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graphic organizer

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It allows participants to share their learning throughout the week instead of at a set time. When responding, include in your tweets: Week number
A & answer number
#TALEBookClub
(ex. 3A2 .......#TALEBookClub)

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Texas Association for Literacy Education

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texas association for literacy education

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Texas Association for Literacy Education

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Texas Association for Literacy Education

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Forward, Letter to Readers & Introduction

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Chapter 1- Exploring Our Identities

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"At first I thought... Now I think..." document 

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"At first I thought... Now I think..." document 

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Make a copy to add to your drive, or download as a PowerPoint to capture your thoughts.

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Chapter 2- Listening with Love

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Sentence stems and questions from the chapter

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Chapter 3- Being Candid

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 Want to get caught up on Week 3, check out the highlights from our amazing participants! #BeingTheChange

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Chapter 4: Becoming Better Informed

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Want to get caught up on Week 5, check out the highlights from our amazing participants! #BeingTheChange

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Want to get caught up on Week 4, check out the highlights from our amazing participants! #BeingTheChange

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"Although adults may not be quite at the level of totalitarian regimes, kids have no or very little say in making the rules," Svitak joked. "When really the attitude should be reciprocal. Adults often underestimate kids abilities. Now we love a challenge, but when expectations are low, trust me, we will sink to them."

As a young child, Svitak loved to write. When her mom gave her a computer she wrote over 300 short stories on it. And she wanted to get published, a dream that her parents luckily supported. Even though she was turned down by many publishers, eventually she did have a book of short stories published. She was only seven-years-old.

After that first success, Svitak has gone on to do more impressive things, something she wishes more kids had the support to do. She says it's important for kids to be heard and contribute when they're young so they grow up to become a better kind of adult.

"The goal is not to turn kids into your kind of adults, but rather better adults than you guys have been. The way progress happens is because new generations and new eras grow and develop and become better than the previous ones. It's the reason we aren't in the Dark Ages anymore," she said.

Check out Adora Svitak's funny and charming TED talk from 2010.

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Why Adults Should Listen, Learn, Trust, and Expect More From Kids

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"Although adults may not be quite at the level of totalitarian regimes, kids have no or very little say in making the rules," Svitak joked. "When really the attitude should be reciprocal. Adults often underestimate kids abilities. Now we love a challenge, but when expectations are low, trust me, we will sink to them."

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April 9
When I was in elementary school, a boy called me "Indira Gandhi." It was intended as an insult, but I was more surprised than offended. Gandhi was the former female Prime Minister of India, which wasn't too shabby.

But then the boy went on to call the only other South Asian kid in our class, "Rajiv Gandhi," the Prime Minister at the time who was also Indira's son. And then, I was offended. Because, to fifth-grade me, linking us as mother and son was just gross.

Gandhi was the worst of the name-calling I experienced as a child growing up in Potomac, Md., in the 1980s, and yet, as relatively harmless as it was, I still remember it. At the time, my peers obviously knew I was brown, and most knew I had Pakistani heritage, but they didn't know that I was Muslim. Or if they did, they didn't understand what that meant.
[My daughter's imaginary colonial town has a mosque. It led to an interesting discussion.]
Muslim kids growing up in today's America face an entirely different landscape. Almost half of American Muslim kids experience bullying or discrimination in school, according to nationally representative data published in 2017 by the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding. And, as analysts point out, if this is what is being reported, in all likelihood the numbers are higher.

I regularly hear alarming stories of Muslim girls getting their hijabs yanked off. Muslim kids are being singled out and harassed for their faith by fellow students and sometimes even teachers and administrators. In one case that made national news last year, an elementary-aged child received sloppily handwritten death threats in her cubby, of all places.

There is a very disturbing trend in schools that is not getting enough attention, perhaps because it is not quantified: hate-laced speech against Muslims that is being normalized and accepted by children.

This includes my own children, and it breaks my heart.

As a mother who remembers what it was like to grow up as a minority and to feel different, I often ask my children about how they are treated by their peers. Over the years I posed questions they found annoying at times, like "Do you wish you had a different name?" or, "Has anyone said anything mean to you?" My concerns were always dismissed, and I felt grateful to live in an area where diversity is celebrated and international nights are a big deal at schools.

Then, a couple of summers ago, I was invited to lead a writing workshop at a summer camp for Muslim kids in nearby Bethesda. At one point, we discussed microaggressions, and whether the kids had experienced them. A tween in a hijab, born and raised in America, said she often has people compliment her English. Another said she was tired of people asking her where she was from. And then a boy said, "All of us hear things like 'terrorist,' 'ISIS,' and 'Allahu akbar . . . boom,' all the time." The rest of the kids nodded in agreement while I was stunned into silence.

I came home and asked my sons, now in middle and high school, about what I had heard. I said, "These kids live in our county, and they experienced this in school." And my kids, like the others, nodded their heads and said, "Oh, yeah." They apparently heard the same types of things all the time, too. When I asked why they hadn't told me, it was because no one was saying these things directly "to" them. They were just witnessing these things being said in reference to their faith and Muslim people in general. And, sadly, they had decided that there was nothing they could do about it.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my middle-schooler came home and for a change shared the painful reality of "jokes" people made at his expense. He told me that "Bin Laden" had been added to his name, that he was asked if he was going to blow things up, and more. Some of the comments were made by people he considered friends, and he didn't know how to react or respond. To be honest, neither did I at first. But as we talked through it, I told him that he had to take a stand and tell people that it is not okay to make these kinds of comments because they are rooted in hate and anti-Muslim sentiment. And they are as unacceptable as anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ or speech against any other group.

I suggested talking to his close friends in confidence. These are good kids of all backgrounds who, like many others, probably don't realize the implications and the hurtfulness of such comments. I told him to explain that it is offensive, and to ask them to back him up the next time someone else says something. It could be as simple as saying, "Hey, that's not okay. You can't say stuff like that."

My son understood this in theory, but he still hadn't brought it up to his friends when I asked later. I get it. When you already feel different, and are associated with a group that is being vilified, it's hard not to want to hide or just blend in, especially if you aren't oozing extra self-confidence.

But the truth is my son shouldn't have to face this alone. He shouldn't have to report his friends to the administration or have these difficult conversations with others. He shouldn't have to, as I tried to convince him, be the one to make it easier for his younger cousins and Muslim friends who are coming up in school behind him.

I hope my son does find the courage to stand up for himself. But we, the adults, need to step in and do our jobs as parents, neighbors and educators, and very clearly and loudly declare that it is not okay to say anti-Muslim things. To stem the tide, this needs to be stated explicitly, not lumped generally into other "say no to hate" policies. Just like offensive words targeting other marginalized communities have been called out specifically, sometimes through national media campaigns, we need to do the same in these instances to start changing the culture. It is not okay to call Muslim kids terrorists or ISIS or Taliban. It is not okay to use the phrase Allahu akbar disparagingly. And so on.

Anti-Muslim speech and attitudes are dangerous. They are the seeds of hate that can grow, fester and turn violent, not only on the playground, but as we saw in New Zealand recently, in unthinkable ways.

We owe it to all of our kids to take a stand and take the time to talk to our children, students, friends and colleagues about this issue. Each of us must do our part to actively reject hateful words and phrases in every form, at every age, starting now.
Hena Khan is the author of several children's books featuring Muslim characters, including "Amina's Voice Follow More reading: Teach your kids about Ramadan with these books Parenting my Muslim baby in the age of Trump Muslim American girls need to see their role models reflected in the spotlight, too On Parenting for more essays, news and updates, and join our discussion group here to talk about parenting and work. You can sign up here for our On Parenting newsletter. ," "Power Forward" and "Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns," and a lifelong resident of Montgomery County.

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Perspective | Parents, we need to teach our children about the dangers of hate-laced speech against Muslims

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April 9 When I was in elementary school, a boy called me "Indira Gandhi." It was intended as an insult, but I was more surprised than offended. Gandhi was the former female Prime Minister of India, which wasn't too shabby.

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For young children, learning the power of words, personal boundaries and social dynamics is a crucial part of their development. In my first-grade classroom, students are in the thick of learning to read and write. And just as actively, they're learning how to communicate with others.

They experiment with tone, diction, intent and body language with one another and with the adults around them. It's an expected, developmentally appropriate part of learning how to coexist with others. Sometimes, as in the common cases of name-calling, teasing and excluding, that experimentation can be painful.

Addressing unkindness is part and parcel of working with young students. But not all unkindness is the same. It can be particularly detrimental when the hurtful language relates to race, gender, religion or other aspects of a child's identity. These are microaggressions: small, subtle, sometimes-unintended acts of discrimination.

Microaggressions reinforce stereotypes in surreptitious ways. They must be addressed in a way that recognizes that they're different from typical, 6-year-old unkindness and that makes the distinction clear, understandable and actionable for students.

It can be hard enough for adults-particularly adults with privileged identities-to recognize microaggressions. But it's crucial we address them. At their core, these are coded messages of disapproval that are based in identity: comments and actions that echo larger, structural bigotry, telling marginalized people they don't belong, that they are less than. Children start internalizing these messages while they are still developing their identities.

Before talking with students about microaggressions, it's essential to establish an identity-safe classroom. Students need to feel safe and supported. In my class, when we do discuss microaggressions, I remind students of conversations we've already had about representation. I remind them that, when we're reading together, we always ask, "Whose story is being told here?" I also reference the discussions we've had around more overt racism: how being called a racist may hurt, but it doesn't compare to actually experiencing racism.

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Teaching First-Graders About Microaggressions: The Small Moments Add Up

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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A Look at Implicit Bias and Microaggressions

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A primer on the impact of implicit biases in schools and how they can be expressed by students and faculty.

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Chapter 5: Finding Humanity in
Ourselves and in Others

Chapter 6: Facing Crisis Together

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 Want to get caught up on Week 6, check out the highlights from our amazing participants! #BeingTheChange