classrooms did not encompass a real-world view of their Black students. As we combed through formative assessments and debriefed after classroom walk- throughs, several teachers noticed the spark of intrigue in our students who had seemed disengaged just a few weeks before when the cover and content of a text addressed their culture and presented empowering accomplishments. With a new text in hand, these students answered questions and began to show increased confidence with every page that valued their contributions as members of the community.

Self-reflective educators should start by figuring out how their own biases, likes, and dislikes influence the texts they pick for the classroom. Then, they should aim to look for children's literature that focuses on self-esteem and discovery. Black boys and men are dying at the hands of authority figures and institutional policies. Witnessing "Black boy joy"-a way to celebrate the idea that young Black boys and men can be happy, too-is a rare, much-needed break from tragic stories and news headlines (Young, 2016).

Promote Brilliance

Educators must not only move to more mirror books, but also introduce culturally relevant stories that characterize Black characters as hopeful and developing self-control like any child versus "at-risk" or "out of control and dangerous" (Tatum, 2005). It is important to rid Black boys of the deficit views that have been reflected in what they see and hear in the media and help them understand, criticize, and travel away from some of the traumatic experiences they may live outside of school.

To promote self-identity and brilliance in young Black Boys, I encourage elementary teachers to start building agency early in the K-5 classroom. Use books such as All Because You Matter by Tami Charles, Hair Love by Matthew Cherry, Simon B. Rhymin by Dwayne Reed, Chocolate Me by Taye Diggs, I'm a Brilliant Little Black Boy! by Joshua B. Drummond, Jamal's Busy Day by Wade Hudson, Ron's Big Mission by Rose Blue, Crown An Ode To the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes, Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander, New Kid by Jerry Craft, and My Brown Skin by Thomisha Booker.

It is necessary to remember that lived experiences and context matter. Teachers decolonize reading instruction through representation and healthy-self identity, especially when they strive to celebrate, motivate, and engage Black boys in opportunities to be brilliant while reading. When schools and instructional leaders choose to democratize classrooms, students will be able to read about and become their authentic selves.

References

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. In Perspectives: Choosing and using books for the classroom, 6(3).

Counsell, S., & Wright, B. (2018). The brilliance of black boys: Cultivating school success in the early grades. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Hughes-Hassell, S., Kumasi, K., Rawson, C. H., & Hitson, A. (2012). Building a Bridge to literacy for African American male youth: A call to action for the Library community. Retrieved from http://bridgetolit.web.unc.edu/files/2012/09/Building-A-Bridge-to-Literacy-for- African-American-Males.pdf

Ramasubramanian, S. (2011). The impact of stereotypical versus counterstereotypical media exemplars on racial attitudes, causal attributions, and support for affirmative action. Communications Research, 38 (1).

The Campaign for Grade Level Reading. (2014). Young Men of Color. Retrieved from https://gradelevelreading.net/resources/young-men-of-color

Tatum, A. W. (2005) Teaching reading to Black adolescent males: Closing the achievement gap. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Tatum, A. W. (2009). Reading for their life: Rebuilding the textual lineages African American adolescent males. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Young, D. (2016, August 08). Thanks to Chance the Rapper, #BlackBoyJoy Is a Thing. The Root. Retrieved from www.theroot.com/thanks-to-chance-the-rapper-blackboyjoy-is-a-thing-1790856549

Michael Lowe is the chief equity officer for Shelby County Schools in Tennessee. He has also served as a regional superintendent and middle school principal in Memphis, Tenn. His work focuses on culturally responsive teaching and equity in student work.

More on This Topic: Literacy as a Tool for Liberation

ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 14. Copyright 2021 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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Decolonize Reading Instruction for Black Boys

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Michael Lowe History enlightens our path on the road to educational freedom. Strict anti-literacy laws were once tethered to every Black person, both free and enslaved, in the Antebellum South.

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Antiracist educators are adept at finding what’s missing from their curriculum materials and stand ready to fill those gaps ~ Center for Antiracist Education

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Promising Stories: Culturally Responsive Literacy Learning and Teaching to Champion Antiracism and Student Confidence

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Promising Stories: Culturally Responsive Literacy Learning and Teaching to Champion Antiracism and Student Confidence

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Laura Benson

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Introduction

Our students bring radiant stories to our learning tables. When they enter our classrooms, our students carry their cultures with them - their ethnic heritages, their life experiences, their racial identifications, their passions, their ages, their family histories - the all of themselves. And, if we tap into these rich wells, culture can be the cornerstone of promise for our students.

Culture is the lens by which one looks at the world and, thus, profoundly shapes relationships, motivation, engagement, and achievement. Stefanie Rome (2006) names culture as "whatever is meaningful and relevant to the learner." Stefanie's wise counsel means that we must know our students deeply to match the learning to the learner. Geneva Gay insightfully defines the compass of culture in Culturally Responsive Teaching:

Honoring children's hungry need to be heard and affirmed, Jabari Mahiri brilliantly details the value of honoring youth culture to grow students' literacy in Shooting for Excellence and What They Don't Learn in School: "To be literate is not to be free; it is to be present and active in the struggle for reclaiming one's voice, history, and future."

As a white, middle-class mother and aunt, international educator, progressive protestant and all faiths student, former rotary dial telephone user, third culture kid, female teacher, I worked to bridge my culture to my students' cultures; age, gender, ethnic heritage, and geographic origins are a few trestles on this bridge. My students and I shared some aspects of our cultures but we were also blessed to have unique and diverse cultural legacies to share with one another. Wanting to minister to students' multiple literacies (Tatum, 2005), then and now as a Director of Curriculum and Professional Development serving international schools, I work to craft instruction which nurtures students' academic literacy, social literacy, emotional literacy, and cultural literacy. Students' understanding of cultural literacy is chief in helping them develop a sense of their own cultural identify. Striving to keep culture at the heart of my teaching reflects my intentions to be a culturally responsive teacher.

Cultural responsiveness is not a practice; it's what informs our practice so we can make better teaching choices for eliciting, engaging, motivating, supporting, and expanding the intellectual capacity of ALL our students (Hammond, 2014). Culturally responsive teachers develop students' intellectual, social, emotional, and political learning by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Culturally responsive teachers realize not only the importance of students' academic achievement, but also maintaining their cultural identity and heritage (Gay). Culturally responsive teachers work from Althier Lazar's (2004) cultural sensitivity, the awareness that cultural differences exist and have an impact on the meanings, values, perceptions, and behaviors of particular groups of people, and craft instruction with cultural relevance, teaching informed by a knowledge of the shared meanings, values, perceptions, and behaviors of particular communities.

Culturally responsive teachers respect the cultures and experiences of their students and then use these as resources for teaching and learning. This is critical because many students come into a classroom with an array of experiences and skills but learn to believe that these are useless when they cannot apply them to the classroom (Fuhrman, 2020). Culturally responsive teaching appreciates the existing strengths and accomplishments of all students and develops them further in instruction. Culturally responsive teachers acknowledges the legitimacy of the cultural heritages of different ethnic groups, both as legacies that affect students' dispositions, attitudes, and approaches to learning and as worthy content to be taught in the formal curriculum.

As Zaretta Hammond (in Elena Aguilar, 2015) explains,

Culturally responsive teaching is the heart of antiracism. In order to fight against this problem of misclassification and misleading students to believe that they are incapable, teachers must ensure that their curriculum is responsive to the needs of their students. Living as co-learners in a culturally sensitive, relevant, and responsive classroom, students dwell not only in respect but in hope and possibility, too. Banks (1991) asserts that if education is to empower marginalized groups, it must be transformative. Being transformative involves helping "students to develop the knowledge, skills, and values needed to become social critics who can make reflective decisions and implement their decisions in effective personal, social, political, and economic action."

Special education math teacher Rachel Fuhrman (2020) details culturally responsive teaching beautifully here:

Putting these words and this research into responsive action, what follows are a few tenets from my own teaching and some of the strategies I use to engage students in edifying and affirming learning. These principles - stories, culture connections, strengths, outside learning, text treasures, relationships - guide my efforts to develop culturally responsive learning and teaching to support all students' confidence, competence, motivation and understanding for learning (Jackson, 2004). I hope they paint a portrait of promise possibilities for your students' learning.

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Laura Benson shares "Promising Stories: Culturally Responsive Literacy Learning and Teaching to Champion Antiracism and Student Confidence"

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Creating a Culturally Responsive Early Childhood Classroom  

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Creating a Culturally Responsive Early Childhood Classroom  

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Roisleen Todd, Edutopia

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Early Childhood Education

Ensuring that all students see their culture reflected in the curriculum and classroom materials is crucial.

As educators, we are constantly striving to engage our students in their learning. We know that students are more engaged academically and have improved social and emotional outcomes when they see and hear themselves reflected in the classroom environment and instruction. So, we make our lessons into games, we build positive-incentive systems, and we let our students take the lead in classroom procedures. While these help, they are not enough. Too often, we miss asking ourselves a more critical question: Is this what my students need to be learning? Should my students be engaged in this content?

Many popular, tried-and-true curricula lack diversity in their representation of students, families, and communities with varied and authentic identities as compared with the students sitting in our classrooms. When we use the same curricula that we have for years without questioning the extent to which they reflect our specific students' identities, we're not only failing to maximally engage our students in content-we are actively teaching our students that their identities are less valuable than others. Thus, in order to provide all students with equitable learning experiences, we must intentionally critique and, when necessary, reject using curricula in which our students' identities are not represented. The representation within the pedagogy that we put in front of our students holds power even when we are unaware of it.

This process of reflection and critique is known as culturally relevant teaching (CRT). In her book Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice, educational researcher Geneva Gay defines CRT as "using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them." In CRT, educators intentionally design learning experiences and environments that are reflective of the multiple aspects of the students' identities, which may include (but are not limited to) race, ethnicity, chosen gender, ability status, linguistic profile, family structure, housing status, and cultural identity.

3 Questions to Ask to Create Culturally Relevant, Engaging, and Empowering Learning Environments

Which aspects of your students' identities are visibly present and honored through your classroom environment (books, instructional materials, photographs)? Which are missing?

Are representations of your students' identities authentic and varied? Are there materials that explicitly honor diverse identities as well as texts in which characters with diverse identities are represented without these being central to the plot?

Are there identities your students do not share that are overrepresented in the classroom?

Who and what are your students learning to value in your classroom?

Is language used in the classroom inclusive of all learners' identities? Are there biases being normalized through classroom language (e.g., "families" versus "caregivers")?

1. Who are our students? A culturally relevant classroom is not possible until an educator knows their students and begins to understand the multiple aspects of their identities that they bring with them into the classroom. Educators learn who their students are through robust and caring relationships but also can intentionally plan to learn more about their students, especially at the beginning of the year. Educators can do this by maintaining consistent communication with families, administering student-interest surveys, participating in school and community events, building an asset map of the communities in which students live, and planning instructional activities driven by student voice and experiences.

2. Who do our students see in our classrooms? Educators are constantly learning who their students are, and, as such, they must constantly reflect upon their classroom environment and instruction. Teachers can maintain an ever-evolving map or a list of unique aspects of students' identities and use this as a way to analyze and shape the classroom environment. The identities and the values attached to those identities within our classroom environment influence the ways in which our students develop their understandings about the world and about themselves-even when educators don't explicitly call attention to them. Educators can reflect on their classrooms by considering questions such as the following:

Choose curricula and texts that showcase characters with whom their students share identities and represent these characters in authentic and varied ways.

Remove curricula and instructional materials that disproportionately represent identities not shared by students.

Remove curricula and instructional materials that reinforce stereotypes about any identity groups.

Ask students and families what feels important to learn before planning instruction.

Plan lessons that amplify student voice and that invite students to pull from their experiences, cultural communities, and histories as valid sources of information.

Consistently invite family and community members to deliver instruction in the classroom to position communities as valid funds of knowledge.

Additional guiding questions for educators seeking to implement CRT in their practice can be found here.

3. How can educators move further toward CRT? Once educators have developed an understanding of who is in their classroom and how their current environment and pedagogy reflect students, they can intentionally act to build a culturally relevant classroom within which their students feel valued and empowered. Educators can do the following:

If our goal as educators is to provide high-quality, equitable learning experiences for all students, we must ensure that the pedagogy we're using in our classrooms is reflective of the unique students sitting in front of us. We cannot continue to use traditional curricula and pedagogy without critically questioning the extent to which they represent, honor, and empower our students.

When we fail to ask these questions, when we fail to create classroom environments in which our students feel seen and heard, we are not only failing to engage them as learners but actively standing in the way of our students' development of a positive, empowering, and confident sense of self-efficacy. Thus, we must embrace culturally relevant teaching. We must engage in the process of constant reflection, of constant learning, in order to ensure that every child, in every classroom, feels seen, heard, and valued for being exactly as they are.

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Creating a Culturally Responsive Early Childhood Classroom

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Ensuring that all students see their culture reflected in the curriculum and classroom materials is crucial.

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China

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25 books for cross-cultural children of all ages

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25 books for cross-cultural children of all ages

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The Piri-Piri Lexicon

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Always on the look-out for books that children can identify with, I have put together this collection of volumes for our kids. All of these books are suitable for third-culture kids, cross-culture kids, expat children, highly mobile families and immigrant families. They all deal with issues these children, who move often, or who juggle several cultures, have encountered. From pronouncing your name wrong, moving (again), learning a new language to repatriating, these books are great talking points to show our children they are not the only ones in these situations.

A note about the languages: whenever books are available in other languages, I will link to that language. For example, books available in French will be linked to in the FR store.

1. B at Home

Emma is only ten years old but has already moved twice. Now, her parents are telling her the family is moving again. She's furious, sad, nervous, and a little excited, all at the same time. Unsure of how to tackle these conflicting emotions, she turns to B, her faithful teddy bear. While trying to come to terms with the challenges of another move, what Emma really wants is just to 'be at home'. As the journeys of Emma and B unfold, home changes once again, but home also begins to take on a new meaning that Emma can take with her wherever she goes.
This is a great book for older children and teenagers to come to terms with the concepts of home and the global lifestyle. It also contains some very useful discussion points for adults.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

2. Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match

Marisol McDonald has flaming red hair and nut-brown skin. Polka dots and stripes are her favourite combination. She prefers peanut butter and jelly burritos in her lunch box. And don't even think of asking her to choose one or the other activity at recess —she'll just be a soccer playing pirate princess, thank you very much. To Marisol McDonald, these seemingly mismatched things make perfect sense together. But they don't to other people.
A lovely book (for children aged 4 to 8) about not being able to put everyone in boxes, being multicultural and how being different is fun.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

3. My Name is Yoon

Yoon's name means "shining wisdom," and when she writes it in Korean, it looks happy, like dancing figures. But her father tells her that she must learn to write it in English. In English, all the lines and circles stand alone, which is just how Yoon feels in the United States. Yoon isn't sure that she wants to be YOON.
An inspiring and touching story for children aged 4 to 8 about finding one's place in a new country.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

4. Yoko Writes her Name

The book tells a story familiar to many, how difficult it is to be the new kid on the block, the new student in the school, or the student who can speak English but doesn't know how to write it.
This is a great story for very young kids (from about 3 or 4) about being new and what we can learn from each other.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

5. Homesick

Homesick is a biography of a third culture kid. It tells a story of grief, loneliness and sense of belonging from the eyes of a 10-year-old girl. It is funny yet very emotional. It is aimed at 8-12-year-olds.
Buy the book and audiobook here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

6. Maps

This book of maps is a visual feast for readers of all ages, with lavishly drawn illustrations from the incomparable Mizielinskis. It features not only borders, cities, rivers, and peaks, but also places of historical and cultural interest, eminent personalities, iconic animals and plants, cultural events, and many more fascinating facts associated with every region of our planet. The only downside for us is that not all countries are represented. Portugal is not one of the detailed maps!
Suitable for all and available in many languages. There is also an accompanying workbook.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina - Carol - is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she's never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on and the heat bears down, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought. As the thin line between magic and reality starts to blur, Carol must decide for herself what is possible - and what it means to be true to her roots. Readers who dream that there's something more out there will be enchanted by this captivating novel of family, renewal, and discovering the wonder of the world.
Highly mobile children often spend their summers slightly differently than others. This is a perfect book many will relate to about finding your roots and wanderlust. It is suitable from 10.
Buy the book and audiobook here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

8. Persepolis

Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
A stunning black and white graphic novel for teenagers about the author's own experience in Iran as a child and being sent to study in Austria later on.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

9. Everywhere, Wonder

In this heartfelt picture book, readers are taken on a stunning journey into the imagination of a young boy―who explores everything from the pyramids of Egypt to a dusty footprint on the moon―and then back out again to the wonderful world right in front of him. From a lost balloon to an endless road, there are stories to discover, to dream about, and to share.
For children aged 3 to 6 years old, this very sweet picture book encourages young minds to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary, and creatively share their stories with others.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

10. A Ball, A Book and the Butterflies

For many children, the first year of an international move is filled with new experiences and feelings. Sometimes they can be difficult to explain. The book follows the story of a boy and teachers and parents can use the child's questions to help track and help their own child's transition period. This is a very unique book for school-aged children with different editions (e.g. Germany, Thailand or general) and full of tips and questions for parents and teachers.
Buy the book here.

Ira confronts several emotions when he learns his best friend Reggie is moving away. There are many books about moving for children but this one is a simple and sweet one from the point of view of the person who is not the one moving. For smaller children (4-8), it would make a reassuring gift for someone left behind.
Buy the book here: US, U.K.

12. Slurping Soup and Other Confusions

Slurping Soup and other confusions: true stories and activities to help third culture kids during transition Slurping Soup And Other Confusions is a collection of twenty-three real life stories from third culture kids. Each story is followed by a related activity. The activities are suitable for three to twelve-year-olds and include brainstorming, problem-solving, party planning, family tree, quirky word games etc. The book aims to help children cope with the challenges of living internationally. The stories explore: - Adapting to new environments -Who am I? Where do I belong? - Home and family adjustment - Cultural differences - Friendship change
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

13. Swirly

Lila isn't just like her yellow friends or her blue cousins, so she feels as though she doesn't fit in anywhere. But when she meets another swirly kid and his swirly mom, she finds out that she does belong somewhere . . . with a very special swirly Someone.
This book, for the 4-8 year-olds explores the ups and downs of being a TCK and the emotional ride of fitting in.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

14. The Name Jar

Being the new kid in school is hard enough, but what about when nobody can pronounce your name? Having just moved from Korea, Unhei is anxious that American kids will like her. So instead of introducing herself on the first day of school, she tells the class that she will choose a name by the following week. Her new classmates are fascinated by this no-name girl and decide to help out by filling a glass jar with names for her to pick from. But while Unhei practices being a Suzy, Laura, or Amanda, one of her classmates comes to her neighbourhood and discovers her real name and its special meaning. On the day of her name choosing, the name jar has mysteriously disappeared. Encouraged by her new friends, Unhei chooses her own Korean name and helps everyone pronounce it- Yoon-Hey.
This is a beautiful book about crossing cultures and adaptation into a new country for 3-7year-olds.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

15. Here I am

Newly arrived from their faraway homeland, a boy and his family enter into the lights, noise, and traffic of a busy American city in this dazzling wordless picture book. The language is unfamiliar. Food, habits, games, and gestures are puzzling. The boy clings tightly to his special keepsake from home and wonders how he will find his way. How will he once again become the happy, confident kid he used to be? Walk in his shoes as he takes the first tentative steps toward discovering joy in his new world.
A poignant and affirming book for children between 5 and 10 years old.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

16. One Green Apple

Farah feels alone, even when surrounded by her classmates. She listens and nods but doesn't speak. It's hard being the new kid in school, especially when you're from another country and don't know the language. Then, on a field trip to an apple orchard, Farah discovers there are lots of things that sound the same as they did at home, from dogs crunching their food to the ripple of friendly laughter. As she helps the class make apple cider, Farah connects with the other students and begins to feel that she belongs.
A poignant read for young children (4-7 years old) about what it feels like to be different.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

17. Grandfather's Journey

Home becomes elusive in this story about immigration and acculturation, pieced together through old pictures and salvaged family tales. Both the narrator and his grandfather long to return to Japan, but when they do, they feel anonymous and confused: "The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other." I am sure many of our children can relate.
Short, easy to read, it is a great book for little ones (from 4 years old).
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

When Mei Mei moves to the United States from Hong Kong, she initially can't stand hearing English. She sees it as a lonely language. She is also afraid she will forget her mother tongue.
This is a lovely book about the different stages of learning a new language when moving to a new country. It is suitable from 4 years old.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

19. Tea with Milk

From the same author as Grandfather's Journey, this story is a moving tribute to discovering where home is. At home in San Francisco, May speaks Japanese and the family eats rice and miso soup and drinks green tea. When she visits her friends' homes, she eats fried chicken and spaghetti. May plans someday to go to college and live in an apartment of her own. But when her family moves back to Japan, she soon feels lost and homesick for America. In Japan everyone calls her by her Japanese name, Masako. She has to wear kimonos and sit on the floor. Poor May is sure that she will never feel at home in this country. Eventually May is expected to marry and a matchmaker is hired. Outraged at the thought, May sets out to find her own way in the big city of Osaka. Suitable from 4 years old.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

20. Home At Last

Ana Patino is adjusting well to her new life in the United States, but her mother is having a difficult time because she doesn't speak English. When Ana's baby brother falls ill, Mama tries to get help, but no one can understand her. Now convinced of the need to learn the native language, Mama agrees to take English lessons. As her knowledge of the English language grows, so does her sense of confidence and belonging. A lovely tale about mother-daughter relationship and the importance of language learning for children from 6 years old.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

21. No English

"No English" is all that Blanca, the new girl from Argentina, says. She spends her time drawing pictures instead of doing class work and that hardly seems fair to second-grader Diane. One misunderstanding follows another until Diane begins to see how afraid Blanca must feel in their classroom. Their teacher, Mrs. Bertram, helps her class understand that "different" is just different, not strange or weird. She encourages them to learn about Blanca's home country. Diane must make things right, but how will she do that when they don't speak the same language?
A beautiful story about cross-cultural friendship for children from 5 years old.
Buy the book here: US. (I couldn't find it anywhere else at a reasonable price unfortunately.)

22. Pixie's Holidays

Pixie, a little donkey who moved to a new house, returns to her old home for the first time. Oh no! She does not recognize the place. Worse still, her friend Lila does not remember her. Pixie is very sad, but still finds a way to have a wonderful vacation.
This book is also available in French, Spanish, Portuguese (and maybe more languages).
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

23. Sammy's Next Move

Sammy's Next Move is a wonderful story about a snail named Sammy who lives around the world with his parents. He is a 'third culture kid', TCK or global nomad. He often moves to new countries and has to change schools and make new friends. Sammy experiences the feelings and thoughts common to children in similar situations. Sammy is a snail and so he carries his home with him wherever he goes, just as a third culture kid does by knowing that home is where their heart is!
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

24. The Mission of Detective Mike

Mike is unsettled. He knows that something odd is happening at home because his parents are whispering all the time. But, being a detective, Mike is quickly on the case. He enlists his friend Ikem to help him get to the bottom of the mystery. Mike and his family are moving to another country, making him confused and fearful. What will happen to his toys, his room, his friends, his house? How will he learn to talk in a new language and how will he ever make new friends? As his mission gathers momentum, Mike and Ikem find the answers to his questions and solutions to his problems.
Buy the book here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

25. Amber Brown is not a Crayon

Amber Brown and Justin Daniels are best friends. They've known each other for practically forever, sit next to each other in class, help each other with homework, and always stick up for each other. Justin never says things like, "Amber Brown is not a crayon." Amber never says, "Justin Time." They're a great team-until disaster strikes. Justin has to move away, and now the best friends are fighting. Will they be able to work it out before it's too late?
A great colourful book suitable from 7 years old about moving and protecting yourself in case of sadness.
Buy the book and audiobook here: US, U.K., DE, FR.

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real.

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25 books for cross-cultural children of all ages

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Always on the look-out for books that children can identify with, I have put together this collection of volumes for our kids. All of these books are suitable for third-culture kids, cross-culture kids, expat children, highly mobile families and immigrant families. They all deal with issues these children, who move often, or who juggle several cultures, have encountered.

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Navigating Asian and American Identities: Eight books with Asian Pacific American protagonists can help foster rich dialogues in our diverse elementary schools

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Navigating Asian and American Identities: Eight books with Asian Pacific American protagonists can help foster rich dialogues in our diverse elementary schools

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Kevin Wong, Edutopia

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Navigating Asian and American Identities

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Eight books with Asian Pacific American protagonists can help foster rich dialogues in our diverse elementary schools.

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Danau Tanu
Thank you, Liz Duffy & Dana Watts!

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Gholdy Muhammad

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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The word antisemitism means prejudice against or hatred of Jews. The Holocaust is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism. Learn more.

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Anti-Defamation League

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The belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews.

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Anti-Semitism is hostile behavior toward Jews just because they are Jewish, including stereotyped views and teachings proclaiming the inferiority of Jews.

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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[Narrator] Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazis killed about six million Jews and millions of other civilians throughout Europe.

These are some who were slaughtered in the Holocaust-a generation lost forever.

[Text on screen] EUROPEAN ANTISEMITISM FROM ITS ORIGINS TO THE HOLOCAUST

[Narrator] Jews are the people of the Hebrew Bible who lived in a land now known as Israel. They believe that there is only one God.

Christianity emerged from Judaism. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew who preached a singular religious message. The first Christians were Jews who prayed in Hebrew and observed the customs and religious rituals of Judaism. The Last Supper was a Jewish religious meal, probably at Passover.

Jesus was put to death at the hands of Roman authorities under Pontius Pilate in Judea, but the gospel accounts were interpreted as blaming all Jews for the crucifixion. To his followers, Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. His death, sacrificial atonement. Most Jews believed the Messiah had not yet come. Redemption was not at hand.

Soon after the crucifixion, Roman armies destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews were exiled and scattered-to live as a dispersed minority. By the 5th century, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the Roman Empire.

The early Christian church portrayed Jews as unwilling to accept the word of God; illuminations showed Satan binding the eyes of the Jews. Some church leaders intensified the charge-condemning Jews as agents of the devil and murderers of God. The accusation was not renounced until the 1960s when the Second Vatican Council officially repudiated the ancient charge that Jews had murdered Christ.

For centuries, state and Church laws restricted Jews, preventing them from owning land and holding public office. Guilds excluded Jews from most occupations, forcing them into pursuits like money-lending, trade, commerce. Excluded from Christian society, Jews maintained their religious and social customs.

In 1095, Pope Urban II called for the liberation of Jerusalem. Christian crusaders set off to free the Holy Land from the Muslims. On the way, they slaughtered thousands of Jews.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians persecuted Jews. Portrayed as alien, Jews were regarded as usurers. It was said Jews poisoned the wells of Europe, causing the Black Plague. Illustrations depicted Jews as the devil, with horns and cloven feet, and showed them using the blood of Christian children in ritual sacrifices. These lies came to be taken as truth.

But where they were needed, Jews were tolerated. When they were allowed to participate in the larger society, Jews thrived.

In many places, secular and religious states forced Jews into segregated districts later called ghettos. England, France, Spain, Portugal, and many German states expelled masses of Jews-most of whom migrated eastward taking with them their religious convictions and traditions.

In 1517, Martin Luther attacked the Pope and corruption within his own Roman Catholic Church, beginning the Protestant Reformation. The young Luther hoped that tolerance would persuade Jews to convert. But when Jews adhered to their own religious beliefs and refused to join his new reformed church, Luther's disappointment turned to hatred.
What then shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? . . .Their synagogues . . .should be set on fire, and what does not burn must be covered over with earth so that no man will ever see stone or cinder of them again. . . .Their houses also should be razed and destroyed. . . . All their prayer books. . .should be taken from them.
The Protestant Reformation brought no end to the anti-Jewish tradition of Christianity.

With the 18th century Enlightenment's emphasis on reason, the domination of the Church diminished. Some Enlightenment thinkers called for full rights for Jews, but only on the condition that they discard their religious customs. Others blamed Judaism as the source of irrational religious faith.

Even though many Jews assimilated socially and culturally, prejudice did not disappear.

In France in 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the only Jewish member of the French Army's general staff, was convicted of passing military secrets to Germany. Later, proof of forgery confirmed his innocence, but Dreyfus remained the victim of a cover up to divert attention from army corruption. A century after the French Revolution proclaimed Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, giving Jews their freedom, frenzied mobs in the streets of Paris chanted Death to the Jews.

[Text on screen] It is not a question of religion. The enemy is JUDAISM!

[Narrator] Religious discrimination had gradually changed into a thriving secular, political, and social antisemitism.

Nevertheless, freed from some restrictions, many Jews entered the Christian World and became prominent citizens.

Then, around 1900, a new lie was promoted: that Jews conspired to dominate the world using their money and intelligence to manipulate trusting Christians. Russian secret police forged a document to support the story of a take-over plot supposedly authored by a conference of Jewish leaders. A proven forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was nevertheless translated into every major language and distributed worldwide. It is circulated even today despite indisputable proof that it is a fake.

To divert popular discontent at appalling living conditions and autocratic control, Russian authorities encouraged antisemitic violence. Jews were blamed for the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881. Pogroms, murderous rampages against Jews, erupted in Russia many times during the next three decades.

The second half of the 19th century saw the emergence of yet another kind of antisemitism. At its core was the theory that Jews were not merely a religious group but a separate "race"-Semites-set apart because of genetically inherited characteristics.

Antisemites believed racial characteristics could not be overcome by assimilation or even conversion. Jews were said to be dangerous and threatening because of their "Jewish blood." Antisemitic racism united pseudoscientific theories with centuries old anti-Jewish stereotypes. These ideas gained wide acceptance.

The devastation of World War I, the demeaning peace of Versailles, the hyperinflation of the 1920s, and the depression of 1929 fueled mass discontent.

The presence of Jews in German cultural, economic, and political life made them convenient scapegoats for Germany's misfortunes.

Enter: Adolf Hitler. Hitler viewed world history as a racial struggle for survival of the fittest. He saw Jews as the source of all evil: disease, social injustice, cultural decline, capitalism and all forms of Marxism, especially Communism.

Antisemitism would become the predominant ideology of the Third Reich.

Nazi racism victimized many groups of people, but it was against the Jews that the Nazi state mobilized all its resources for terror.

After the Nazi takeover of power, anti-Jewish measures were put into effect one after another: Jewish businesses were boycotted, then seized. Jews were defined, separated from non-Jews. Jews were excluded from professions and studies. Jewish children were barred from schools. Jews were subjected to public humiliation.

The changes-whether gradual or sudden-were incomprehensible. Few could imagine what would happen. Even Jews.

The Nazis took antisemitism to an unprecedented level of violence. Genocide: the systematic murder of millions of people deemed inferior. Six million Jews. These are some of them.

[Text on screen] In the aftermath of the Holocaust, some Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, have re-examined their teachings on the Jews and Judaism.

Many denominations are continuing to address the role played by centuries of Christian antisemitism in contributing to circumstances that made the Holocaust possible.

Antisemitism did not end with the Holocaust and persists in Europe, the United States, and around the world today. Efforts to minimize, deny, or even celebrate the Holocaust are among the many ways antisemitism endures.

Hatred of Jews is fueled by myths, lies, and conspiracy theories. Some advocates of religious, political, and racial ideologies continue to exploit the hatred of Jews to achieve their own ends.

As the Holocaust demonstrates, antisemitism often appears alongside other forms of hatred, with potentially devastating consequences for individuals, communities, and nations.

Learn more at ushmm.org/antisemitism.

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Why the Jews: History of Antisemitism - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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This 13-minute film explains the history of antisemitism from the days of the early Christian church until the 20th century.

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Anti-Defamation League

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Send a message to your elected representatives, urging them to support these vital actions and take a stand against antisemitism, white supremacy and domestic terrorism during this time of great need.

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Send a message to your elected representatives, urging them to support these vital actions and take a stand against antisemitism, white supremacy and domestic terrorism during this time of great need.

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Stop Antisemitism: Holding anti-Semites accountable and creating consequences for their actions.

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Stop Antisemitism: Holding anti-Semites accountable and creating consequences for their actions.

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StopAntisemitism.org

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Holding anti-Semites accountable and creating consequences for their actions.