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Being You: A first conversation about gender. A wonderful addition to the classroom that highlights Queer Affirming and Trans Affirming.  https://bookshop.org/books/being-you-a-first-conversation-about-gender/9780593382646

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Being You: A first conversation about gender. A wonderful addition to the classroom that highlights Queer Affirming and Trans Affirming.  https://bookshop.org/books/being-you-a-first-conversation-about-gender/9780593382646

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Being You: A First Conversation about Gender a book by Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli, and Passchier

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Based on the research that race, gender, consent, and body positivity should be discussed with toddlers on up, this read-aloud board book series offers adults the opportunity to begin important conversations with young children in an informed, safe, and supported way. Developed by experts in the fie…

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7. Are there any books you recommend that are thought-provoking and lead to discussion with students on policing?

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7. Are there any books you recommend that are thought-provoking and lead to discussion with students on policing?

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For our four PreK 4 morning meetings during the week, we started by discussing diversity (and tying it to our class value of open-mindedness) and then moved in to discussing the specific term "racism" (after reading Sulwe) and how we would respond (relating back to our other two class values, kindness and strength). -RA

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Curriculum Focus-- Black Climate Activists

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Curriculum Focus-- Black Climate Activists

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Since our curriculum unit was on weather, I centered Black Climate Change/Environmental Justice Activists and shared their stories with the students.

-Rachel J.

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https://www.bymsjames.com/love-1/black-history-valentine-box

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For this principle, I created a google slide story about a Jahkil Jackson, a young Black boy in Chicago who is helping the homeless population/people experiencing homelessness by creating buddles of essential items. The children LOVED hearing about a child closer to their age that was making a change in their community, as well as imaging what they can do to help their own community (a lot of children wanted to do more composting around DC!).  I had originally planned to make short stories about Young Changemakers for every principle but life got away from me! I hope to make more stories for the rest of the virtual time.

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All of the children at my preschool created drawings/paintings for residents of our local nursing home who have been without contact of friends and loved ones for a year. -MK

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We used this week as a way to focus on pride in self and personal expression. As an IB School, our Clothing Study Transcdisciplinary Theme is How We Express Ourselves, so we grounded ourselves in WHO we are and then transitioned into how we use clothing to express that. Texts included All the Colors We Are, Hair Love, I am Enough, I am One, and All the Colors of the Earth.  -ST

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My co-teacher and I used puppets to act out a scenario where one puppet excluded another because of the color of their skin. The children made a lot of observations and comments about feelings, fairness and kindness and helped them solve the problem. We then read "Strictly No Elephants" to further the discussion. -MK

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Written with another ECE team member, read at our grade-level morning meeting to discuss the guiding principle.  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HMnxjKA1gqmHxfm_IvGHuU-HxqeeQ33aevW3He8Wke0/edit#slide=id.p

--Rachel J.

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Please add posts and share your stories from the week of action and beyond!

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3rd Graders Study Restorative Justice and Loving Engagement Through a Study of the 1963 Children’s March and Freedom Schools

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3rd Graders Study Restorative Justice and Loving Engagement Through a Study of the 1963 Children’s March and Freedom Schools

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Third graders at Concord Hill School learned about the principles of Restorative Justice and Loving Engagement through a study of the role of young people in the Civil Rights Movement. In our classroom, we decided to center the principles of Restorative Justice and Loving Engagement.

To launch the lessons, children participated in a “chalk talk,” a routine that allows students to share ideas by placing Post-It notes to respond to questions. Students responded to four questions:

Why do you go to school?

Where do you learn outside of school?

Who should decide what you learn?

What do you love to learn about most?

After initially answering the questions silently, students visited each posted question and looked for patterns in the responses. The answers to the questions were varied, and the discussion was lively! Students were excited to see that they agreed on many of the reasons that people go to school: to learn new things, to prepare for adult life, to learn about themselves, and to learn to get along with others. They also realized that they learn in many places other than school. They learn when playing musical instruments, attending religious gatherings, playing on sports teams, and from family and friends.

In posing these questions, we wanted students to reflect on the relationship between “school” and “learning.” Who decides what you learn? What do you think it is important for kids to learn? We also wanted them to think about the control they have over their own learning, particularly learning that happens outside of school or in other learning environments. We hoped that by framing the lesson with these questions, we could encourage students to consider how engagement with the wider world is a critical aspect of learning. We used the students’ reflections on their own learning to connect with a study of two ways children and young people participated in the Civil Rights Movement: the Mississippi Freedom Schools and the 1963 Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama.

We began by connecting our students’ school experiences to the 1964 Freedom Schools in Mississippi. This lesson was inspired by the episode “Young, Gifted, and Black: Teaching Freedom Summer to K-5 Students”  from the Learning for Justice podcast Teaching Hard History. In the lesson, we used a simplified version of the lesson Exploring the History of Freedom Schools to explore what children learned in the Freedom Schools. Our students were especially interested in how the Freedom Schools encouraged young people to imagine a new structure for society. We had a lively discussion in class using the questions from the sample lesson from the Freedom Schools curriculum. Our students were especially interested in discussing “Mass media—should newspapers, TV, magazines tell the truth? Should that be their basic job?” and “Money—should a few people have a lot of money, should everybody have the same, should everybody have what they need?” These questions not only appealed to students’ understanding of fairness and justice but also allowed them to make connections to our current moment and issues we had discussed previously in our classroom.

-Colleen Massaquoi