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Book Review of Prepped A Memoir: Coming of Age in Black and White America. Review by Natalie Parker-Holliman, PhD

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Powerful Herbal Remedies Positive Thoughts & Natural Movements by Ruth E. Maryland-London

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Powerful Herbal Remedies Positive Thoughts & Natural Movements by Ruth E. Maryland-London

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https://www.amazon.com/Powerful-Remedies-Positive-Thoughts-Movements-ebook/dp/B08HV8PDTJ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1599956391&refinements=p_27%3ARuth+E.+Maryland-London&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Ruth+E.+Maryland-London

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Black Yarn: I am she and she is me by Kimberly Mucker Johnson

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Black Yarn: I am she and she is me by Kimberly Mucker Johnson

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coming of age; acceptance; self-worth; natural hair; crown act

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Black Yarn: I am she and she is me [Mucker-Johnson, Kimberly] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Black Yarn: I am she and she is me

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I missed you all this past week!  How was the discussion?  Natalie

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I missed you all this past week!  How was the discussion?  Natalie

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Reviewed by The Brown Bookshelf

Review Source: The Brown Bookshelf
Book Author: Wade Hudson, Cheryl Willis Hudson

Edited by Wade and Cheryl Hudson and published by Crown Books for Young Readers in cooperation with the Hudsons' company, Just Us Books, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices is a treasury of poems, prose and art that offers hope and encouragement to children in these challenging times.

The collection, which has won multiple starred reviews, features the work of more than 50 diverse, award-winning children's book authors and illustrators...

Wade and Cheryl Hudson have been doing this work of encouraging, mobilizing and giving back for decades. Just Us Books, their pioneering company, turns 30 next month. The Hudsons are warriors for justice, equity, empowerment and visibility. They do it for the culture, for the children. Let's give a gift to them and to the kids who will see themselves in this book. Let's make We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices a bestseller. Continue reading.

We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices by Wade Hudson, Cheryl Willis Hudson
Published by Random House Children's Books on September 4, 2018
Genres: Activism, African American, Stories in Verse
Pages: 96
Reading Level: Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8
ISBN: 9780525580447
Review Source: The Brown Bookshelf
Buy at Powell's Books

Fifty of the foremost diverse children's authors and illustrators--including Jason Reynolds, Jacqueline Woodson, and Kwame Alexander--share answers to the question, "In this divisive world, what shall we tell our children?" in this beautiful, full-color keepsake collection, published in partnership with Just Us Books.
What do we tell our children when the world seems bleak, and prejudice and racism run rampant? With 96 lavishly designed pages of original art and prose, fifty diverse creators lend voice to young activists.

Featuring poems, letters, personal essays, art, and other works from such industry leaders as Jacqueline Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming), Jason Reynolds (All American Boys), Kwame Alexander (The Crossover), Andrea Pippins (I Love My Hair), Sharon Draper (Out of My Mind), Rita Williams-Garcia (One Crazy Summer), Ellen Oh (cofounder of We Need Diverse Books), and artists Ekua Holmes, Rafael Lopez, James Ransome, Javaka Steptoe, and more, this anthology empowers the nation's youth to listen, learn, and build a better tomorrow.

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We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices - Social Justice Books

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Reviewed by The Brown Bookshelf Review Source: The Brown Bookshelf Book Author: Edited by Wade and Cheryl Hudson and published by Crown Books for Young Readers in cooperation with the Hudsons' company, Just Us Books, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices is a treasury of poems, prose and art that offers hope and encouragement to children in these ...

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I read an article this week using the phrase "Valley of Decision" and it moved me to write. I, like you, have read and seen all of the protesting, violence and destruction and have wondered what has happened to us.

Black, browns and whites went to school together in my lifetime and there weren't any issues of getting along. If we did our homework and made good grades, we were welcomed into college or trade schools or the military - all colors of us.

At our reunions we talk, laugh and share our families, our work, our travels and there are no color issues. I grew up in a small town with both of my parents. We went to church, played team sports, participated in scouts - all colors with no issues.

I truly do not believe that we have a color issue today. I believe the majority of us recognize that we were created in God's image, all of us. If you know the founding of our country, you know we were founded as a Judeo-Christian nation.

Read the Declaration of Independence to see how the founders were guided by God to begin this country. Read the Constitution to see how the founders followed God's direction given us in the Bible in setting up our government.

If we follow God's instruction on living this life here, we will have what we need. We will have success.

I realize organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa and whatever other labels we have are not for us or for America. If you research their websites, they are Marxist groups and brag about that philosophy. They aren't acting peacefully or productively to improve anything. They are using our young people of all colors to harass, to destruct, to destroy our country. Why?

The children need, first of all, homes with their parents. We are to raise them, teach them, guide them. The children need schools to teach them how to read, write and do math.

They need to know about the factual founding of our country - the men who served and how, the sacrifices that were made and by whom. They need to know the leadership that pastors and churches had in our founding.

As humans, mistakes were made. Some were recognized and reconstruction began even with our Constitution. However, men and women without the character of God do sin, do dumb things, do evil things.

I believe evil is out and about in our country. Some folk are using race groups to stir that ugly pot. Some are using religion to stir that pot. Some are using politics to stir that pot.

Bottom line, I believe we all want to live life as we choose as long as it does not infringe upon others. I believe we want to feel safe and secure in our person and property. I believe that we want to work and provide for our families. I believe we want schools and teachers who will teach the facts and love our children. We want success. I believe that we need to worship the one true God, the creator and giver of our live and liberties.

Let's study our real, factual history. Let's learn from our founders. Let's not repeat the mistakes that they made and let's repeat and amplify their successes.

Let's study the Bible and learn how to repair our families, raise our children, and truly live a blessed and successful life here together - all colors. Perhaps this is our valley of decision time! What say you?
Phyllis Vincent, of Frankfort, is former chairperson for the Franklin County Republican Party. She can be reached at phyllisvincent@me.com.

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Guest columnist: Let's learn from our founders and not repeat their mistakes

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I read an article this week using the phrase "Valley of Decision" and it moved me to write. I, like you, have read and seen all of the protesting, violence and destruction and have wondered what has happened to us. Black, browns and whites went to school together in my lifetime and there weren't any issues of getting along.

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November 2016 | Volume 74 | Number 3
Disrupting Inequity Pages 16-22

Rick Wormeli

We all build our own version of the human story and our role in it. We proceed daily, sure that our truth is the truth, then someone commits a horrific act of inhumanity that shreds our careful constructs. Then, it happens again, and again-and again, just as it did this past year with the multiple deaths of black men after interactions with police-and then the deaths of police officers.

The normal tools of interpretation and comfort seem to be gone. Who would think that in a caring, thoughtful democracy, we needed a large political movement to remind police officers-and all citizens-of the simple truth that black lives matter? Who would think that when a police officer was asked why he shot an autistic man's caretaker-who was lying with his hands in the air asking officers not to shoot-he'd answer, "I don't know" (Rabin, 2016)?

The violence among U.S. residents of different colors, cultures, religions, and political groups has heated to new levels. Social media may have exacerbated the divisive rhetoric and fanned the flames of hatred more than in past decades, but the intense distrust and contempt, and the inability to resolve these feelings in a civil manner, didn't start with social media. They are the new normal for many.

Rather than give in to the helplessness we feel to stop racism and our collective, civic hemorrhage, every institution must examine its own role in perpetuating (inadvertently and advertently) racist thinking and policies. We can't truly create equal opportunities for all until our institutions take specific actions to end that thinking and those policies. And ground zero for an equitable, nonracist society is the K-12 classroom.

Before we consider recent examples of racism and how it affects all Americans, let's be clear: No one is born racist. Racism is learned. Just as important, racism is not insurmountable.

What We're Up Against

In response to a recent Pew Research Center report that showed white and black Americans aren't on the same page about issues of poverty and racism, blogger Rob Wile (2016) noted, "While most black people think that higher levels of poverty and lower levels of economic mobility in their communities are the fault of America's legacy of systematic racism and under-investment, more white people are content to blame black people themselves."

Five years ago, I was giving a day-long presentation to a group of teachers in the United States. During a morning break, I overheard one woman say to another, "When we get that darkie out of the White House, we'll get this country back the way it should be." The other woman replied, "You got that right."

Refusal to respect other cultures isn't confined to interactions between blacks and whites. On commercial flights, passengers dressed in Muslim clothing who are texting on their phones have been asked to leave the plane because they are making other passengers uncomfortable. And some of my Hispanic students have told me their parents have been shadowed by security personnel as they shop at stores.

Imagine if, at a dinner celebrating local Cub Scouts and their achievements, the adult leader asked everyone to bow his or her head for a word of prayer before the meal. Then he prayed into the microphone, "Praise and glory be to You, O Allah. There is no God but You. Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful!" If this happened in most American Cub Scout packs, people of Christian, Jewish, and other faiths or no faiths would be offended that they were forced to bow their heads and listen to something foreign to their beliefs.

My family experienced something similar at a Cub Scout dinner. The pre-dinner prayer was full of Christian references like, "Through the one and only God, Jesus, our guiding savior, we are redeemed and made whole." This was in a diverse area near Washington, D.C., with a Scout pack full of Muslims, Jews, and people of other faiths as well as Christians. Imagine those non-Christian families' reactions to such a prayer.

I asked the leader if there might be a more inclusive prayer we could offer. She dismissed the concern. As I looked around the room at the faces of many parents and children, I saw the real lesson learned: You don't belong.

Not all disrespect and conflict is purely about race. Religious, cultural, and racial differences interweave. Stark differences result in fervent debate and divisiveness among Christians as well as among Muslims and Jews. Racism, however, is among the most insidious and deepest-running challenges of our time.

Moving Beyond Silence

Clearly, Americans must begin talking candidly together about race-starting now. We don't need to justify having focused conversations about racism in schools. I'm bothered by my own silence at times as I witness racism. After I overheard the comment about "that darkie [in] the White House," I didn't confront these women. It wasn't a proud moment; in my silence, there was tacit acceptance of racist thinking.

I'm upset at my silence about racist statements and behaviors by others that I've heard about but not witnessed personally. It might seem that because the incidents are second-hand, I'm absolved from speaking out against them. Yet, how do I reconcile that silence with my belief that each of us is free only if everyone is free? As Nelson Mandela (1995) wrote, "Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me. ... The oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed" (p. 624).

Besides the stunning cruelty of racism, letting it fester serves no one, not even the predominant group. We're in this together. It's ironic, then, that we focus on labeling differences among us, particularly whether those differences are negative or positive. For example, if a teacher looks at the students before her at the beginning of the school year, it's likely she will wonder who are going to be the easiest ones to teach. Isn't the one we assume to be easy to teach the student who most reflects our own culture, or the one who looks similar to a student from last year we enjoyed teaching? We're already sorting according to built-in biases. When we wonder who'll be the hardest to teach, we often guess the students who don't look like anyone we've taught before.

Humans have built-in "other"-isms in order to protect ourselves. We categorize people in terms of ourselves and, in many cases, interpret differences from us in a negative way. ( That music they play in their homes is annoying! Can't they eat less disgusting food?) We might even think, How sad. My neighbor who worships at a different church doesn't understand the higher truth. Or for easy identification, we might resort to caricatures, versions that emphasize one or two attributes we think a cultural group has. ( All Asians are gifted mathematicians. White people who live in trailers are alcoholics.)

Principles for Brave Conversations

I sometimes question whether white educators can accept that institutionalized racism exists and whether they can do so without succumbing to paralyzing guilt about their complicity in racism's growth or becoming so overwhelmed that they give up. I sometimes question whether black teachers and parents can embrace white teachers and parents who want to do right. Can they accept whites' sincere efforts to work together to end racist practices, even if they stumble or are unintentionally offensive?

But we have to try talking with one another, because biases and quick categorizations about people who are different from us are expressions of our limited experiences with them. Such categorizations are a slippery slope into classism and racism. With more experiences with others, we flesh people out in our minds and become comfortable with them. When we spend time with quadriplegics, for instance, we come to see them as individuals first, persons with paralyzed limbs a distant second. People with a hardened stance against LGBTQ rights soften when a member of their family reveals he is homosexual.

Yet talking about racism is uncomfortable. We avoid such conversations in schools because it could stir things up that we're unprepared to handle. We might lose friends or colleagues for a while-or longer. Or we're so afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing or appearing racist that we cripple constructive opportunities to talk about race and resolve conflicts. By approaching one another with good faith and caring, we can ease these fears. As Howard Stevenson (2014) writes,

Students, teachers, parents, and educators must expect, receive, and give affection (nurturing), protection (monitoring), and correction (accountability) while they take risks to become aware of and learn to resolve racial stress and conflict in daily social interactions. Without these ingredients, the risks of racial avoidance will be too great, and the improvement of race relations and racial climates within schools too arduous to complete.

Reviewing and agreeing on the principles below can help us have candid discussions about racism with our students-or among fellow educators.

▪ Assume that, at any given moment in the conversation, the other person is doing the best he or she can. Chances are, it's true.

▪ Forgive yourself and others for making mistakes, including inexact wording, muddled thinking, or unintended use of stereotypes.

▪ Suppress hidden agendas and the urge to preach or politicize.

▪ Remain nonaccusatory when you see things differently from another. Use phrases like, "It's been my experience that ___," "Tell me more about___," or "How did faculty at your last school respond to ___?"

▪ Seek first to understand, then to be understood (Covey, 2013).

▪ If you disagree with someone, paraphrase that person's point before responding. It helps him know that his comments were heard and considered.

▪ Avoid language that blames ("If it weren't for white people. ..." "They're always speaking Spanish together, so they must not want me around." "You're blind to white privilege.") Blaming thwarts honest conversation.

▪ Don't ask anyone to speak for a whole race if there's only one student or colleague in the group from a particular culture or race.

▪ Acknowledge that candid conversation makes us all vulnerable. Teachers' inner selves are on view daily by many constituencies-students, parents, administrators, and the general public. They are also subject to self-doubts and high expectations of professionalism. As a result, they may be hesitant to open those vulnerability gates too widely.

▪ Avoid associating the quality of a colleague's teaching with exploratory comments offered in conversation about racism. A peer can be a neophyte in such conversations, but effective in the classroom.

The questions in Figure 1 can help start robust conversations in school communities. As to how to launch these discussions, I don't recommend starting conversations on racism at a large faculty meeting. This often results in side conversations, cross-talking, and "knowing" glances passed among people, and personal buttons may be pushed. In large gatherings, many voices and perspectives don't get heard (in fact, a few teachers might hijack the conversation with their own agendas). A thoughtful exploration of issues involving racism in the school is better started in groups of no more than six. Build to a larger group experience after conversation skills have developed.

Figure 1. Questions to Start Faculty Discussions About Racism

Does racism exist in our schools? What does it sound or look like?

What would it take to create a truly race-neutral society? Do we want this?

Am I racist? Why, or why not? Am I open to others' critique when it comes to how I relate to other races?

Does the rise of certain groups' influence-Latino, Jewish, white, Muslim, or whatever-mean a decline in other groups' well-being? If people say yes, discuss whether this represent a "zero sum" mindset. Is this a mindset we want to communicate to students?

How can we counter negative stereotypes?

Are we responsible for teaching students and colleagues to recognize and confront racism?

What should we do when we inadvertently do or say something racist?

What do we communicate to the parents of our minority students about our expectations for their children?

How are we battling the student opinion that academic proficiency is inherently white?

Do we have a disproportionate number of administrative referrals for our minority students?

Choose faculty to lead these conversations who are good at making sure each voice is heard and valued. Give these leaders time to brainstorm constructive responses or strategies to diffuse any (intentionally and unintentionally) incendiary comments. If a point becomes particularly contentious, for instance, participants might record their thinking on index cards and pass them to the facilitator to read aloud. Dozens of books and websites on group facilitation provide helpful tips on small-group dynamics. For conversing on racism, I particularly recommend Ali Michael's Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education (Teachers College Press, 2014) and Howard Stevenson's Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences That Make a Difference (Teachers College Press, 2013).

Informing Our Conversations

To build a climate where such discussions bear fruit, we should immerse students and ourselves in learning experiences that will positively inform conversations about race. Lack of awareness about other races rarely helps a difficult conversation; it leads to misunderstandings, limited sharing, hurt feelings, and eventually, a discussion's demise. Experiences like these will help us sustain difficult interactions-and bring equal opportunity to students from nonmainstream cultures.

▪ Use fiction and nonfiction that will open students to different worlds, help them see situations from different perspectives, and build empathy.

▪ Try simulations and role-playing in which students can approximate the perspectives of others, but be sensitive to the fact that some of us can leave the role at the end of the learning experience. Anyone from a minority race or oppressed group can't slip out of the challenges at the end of the day: They live with them 24-7.

▪ Have your class regularly think about a contentious issue from one prevailing perspective, then give them 20 minutes to argue the same issue from the opposite perspective. Working with partners can help.

▪ Practice responses to scenarios involving racism. What should a teacher or student do if someone says something that might be perceived as racist? For instance, in a class discussion about the economy of the South during the Civil War, one student blurts out, "I wouldn't mind having slaves around to help me get a lot of work done!" (Stevenson, 2014). A thoughtful teacher might say something like, "Tobey, consider how someone coming from a culture severely traumatized by slave masters would hear your words just now. How would they feel about your comment about slavery? Would you like to rephrase your statement?" By rehearsing successful responses, we can create a picture of ourselves responding to an instance of racism, which increases the likelihood that we will respond.

▪ Hold students accountable immediately for racist statements and behaviors. You can do so in ways that let the student repair damage: "Terry, I know you're not naturally a racist thinker. Check your statement again: Is there anything there that could be construed as racist?" If a student consistently makes racially insensitive comments and needs a nonhumiliating boost in executive function skills-which is where much of the filtering of impulsive, inappropriate comments resides-you might videotape class discussions from time to time. In a private moment away from classmates, cue up the video to a place showing inappropriate comments from this student and ask him or her, "What did you say here? Look at the body language, faces, and responses from your classmates. Did you read the situation correctly? How could you have made a completely different comment that would demonstrate respect for people of color?"

▪ Talk to students about what you believe about race and equity. Successful teachers aren't afraid of teaching a community's values; they are not indifferent. It's important to model for students a vision of adults standing up for what they think is morally right. With racism, there is little ambiguity; intentional or unintentional discrimination against a person or group based on race or culture is against the law.

▪ Teach skills of debate and civil discourse, using materials from Teaching Tolerance, the National Speech and Debate Association, and the National Institute for Civil Discourse.

▪ Don't just skim information on the Civil Rights movement and its leaders, and don't limit its study to Black History Month. Give it full attention throughout the school year. Study more than just the struggles of black Americans. Civil Rights isn't just about equitable treatment for one group.

▪ Share news stories that surface racism in the local community and in national politics. Have students investigate school or community racism, if appropriate.

▪ Empower students to do something about racism in the media (and social media) when they see it, such as writing letters, making presentations, or analyzing a racist's arguments.

▪ Expose students to artworks and contributions by many different cultures and races and let them respond personally to those artifacts.

▪ Teach students and teachers to recognize and control micro-aggressions-the small, seemingly nonracist things people do, say, and think that are hurtful and may betray unconscious racism or bias. Examples include: avoiding eye contact with students outside our culture; telling a student her math work is excellent for a student who comes from such a poor background; demeaning service industry jobs or any job perceived as being done primarily by minorities ("If you don't study, you might wind up as a taxi driver"); and using language like saying black youths "rioted and turned violent," whereas white youths "protested unfair treatment."

▪ Have students write personal reflections about racial tension. Discuss how much people filter their language in trying to say it just the right way.

Securing a Nonracist Future

Part of our job as educators is to secure a nonracist future, so our response to racism in our schools must be clear and compassionate. Settling for indifference exacerbates the problem. And we can't afford to leave anyone out of this conversation. For instance, I'm a white male, so some people might think, How could he possibly understand this enough to be helpful? Some might even dismiss my ideas because of my race alone. Think about that idea-that because of my race, I have nothing of value to add to the community discussion on racism-and you'll see it's misguided. Every one of us is touched by racism. We all have a stake in positive race relations.

A conversation needs only two people. Let's each identify, today, one person on our faculty with whom we're willing to initiate a conversation on racism, regardless of the make-up of our student body or faculty. Whole futures are at stake-ours. Together, we are powerful.

▪ Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel & Grau, 2015)

▪ Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education by Ali Michael (Teachers College Press, 2014)

▪ Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives by Sendhil Mullainathan (Picador, 2014)

▪ Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall by Carl T. Rowan (Back Bay Books, 1993)

▪ What's Race Got to Do with It? How Current School Reform Policy Maintains Racial and Economic Inequity edited by Edwin Mayorga and Bree Picower (Peter Lang Publishers, 2015)

▪ Reading for Their Life: (Re)Building the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males by Alfred W. Tatum (Heinemann, 2009)

References

Covey, S. (2013). Seven habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Mandela, N. (1995). Long walk to freedom: The autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston: Back Bay Books.

Rabin, C. (2016, July 20). Cop shoots caretaker of autistic man playing in the street with toy truck. Miami Herald. Retrieved from www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article90905442.html

Stevenson, H. (2014). Promoting racial literacy in schools: Differences that make a difference. New York: Teachers College Press.

Wile, R. (2016, June 27). White people don't blame racism for black people's struggles. They blame black people. [blog post] Retrieved from Fusion at www.fusion.net/story/319381/black-white-gap-on-black-struggle/

Rick Wormeli ( www.rickwormeli.com) is a long-time teacher, consultant, and author of The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy, Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way (2013) and Summarization in Any Subject (ASCD, 2004). Follow him on Twitter.

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November 2016 | Volume 74 | Number 3 Disrupting Inequity Pages 16-22 Rick Wormeli We all build our own version of the human story and our role in it. We proceed daily, sure that our truth is the truth, then someone commits a horrific act of inhumanity that shreds our careful constructs.

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November 2016 | Volume 74 | Number 3
Disrupting Inequity Pages 49-53

Monique W. Morris

In March, when 6-year-old Madisyn Moore took candy from her teacher's desk, this black girl was handcuffed and placed under the stairs to "teach her a lesson" (Roussi, 2016). Last fall, a sheriff's deputy in South Carolina violently threw a black high school girl to the floor and dragged her across the classroom. Although the officer was fired, the girl and her classmate who videotaped the encounter were arrested for violating the controversial "disturbing schools" law (McLeod, 2015). This law prohibits loitering on campus and states that students are not "to interfere with or disturb in any way" other students or teachers in schools. Failure to comply may result in a misdemeanor offense punishable by fine or incarceration (South Carolina Municipal Code, 1979).

According to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (2016), black girls, who make up 8 percent of K-12 students nationwide, are overrepresented among students who face discipline that excludes or criminalizes them. Fourteen percent of black girls have received one or more out-of-school suspensions. They are the only group of girls among the various subgroups of students who are overrepresented in suspensions. This issue affects even the youngest: Black girls constitute 20 percent of girls enrolled in public preschool in the United States, but 54 percent of all preschool girls who have received an out-of-school suspension.

Black girls were the only group of girls to be overrepresented in all categories for which data on school discipline were collected in the 2011-2012 academic year: For instance, black girls represent 31 percent of girls in public schools who were referred to law enforcement as part of school discipline and 34 percent of all girls who were subjected to school-based arrest (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2014).

Why Are Black Girls Pushed Out?

Black girls are disciplined through exclusion for a host of reasons-many associated with the increasingly punitive responses to negative student behavior and the absence of alternatives to exclusionary discipline. Like other girls, black girls experience discipline as a result of conflict on campus. However, they're subjected to a set of conditions that make them uniquely vulnerable to academic marginalization and a phenomenon I call school to confinement pathways -the policies, practices, and prevailing attitudes in educational institutions that lead to contact between youth and the juvenile and criminal legal systems.

Black girls who are at risk of school pushout have disproportionately experienced race- and gender-based oppressions, including sexual victimization, violence, poor student-teacher relationships, and biases that affect how policies like dress codes are enforced. In addition, a legacy of slavery and segregation has planted in the public consciousness a misrepresentation of black femininity.

Black feminine expression is often understood in the context of stereotypes of black girls as loud, sassy, hypersexual, or combative. What's less visible in our discourse and public consciousness is black girls' increased risk of exposure to violence. Compounding the historical trauma that affects these girls' mental and physical health (Akbar, 1996) is the lived reality that black females disproportionately are raped (at 21.2 percent) and are subjected to other forms of sexual violence (38.2 percent) (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2011). More than 90 percent of girls who are in contact with the juvenile legal system-who are disproportionately of African descent and also those most at risk of school pushout-have documented histories of physical or sexual abuse (Smith, Leve, & Chamberlain, 2006). The two leading causes of death among black girls ages 15-19 are unintentional injuries (25.5 percent) and homicide (17.3 percent) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013).

The Trauma We Don't See

The issue of black female students and discipline is fraught with problematic communication between students and adults. Educators, school leaders, and other adults working to address student safety must understand the centrality of trauma and the conditions that affect black girls' actions, sometimes causing others to read their behavior as aggressive and dangerous when it is not so. People who have experienced or witnessed abuse and violence commonly experience post-traumatic stress disorder and other behavioral challenges that can have an impact on learning and relationship building (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016). Black girls who face harsh school discipline are often struggling to overcome multiple forms of victimization as well as poverty. Yet we dismiss their responses to those oppressions as combative, angry behavior, rather than as symptoms of trauma.

Black girls have described to me scenarios where educators-particularly in schools with an extraordinary emphasis on discipline-told them they were "annoying" or disruptive when they raised their hands to ask questions. For example, 17-year-old Mecca described how quickly being inquisitive can escalate to being pushed out.

Teachers want to just give you work when you come in: "Oh, do this work, stop talking" ... And when I finish the work, I have nothing to do, and [they're] telling me to stop talking! ... And now you're focused on discipline. Then I'm sent out of class. They need to focus on teaching the kids.

Mecca, a foster child, had experienced contact with the juvenile legal system, contact that involved being placed in a secure detention facility. In interactions like this one, she was triggered by the punitive nature of her learning environment and by teachers failing to establish a meaningful relationship with her. Many girls whom I have encountered show similar triggers.

School administrators in high-poverty areas tend to see "zero-tolerance" and punitive responses as the best way to curb negative student behavior (Losen & Gillespie, 2012). There's little attention to developing a continuum of responses, including restorative and healing practices that allow young people to coconstruct responses to situations in which they have harmed or been harmed.

We can shift this paradigm. Education is a critical protective factor against involvement with the criminal and juvenile legal systems, and schools can be powerful agents in the successful life trajectories of black students. But safety cannot be implemented; it must be coconstructed. Schools can operate in ways that respond better to the needs of black girls by intentionally creating healing-informed learning spaces.

I believe the overwhelming majority of us enter the field of education because we love children and believe in their promise. However, I also believe that we all live with unconscious biases that inform how we read students' behaviors or interpret their language, mannerisms, and even speech volume-whether these biases align with our professed beliefs or not.

If educators want to collectively examine the policies, institutions, and systems that push black girls away from school-using a race- and gender-conscious lens-we should ask these questions:

1. What assumptions are we making about the conditions of black girls?

2. How might black girls be uniquely affected by school and other disciplinary policies?

3. Are our systems and policies (such as those related to dress code, discipline referrals, or eligibility for participation in sports or extracurricular activities) creating an environment that is conducive to the healthy development of black girls?

Asking these questions keeps us from ignoring black girls' needs in policy decisions. By developing culturally competent, gender-responsive tools-like decision-making instruments or protocols that help us respond equitably to students-we can ensure that we develop the skill sets that black female learners need to participate in developing a just society. Toward that goal, I suggest we invest resources in three specific areas-immediately.

Three Ways to Respond More Equitably

Healing-Informed Learning Spaces

A crucial component of developing healthy, gender-responsive learning environments is recognizing the centrality of trauma as we respond to student behavior. Healing-informed learning spaces strive to be "safe spaces" that protect students-and educators-from retraumatization. Safety in this context is defined by an absence of prejudice or judgment and an emphasis on developing positive relationships among black girls, their teachers, and their peers. Okonofua, Pauresku, and Walton (2016) found that when educators employed empathic discipline (talking with a student) rather than punitive discipline (threatening the student or referring her to an administrator), suspension rates for black and Latina girls were reduced by as much as 75 percent. Relationships matter.

To construct healing-informed classrooms, educators must question-and counter-any internalized negative ideas about black girls' ability and identities. We must develop non-punitive interventions that support student accountability when rule-breaking occurs, including restorative and transformative interventions centered on addressing the root causes of conflict or misbehavior.

We can begin creating healthy spaces by reviewing and revising codes of conduct that discriminate against black girls, such as policies that forbid hairstyles associated with African Diasporic cultures like Afros, cornrows, or other braids. Early in each class or semester, discuss and collectively establish agreements with your students so they feel they've been respectfully included in creating the culture. Talk about how you want to engage with students in your classroom and discuss with students how they want to engage with one another. If there's a disagreement, how should it be handled? What does respect look like? How should the class respond if someone is being disruptive? Be sure to encourage and include the voices of girls (black girls and others) who might otherwise remain quiet in these discussions; their voices matter here. Provide ways to answer anonymously or one-on-one.

For girls recovering from trauma, the responses available in schools should include play therapy and cognitive-behavioral interventions, such as stress management techniques that support readiness to learn.

Unbiased Curriculums

Using culturally diverse, gender-inclusive curriculums that integrate the arts is crucial for engaging students of color, particularly girls, and developing relationships with them. Shared learning about cultures can facilitate empathy among educators.

Include historical narratives, images, and examples that reflect the cultural norms of the learners in the classroom. Take special care not to engage or reinforce negative stereotypes often associated with students or communities of color in these examples. For example, it's important that black girls-as well as all other students-imagine "LaKeisha" as a doctor in a math word problem, and that they understand the role of African American girls like Linda Brown and Claudette Colvin in shaping the nation's discourses on desegregation and equity in education.

A culturally responsive pedagogy isn't only about "naming" or locating an instructive experience in a racially identifiable context. It's also about consistently using teaching methods that uplift the oral and presentational traditions dominant in African Diasporic cultures, such as storytelling and the arts.

Guidance on College and Career Pathways

Girls at risk of school pushout are often struggling to overcome poverty and exploitation that render them vulnerable to participation in underground economies. I've found that black girls who have faced school pushout and criminalization understand the value of a good education in securing high-quality employment and life outcomes. Our challenge is to meet them where they are along the continuum of job and career preparation. Let's nurture these girls' hope by

▪ Engaging them actively in leading and learning in schools.

▪ Providing information about internships, financial aid, and programs for students who are among the first in their families to attend college.

▪ Bringing in speakers who show them a variety of career and college options. This helps girls connect what they're learning in the classroom with skills required for the workplace.

Leading with Love

Ultimately, the extent to which we engage young people in coconstructing safe learning environments will determine the success of efforts to reduce criminalization and school pushout. As we establish such environments through empathy, equity, and dialogue, we can use classroom management strategies that don't result in exclusion or signal to a student that she is disposable and unwanted in school.

When we push black girls away from school, we increase the likelihood that they will experience harm. In the vast majority of school districts, educators' fear of violence from students who show disruptive behaviors is greater than the actual violence, if any, students demonstrate. To develop a pedagogy through which our girls learn more than just how to behave in the presence of adults, we must lead-and teach-with love.

References

Akbar, N. (1996). Breaking the chains of psychological slavery. Tallahassee, FL: Mind Productions.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013). Leading causes of death by age group, black females-United States, 2013. Atlanta: Author. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/2013/womenblack_2013.pdf

Losen, D., & Gillespie, J. (2012) Opportunities suspended: The disparate impact of disciplinary exclusion from school. Los Angeles: Center for Civil Rights Remedies at The Civil Rights Project.

McLeod, H. (2015, October 30). "Disturbing schools" law criticized after South Carolina student's arrest. Retrieved from Reuters at www.reuters.com/article/us-south-carolina-police-idUSKCN0SO2NY20151030

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). National intimate partner and sexual violence survey, 2010 summary report. Atlanta: Author.

Okonofua, J. A., Paunesku, D. & Walton, G. M. (2016). Brief intervention to encourage empathic discipline cuts suspension rates in half among adolescents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(19), 5221-5226.

Roussi, A. (2016, March 21). Six-year-old girl in Chicago handcuffed for allegedly stealing candy from a teacher [blog post]. Retrieved from Salon at www.salon.com/2016/03/21/six_year_old_girl_in_chicago_handcuffed_for_allegedly_stealing_candy _from_a_teacher

Smith, D. K., Leve, L. D., & Chamberlain, P. (2006). Adolescent girls' offending and health-risking sexual behavior: The predictive role of trauma. Child Maltreatment, 11(4), 346-353.

South Carolina Municipal Code. (1979). Disturbing Schools. Section 2-2036.

U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. (2014). Civil rights data collection, 2011-12. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://ocrdata.ed.gov

U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. (2016). 2013-2014 civil rights data collection: First look. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/2013-14-first-look.pdf

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. (2016). PTSD in children and adolescents (data updated February 23, 2016). Retrieved from www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treatment/children/ptsd_in_children_and_adolescents_overview_for _professionals.asp

Endnotes

The pervasive nature of rape culture presents risks for other women and girls as well: 20.5 percent of white females experience rape and 46.9 percent experience other forms of sexual violence; 13.6 percent of Latinas experience rape and 35.6 percent experience other forms of sexual violence. Native American girls experience rape and sexual violence at the highest rates (27.5 percent have been raped and 55 percent have experienced other sexual assault). (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2011).

Two valuable resources for culturally responsive teaching are Zaretta Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students (Corwin, 2014) and Christopher Emdin's For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood ... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Beacon Press, 2016).

Monique W. Morris is the author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (The New Press, 2016) and the cofounder and president of the National Black Women's Justice Institute.

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November 2016 | Volume 74 | Number 3 Disrupting Inequity Pages 49-53 Monique W. Morris In March, when 6-year-old Madisyn Moore took candy from her teacher's desk, this black girl was handcuffed and placed under the stairs to "teach her a lesson" (Roussi, 2016).

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PUSHOUT | THE CRIMINALIZATION OF BLACK GIRLS IN SCHOOLS

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Pushout - The criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

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PUSHOUT is a feature length documentary which takes a close look at the educational, judicial and societal disparities facing Black Girls.

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Today's discussion allows me to reflect on the ideas mentioned about how we must adhere to standards in order to ensure high expectations for each and every student. Additionally, it is not up to people of color to fix the issues in society.  We all play a part in that agenda and we must be open to owning our part in the work that must be done and advanced in our society.

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https://www.amazon.com/Prepped-Memoir-Coming-Black-America-ebook/dp/B07ZTJNPPR

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Broadway is completely shut down until at least April 13 due to the coronavirus emergency, and millions of dollars in ticket purchases will be refunded to theatergoers who had booked performances between now and then. This represents an unprecedented crisis for New York's theater industry, the full impact of which has yet to be revealed. Some Broadway observers have speculated that certain shows may never reopen, even after the threat of the virus has subsided. This is a devastating blow to Broadway, and it is going to be even worse for smaller not-for-profit theater companies off- and off-off-Broadway, which regularly produce high-quality shows on shoestring budgets. But there is something you can do to help them:

Donate your ticket purchase to the theater. While all of the companies canceling and postponing runs of shows have plans to refund ticket purchases, you can help them get back on their feet by opting out of a refund and letting the theater keep the proceeds as a tax-deductible donation.

One of the theaters hoping that you will make this decision is Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a downtown company committed to producing new plays that provoke conversation and social change. Rattlestick's cozy Waverly Place theater is the venue that instantly comes to my mind when I think of off-off-Broadway. While a theater with the audience bathroom behind the stage is a punchline on SNL, it's a reality for this intimate space on the second floor of an old townhouse in the West Village. Despite its size, the theater has mounted some of the best plays I've seen in New York, including Samuel D. Hunter's unforgettable Lewiston / Clarkston.

Ed Ventura, Cindy De La Cruz, and Mateo Ferro appeared in preview performances of Ren Dara Santiago's The Siblings Play, directed by Jenna Worsham, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.
(© Julietta Cervantes)

I was booked to see the world premiere of Ren Dara Santiago's The Siblings Play on Sunday, March 15, but Rattlestick ceased performances the night before that. Still, the company has committed to paying the entire cast and crew of The Siblings Play through April 5, the original end of the run. Other nonprofit companies have followed suit, including Ma-Yi Theater Company (which was producing the return engagement of Haruna Lee's Suicide Forest) and Axis Theatre Company, which had just started performances of a new adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square. All of the artists involved in these productions will be paid what they expected to be paid for a full run.

"This is not any of their faults, and they will not be able to continue to do work elsewhere at this time," says Rattlestick artistic director Daniella Topol, adding, "It feels really important that we look after one another and honor our commitment to our artists."

Topol notes that many of the artists involved in The Siblings Play were making their professional theatrical debuts, including the playwright (in fact, Santiago is the kind of self-taught dramatist I wish were more welcomed in the New York theater). "There's such a snowball of lost opportunity," laments Topol, who is hopeful that performances will be able to resume in April.

Mateo Ferro and Andy Lucien appeared in The Siblings Play at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.
(© Julieta Cervantes)

Because Rattlestick is such a small house and the company is committed to providing affordable tickets (the highest ticket price is $60, with generous discounts for students, seniors, and artists), sales do not account for a majority of any show's budget. According to Topol, the cost of mounting The Siblings Play was roughly $200,000, and she was planning to recoup $30,000-$50,000 in ticket revenue. The rest is covered by grants and donations (this not-for-profit model is very different from Broadway, in which investors put money into a show with the hope of eventually earning a return). Earned income isn't a majority of Rattlestick's revenue, but it's a significant chunk.

Topol estimates that after a week of preview performances, The Siblings Play will make $10,000 in ticket revenue, although it will be higher if every ticket-buyer decides to donate their purchase. The final number is going to be much smaller than what Topol could have expected to earn from a full run, but she is quick to note, "Every penny counts at this moment." And the more pennies Topol has to work with, the more latitude she will have to navigate her theater back to normalcy. So if you have outstanding tickets to The Siblings Play, you should consider donating the cost of the tickets here.

Of course, I understand that theater tickets are expensive, and not everyone can afford to part with that kind of money - especially when this health crisis has imperiled employment for so many New Yorkers. But if you are among the lucky group that enjoys steady income and a cushion of savings, you should really consider letting that money go and purchasing new tickets when the theater comes back online. It may feel like burning cash, but it will help keep the lights on for companies like Rattlestick - and ensure that there is still a vibrant off-off-Broadway theater scene once the virus is vanquished.

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Don't Ask for a Refund! Donate Your Ticket Purchase Instead | TheaterMania

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Broadway is completely shut down until at least April 13 due to the coronavirus emergency, and millions of dollars in ticket purchases will be refunded to theatergoers who had booked performances between now and then. This represents an unprecedented crisis for New York's theater industry, the full impact of which has yet to be revealed.

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Abolitionist Teaching Video Mentioned 7/25

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Abolitionist Teaching Video Mentioned 7/25

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https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/179-abolitionist-teaching-and-the-future-of-our-schools https://www.nudgetext.com/ally

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White Fragility

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NatalieHollimanPhD@gmail.com

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This essay, though old, remains my hope, especially Baldwin's very generous final paragraph.

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The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

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My email. Jtossmann@gmail.com

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Sondra Strong Art-Permission Obtained

As our society advances, so must our educational practices. In criticizing the educational systems of his day, John Dewey (1916) made the case that education needed to adopt new instructional approaches based on future societal needs. He suggested that 20th-century schools should emphasize freedom and individuality, organize their curricula, and respond to changing career-ready requirements (Dewey, 1916). In a widely-quoted commentary attributed to Dewey, he predicted that "If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow" (Hogan, 2016). This year requires us as educators to look at teaching children in creative mediums. Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew that education in brick and mortar environments had its challenges. The adaptation to virtual mediums could prove advantageous by most schools in our nation, especially those that serve diverse populations.

Today, educators are faced with a new opportunity to prepare all students while combating the challenges brought about due to the coronavirus pandemic. The advancements in the education fields should be led by personnel who have expertise in these areas and others who work in the field with novel and authentic ideas worth sharing. The use of innovation allows students to build their constructs from prior experiences and become problem solvers while at the same time advancing their knowledge. Virtual learning and digital mediums have proven valuable (Hernández-Merayo et al., 2013) even before the incipience of COVID-19. It is important that students are given opportunities to take ownership of their learning. Now technology could be used in new and creative ways by educators in meeting the needs of students during this time of uncertainty. In the future when normalcy becomes, once again, our new reality, technological innovation may become a driving force in the avenues we use to educate students and re-imagine what schooling looks like in our nation.

In this story, I connect educational technology to one of my practitioner narratives. First, I refer to the benefits of educational technology for a foundational rendering, followed by literature that supports a few advantages of virtual learning. Lastly, this story provides organic alternatives centered on meeting the needs of students in K-12 education.

Practitioner Anecdote

Take a trip through my journey of educational leadership, and you will find schools that I have serviced that were forced to start the academic year without teachers in classrooms. Although this type of situation was very disheartening, it was essential that as an education leader I worked to solve problems, not just identify them. For many years, I would put my teaching shoes back on and start the year with the students to ensure they obtained quality instruction until a permanent teacher was hired. This option solved the problem, but it resulted in my creating a new one. I was forced to engage in two responsibilities at once: putting a lot of energy into teaching my adopted classroom and students, while leaving many of my educational leadership responsibilities uncovered. One year, I decided that there had to be a better option. With a vacant additional computer lab that year, I remembered using educational technology as an instructional platform while teaching at the collegiate sector about a decade prior. I asked myself, "Could this class use a similar computer-based format as the sole source of their instruction and engage with supplemental human capital as a 'need-based' supplement?" At that time in my career, we had brick and mortar with no teacher; our current reality suggests that we have teachers, but brick and mortar could be in jeopardy for the coming years amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Supporting the Narrative

"Educational technology" has become a common name in literature. In this story, "educational technology refers to a variety of technology-based programs or applications that help deliver education materials and support the learning process in K-12 classrooms to improve academic goals -as opposed to learning to use the technology itself" (Cheung & Slavin, 2013, p. 90). Tomilinson and Javius (2012) make a promising point stating all students deserve equitable access to an engaging, innovative, and rigorous curriculum. A technology integrated curriculum can be accessible to learners at many different readiness levels (Powell and Kusuma-Powell, 2012) and creatively designed to meet each student's needs using Universal Design for Learning. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework based on research in the learning sciences, including cognitive neuroscience, that guides the development of flexible learning environments that can accommodate individual learning differences (Rose & Meyer, 2002). When they engage with technology, many students have found an entry into learning that they otherwise would have found challenging.

Virtual is Vital During & Post COVID-19

My initial thought was, "The devil is a lie," after reading an article that suggests that COVID-19 will increase the number of Black students enrolled in special education classes this Fall. "Communities should be concerned about the negative consequences this period of stay-at-home orders related to COVID-19 is having on children's educational attainment" (Slay, 2020, p. 3). I do agree that we must approach this critical time with caution and make concentrated actions as a means to reach students, especially those who are culturally diverse. Lily Eskelsen García, the president of the National Education Association, stated, "We must share in finding solutions that finally work for students of color and under-resourced schools" (NEA, 2020, p. 5). The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to chart a new path for our thinking as we optimistically think of better ways to educate students. Holliman et. al. (2018) reminds us that for many years, education existed in one dimension where students brought their empty slates, and teachers filled them with knowledge. Annual improvements may bring about incremental change, but there is a suggestion that "we call for a reconstruction of the educational system through advocacy and a revolution of educational values, related to removing barriers that have been stacked against culturally diverse children in America" (Holliman et al, 2018, p. 13). We can not go back to the way things were, normal has not worked for numerous children of color in American schools.

We Reject "Back to Normal" Approaches

"We can't go back to normal," (Baker, 2020) speaks to the desire that we can not approach reopening schools without the appropriate safeguards in place. But we must admit that "normal" has not been, for us, a promising narrative because it puts Black lives at risk in more ways than one. We are not referring to just our physical health, but for many years, the emotional and mental well-being among students of color has been a source of contention. We reject normalcy. Instead, we want a revolution of education; our students deserve it. In this reimagining, I often think about the speech by Dr. Danny B. Martin at the 2018 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Conference, entitled "Taking a Knee: Moving from Equity Discourse to Protest and Refusal." In this equity address, Martin (2018) talked about a liberatory education, specifically calling for a "Black liberatory Mathematics" education. Martin (2018) said:

We define Black liberatory mathematics education as the framing and practice of math education that allows Black learners to flourish in their humanity and brilliance, unfettered by whiteness, white supremacy, and anti-blackness. We view liberation as a means to a radical end rather than an end in itself. We imagine a world in which our relationality is not to whiteness, anti-blackness, systemic violence, a world in which we are not defined by survival, resistance, and a fight for freedom. We imagine a world in which we define ourselves, our joys, and our desires in infinite multiplicities and in which we are committed to individual and collective black fulfillment.

Unpacking this work requires communities to coordinate practices that could make a Black liberatory education less of a fantasy and more of a reality. COVID-19 is a timestamp in American history that has illuminated the inequities impacting communities of color in the areas of healthcare, employment, and education, just to name a few. We have an opportunity to rethink the way we educate children in this country. Advocates should take full advantage of this time to match our reimagining to efforts benefiting all communities, especially those of color.

Public School Students = Public School Money$

School districts across our nation are in jeopardy of losing students due to COVID-19: given students could possibly enroll in online schools and with virtual service providers. This year the U.S. Department of Education, Center for Educational Statistics, suggests that children of color now exceed the population of white children in American classrooms. There is a POWER in the voice of advocates that support the education for communities of color, especially when we support that advocacy with our VOTE. As a result of schools losing students to online providers, public education dollars will be lost; when this exchange occurs, public school positions (jobs) will be eliminated. According to the U.S. Census (2020), the average school spending per pupil is approximately $12,612 nationally.

Question: Do you think school districts are willing to lose patterns of $12,612 due to COVID-19?

Schools are eager and ready to offer extensive resources so that our brilliant Black and Brown children will remain enrolled in their institutions of learning. Given this reality, it is time to advocate for change. Let us remember: We can't go back to "Normal."

Organic Alternatives

One may ask, "What would this reimagining look like?" As a small component of many collectives, this story sheds light on a few explorations that I have researched, creatively explored, or borrowed from my educational colleagues as we rethink education during this pandemic. In the future, as we collaborate together and think organically, our brilliance will provide more alternatives to the brick and mortar for which we have become accustomed.

Each alternative mentioned in this story will take students fully out of the school environment. These organic alternatives require that students rely on the virtual learning that is provided within their learning institutions for planned instruction, but they do this in small (x< 6) communities of learning. Many school districts are offering the use of electronic devices (per pupil), access to free internet service (if requested), and many schools are even extending weekly lunch kits. For children in rural or low-connectivity locals, the digital divide may present additional challenges. These challenges can be combated with innovative explorations. For example, one state provided all children with access to televised lessons to supplement the learning activities provided by their schools. For each unique situation, there is a unique solution. Essentially, the first step in this process is to research, investigate, and to become familiar with the resources that are being allocated to families who choose virtual learning for the upcoming year.

Ideally and optimistically, organic alternatives should be free of charge for families and require detailed organization supported by prior planning for execution. The five organic alternatives mentioned in this story represent only a few novel ideas that I have found promising. These ideas include virtual learning with district support, trusted communities of learning, horizontal and vertical collaborative learning pods, and workforce virtual learning.

1. Virtual Learning with Support from the District - Selective Learning Hubs

Students who are privileged to have caretakers at home or who are old enough to care for themselves are encouraged to engage in their school's virtual learning in their homes. Families in these situations are asked to engage with their community and offer communal space to one or more K-4th children whose parents are required to work during the day. This small academic community will help both (the small group of) children to remain engaged and committed to their learning.

2. Trusted Community with Virtual Learning

Trusted support through organized community spaces allows parents to choose where their children will learn each day with a limited population. This small group of learners will be supported by a licensed educator and nurse. The picture above, taken from a Facebook post, illuminates a parent's advocacy to informally poll family, friends, and colleagues for interest in this trusted collaboration. This organic alternative could be organized to occur in a trusted person's home, community facility, church, community center, or any other location that is available for a small group setting.

3. Virtual Learning with Peer Collaborations - Learning Pods

With a bit more organization and focus, this organic alternative asks that parents think strategically to create learning pods with children who are learning at the same grade level. If parents want to take a little pressure off of thinking strategically about this alternative, they can turn to resources similar to Franklin Scholars, to set up planned peer interactions. This organic alternative suggests students obtain virtual learning from their school, collaborate together in their learning pod as a team, and complete their tasks, assignments, and projects as a collaborative unit. Each group member could engage in peer tutoring if needed in a collaborative, supportive, and small learning community.

4. Vertical - Virtual Learning Supported by Cross-Age Collaborations

Vertical cross-age collaboration and learning is the goal to support this organic alternative. Students at all three levels are congregated in pods. Ideally, there will be 1 or 2 students each at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels with no more than 6 students in learning groups. These pods will meet together to engage in their virtual learning and provide support vertically to each other as needed with the two secondary students engaged in peer collaborations (or tutoring) as a support mechanism for their reinforcement.

5. Workforce Virtual Learning

As an option that has become a reality for working parents, workforce virtual learning is seen now as a necessity for many families due to COVID-19. Here I have outlined three different options, which include:

a) Office Space Hoteling: Parents who are not able to work from home are provided care at their worksite. This organic alternative makes "take your child to work day" a reality on a regular basis.

As an idea portrayed in Tyler Perry's movie,Good Deeds, office space hoteling was showcased in the movie when a working single mother had to make heart-wrenching childcare decisions in order to financially provide for her family. The Good Deeds employer examined the working mother's struggle and developed an employee childcare room as a support for her while she worked for the corporation.

Employers are allowing the use of worksite extra space and a hired adult supervisor to accommodate families who need care for their children during their virtual learning sessions, especially during this time of COVID-19.

b) Benefit Supported Care: Employers are offering an added benefit, similar to that of Care@Work. They are providing a trusted adult to tutor and supervise their employee's children during the time parents must work.

Children are enrolled in their school's virtual learning program and are supported by the employment provided benefit. The workforce virtual learning, when organized with a similar Care@Work entity, could be organized strategically to accommodate more than one family with one service. This care would be provided in the employee's home or designated safe space for learning that is separate from the worksite of the employee.

c) Collaborative Work Schedules to Provide Care During Virtual Learning (example above): Flexible work schedules can be authentic organic alternatives and are becoming an added benefit for employees, just like healthcare. Employees are able to use flexible work to design a schedule that allows them to coordinate a learning pod schedule.

Flexible work schedules allow parents to provide childcare themselves to their children in their homes. The schedules could be designed and organized with others at the worksite who they trust. For example, three families would agree to host virtual learning in their homes while each employee commits to a flexible schedule to rotate the care duties for the learning pod families. When employees are at their home with the learning pod of children, they commit to telework or other forms of working from home while they supervise and provide care for the learning pod of children.

As a summary, these organic alternatives are not the answer to all of our COVID-19 caregiving needs. In the end, viable solutions that work best for each particular family will become their best resolution.

Like options, these organic alternatives are just a start to the creative brainstorming of avenues to explore how a shared community has the potential to ensure that there are safe spaces for children to academically grow outside of a school building using educational technology through virtual learning, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusion

In this story, several organic alternatives to schooling in an educational building are provided that could be used or expanded to meet the needs of students and parents. This time of national pandemic allows us to think deeply about what is working well in education and which aspects could be enhanced. It is my hope that we are able to rethink education in a way that combats systemic violence against select groups of students and encourage them in new ways with access, equity, and enrollment in welcoming spaces of learning that pushes them toward advanced coursework. These practices, with success, will prepare our next generation for their futures, even during this time of uncertainty.

Moving forward, let us remember, we must refuse education's "Back to Normal." We reject 'normal," even after we have recovered from the implications of COVID-19.

Someone once said: A Crisis Creates Opportunity. When we refuse education's "Back to Normal" we extend opportunities for this generation & the next!
Note: Special Thanks to Sondra Strong, Artist Extraordinaire, for the use of this beautiful artwork. Individuals with Inquiries are asked to go to https://www.facebook.com/sondrastrongart and contact her directly.
References

Baker, P. C. (2020, March 31). 'We can't go back to normal': how will coronavirus change the world? The Guardian.

Battista, M. T. (2010). Engaging Students in Meaningful Mathematics Learning: Different Perspectives, Complementary Goals. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 3(2), 34-46-34-46.

‌Bureau, U. C. (2020). U.S. School System Spending Per Pupil by Region. The United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2020/comm/school-system-spending.html

Cheung, A. C. K., & Slavin, R. E. (2013). The effectiveness of educational technology applications for enhancing mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 9, 88-113.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: an introduction to the philosophy of education (pp. v-378). The Free Press.

Hernández-Merayo, E., Robles-Vílchez, M. C., & Martínez-Rodríguez, J. B. (2013). Interactive Youth and Civic Cultures: The Educational, Mediatic and Political Meaning of the 15M. Comunicar, 20(40), 59-67.

Hogan, J. (2016, April 5). 12 quotes: Technology in the classroom. The Compelled Educator: Encouraging and Empowering Others to Be Their Very Best.

Holliman, N., Pendleton, V., Mack, K., & Nwosu, K. (2018). Holliman, N., Pendleton, V., Mack, K., Nwosu, K. (2018). Reclaiming their time: Removing barriers to ensure equity in our children's education. The Lighthouse Almanac, 2(1), 14-30.

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Our Refusal of Education's "Back to Normal" Post COVID-19

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As our society advances, so must our educational practices. In criticizing the educational systems of his day, John Dewey (1916) made the case that education needed to adopt new instructional approaches based on future societal needs. He suggested that 20th-century schools should emphasize freedom and individuality, organize their curricula, and respond to changing career-ready requirements (Dewey, 1916).