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Georgia Kostelecky

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Georgia Kostelecky

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China

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Amanda Hartman

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Alice Bankhofer *Thank you!

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This unique PhD in Education and Social Justice (by thesis and coursework) is a part-time structured PhD programme that is undertaken entirely online, over 4 years.

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This unique PhD in Education and Social Justice (by thesis and coursework) is a part-time structured PhD programme that is undertaken entirely online, over 4 years.

It provides a well-defined and supported route to a PhD for people around the world. The programme is designed so that participants can study entirely from home and whilst in full or part-time employment.

Accordion

Overview

Tutors are internationally renowned researchers/practitioners, based in one of the best Education Departments in the UK, in a University ranked in the top 200 world-wide and top 10 in the UK. The Department has an established and excellent reputation for doctoral provision. There are close links between the Education and Social Justice doctoral programme and the Department's Centre for Social Justice and Wellbeing in Education.

We have designed the programme to enable issues, theories, methods and evaluations to be applied specifically to the particular concerns, contexts and priorities of the organisations and environments in which participants are working. The programme builds a mutually supportive spirit among participants who all have overlapping professional and academic interests. This means that participants benefit tremendously from studying within a cohort of students who act as critical friends and an informal support network during the programme, and a continued network throughout their careers.

Who is this programme for?

The programme is for professionals world-wide who are working to promote social justice in or through education (in its broadest sense).

The programme will be of benefit to a wide range of people, including, but not limited to:

teachers working in schools, further education, higher education, and lifelong learning; policy makers; managers; researchers working with social justice issues; youth workers;

activists and advocacy workers;

people with equity or social justice portfolios in a variety of institutions; education support personnel;

consultants; researchers and workers in charities and NGOs; and civil servants;

people who are retired from, or taking a break from, professional educational work.

The programme and assignments are mainly designed for participants to focus on, and research, issues that are at the heart of their own professional practice and concerns. Non empirical library based assignments can also be undertaken.

Contact us

If you have any questions, or would like further information about this programme, please contact the Programme Co-ordinator, Sheila Walton.

Tel: +44 (0) 1524 593189

Email: s.walton3@lancaster.ac.uk

Find out what our graduates say about studying on our PhD programmes

Several students have published journal articles arising from their module asssignments and theses.

Entry requirements

For admission to this programme applicants should normally have:

a good honours degree from a British university or CNAA, and a good taught Master's degree; or

qualifications of a comparable standard from a university or recognised degree awarding body in another country.

Preference will be given to applicants who have degrees in cognate areas (normally social science).

Language proficiency

Applicants will need to have an acceptable fluency in written and spoken English.

For students whose first language is not English, an English Language Test Certificate will be required, that is, IELTS Academic with an overall score of 6.5 with at least 6.0 for reading and writing.

Further information can be found at: English Language Requirements.

Apply online

The next start date is 1st October, 2021.

Typical Cohort Number: 30

Initial Closing date for applications: 28th February, 2021.

Please note that any applications received prior this date will be held for consideration during March/April 2021.

Applications received after the end of February will be considered on a first-come-first-served basis until the Programme is full.

Please apply using the online system.

As this is a PhD by coursework and thesis we do not require a research proposal at this stage, but you should explain why you wish to join the programme and how you hope to benefit from it.

Paper application forms can be obtained from:

Postgraduate Admissions
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Lancaster University
LANCASTER
LA1 4YL

Telephone: +44 (0)1524 510880
Fax: +44 (0)1524 510857
E-mail: fass-pg-admissions@lancaster.ac.uk

The fee for each cohort is set annually by the University and represents the part-time fee for that academic year. Once a student is on the programme the fee will be increased in line with inflation for each subsequent year of the course.

The course fee for:

20/21 is £4,340 per academic year, for four years minimum, for UK/EU and £7,760 per academic year, for four years minimum, for overseas nationals.

Fees are subject to a small increase each academic year.

To help finance your postgraduate study at Lancaster, you can apply for funding from charities and other funders: further details are available on the Fees and Funding webpage.

Applicants from the European Union can read more information about Research Fees (from Lancaster University) following the 2016 Referendum.

When you apply you will need to indicate your likely source of funding for your fees. If you are not self-funding you should investigate possible sources of finance as soon as you can for the full period of your study. Many students have been supported by their employing institutions.

Structure and modules

The programme is divided into two parts and has a modular structure. All modules are compulsory. The five modules in Part One, a thesis proposal, and the final thesis are assessed.

Part One (years 1 and 2) - consists of five modules that offer participants guided study in key areas of education and social justice nationally and internationally.

Part Two (years 3 and 4) - participants carry out an original piece of research under the supervision of a member of staff and produce a thesis (45,000 words). There is also a module aimed at supporting you in Part Two.

Whilst this programme is undertaken entirely online, the Certificate produced on successful completion of the course will say "Doctor of Philosophy in Education and Social Justice", with no mention of the mode of delivery.

Online and Distance learning

The Educational Research Department has considerable experience of supporting online and distance learners and we aim to make all our students feel that they are full members of the Department and part of the postgraduate community. Wherever possible we facilitate online participation at events and seminars organised by the Department.

All students have access to Moodle which is our Virtual Learning Environment. Many resources, for example, journal articles, required for postgraduate study will be available online through the OneSearch facility offered by the Library. Additionally the Library provides extra services for Distance Learners.

Some tutors organise synchronous online meetings during their modules. These are not compulsory, as we understand time differences and software restrictions can impact on students' attendance. We will always do everything we can to accommodate students unable to attend. Visit our Computer requirements for distance learners page for further information.

Rebecca Marsden is the Online Learning Support Officer for the Department of Educational Research and she can be contacted with queries about online learning.

The Learning skills webpages provide a wide range of online study opportunities across a range of topics. These include digital skills, referencing, research training and critical thinking.

Programme staff

The staff who teach and supervise programmes and modules can vary due to staff changes including research and other types of leave.

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This unique PhD in Education and Social Justice (by thesis and coursework) is a part-time structured PhD programme that is undertaken entirely online, over 4 years. It provides a well-defined and supported route to a PhD for people around the world.

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How to support educators through the crisis at the U.S. Capitol

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How to support educators through the crisis at the U.S. Capitol

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Suzanne Bouffard, Learning Forward

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Even with hope for the new year still fresh, many educators and students have been traumatized by the events of this week in the U.S. Capitol. Teachers and other school staff - already carrying the heavy burdens of educating during a pandemic and confronting racism and inequity - face the challenging but essential work of helping students process the alarming events and the threats they pose to democracy and civil rights.

We at Learning Forward are heartened by the many resources that organizations and colleagues are sharing about how educators can talk with and support students. As a professional learning organization, we are keenly aware that educators, too, need support in this dark time. District, school, and professional learning leaders can establish a solid and supportive foundation for the hard work of teachers and other staff.

We have compiled some of our recent articles and tools that may help you support staff during this time. We also reached out to Learning Forward members, colleagues, and field leaders for additional resources and advice. Here we share some of the themes, strategies, and ideas that emerged.
Reach out and stay connected
With so much going on in our schools and in our world, it can be hard to find the time to connect with each and every staff member. But those connections are a key part of leadership, because they lay the foundations of trust, learning, and ultimately, good educational practice. Simply letting staff know you are there for them and asking how they are doing can make a big difference. It's especially important to remember that this week's events may be particularly triggering for staff members of color and those who have immigrated from other countries where they have experienced political instability.

To help you organize your outreach, you may want to adapt this communication log we published from Turnaround for Children. And if you supervise or support many staff members, you may want to create a plan to share outreach responsibilities with others, like making an old-fashioned phone tree or creating communication channels in vertical teams.
Acknowledge the trauma
As Val Brown, a former member of the Learning Forward Board of Trustees and the Principal Academic Officer at the Center for Antiracist Education pointed out, "We have to acknowledge the fear, pain, anger, and anxiety our educators may be feeling. Teaching during a global pandemic already stretched educators paper thin; January 6 may have broken someone." Educators need to hear that they are not alone in processing these feelings - that they will be supported in working through them and will not be expected to ignore them in favor of the planned curriculum.

Part of acknowledging trauma is holding space - listening without judgment and without trying to solve a problem. Learning Forward Senior Consultant Sharron Helmke writes and speaks often about the importance of social support and social and emotional learning for educators. She counsels that, "In this time we all need to find someone who can hold space for us and we need to be able to do it for others. Many people, especially 'problem-solver' types really struggle to do this type of listening."

It's important to remember that our support for one another must be ongoing. As Brown said, "As school leaders, let's figure out how we can make space for the emotions that will arise not only immediately, but in the future. Let's be intentional about cultivating an inclusive school community for every teacher and staff member."
Prioritize reflection
As people who work with children and young people, we know how important it is to reflect before reacting. That's especially true in high stakes situations like this one. Reflection is a crucial part of being a learning professional - even during a stressful time.

In addition to many resources about reflective professional learning from Learning Forward and other organizations, you may find it helpful to consult resources for facilitating student conversations about the crisis and adapt them to facilitate conversations with your staff.

For example, Dena Simmons, activist, scholar, and teacher educator, shared on Instagram some helpful strategies for facilitating discussions that can be used with educators as well as students, like forming small groups to share emotional reactions, contrast news coverage of Black Lives Matter protests with coverage of the Capitol riot, and brainstorm ideas for restoring peace and justice. Simmons wrote, "I don't assume to have any of the answers, but I do know that space for care, critical thinking, and problem-solving can contribute to healing."

Facing History and Ourselves, an organization known for using history lessons to facilitate classroom discussions about civics, justice, and standing up to bigotry and hate, is creating resources for teachers to talk with their students about the crisis. They start with teachers' own reflections. In the first Teaching Idea on their website, they advise teachers to begin with a "start with yourself" guide and then reach out to colleagues before working with students.

Abby Weiss, Senior Vice President and Chief Program Officer at Facing History and Ourselves, says that administrators play a key role in this process. "Because it's hard to teach what we ourselves don't understand, administrators can make space for faculty to reflect, question, and process as a community." She goes on to say that, " Administrator support is critical in empowering educators to address this civic crisis in the classroom. Administrators can communicate to both teachers and families a conviction - amply supported by research - that addressing controversial issues in the classroom is a fundamental aspect of civic education."
Center anti-racism in your responses
The events of this week cannot be understood or meaningful discussed without examining racism. As Dena Simmons shared in a recent Q & A with The Learning Professional, "We are now in a place in society where we see what happens when we let a wound fester. The wound we have is a race problem, and we've allowed it to fester for too long."

Many resources for teaching about racism, such as the Teaching Hard History podcast and other resources from Teaching Tolerance, can first be used for teachers to reflect and examine the issues and then work directly with students.

A growing wealth of resources helps educators examine implicit bias, think critically about race, and work toward antiracism, such as those from Courageous Conversation, the Education Trust, and many other organizations featured in our 2018 issue of The Learning Professional on equity as well as our upcoming issue on action for racial equity. These resources can help educators make the commitment to do this vital and vulnerable work in meaningful ways. Val Brown counsels, "Let's find the courage to not be silent about racism and how it shows up in our schools and curriculum. We have no more time to waste."
Address anxiety and stress
Stress, anxiety, and trauma are not new in schools. Fortunately, a growing number of schools and organizations are developing approaches to decrease the avoidable stresses and help educators cope with the unavoidable ones. As Sharron Helmke wrote in two recent The Learning Professional articles, Address the stress and We will be different, leaders set the tone, by managing expectations, providing logistical support, sharing mental health resources, and encouraging educators to engage in self-care.

In another recent article for our journal, coaching expert Jim Knight explained three important elements of self-care: establishing healthy habits, maintaining compassion, and focusing on one's professional and personal purpose. He wrote, "Sometimes, the most important thing we can do in challenging times is just to remind ourselves of the purpose that brought us to school in the first place. Remembering that purpose can help us persevere when the situation is stressful like it is now." As hard as it is to teach about this moment, many educators may find that the chance to help young people understand current events, reflect on social justice, and build a better future is exactly why they went into education.

For more on managing anxiety and stress, Helmke recommends listening to this episode of the Being Well podcast from psychologist Rick Hanson. The Greater Good Center at the University of California, Berkeley also offers a wealth of resources on self-care, social and emotional learning, and well-being.
Find strength in your colleagues
None of us can navigate this moment alone. We all need to lean on and learn from each other. Don't try to be the sole support system for your staff. And just as you are providing support to your colleagues, remember all that they have to offer you as well. Reach out to your teachers, coaches, mentors, school counselors, and others for ideas to pass along and give them opportunities to lead and facilitate; that will help them grow professionally at the same time as distributing the workload and emotional labor.

For example, for resources on how teachers can talk with students about the current events, you might look to your district's social studies or civics department. Learning Forward Academy member Nancy Routson, who works in Arlington (Virginia) Public Schools, shared how her district's social studies office quickly created and disseminated a document to help teachers guide classroom conversations the day after the riot.

Mental health professionals in your school or district have wisdom to share, too. At the beginning of the pandemic, school counseling expert Kwok-Sze Richard Wong wrote this article for The Learning Professional about how school counselors are poised to help in times of crisis.
Give yourself and your staff grace.
We have heard, and shared, this mantra repeatedly over the past year, and it's needed more now than ever: give yourself and your colleagues grace and space. As teacher educator and professional learning leader Alex Shevrin Venet wrote in a poignant blog post, "There is immense pressure on educators to 'get it right' when talking about hard topics. The moments after a crisis can feel like a fleeting opportunity, an open door through which you have to run at full speed. In reality, there is no room on the other side of that door containing perfect clarity, safety, or peace. Crisis and trauma fundamentally shift our relationship to the world, and unpacking that can take a lifetime. Just showing up for your students on day 1 is enough. Just holding space for them and letting them know you care is enough. You are enough."

As you navigate the coming days and weeks and year, we at Learning Forward encourage you to continue sharing your wisdom with us and with each other, through social media and email. There is strength in learning together.

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How to support educators through the crisis at the U.S. Capitol - Learning Forward

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Even with hope for the new year still fresh, many educators and students have been traumatized by the events of this week in the U.S. Capitol. Teachers and other school staff - already carrying the heavy burdens of educating during a pandemic and confronting racism and inequity - face the challenging but essential work of helping students process the alarming events and the threats they pose to democracy and civil rights.

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Equity, Diversity, Inclusion Training and Professional Development

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We offer equity, diversity, inclusion, and beloning training, professional development, and assistance for educators and for schools, school districts, and other educational organizations. We also offer equity assessment, policy analysis, and more.

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As someone committed to this work, you know how difficult it is to receive the credit you deserve as a chief diversity officer, diversity manager, or diversity champion. The lack of organizational commitment is difficult enough, but to assume that you lack credibility based on your role is disheartening at best.

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Kelly Bowen,
BestColleges.com

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Ongoing social activism, combined with the recent surge in Black Lives Matters protests, has drawn national attention to issues of racial equity and justice as well as the Black experience as a whole. But it's important to put everything that's happening into context.

An African American studies major - also called an Africana studies or Black studies major - provides students with a nuanced understanding of African Americans' historical, political, and cultural impact, in addition to the unique challenges they continue to face today. This field also offers the opportunity to advocate for and contribute directly to the Black community.

For this article, we interviewed Angela M. Siner, director of the University of Toledo's Africana studies program and instructor of several Africana studies and cultural anthropology courses, for her perspective on the benefits and value an African American studies major holds in today's society.

Angela M. Siner

How would you describe the field of African American studies to a first-year student?

African American studies, Black studies, and Africana studies are part of an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary academic field, which seeks to understand the historical, social, political, and cultural development of Africans and African-descended people in the Diaspora.

"[S]tudents learn about the experiences of Black people from a variety of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences."

In this discipline, students learn about the experiences of Black people from a variety of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Specifically, students can take courses in history, English, psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, music, art, biology, public health, and so on.

Another major focus of this field of study is social justice. Students have opportunities for social engagement through community development programs.

What do you consider the value or importance of a major in African American studies?

The value of pursuing African American studies is gaining knowledge and an understanding of the past and present situation of African-descended people in the United States. This discipline prepares students to critically examine, explore, and analyze the unique experiences of African-descended people.

As an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field, African American studies exposes students to all facets of the African American experience. It also offers multiple opportunities to engage in social justice and local community development programs.

What benefits and skills does an African American studies major offer students?

An African American studies major offers students a plethora of transferable skills.

Critical Thinking Skills: Ability to think independently, read critically, and write analytically.

Research Skills: How to apply theoretical approaches to research questions, locate and interpret data, and define problems.

Communication Skills: How to write effectively and construct persuasive arguments. Related skills include public speaking and social relations, as well as the ability to understand diverse populations, appreciate diversity, and apply academic theories to community development.

Knowledge of the Historical, Cultural, and Political Experiences of African Americans: The ability to appreciate the diversity of African people and African-descended people in the Diaspora, and to recognize a multiethnic, multicultural society and world.

Are there unique challenges associated with an African American studies major?

The unique challenges associated with an African American studies major has more to do with institutions than it does students.

"[T]he first Black studies program was born out of faculty and student activism [and] eventually led to the establishment of ... Africana studies programs across the country."

Established in 1968 at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University), the first Black studies program was born out of faculty and student activism. This activism eventually led to the establishment of Black studies, African American studies, and Africana studies programs across the country. It also influenced the creation of other ethnic studies and women's/gender studies programs.

Unfortunately, many of these programs today face issues with funding, limited staffing, and low student enrollment. Some argue that African American studies is constantly in a state of having to prove itself relevant.

Who should consider majoring in African American studies?

African American studies attracts a wide range of students because it offers both a specific and multidisciplinary perspective of the African American experience. Students interested in social justice, learning about the Black experience, and connecting academia with the community can benefit from a degree in African American studies.

This academic discipline is open to all students - not just Black or ethnic students. One need only look at African American studies scholars to realize that broad groups of individuals study the Black experience.

What types of careers does an African American studies degree prepare you for?

An African American studies degree can provide students with a wide range of career options, similar to other humanities and social sciences degrees. According to the National Council for Black Studies, "The answer to those asking what can a person do with a Black studies major is simple[:] ANYTHING!"

Potential African American Studies Careers

Medicine and health

Science and technology

Law and criminal justice

Politics and government

Business, industry, and labor

Performing arts and entertainment

Visual and decorative arts

Education

Sports

News, media, and publishing

Social and community services

Religion

Has the current political climate impacted how you teach classes in African American studies?

Yes. In addition to teaching about the historical, social, political, and cultural experiences of African Americans, I now emphasize the inequality and racism that has affected the Black experience. I've also become more deliberate in choosing course resources, such as books and visual aids, and in how I lead class discussions and compose and deliver lectures.

Additionally, I give students more opportunities for experiential learning by requiring participation in the African American experience through assignments like interviewing African Americans or attending and participating in African American social and cultural events on campus and in the community. Social justice and community service projects will soon become course requirements.

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Why You Should Major in African American Studies | BestColleges

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Ongoing social activism, combined with the recent surge in Black Lives Matters protests, has drawn national attention to issues of racial equity and justice as well as the Black experience as a whole. But it's important to put everything that's happening into context.

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

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

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

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

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

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Black History Month Resources | Mante Molepo

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Black History Month Compass - Teaching for Black Lives

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Black History Month Compass - Teaching for Black Lives

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

https://padlet.com/lbenson3/antiracist

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

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

Teaching for Black Lives

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

A Rethinking Schools Publication

Quote (page 20)

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

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

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

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

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

Additionally (page 25)...

1. Support ethnic studies in all schools.

2. Replace zero-tolerance discipline with restorative justice practices.

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

And...

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

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

2. Increase of unity within the community.

3. Academic equity for students.

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

5. Oppose segregation through classism.

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

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

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

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

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Black History Month Library from Mante Molepo

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Black History Month Library from Mante Molepo

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

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

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Black Past

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

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

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

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

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BBC News

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October marks Black History Month in the UK.

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

It also takes place in Canada, Germany and Ireland.

When is Black History Month and what is it?

In the UK, Black History Month happens every October.

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

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

How did Black History Month start?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How did Black History Month start in the UK?

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

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

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

How is Black History Month celebrated in the UK?

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

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

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

Shirley J Thompson, leading composer and conductor

Lewis Hamilton, the only black driver in Formula One

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

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

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

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

Is black history taught in schools?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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National Geographic Kids

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

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Blackhistorymonth.gov

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

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Children's Defense Fund

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

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The History Channel

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

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

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Virtual Events That Celebrate Black Culture

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Virtual Events That Celebrate Black Culture

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Thank you, Liz Duffy and Desiree Bryant!

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Virtual Events That Celebrate Black Culture | Eventbrite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Nadine Richards
*Thank you, Anna Santori (ISS) of the Diversity Collaborative

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6 Steps for Creating Authentic Conversations That Center on Race

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6 Steps for Creating Authentic Conversations That Center on Race

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Natasha Harrison, Community Build Ventures

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Co-Authored by Neith Sankofa
Since the tragic lynchings of Ahmaud Arberry , George Floyd , Breonna Taylor , and, most recently in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks , there has been a heightened awareness of racism and white supremacy, and its impact on the well-being of Black, Indigenous and other People of Color. As a consistent voice for racial equity and Healing Justice, we have received inquiries from organizations about facilitating conversations that center racial equity. These inquiries are almost always fueled by a realization that 'we need to have a session' (checkbox focus) versus mapping out a thoughtful learning journey to help their organization confront their internal systemic racism in order to shift to a new paradigm that disrupts institutional racism. We continuously educate these organizations that centering racial equity requires a long term intentional commitment since we have been steeped in a culture of white supremacy for 400 years. Any conversations or initiatives that seek to help participants understand, embrace and embody racial equity and justice requires a prerequisite 'unmasking process' to allow participants to show up fully and share their authentic selves and experiences.

CommunityBuild Ventures supports communities in unmasking using our Brave Space Building™ protocol*. Brave Space Building™ is a 6-step process that is structured to allow participants to be their most authentic selves and lean more deeply into conversations that center racial equity. It creates a supportive "container" where participants feel connected to each other, the work ahead, and themselves. We have witnessed the powerful impact that this framework creates for and with organizations across diverse spectrums. We believe that Brave Space Building™ is a necessary framework to create a foundation for transformational work.

Brave Space Building™ Protocol for Centering Racial Equity

Coming into a new team or any group of people in a meeting can be difficult for everyone. Beginning any engagement with an invitation for each person to share the gratitude that is present in their lives helps a new, growing, or well established team bond and serves as an invitation to the group to operate from a place of curiosity, empathy, and trust.

Setting and living your intentions allows you to focus on who you are in the moment, to recognize and live your values, and to raise your emotional energy, which in turn raises your physical energy. Creating individual and group intentions guide the process and progress of the work. Intentions provide a road map and reminder for how you want to show up to live out each day. They concretize your purpose, and provide inspiration, grounding, and motivation along the journey.

Some emotions present an extra challenge when we encounter them in environments that have been shaped by ideals of professionalism that often negate the necessity and wisdom of human emotional response... Becoming more aware of the presence of emotions is essential self-care, self-worth and communal equity work. Identifying your feelings, and recognizing how they can assist in navigating towards solutions positions you to better understand triggers and learn to manage and articulate them more effectively.

Assumptions are used for centering or grounding around the approach to the work of racial equity. They are an intentional call-out of the inherent biases that are present within all individuals who have been exposed to a white supremacist culture. They are all taken as facts, which are brought to light in order to further participants' abilities to show up fully, willing to not only see other's potential for growth, but their own.

Community agreements provide a common framework for how people should work together as they take part in transformational action. Developing community agreements is a powerful strategy for coalescing a group into a team.

Shared language refers to people developing understanding amongst themselves based on language (e.g. spoken, contextual) to help them communicate more effectively. Developing a shared language is an ongoing process that requires intention and time, and results in deeper understanding and more effective solutions.
*This protocol is most powerful and effective when used within an ongoing professional learning community and facilitated by skilled facilitators.

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Co-Authored by Neith Sankofa Since the tragic lynchings of Ahmaud Arberry, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and, most recently in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks, there has been a heightened awareness of racism and white supremacy, and its impact on the well-being of [...]

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An Antiracist Roadmap for Discussing Tough Topics in Our Classroom

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An Antiracist Roadmap for Discussing Tough Topics in Our Classroom

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Rann Miller, Edutopia

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

This long-term strategy for guiding conversations on topics like racism requires prep work to ensure that the classroom is truly inclusive of all students.

Stígur Már Karlsson / Heimsmyndir / iStock

Discussions about racism and how to proactively address it are happening among White educators, and that's a good thing. There's no perfect formula for becoming an antiracist teacher, but on the Damascus road toward antiracism, the first thing is to understand the terms racism and antiracism.

Dr. Ibram Kendi, founder of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University and author of the book How to Be an Antiracist, defines racism as the "marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities." Antiracism is the opposite-measures that eliminate racial inequity on the basis that racist policies are the cause of racial inequities.

For Kendi, you cannot identify yourself as "not racist" absent identifying yourself as an antiracist-being an antiracist is the only alternative to being a racist. Simply being neutral isn't enough for Kendi: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that "the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral during times of great moral conflict."

Exploring These Definitions in Action

With these terms defined, you can explore how racism plays out within society, the community where you live and work, and your school. Racism is designed to maintain White supremacy, which Dr. Crystal Fleming defines as the social, political and economic dominance of people socially defined as "White."

Some people define racism as something within a person's heart rather than policies and ideas that shape the experiences of racial groups, but Fleming says that White supremacy is maintained from one generation to another through socialization, the process through which our families, peer groups, and social environments shape our behaviors, beliefs, and identities. For Fleming, it's not what's in your heart that matters because we live in a racist society and racism is all around us.

Teachers seeking be antiracist can next explore the connections between how racism in society informs racism within their school and how racism within their school helps to maintain racism within communities-and how these things maintain White supremacy.

Exploring racism in real time to understand how it works is critical to the ability to speak on it. This only happens, however, when terms are clearly defined.

Is your method or philosophy of teaching student-centered-accounting for your students' strengths, needs, culture, and experiences, in addition to what they learn and how they learn it? Or is it teacher- or administrator-centered-focused only on students achieving benchmarks in a one-size-fits-all approach? Concern for what and how students learn is important, but a benchmark is incomplete when it is centered only on the display of a learned skill rather than on a display of the skill and its acquiring under an equitable set of circumstances. If you're not factoring in how a student's history of experiences and culture informs their classroom experience and performance, you're doing a disservice to the student.

Does your teaching utilize culture and community as a foundation for collaboratively building new knowledge, using core content knowledge for the purpose of building skills like critical thinking and problem solving in order to empower students and strengthen communities? Or is your teaching limited to lecturing, memorization, or reading aloud, whereby you talk and identify what students need to know and your students are to listen and obey? That may seem archaic, but I've seen teachers who continue to teach this way. Even if teachers use engaging techniques that make learning fun, education must involve a greater purpose rather than simply conveying information. Learning the game of basketball may be fun, but it is without purpose if I never play the game-we must likewise encourage students to see a purpose in their schoolwork.

Are you utilizing resources such as texts, artifacts, images, documents, and stories that are reflective of the racial and ethnic demographics of your classroom, school, community, and society at large in order to affirm the identity, history, and humanity of your students? Or are your resources limited to items that reflect a Eurocentric framing of intelligence, history, beauty, and humanity?

Assessing Your Classroom

Having defined key terms and examined them in action, the next step is to determine whether your classroom-instruction, assessment, content resources, and discipline management-is a racist or antiracist classroom. To determine that, you must ask yourself some key questions:

Establishing a Classroom Centered on Community

Organize desks in a circle and provide yourself a seat in that circle. This creates a community among your students and brings you in as part of that community.

Introduce debating rules and facilitate organized debates. This framing normalizes discourse procedure whereby procedure becomes culture.

Ask your students to address each other by their last name-Mr. Smith, Ms. Jones-and you do the same. This reminds all within your community that everyone is of value and worthy of respect. This was a norm of my classroom culture at all times, not just during debates.

Prime students for discussions with questions for which they must read and do research to get informed prior to the discussion, establishing that facts and evidence must inform interests and passion-driven opinions.

Never excommunicate anyone from the circle or community. Always reprove in love, then rectify or remedy the violation and restore the student. This establishes your community as one not of punishment but justice.

When I taught, I frequently engaged my students in conversations about racism, police brutality, and income inequality. I did this with students from grades 7 through 12. To do that, we established a community in which we established and protected our sacred space as one of shared ideas, transparency, intimacy, respect of truth and all voices.

For tough discussions, we would use these norms:

As I mentioned earlier, there's no perfect formula for becoming an antiracist teacher. Nevertheless, these action items are critical to becoming the person you hope to be and the teacher all students desperately need.

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An Antiracist Roadmap for Discussing Tough Topics in Class

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This long-term strategy for guiding conversations on topics like racism requires prep work to ensure that the classroom is truly inclusive of all students.

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Adaptive Schools

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Celebrating Multilingualism in International Schools | Global Take

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Preparing Staff for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives 

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Preparing Staff for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives 

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

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

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

Having Difficult Conversations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Curating Reputable Resources

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

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

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

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

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Preparing Staff for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives

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

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How Inclusive is Your Classroom Library Really?

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How Inclusive is Your Classroom Library Really?

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

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

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

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

I learned to assimilate.

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How inclusive is your curriculum?

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

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

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

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

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

How inclusive is your classroom library?

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

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

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

How inclusive are your mentor texts for writing?

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

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

How inclusive is your language?

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

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

How inclusive are your class discussions?

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

How do you scaffold class discussion to encourage courageous conversations?

How do you model inclusive thinking for your students?

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

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

How often do you discuss inclusive practices with your colleagues?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional resources:

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Tricia Ebarvia: How Inclusive Is Your Literacy Classroom Really?

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

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

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

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Dr. Towanda Harris

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Reading Recovery Council of North America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And here are three suggestions for action:

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

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

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

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

Related content:

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

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

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Educator Resources for Lesson Planning and Learning

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Educator Resources for Lesson Planning and Learning

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Facing History and Ourselves

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

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Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice 

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Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice 

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Alissa Alteri Shea, Edutopia

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

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

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

What is fairness?

What does it mean to work for justice?

What are the characteristics of a Justice Hero?

Age-Appropriate Ways to Teach the Concept of Injustice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abraham Lincoln: I Am Abraham Lincoln, by Brad Meltzer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice

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

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International School of Dakar

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Learning for Justice

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

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Toolkit for Creating a DEI Action Planning Team

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Toolkit for Creating a DEI Action Planning Team

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D. A. Williams

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Ideas for Teaching English Language Arts to Promote Diversity and Empathy 

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Ideas for Teaching English Language Arts to Promote Diversity and Empathy 

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Georgia Kostelecky

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

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Digging Deep into Social Justice Standards

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Digging Deep into Social Justice Standards

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Learning for Justice

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

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

Understanding Action

What Is Action?

Behavior, conduct, an act of will

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

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

Exploring Action

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

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

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

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

What counts as action?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What action are they taking against this injustice?

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

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

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

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

What are some reasons that prevent people from taking action?

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

Action Standards

Anchor Standards 16-20 of the Social Justice Standards

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scenario #1

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

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

Scenario #2

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

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

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

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

Essential Questions

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

Sixth Grade Science

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

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

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

High School Math

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

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

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

Additional Resources

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

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

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

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Digging Deep Into the Social Justice Standards: Action

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

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Bringing Black Lives Matter into the Classroom

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Bringing Black Lives Matter into the Classroom

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Jamilah Pitts, Learning for Justice

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

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

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

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

Elementary Applications

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Middle School Approach

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

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

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Bringing Black Lives Matter Into the Classroom | Part II

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

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High Quality Curriculum as a Transformational Tool for Equity

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High Quality Curriculum as a Transformational Tool for Equity

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ASCD

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Scott Hartl and Christina Riley

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

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

The Promise of Curriculum

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

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

Integrating Equity-Focused Social-Emotional Learning into Curriculum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Designing Curriculum with Mirrors, Windows, and Doors

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

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

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

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

Making High-Quality Curriculum Scalable and Accessible

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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High-Quality Curriculum as a Transformation Tool for Equity

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

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UNESCO

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University of Michigan

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Introduction

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

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

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Decolonizing Reading Instruction for Black Boys

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Decolonizing Reading Instruction for Black Boys

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Michael Lowe, ASCD

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Michael Lowe

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

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

Colonized Reading

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

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

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

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

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

Choose Texts That Enable and Engage

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

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

1. focus on the collective struggle of African Americans

2. promote a healthy psyche

3. reflect an awareness of the real world

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

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

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

Promote Brilliance

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on This Topic: Literacy as a Tool for Liberation

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

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Decolonize Reading Instruction for Black Boys

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

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

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Gholdy Muhammad

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Addressing Race and Racism Head-On in the Classroom

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Addressing Race and Racism Head-On in the Classroom

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Sarah Gonser, Edutopia

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Teaching students U.S. history authentically requires educators to delve into race and racism, invite "complexity and hidden narratives" into the conversation, and give students the tools to navigate and make sense of "the truths that are difficult to reconcile with the messages of freedom and democracy," writes Emily Boudreau for Usable Knowledge, a Harvard Graduate School of Education publication.

"What does it mean to be living on land taken from Indigenous people? How can a nation recognize that many of its institutions were built and made possible by the labor of enslaved people?" Boudreau writes, referencing an inclusive vision of history that asks us to acknowledge the contributions of women, Black, Latinx, Asian, and LGTBQ people, for example. "Because conversations around these hard histories can be challenging, educators need to know how to approach the subject in considered, developmentally appropriate ways."

As schools, and the country, become more diverse, a growing number of educators are working to expand K-12 curricula "to include the narratives of people from a wider range of racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds," writes journalist Holly Korbey. Greater inclusivity in history, she writes, allows young people to "see themselves in the story of our shared past, they not only develop a deeper appreciation of the subject, but become more civically active."

Here are four considerations, culled from Boudreau's article and from our Edutopia archives, for teaching and engaging with the complex narratives surrounding American history.

Feature Stories of Resistance and Resilience

Historical narratives should strike a balance between examining racism and discrimination but also highlighting "the resilience and resistance of communities throughout history," so they're instilling hope in young people, Boudreau writes, but also correcting the narrow, often cursory view of U.S. history that glosses over important figures of resistance like César Chávez, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the disability rights activist Ed Roberts, and Kwame Ture, born Stokely Carmichael. It's an effort that calls on educators to "teach a more accurate history that commonly goes untold: the role of grassroots activists and women, nuanced portraits of leaders like Parks and King, and racial and social justice battles that link the past to contemporary issues of inequality," writes Melinda D. Anderson, a journalist.

"It's imperative that teachers not reinforce a milquetoast version of Black history that is anti-Black because of its erasure of painful truths," writes Rann Miller, an after-school program director. As a student, Miller learned about Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass. "I heard very little of Malcolm X, the FBI's campaign against civil rights leaders, the Rainbow Coalition put together by the Black Panther Party's Fred Hampton, or Hampton's assassination. I learned about the struggles of my enslaved ancestors, but not about Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, or Nat Turner."

Examine Primary Sources

Textbooks tend to gloss over large swaths of history, "without going into much depth or bringing the voices of those who lived through those times to the surface," writes Boudreau. It's up to teachers to bring those voices into the classroom via primary source documents "that tell the story of an event using the words of the people who are described by the curriculum."

It's important, however, to make sure these materials are developmentally appropriate-teachers can "redact or edit them so students can understand and engage with the texts," Boudreau suggests-and to give kids opportunities to discuss and process "feelings that come up as they learn about these histories." One way to do this is to check in with students via an anonymous Google survey. "A teacher can then validate those emotions-some people might feel angry or sad-but giving students a chance to process the emotions that come up is essential for us to move forward as a country and acknowledge racism," says Adrienne Stang, a K-12 history and social studies coordinator for Cambridge Public Schools.

Meanwhile, the effort to find and work with primary documents presents a valuable opportunity to teach older students how to carefully vet resources-a foundational, critical thinking skill that involves understanding the cultural context and values from which primary sources spring, and determining the credibility of resources. In social studies, for example, "vetting resources is important not just because we want to ensure students are learning from accurate, verifiable materials," writes Paul Franz, an educational researcher and former middle school teacher. "It's important also because the ability to ask questions about sources, bias, and context are at the heart of social studies education and are essential skills for thriving in the modern world."

Make Sure Kids See Themselves in Your Classroom

Books and curriculum should "reflect the diversity of our world and identities of all students," in the classroom, writes Boudreau. In the early grades, check in with families and caregivers to gain an understanding of students' backgrounds, suggests Stang, and make sure kids have opportunities to learn not just about the identities of students in the classroom, but also about diverse cultures and backgrounds that aren't reflected in the room.

And while school and classroom budgets may be tight, even small changes-like sharing one book that references a child's experiences-can make a difference, says second- and third-grade teacher Natalya Gibbs, who hangs posters that reflect her students' identities and experiences such as family and home life structures and languages, and offers skin-toned crayons so her students "can see themselves in all aspects of their classroom." Her approach changes each school year, depending on the students in her classroom. "It's about 'Who is this class? What do they bring?' I'm growing my curriculum based on the community of children that I have each year, which means learning about my students and their cultures and making sure that they're represented."

Teach Hard Histories in Other Classes Too

It's not just the job of history teachers to take on the complex discussions around race and racism. "Including curriculum and sources that deal with both hard histories and narratives of resilience and agency is the job of every teacher, not just those in the history department," writes Boudreau.

In STEM classes, for example, writes scientist Ainissa Ramirez, author of The Alchemy of Us, which showcases little-known inventors, particularly people of color and women, it's critical to "inform [students] about the past." In doing so, educators not only "demystify scientific advancements by revealing their messy historical reality; we show students how science is actually conducted; and we have the opportunity to spotlight scientists who have been written out of history-and thus invite more students into the world of science."

In English class, make texts from authors who represent a spectrum of racial, cultural, and gender perspectives available, and emphasize the contributions of often marginalized people to American history-Bao Phi's A Different Pond, R.J. Palacio's Wonder, and Malinda Lo's Ash, to name a few. "Teach students about the Africanisms in American English when discussing or teaching grammar," writes Miller, who recalls reading Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare in English class, but never Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, or Toni Morrison. "Students should be introduced to texts by Black authors that speak to Black experiences, Black perspectives, and Black accomplishments. These authors remind children and adults that Black excellence is not confined to athletics and entertainment. How can we promote the academic excellence of Black children without introducing them to Black intellectuals-individuals they can see themselves someday becoming?"

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Addressing Race and Racism Head-On in the Classroom

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From featuring stories of resistance to making sure kids see themselves represented in the classroom, a few things to keep in mind when teaching American history.

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Matthew X. Joseph,
Edutopia

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Changes to curriculum and grading policies can go a long way toward helping a school level the playing field for all students.

For the first time in my 16-year-long career as a school administrator, I feel like we're finally starting to get to a place of actually having real conversations across the country about figuring out diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in education.

At the end of 2020, the Massachusetts chapter of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (MASCD) came together through a webinar to revisit the topic of racial equity in schools. Panelists included school leaders from our state and across the country. The lessons learned that day have shaped my actions regarding equity throughout this school year. I'm a 49-year-old White educator, and I understand my privilege in this system. However, no matter my role or background in education, I have to listen, learn, and grow. I want to share some of what I learned from that session to help other educators who are striving to provide students with a more equitable education.

We have to start by taking a whole-child approach. We must understand that our students' needs come before the curriculum or standards. We have to know our kids and where they're coming from-both where they live and their perspective. To do this, we have to move out of our comfort zones and into a place of discomfort to accept students however they show up to school. Having these conversations with students will allow them to get comfortable with the infinite possibilities of who they are and where they are in their educational journey.

It's hard for us to realize that some of the work we've been doing for a long time has helped only some students and not all students. What is more challenging is that sometimes we're not sure how to break that cycle. These strategies from our team will help you get started.

9 Ways to Increase Equity in Your Building

1. Hire an equity and diversity director. When a district has explicit leadership to champion equity and diversity, the initiative will come from a positional authority and have the follow-through needed to build momentum and long-term success.

2. Eliminate giving students a zero for late work. Allow students to turn in work late to earn a percentage of the points. Zeros or multiple zeros for late work are incurably damaging for students. We don't know students' situations or support at home. If the goal is learning, allow for flexibility when needed. Additionally, permit the students to redo an assignment. Again, if the goal is learning, why do we give them one shot and hold them to a low grade? This pattern leads to frustration and eventually giving up.

3. Remove prerequisites for honors and Advanced Placement classes. Having entry barriers eliminates many Black and Brown students from higher, more challenging courses. Judge students by potential, and use honors and AP as opportunities to identify kids who can make that educational leap. Take the time to speak with students individually. Interview them as a way to coach them up and say, "Listen, you can do this work." Our panel has seen firsthand where students who would not traditionally succeed in those courses excel with support, individual motivation, and encouragement.

4. Move toward standards-based grading. Moving to this practice will focus on learning and student growth rather than having the student identify with a number or letter. Fully understanding that colleges need student transcripts, we encourage standards-based grading whenever possible. This practice will level the playing field for students to focus on a journey of learning, not a final grade.

5. Increase staff training. Having in-house staff-led sessions will bring a passion and relevance to the training. If you don't have someone available for this, try bringing in educators from outside your school. You may want to start the year with a keynote on equity that gets followed up in faculty meetings.

6. Review hiring practices. Review the websites where you list district jobs and what college campuses you visit to recruit. If you're not getting candidates of color, change your recruitment and interview process. Additionally, look at how you screen résumés. Too often, we look at where someone went to college, not the individual. Hire talent wherever you can find it.

7. Disaggregate performance data. When we look at school and district data as an average, it may show that the school is on par or successful. However, look deeper at each student who is struggling. We cannot look at the whole picture of data without looking at the parts. Every student counts, no matter the standing of the school.

8. Review curriculum. Look at the curriculum to ensure that all students see themselves reflected in it. Updating the curriculum to mirror your current population will allow students to feel connected to it, increase learning opportunities, and increase content retention and engagement.

9. Involve students in the conversation. Take a look at your school/classroom culture to see if you're shutting down racial equity conversations in class. Ask yourself, "Is there space for kids to have these conversations?" Ask Black and Brown graduates about their school experiences and find out their views of the curriculum. Increasing student conversations is critical because the person doing the talking is the person doing the learning.

Increasing student talk around racial equity can be difficult for educators at first. Ensure that educators' strategies to participate in these conversations with students are part of the staff PD discussed above. Empowering educators to respond with "I hear you" will show that you value student voice. Our students need encouragement and comfort to support them during their educational journey.

I applaud so many teachers who have done the work. When we have crucial conversations like the MASCD event, the change happens.

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Changes to curriculum and grading policies can go a long way toward helping a school level the playing field for all students. For the first time in my 16-year-long career as a school administrator, I feel like we're finally starting to get to a place of actually having real conversations across the country about figuring out diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in education.

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Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Five principles to guide educators as they broach difficult topics in their classrooms - with students of all ages.

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How Culturally Responsive Lessons Teach Critical Thinking

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How Culturally Responsive Lessons Teach Critical Thinking

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Clint Smith

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How Culturally Responsive Lessons Teach Critical Thinking

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Rigor and cultural responsiveness are not mutually exclusive.

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Digging Deeper into Social Justice Standards: Action 

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Digging Deeper into Social Justice Standards: Action 

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Learning for Justice

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

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

Understanding Action

What Is Action?

Behavior, conduct, an act of will

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

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

Exploring Action

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

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

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

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

What counts as action?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What action are they taking against this injustice?

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

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

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

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

What are some reasons that prevent people from taking action?

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

Action Standards

Anchor Standards 16-20 of the Social Justice Standards

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scenario #1

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

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

Scenario #2

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

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

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

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

Essential Questions

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

Sixth Grade Science

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

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

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

High School Math

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

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

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

Additional Resources

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

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

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

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Digging Deep Into the Social Justice Standards: Action

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

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UWCSEA

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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Aligning our mission and strategy

The UWC mission is to use education as a force to secure a peaceful and sustainable future for all. Valuing diversity, building trust and understanding are core to our bold vision for education and require commitment from our entire community as we continually strive for positive and just action.

The UWCSEA Strategy 2018-2023 renewed our commitment to building a community which is intentionally inclusive and equitable, and makes clear the College's priority of intercultural understanding and inclusion through our Areas of Focus - Education as a Force; Peace and a Sustainable Future; and A United Community. In turn, there are systemic initiatives designed to promote diversity and build the College's capacity to make long-lasting and impactful change.

Almost 60 years ago, the UWC movement grew out of a desire to create future peace, an aspiration to bring culturally different people together to build the intercultural understanding necessary to avoid future conflicts. Our founder Kurt Hahn had witnessed conflict on a staggering and horrific scale in the destruction of World War 2. This vision has never been more relevant than now: the College has both an opportunity and responsibility to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion is uppermost in our thinking, planning and learning across all aspects of the College. We are committed to using our education as a force to help create greater social justice and to uphold basic rights within and beyond our community as a means to realise peace.

We recognise that as a College, we too, have an imperfect history and are on a journey to meet the aspirations captured in our founding mission. This is, and will continue to be, a collective effort across the College.

Implementing strands of our DEI strategy

Our more recent work under Action for Diversity has included promotion of gender equity, support of our LGBTQ+ community, creating greater access for learners who speak a language other than English as a home language, and deepening our organisational learning around systems of injustice.

In the 2018/2019 school year, we spent time listening to our community through Action for Diversity World Café events that brought day and boarding students, parents, teachers, administrative staff, leaders and Board members together to unpack what diversity means for our community. This was followed by a climate survey that invited students in Grades 6-12, parents, staff and alumni to share their thinking and priorities around DEI.

As a result of these actions, we were able to use the rich evidence gathered to develop a strategic action plan during the 2019/2020 school year. In that same year, the College also:

underwent a review of our values within the Values in Action project

began developing guiding statements around inclusion

developed internal capacity to lead unconscious bias training

began to understand the contribution that increased linguistic diversity would make to our community and examine ways in which we could become more inclusive for speakers of languages other than English

In the third term of the 2019/2020 school year, our focus turned to active anti-racist deliberations and actions, which we have continued in the 2020/2021 school year. This work involves all our stakeholders - staff, students, parents, leaders and alumni - to ensure we are inclusive in our behaviours, our practices, our policies and, in line with our mission, our education.

Committing to systemic change

While we are committed to transformational change within our work on diversity, equity and inclusion, this change is complex and requires a systemic approach. We are guided by our abiding commitment to cultivate a diverse, equitable and inclusive College environment where all are welcomed to be their authentic selves and to feel seen, valued, and heard. Given our commitment to systemic change, with targeted outcomes, our Action for Diversity work has necessarily evolved and adapted as we work to address important issues, and meet the needs of our community. Although this work has begun, we acknowledge that we have significant work still to do. We welcome the opportunity to work collaboratively within our community and to draw on the strength of our UWC network to embed inclusive policies, practices and behaviours in our work as an organisation.

Guided by our UWCSEA Strategy, our work within DEI has unfolded over the last three years, and most recently has been catalysed by the imperative of addressing the search for social justice. Over this period, we have instigated a number of initiatives - such as the World Cafés and the Values in Action consultation - which have served to highlight the need to focus on a shared approach to understanding and addressing unconscious bias and cultural competence. It is with this in mind that we have taken our anti racism DEI work forward this year.

While our current focus is on anti-racism, our commitment is to create a more inclusive College where all belong. We have approached our work by gathering data and seeking to understand better the diversity in our community, including but not limited to, data on:

Gender

Language and Linguistic Diversity

LGBTQ+

Race and Ethnicity

Culture

Differing abilities (neuro-diversity and physical ability)

Anti-racism at UWCSEA

UWCSEA unequivocally condemns all forms of racism, whether individual, structural, or systemic, and we acknowledge that even a mission-led organisation such as ours is not immune from racism. As we look towards the future, we are striving to be an anti-racist, equitable, and more inclusive organisation as we identify, challenge, and change the structures and behaviours that reinforce any form of systemic racism. Taking bold and deliberately anti-racist steps, we are critically examining our policies, processes, practices, and curricula through a diversity, equity and inclusion lens. We are challenging racism in both subtle and overt forms, including understanding of unconscious bias and microaggressions and increasing cultural intelligence. We are engaging our whole community - students, staff, parents, alumni and other stakeholders - so we are all better equipped to recognise, take ownership of the role we may play, and address bias and instances of injustice.

We also understand racism sometimes reveals itself to our community through unintentional behaviour, routines and norms and it is our deliberate intention to review any such systemic problems. We pledge to implement strategies which address racism and oppressive behaviours where these may be experienced in any way in our College.

By listening carefully to our students, alumni, parents, staff and other stakeholders, we will continue this work, which will be an ongoing project at the College.

Our strategic DEI initiatives

UWCSEA's DEI initiatives can be grouped in four specific areas of action, as outlined below:

Develop expected outcomes for DEI over the next five years, including:

Through the Office of the College President and in collaboration with UWC International Office hold ourselves to account to dismantle systemic racism within UWCSEA and more broadly within the UWC movement

Make explicit the connection and actions of the values and mission competencies to the vision for diversity, equity and inclusion at UWCSEA

Collect baseline data in our community to enable us to understand both the experience of marginalised groups and the impact of our efforts to become a more inclusive community over time

Partnerships will be an important part of our work, and the College looks to collaborate with organisations such as AIELOC, CIS, and the ISS Diversity Collaborative in understanding the systemic issues of bias, privilege, racism, sexism, homophobia, ablism and other forms of inequity that can be found in international school education, and addressing them in our context.

Action to date

In progress

An ongoing series of workshops and training on cultural competence, unconscious bias, anti-racism and anti-bias recruitment in the community and with specific groups

Development of a UWCSEA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) belief statement to be published internally and externally.

Development of DEI Guiding Statements and a shared lexicon to create a shared understanding of DEI language: this has been drafted and is in the final stages of being reviewed. This will include identification of key terminology and written definitions of terms such as diversity, equity, inclusion/inclusivity, affinity, privilege, discrimination, bias, microaggression and unconscious bias.

Recruitment process to address representational gaps, with baseline data from the initial 2020 staff survey being compared with recruitment data to provide insights over time

Reviewing our policies through an ARDEI lens

In line with our focus on creating deliberate diversity when recruiting our student community, we are currently reviewing our recruitment process and employee experience through a holistic lens to identify gaps and to make the process as equitable as we can in line with our mission, and to diminish and eventually eliminate potential bias.

As a result, the HR Recruitment team, together with hiring managers, was supported with unconscious bias training so as to refine recruiting and interviewing procedures as we worked to increase diversity in hiring. The first HR team member completed unconscious bias trainer certification through the Cultural Intelligence Centre in February 2020; two additional staff had to postpone due to the focus on immediate operational response required by COVID-19, but are allocated to complete the training in future. These staff will then share their learning with other hiring managers in the College.

Review of our staff recruitment process has included moves to diversify our staff recruitment pool so that staff at all levels, including senior leadership, reflect the rich diversity of global and local talent pools.

The College is employing other means to diversify its staff recruitment pool including:

creating a toolkit for hiring managers with specific DEI questions and self guided learning on recruitment bias

strengthen links to Singapore teacher training programmes, including acting as professional mentors to emerging Singapore teachers

elevating the visibility and voice of those coming from historically underrepresented identities, backgrounds, abilities and beliefs

gather and analyse data regarding the diversity of speakers and consultants to ensure we are partnering with all those with required expertise

create partnerships with organisations such as AIELOC, CIS, ISS Diversity Collaborative and Search Associates

The campus climate survey will collect data from our community (students, staff, parents) in relation to the inclusive nature of their experience at UWCSEA. This will be used to inform the strategic priorities for our future DEI work.

The survey is currently being designed by a sub-committee of the College ARDEI Task Force

To welcome all community members, our ambition is that all College and campus materials should reflect the diverse interests, needs and values of our community. School systems should include non-binary community members.

A review of College and campus-based marketing materials has been conducted to identify areas for greater diversity to be reflected eg website, brochures, posters

School systems now reflect non-gendered and non-binary identification options

Review communications with our community to ensure that they are inclusive; ideally including translations of key documents for both current and prospective community members.

Work on identifying key documents such as our Mission, Guiding Statements and other core community communications has begun, including internal processes to identify translators who are able to provide UWCSEA context-specific translations

We are gathering community data to identify core languages for the first phase of community-specific translations

Decolonising the curriculum will involve reviewing the written and taught curriculum through an DEI lens. This is led by the College Head of Curriculum and Research along with the Directors of Teaching and Learning on both campuses.

This work has started and will continue throughout this and the next school year

Develop a definition and rationale for the UWCSEA vision of an inclusive school. Present this work to the Board of Governors with all resource implications.

DLT and ELT Inclusion Workshop in May 2020 drafted a temporary position on inclusive education and student support. The College is currently undertaking feasibility studies to explore this further.

Further develop the bi- and multilingual and English as an Additional Language programmes aligned with our understanding of linguistic diversity and the importance of translanguaging practices in classrooms.

Linguistic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion review began October 2019

Parental Linguistic Diversity Survey conducted

Language Policy reviewed and agreed

Linguistic landscaping project, started in September and October 2020 to be implemented during the 2020/2021 school year

Our goal is to raise intercultural awareness among staff, students, and parents around bias, power, privilege, polarising behaviour, and micro-aggression through targeted learning, and professional and curriculum development.

Priorities around which we are organising our work in this area include:

identify a research based inventory tool to support leadership and staff in becoming aware of their own intercultural understanding. Examples being considered are Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and Cultural Intelligence Assessment (CQ)

increase staff capacity to embed intercultural learning and practice to ensure that the learning experience reflects the complexity and diversity of future workplaces

creation authentic opportunities for staff and students to understand the place of religion and spiritual growth in a secular education system.

Examples of action to date

unconscious bias training with administrative staff (June 2020 through June 2021)

curated anti-racist resources shared with staff (June 2020)

guided personal anti-racist learning shared with East teachers (June 2020)

ELT, DLT and Operational Leadership teams participated in a UWCSEA-designed two-day workshop 'Courageous First Steps' which covered topics: understanding bias, privilege and oppression as an anti-racist leader (August and November 2020)

Unconscious bias and micro-aggression professional learning in East Middle School (August 2020)

Information and opportunities for engagement for facilities and operations staff are being created, including printed material based on audience requirements and engagement in community. This will include accessible information that will introduce topics such as bias, prejudice and other key concepts in intercultural awareness.

Dover and East Parents' Associations hosted a face to face workshop on both Unconscious Bias and Cultural Intelligence to recruit parent volunteers who can run these workshops in multiple languages (December 2020)

Intercultural communication professional learning in Dover Middle School (December 2020)

Intercultural understanding professional learning in East Middle School (January 2021)

Cultural Intelligence training in Dover Primary School (January 2021)

Unconscious Bias training in Dover Primary School (February 2021)

Dover and East Parents' Associations online workshops in Cultural Intelligence and Unconscious Bias in languages other than English (February and March 2021)

campus-based ARDEI support is led by a subcommittee of the College ARDEI Task Force; there are regular meetings to support initiatives and answer questions from each campus

creation of a Human Library resource, a cross-campus initiative involving members of the College ARDEI Task Force, College Safeguarding Lead and our campus-based librarians is in the initial planning stages

How we organise our DEI work

Our collective goal is to work together to tackle injustice in all its forms. We strive to be the harmonious and respectful community our mission demands, one which is welcoming, inclusive and which celebrates diversity in all its cultural, ethnic, religious and gender expressions, and which values the experience of everyone. The focus of our DEI work is currently on antiracism, and the following groups are involved in this important work across the College. As explained below, groups across the College work together to guide our strategy, address issues and implement initiatives.

While much of their work is focused on antiracism, our work on unconscious bias and cultural competence, which we have prioritised as some of our first steps, will inevitably serve as a catalyst to address our broader DEI strategy.

In addition to these groups which are currently focused on antiracism, a number of student-led initiatives, and groups which include both parents and staff, work towards providing support and inclusion based on gender and LGBTQ+ identification and allyship.

This graphic shows the structure of UWCSEA groups who are focused on strategic work towards becoming an anti-racist organisation, which is aligned with the UWCSEA Strategy: Action for Diversity.

The Board has supported the College's response to calls from our alumni and current community to ensure that anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion are fully embedded in our school culture and manifested in our policies and daily behaviours. The College Anti-Racism DEI Task Force reports to the Board's new DEI Steering Group, creating a dialogue that will ensure deliberate action is taken to be anti-racist, to implement greater diversity in our community, and to ensure our culture is inclusive and never harms or segregates any individual or group.

Members

Madan Menon, Steering Group Chair, Chair UWCSEA Board of Governors

Sajjad Akhtar, Vice Chair, UWCSEA Board of Governors

Heather Carmichael, Chair of Education and Talent Committee, UWCSEA Board of Governors

Priti Devi, Chair of Engagement Committee, UWCSEA Board of Governors

Caroline McLaughlin, UWCSEA Board of Governors

Carma Elliot, College President

Nick Alchin, Head of East Campus

Cynthia Ding and Meena Chopra* (the East Parents' Association Co-Chairs share one role on this group)

Angel Wu, Dover Parents' Association Chair

Emmanuel Gezahegne Mitikie, UWC National Committee scholar

Roosmarijn Emmering, ARDEI Project Lead

Activity

Actions to date include undertaking unconscious bias and cultural competence training, supporting College procurement and identification of high-level specialist skills needs.

The Task Force explores current issues in a safe place, researches options with a view to initiating strategic change to counteract inequities across the College. The Task Force has a number of sub-committees which take responsibility for oversight of implementation of strategic initiatives as well as researching and presenting opportunities to the group.

Members

Activity

The ARDEI Task Force supports these College-wide initiatives through the work in the sub committees, as well as providing campus-based ARDEI support. There are regular meetings to support initiatives and answer questions from each campus.

The first three Task Force subcommittees and their work are:

1. DEI Community Climate Survey, mentioned above in 'Increase inclusivity' initiatives, is in the process of being finalised

2. DEI Staff Support Structure, whose recommendations will be presented to campus leadership

3. DEI Resource Curation, whose work can be seen in the resource lists linked below and on the staff portal

These are nearing completion and then we will begin another phase of sub-committee work.

Roosmarijn Emmering joined the Office of the College President on a 12 month contract from 24 August 2020 to facilitate the ARDEI work being undertaken across the College. Roosmarijn

The role of the ARDEI Project Lead is to work with the College Leadership Team and our DEI groups across the College to create insight into our current capacity and to identify opportunities for the College to increase awareness, understanding and engagement with our DEI agenda. This work includes facilitating opportunities to build diversity and inclusivity into our operations and education, including providing support as needed for work in the curriculum.

We are gathering understanding of our current status, and developing a road map for our future priorities, addressing any systemic issues. The ARDEI Project Lead works with our wider community on the roll out of our DEI vision and to create structures for accountability with clear milestones and goals.

As we work towards creating a safer internal environment the role of the ARDEI Project Lead may evolve as new priorities are identified for future work.

The Action for Diversity aspiration of the College Strategy arose from a desire to take our commitment to diversity into intentional and proactive action, focused on educational equity and inclusion.

The Dover and East Action for Diversity pods support this strategic work by acting as think tanks aligned with the College ARDEI Task Force. In this capacity, the Action for Diversity pods act as a coalition to support DEI ideas, principles, and learnings, as well as further intercultural understanding among individuals, groups, and at an organisational level.

In addition, the pods are designed to build organisational capacity so that UWCSEA may become a more equitable and inclusive school community.

Elizabeth Bray, Chair
Roosmarijn Emmering, ARDEI Project Lead
Members

Andrea Strachan

Andrew Ruane

Anisha Wilmink

Anna Hammonds

Anuradha Ruhil

Barry Daniels

Cynthia Cooper

Ellie Alchin

Gilles Collong

Gopika Jadeja

Hans Schellekens

Karen Balthazaar

Kurt Wittig

Louise Sanderson

Martha Harrington

Natalie Stevens

Nicholas Allison

Pamela Males

Rachel Fielding

Rebecca Butterworth

Shruti Tewari

Stephanie Clelland

Velia Goberna

Omar Henry

Erin Robinson, Co-Chair
Joy Haugen, Co-Chair
Roosmarijn Emmering, ARDEI Project Lead
Members

Stephanie Hepner

Naida Arrindell

Cathy Jones

Komal Daswani

Nadine Mains

Kathryn Powell Rachid

Jamee Guerra

Eivind Lodemel

Jabiz Raisdana

Paul Sharry

Philip Williams

Shilpa Patel

Patrick Renouf

Nisha Farah

Susan Allen

Liz Jackson

Allan Hoo

Zai Mohamed

Luke Haugen

Janine Larsen

James Shillabeer

Ruby Tan

Katherine Wallace

Natasha Hoff

Members

Pauline Markey, Primary School Principal, East

Rebecca Butterworth, High School Principal Dover

Manju Kohli, Director of Human Resources

Roosmarijn Emmering, ARDEI Project Lead

Joze Hutagaol, Talent Recruitment Lead

Hemantha Dissanayake, Director of Faculty Timetabling and Information Systems

Kate Woodford, Senior Marketing and Business Development Manager

Activity

External messaging: College website and UWCSEA content on other recruitment sites were reviewed for DEI messaging, and opportunities to better promote the College's intention were identified and actioned, including

draft DEI Statement on careers pages and all job ads: "UWCSEA is an equal opportunities employer, and welcomes applications from those who wish to join a community which is inclusive, and which celebrates diversity."

additional staff profiles have been seeded on key pages throughout the website (home page, careers pages, About Us, Community, Staff, Campus pages) providing visibility for staff from underrepresented groups

language in our job brochure template has been reviewed to be more inclusive

Candidate application form changes: the working group reviewed the application form with the Co-Chair of the Task Force to implement more inclusive recruitment practices:

multiple choice questions and text boxes have replaced the previous 10,000 word text box on our application form, which favoured first-language English speakers

to elicit relevant details from candidates with a more diverse experience, application form language was reviewed and amended eg. added a question on grade-level experience

demographic questions added to capture additional information with new biodata fields added for candidates, both demonstrates commitment to DEI and ability of College to track progress over time

Addressing unconscious bias in candidate screening

hiring managers no longer see biodata such as names, gender, marital status, passport country, dependents, etc at the point of candidate review (long listing) so as to remove unconscious bias in initial assessment process

concurrent unconscious bias and cultural competence training for many hiring managers throughout the organisation has created a two-fold approach to addressing this issue in recruitment

Outreach to attract greater diversity

A new hiring process has seen candidate sourcing channels expanded beyond traditional partners, as we renewed efforts to reach diverse networks.

Student-led Activity and Service groups have conducted a significant amount of student-focused activity in support of DEI awareness and understanding.

Facilitated by staff, these groups allow students to learn more, and to shape their actions both individually and as contributors to systemic change.

Engagement with parents is a key part of our DEI strategy. They are both key stakeholders and important partners in our work. In the past we have invited parents to participate in the World Cafés and the Values in Action consultations, and this school year we have continued to extend our partnership approaches.

In December 2020, the ARDEI Project lead hosted a face to face workshop on both Unconscious Bias and Cultural Intelligence in partnership with the Dover and East Parents' Associations, to recruit parent volunteers who can run these workshops in multiple languages.

UWCSEA engages with the UWC movement though a number of channels, including:

College President, Carma Elliot has regular involvement with UWC International through her role as a member of the UWC International Board, and as Chair of the International Board's Education Strategy Steering Group

Erin Robinson and Sajjad Akhtar, Vice Chair of the UWCSEA Board of Governors, were founding members of the (temporary) UWC ARDEI Think Tank which was created in response to an impassioned movement-wide call in summer 2020 for UWC to take action around anti-racism. The outcome of the UWC ARDEI Think Tank was the development of the first movement wide UWC Steering Group.

The UWC ARDEI Steering Group is being formed and will soon begin the important undertaking of strategically addressing ARDEI issues within UWC international and making recommendations to UWC governance. Erin Robinson will help to facilitate the UWC ARDEI Steering Group.

Resources to educate ourselves and others

Please explore the tabs below to discover some resources which we have found helpful in guiding our discovery and thinking as we shape our response.

A 'start here' list is then linked to a long list which, where we have an extensive list of resources to educate ourselves as individuals, and for educators to use to inform their practice as well as in their classroom. These are constantly being extended, and we would love to hear from you if you have any suggestions; please email us the details.

Our long list - additional resources

We have an extensive list of resources to continue to educate ourselves as individuals, and for educators to use to inform their practice, as well as to consider using in their classrooms. These are constantly being extended, and we would love to hear any further suggestions; please email us with the details.
explore our long list here

Contact Us

Please contact Roosmarijn Emmering, ARDEI Project Lead with any questions, observations, suggestions or feedback. We would be very happy to hear from you.
email

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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - UWCSEA | International school in Singapore

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The UWC mission is to use education as a force to secure a peaceful and sustainable future for all. Valuing diversity, building trust and understanding are core to our bold vision for education and require commitment from our entire community as we continually strive for positive and just action.

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7 Steps Toward Building Equitable School Culture

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7 Steps Toward Building Equitable School Culture

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Jessica Huang,
Edutopia
Thank you, Anna Santori (ISS) of The Diversity Collaborative

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7 Steps Toward Building an Equitable School Culture

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When schools are mindful and deliberate about creating an equitable culture, they are better prepared to support everyone in the building.

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Reimagining Education: To bring more Black educators into our schools, let’s focus on the prerequisites for recruitment

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Reimagining Education: To bring more Black educators into our schools, let’s focus on the prerequisites for recruitment

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Sharif El-Mekki,
Principal Project Blog

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Sharif El-Mekki is a former principal and the founder of the Center for Black Educator Development in Philadelphia, PA. This is part of our series on reimagining education.
I was a principal at Mastery Charter School-Shoemaker in Philadelphia for many years. We took to heart the concept of windows and mirrors, decorating our walls with images and quotes from Dr. King, Rosa Parks and Barack Obama. But we highlighted people from the community, too - Black people whose names students may not have known but whose work and scholarship our kids benefited from.

This is vital. Part of helping kids believe they can be successful is showing them that they can be successful, and there's no more impactful way to show them than by who's in front of the class. Because one of the answers to creating more equitable outcomes isn't elusive. It's not a mystery. One study found that Black students who had a Black teacher by third grade were 13% more likely to go to college. Two Black teachers? Kids were 32% more likely to go to college. And there's research that shows that diverse teachers lead to better outcomes for all students, not just students of color.

We need to make teaching more diverse. In my city, 49% of our students are Black, but only 24% of our teachers. Worse still, only 5% of Philadelphia teachers are Black men. We have to change this, in my community and yours. That need is what has led me to where I am today: in my first year working full time to grow the Center for Black Educator Development.

Look, there's no one answer to improving education. Simple solutions don't solve complex problems. But it would make a transformative impact for our students to have more teachers of color, and it's on us to realize this better future.

To realize this future, we need to focus on changing mindsets and changing the way we hire and support teachers. We can't rest on the assumption that because the adults in our schools love our students, our communities aren't touched by racial bias. If we can agree that American society is composed of a lot of institutions built on racial bias, then we should be able to let go of the naive notion that schools are different. Schools reflect the society that produced them.
Whatever your staff looks like, you can start now. Here's how:
We need to diversify, yes, but it won't happen overnight. We need to be more comprehensive.

I always say the best recruitment strategy is a strong retention strategy. Instead of focusing exclusively on trying to hire great educators of color, I want to reimagine what "recruitment" means - and shift our focus to prerequisites for retaining diverse teachers.

Build trust with teachers of color by asking, "What is your experience like, as a person of color in this school?" This might feel like a scary question. It feels safer to just assume that teachers of color trust their leadership and love their schools. It takes work to build trust, and it's hard to examine shortcomings.

Build an environment of collective accountability. The best leaders ask their team members to call them out - and they mean it. Seek to build a culture in which feedback is welcomed and flows in all directions.

Instead of sending out anonymous surveys, seek feedback directly from people whose voices might be marginalized. When you are a member of an underrepresented group, democracy can do you dirty sometimes. We have schools in which only one or two educators are Black or brown. If you rely on anonymous surveys for feedback, and that one Black teacher disagrees with the experiences of their white colleagues, their voice gets drowned out. The principal can stand up afterward and say, "99% of the staff agrees!" The Black teacher might be left sitting there thinking: My white colleagues may all agree, but this situation is racist. Instead of solely relying on those surveys, go seek out the voices of those who are underrepresented in your school. Have conversations. Invite input. Listen.

Include your staff members of color in recruitment. If you want to recruit more educators of color, but your recruitment team is all white, then how serious are your efforts? Think about leadership by the people: Are there teachers of color who you can free up for a class period so they can focus on recruitment? Keep in mind that, even unofficially, the best recruiters for people of color are going to be the people of color already in your school.

Make opportunities for teachers of color to build or find affinity spaces. For me, as a Black educator and as a Black school leader, connecting with fellow educators and leaders of color has often been a lifeline. As you plan meetings and PD schedules, ask yourself if there are opportunities to support affinity spaces for your team members - even if that means giving them time and support to connect with educators in other school communities.

Acknowledge that you are still growing. Educators of color are not looking for some perfect principal. We don't expect to find some magical school where racial bias never shows up. What we're looking for are environments in which people are trying. We want to work with leaders who can say, "Yes, we know there are things that we're doing wrong. We know that we may be complicit in this structural racism. We acknowledge that we have a lot of work to do and we're committed to doing it." That's the type of attitude that makes someone want to give a school a shot.

I know school leaders want to throw open the doors to teachers of color, and say, "Come, come, come!" - and we should do that. But our immediate concern should be making our communities welcoming and supportive to teachers of color.

These are not one-time efforts. We need to stay vigilant, and we need to identify and address the root causes of bias in ourselves and in our school communities. But this is work worth doing - for educators and for students.

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Reimagining Education: To bring more Black educators into our schools, let's focus on the prerequisites for recruitment

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Sharif El-Mekki is a former principal and the founder of the Center for Black Educator Development in Philadelphia, PA. This is part of our series on reimagining education. I was a principal at Mastery Charter School-Shoemaker in Philadelphia for many years. We took to heart the concept of window

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Considerations for Creating a Culturally Inclusive Environment in Schools

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Considerations for Creating a Culturally Inclusive Environment in Schools

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Kenya J. Washington

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Some institutions believe that if they hire faculty and staff from various parts of the world, this demonstrates their commitment to diversity. But what about those potential colleagues who are internationally minded but may have never worked overseas? They may have little to no international experience but do exemplify international mindedness.

When hiring, we can often fall into the idea that working in several international schools equates with being internationally minded, and therefore, makes such candidates natural contributors towards creating and maintaining a culturally inclusive environment. This, I would argue, is a falsehood.

As mindful educators, we understand the power of modeling attributes related to inclusivity and how we hope to see our students learn to do the same. These attributes or behaviors include looking for the missing voice or perspective and being self-reflective educators and leaders. On-going reflection and action towards further inclusion is essential as we look to create a culturally inclusive environment. But how do we create such an environment?

Here, I would like to consider the elements that make up a culturally inclusive education system, suggesting that it begins with individuals. What would it mean to move away from a checklist of items we can simply include in our schools and classroom space, shifting away from celebrating diversity with food, flags, and festivals? How powerful would it be to move towards systemically acknowledging who is in our schools, classrooms, hallways, and offices, and who among them sits at the table to help make important governing decisions?

Tone. Choice of words. Nonverbal communication. Intentionality.

I would suggest there are three areas educators and leadership might consider when building and seeking to maintain a culturally inclusive environment:

Engaging in ongoing self-reflection

As someone, like many of you, who works in an international school setting, I often find myself thinking about who I am in relation to my students, colleagues, and the families I support. It can sometimes be second nature to acknowledge our positive professional impact on the schools in which we work. Paradoxically, we can often shy away from that impact and acknowledgment when it comes to our cultural identities and personal narratives.

I would argue that our narratives are intertwined with the professional impact we have. Our identities carry weight in how we interact with and how we are perceived by our constituents. Consequently, our experiences factor into how we perceive and, in turn, deliver information, as educators and leaders. Your gender, race, socioeconomic status, languages spoken or linguistic ability, sexual orientation, religious/spiritual belief systems-just to name a few-help form perspective. When we truly acknowledge this, we can continuously engage in assembling the building blocks necessary for a most authentic experience of inclusivity that will be felt not only by us, but by our most important constituents: our students.

Think about how we show up in the classroom, at faculty/leadership/team meetings, department meetings, student events, or in the hallways. When it comes to curriculum-based decisions, do we think about the most salient concepts we want our students to understand as globally minded citizens?

In instances where we can have influence, we might want to consider how the curriculum is implemented. What about decisions that involve classroom management or discipline? In my current role, this often comes to mind, as a young woman of color, U.S.-born, English native speaker positioned to develop and implement policies around discipline and student life. For me, ongoing and purposeful reflection is key as I consider what fairness and equity look like to my constituents.

At times, I have dealt with disputes in which race or religion were at the heart of the conflict. I am reminded: it is crucial to be ever cognizant of the role I play in helping to resolve a dispute and of my position within an institutional power structure that I might represent in the eyes of the students involved. Let's not underestimate the current generation: students are cognizant of this.

Considering possible power dynamics

Whether we are teachers, teaching assistants, heads of department, or deans/year heads, it is helpful to think about our roles within the school's organizational structure, and how students understand themselves in relation to that structure. Here we can begin to think about our communication and leadership styles, and about the interplay between these approaches and our own cultural perspectives.

Managing nuanced communication with colleagues, families, and students is often seen as integral to our work as international school educators and leaders. Skilled and appropriate communication is considered as the "it" factor of successful leaders in this sector. Why is what we say and how we receive information relevant in our learning communities? When communicating or messaging, how might we reconsider our tone, choice of words, and non-verbal cues? Is our choice of words (i.e., the use of neutral language) creating a more inclusive feel? Do we at times subconsciously support points of view that heavily echo our own biased belief systems and ideals?

Owning our shortcomings and making the shift

It is often assumed that working in diverse settings naturally leads to the development of cultural competence and therefore decreases prejudicial behaviors and assumptions. This, however, is another unfounded belief (Pettigrew, Tropp, Wagner, & Christ 2011). Continuous work on understanding our own personal biases and intentionally shifting away from received thought patterns is required if we are truly committed to doing better.

Let's admit it: we all have biases! These biases are often harmful, causing us to engage in the unintentional stereotyping of our colleagues-or even our students-through the words we choose, or if we even choose to intervene when faced with students engaging in identity-based bullying. Because the intentionality of our actions, or lack thereof, may not be of malice, it is easy not to own the fact that we may have engaged in bias-related assumptions or inaction. This denial, therefore, can make it more difficult to make an intentional shift towards a more inclusive environment.

How do we consider messaging and the power of words as we make the shift towards further inclusivity? From self-reflection should come questions such as, "Why did I...?" and "What was the visible impact?" or "What impact might have gone unnoticed?"

Engaging in ongoing self-reflection and inventory work, considering one's cultural lens and the power dynamics at play, and making the intentional shift-this is the hard work. In taking it up, we ought to be closer to creating and maintaining a culturally inclusive experience for all.

Kenya J. Washington of the United Nations International School in New York City has over 15 years of secondary school experience in international education in the areas of student support services/counseling and administration and leadership.

https://www.usc.edu.au/connect/work-at-usc/staff/cultural-diversity/cultural-diversity-and-inclusive-practice-toolkit/culturally-inclusive-environment

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2019/04/19/build-culturally-inclusive-classroom/

Jean Haar and Jerry Robicheau, Mankato State University, MACTE Fall 2007 Conference

Presentation "Culturally Responsive Teaching: Key Principles and Practices," Dr. Ken Springer, professor of education and chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning at Southern Methodist University

Pettigrew, Tropp, Wagner, & Christ. April, 2011: Recent Advances in Intergroup Theory.

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Considerations for Creating a Culturally Inclusive Environment in Schools | The International Educator (TIE Online)

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Some institutions believe that if they hire faculty and staff from various parts of the world, this demonstrates their commitment to diversity. But what about those potential colleagues who are internationally minded but may have never worked overseas? They may have little to no international experience but do exemplify international mindedness.

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This looks to be a great resource and also has examples of artists from diverse backgrounds to help with issues of representation.

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Engaging children with artists who look like them, have similar experiences, and come from similar backgrounds is a great source of inspiration and empowerment. By reflecting their own identities, experiences and motivations (mirrors) and also providing insight into the identities, experiences and

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Thank you, Darnell Fine

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Skip to main content

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ACTION RESEARCH is a process in which participants examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research. Although there are many types of research that may be undertaken, action research specifically refers to a disciplined inquiry done by a teacher with the intent that the research will i nform and change his or her practices in the future.

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LibGuides: Pilot Spaces Action Research: What is Action Research?

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Skip to main content It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

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This seems worth exploring. Some good resources.

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EmbraceRace supports parents to raise children who are brave, informed and thoughtful about race. Join the movement!

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Black British History, The Black Curriculum

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Click here to read the report.

This report explores how the current History National Curriculum systematically omits the contribution of Black British history in favour of a dominant White, Eurocentric curriculum, one that fails to reflect our multi-ethnic and broadly diverse society. During this particularly factious time within our societal history, there is an integral need for a curriculum that redefines conceptions of 'Britishness'. This redefined curriculum must align to our values and identities, and be integral towards developing an inclusive classroom that establishes belonging and connectedness in its broadest sense.

To initiate this transition, this report makes a number of recommendations which are required within the education sector regarding the current History National Curriculum. These recommendations require policy, pedagogical and research intervention in attempting to broaden the current curricula available:

1. Diversify the History National Curriculum

2. Reconceptualise our understanding of Britishness

3. Diversify History teaching workforces

4. Widen the scope of Black History in the curriculum

Find out more about our work with schools and teachers here.

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Click here to read the report. This report explores how the current History National Curriculum systematically omits the contribution of Black British history in favour of a dominant White, Eurocentric curriculum, one that fails to reflect our multi-ethnic and broadly diverse society.

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Black & Smart

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Five resources that GOA staff and teachers have been sharing to help process current events with students. 

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Five resources that GOA staff and teachers have been sharing to help process current events with students. 

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Global Online Academy

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Resources for teachers on the days after the attach on the U.S. Capitol

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Resources for teachers on the days after the attach on the U.S. Capitol

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Beyond the Spotlight
*Huge thanks to Homa Tavangar!

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GV asked their 3rd grade students, "What questions do you have?" on 1/7/2021

We welcome this guest post from Dr. Alyssa Hadley-Dunn, Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Michigan State University and founder of Teaching on the Days After: Dialogue & Resources for Educating Toward Justice

For educators, I am going to share some resources/ideas for use in your classrooms tomorrow. A reminder about everything that I share here: There is no one easy answer. Not everything works for every student or every teacher or in every classroom. I am not an expert in your classroom or your students (or an expert in anything, actually!). This is not a conversation that needs to or should be relegated to only Social Studies and English Language Arts classrooms.

Please note:

(1) These suggestions are not saying you MUST "teach" about what happened on 1/6/2021 (or any "day after" event or injustice). Days After Pedagogy doesn't mean turning trauma into a standard or a benchmarked lesson. But if you're going to TALK about it, do so with intention, care, and an explicit commitment to justice and equity.

(2) Do not do this if you are going to cause more harm or trauma. Do not center images of Black suffering and pain as a way to make this a "teachable" moment. White teachers, this means you/us.

(3) And please, remember that this is not about a one-off lesson. Days After Pedagogy only works if you've been teaching for justice on Days Before and Days During.

Note to Black teachers: I hope that you have time and space to care for yourselves, as you support your students. I hope that you have white colleagues who are talking about this, too, so you do not have to be the only one. I hope that you can find co-conspirators in your schools (or here).

Note to White teachers of white students: You HAVE to talk about what is happening. This is on us, every time and all the time. We cannot pretend to be surprised anymore. We have to do what we said we were going to do all summer when we were reading those anti-racist books and completing those anti-racism checklists. Our white students are not 'too young' to learn about this.

Note to White teachers of students of color, especially Black students: Please make sure you know what you are doing before you do it. Please make sure you know how to support your Black students and other students of color if you try to have these conversations. Make sure you to do not do more harm by entering into these conversations without careful thought and planning. Ideas/resources/links in comments on Facebook will be updated throughout the evening on our educator's group: Teaching on Days After: Dialogue & Resources for Educating Toward Justice..

TIPS & Resources

USING ZOOM: Breakout rooms can work to your advantage here. Especially if you are teaching students of color, create multiple breakout rooms for students based on what they want to and feel capable of talking about: (1) For students who do not want to discuss it right now and want to work independently on 'regular' class content; (2) For students who want to process with a partner; (3) For students who have many questions and want to process with you.

NAMING THE TRUTH: Think about the language that the media is using, especially when this first started happening. What does this language mean? What does it reveal and what does it obscure? (Hint: Racism.) For example: "protestors" versus "terrorists," "protest" versus "attack" or "coup."

ANALYZING IMAGES: There are many images being shared, including some of the Confederate flag in the Capitol building, of someone stealing a Podium, people hanging from the Capitol walls. What do these images tell us? What do they (attempt to) obscure? (Hint: Racism.)

WRITING: If you have students who might better process their thoughts through writing and/or you want to use writing as an intro activity, here are some potential prompts: What do you think happened yesterday? What do you know? What questions do you have? How would you like to process this as a community? If you are doing this virtually, you could have students work in individual or shared Google docs or other apps.

COMPARING A POLICE RESPONSE: There are many Tweets and stories that are being shared that compare images of response to BLM protests and today's terrorist action. You could use these images to ask students to compare what they think is happening and why it is happening. (Hint: Racism, white supremacy, white rage)

PUSH BACK AGAINST NEUTRALITY: Remember that it will do more harm to teach "both sides." This is not about both sides. This is about justice. This is a quotation from Tayari Jones that I like to use as a way to think about the "two sides" debate: "The middle is a point equidistant from two poles. That's it. There is nothing inherently virtuous about being neither here nor there. Buried in this is a false equivalency of ideas, what you might call the "good people on both sides" phenomenon. When we revisit our shameful past, ask yourself, Where was the middle? Rather than chattel slavery, perhaps we could agree on a nice program of indentured servitude? Instead of subjecting Japanese-American citizens to indefinite detention during WWII, what if we had agreed to give them actual sentences and perhaps provided a receipt for them to reclaim their things when they were released? What is halfway between moral and immoral?" -Tayari Jones, from " There's nothing virtuous about finding common ground ", Time Magazine, 2018

ESTABLISH DIALOGUE NORMS: Check out slides 26-28 in this presentation I do about "teaching on days after." These are some examples of dialogue norms you could discuss and use with your students.

LEARN AND PRACTICE INTERRUPTOR PHRASES: I don't actually think the classroom SHOULD be safe for all viewpoints. I am not going to debate another person's right to exist. I am not going to debate another person's humanity. These phrases can support strategies for harm reduction even if the absence of a completely "safe" space. Check out slide 31 here for some interruptor phrases to use if you need them:

ENGAGE IN A PEDAGOGY OF POLITICAL TRAUMA: If you are teaching Black students or other students of color, it will be especially important to find multiple ways to support them in this moment. C heck out slides 18-23 in this presentation for descriptions of what teachers have done in moments of political trauma. Some of this was in response to the 2016 election, research done with colleagues Hannah Carson Baggett and Beth Sondel and some is research done for the book that I'm writing right now on all types of days after.

NOTICE AND WONDER: Two great questions to get students thinking/talking (at any age, any grade level, any content) is to start with: What do you notice? What do you wonder? For example, using two paired texts of photos, one of police on the Capitol steps during the summer's BLM protests compared to a photo of terrorist in Nancy Pelosi's office, unguarded... What do you notice about each photo? What do you wonder?

60 SECOND TEXT: For teachers of the youngest learners, this is a great " 60 Second Text " from the wonderful Woke Kindergarten.

REMEMBER THIS IS NOT A SURPRISE: White teachers, do not be the teachers/people who are "surprised" by what is happening. Do not let your students be the students/people who are surprised by what is happening. Contextualize this within a historical lens of whiteness, white supremacy, settler colonialism... A great book to think through extended plans for historically and culturally relevant critical teaching is Dr. Gholdy Muhammad's Cultivating Genius. It is not just for literacy teachers!

EXPLORE TRUE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: Despite what some are saying, what we are seeing at the Capitol is not "civil disobedience." Here are some lessons from Teaching Tolerance about ACTUAL civil disobedience.

CONSIDER/SHARE MEDIA FROM OUTSIDE THE U.S.: Think about how other countries' media are covering these events. Find headlines and translations from major newspapers and consider what it means that the coverage is so different (as it will likely be).

USE MULTIPLE SOURCES: Remember that the news is emerging. Ask questions to help students process the events, perspectives, and biases. This document allows students to ask and track the questions they have as the news unfolds.

ALLOW FOR A VARIETY OF EXPERIENCES: Sara K. Ahmed from Being the Change uses google slides to invite students to share their news, how it relates to their identity, and what actions they might take.

About the Author

Dr. Alyssa Hadley Dunn's research centers on urban teacher education and support and the sociocultural and political contexts of urban schools, with a focus on issues of race, justice, and equity. A former high school English teacher, at present, Dr. Dunn is working on a book about how teachers make pedagogical decisions on "days after" major events, tragedies, or instances of injustice. (Check out the related Facebook page for educators here.)

A committed public scholar, Dr. Dunn's work has been featured on The Huffington Post, CNN, and National Public Radio, as well on education blogs and podcasts. In addition to publishing in journals such as the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Journal of Teacher Education, Urban Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education, she is the author of " Teachers Without Borders? The Hidden Consequences of International Teachers in U.S. Schools" (Teachers College Press, 2013) and " Urban Teaching in America: Theory, Research, and Practice in K-12 Schools" (Sage Publishers, 2011). She is also Senior Associate Editor of the journal Multicultural Perspectives.

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Resources for teachers on the days after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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GV asked their 3rd grade students, "What questions do you have?" on 1/7/2021 We welcome this guest post from Dr. Alyssa Hadley-Dunn, Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Michigan State University and founder of Teaching on the Days After: Dialogue & Resources for Educating Toward Justice For educators, I am going to share some resources/ideas...

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How to engage students in civil discourse following the events at the US Capitol 

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How to engage students in civil discourse following the events at the US Capitol 

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PBS with sincere gratitude to Dr. Dana Watts!

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How to engage students in civil discourse following events at the U.S. Capitol

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis
In this resource, teacher David Cutler of Brimmer and May School in Mass. shares three civic actions educators can take with their students in light of Wednesday's events at the U.S. Capitol building. Directions: Read the NewsHour summary (watch this 8-minute video which recaps the events) and discuss the meaning of civic engagement and the importance of civil discourse with your students.
Summary of Wednesday's events from NewsHour:

A mob of violent pro-Trump protesters overwhelmed security at the U.S. Capitol and broke into the building on Wednesday, halting proceedings where Congress was poised to count the votes cast by the Electoral College. The mob opposed President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election.

Some Republicans in both chambers declared that they would object to the counting of some states where President Donald Trump lost his closest races to Biden. But before insurrectionists entered the building, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a rebuke to the idea that Congress could or should attempt to overthrow the election.

Earlier, Trump spoke at a rally where he urged supporters to march to the Capitol to demand that the results be overthrown. After rioters forcefully entered the building, he tweeted a recorded message telling people to "go home now," while repeating false claims about the election.

The votes for President-Elect Biden were formally counted in the early hours of January 7, marking the last step in Biden's election win before his inauguration on January 20.
From teacher David Cutler: Why is it important to encourage students to think about how to engage in civil political discourse?
Here are some ideas to get started:
1. Encourage students to speak with political leaders
Weeks before Wednesday's lawless spectacle at the Capitol, I assigned my juniors and seniors in government to share ideas on how to bring polarized sides to the discussion table. Students wrote papers, created podcasts, slideshows and cartoons. My student Alex Boch interviewed Mass. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, a popular governor in a heavily Democratic state.
PODCAST: Student chats with Gov. Charlie Baker about how to foster productive political discourse, and how to tackle fake news 2. Encourage students to share voices online
Another student, Karly Hamilton, who serves as editor-in-chief of our school newspaper, wrote a powerful opinion article about how to embrace civility.

"Instead of butting heads to prove which perspective is supposedly 'right,' we need to learn how to appropriately engage with others. In an academic environment, much of that involves responding to alternative viewpoints with respectful inquiries instead of forceful statements," Hamilton wrote.

More than anything, just let students know that you are there for them and that you care. That way, you can't go wrong.

The Gator also published an , expressing similar sentiments. "In a particularly draining year, it is imperative that we, the Brimmer community, keep our wits about us as we await the announcement of our next President," the editors write. "If we lead by example and treat others with respect and kindness-as our Core Values suggest-we will be able to engage in civil and informative discourse."

Karly and I ended up writing an , "Teaching government amid false claims of voter fraud," for NewsHour EXTRA's Educator Voice column, which I highly recommend.
3. Bring in Academics, Authors to Discuss History and Politics
After the pandemic hit last spring, I didn't shy from contacting historians and authors more knowledgeable than myself to address students. My history students also had the chance to discuss the past with Pulitzer Prize-wining author Eric Foner and Senior National Security Archive Analyst Peter Kornbluh.
PODCAST: Historian Eric Foner Zooms with Students
Later this week, I plan to reach out to both authors one more time to help provide my students with context for what's happening in their world today.

You would be surprised how willing academics are to speak with young people, and how easy they are to contact. Along these lines, try Googling where academics work or teach to find an email address. I have also found success reaching out on social media, especially Twitter.

More than anything, just let students know that you are there for them and that you care. That way, you can't go wrong.
For NewsHour EXTRA's lesson plan on Wednesday's insurrection at the Capitol, click here . If you would like to contribute to Educator Voice blog, please send your idea to Vic Pasquantonio at vpasquantonio@newshour.org.
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How to engage students in civil discourse following events at the U.S. Capitol | PBS NewsHour Extra

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Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis In this resource, teacher David Cutler of Brimmer and May School in Mass. shares three civic actions educators can take with their students in light of Wednesday's events at the U.S.

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Responding to the Insurrection at the US Capitol 

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Responding to the Insurrection at the US Capitol 

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Facing History and Ourselves
*Thank you, Dr. Dana Watts!

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Responding to the Insurrection at the US Capitol

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This Teaching Idea is designed to help guide an initial classroom reflection on the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.

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Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations

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Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations

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United Nations

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Indigenous Peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Despite their cultural differences, Indigenous Peoples from around the world share common problems related to the protection of their rights as distinct peoples.

Indigenous Peoples have sought recognition of their identities, way of life and their right to traditional lands, territories and natural resources for years, yet throughout history, their rights have always been violated. Indigenous Peoples today, are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of people in the world. The international community now recognizes that special measures are required to protect their rights and maintain their distinct cultures and way of life. Find below a short history of the Indigenous struggle in the international stage.

1923-25: First International Involvement

In 1923, Haudenosaunee Chief Deskaheh traveled to Geneva to speak to the League of Nations and defend the right of his people to live under their own laws, on their own land, and under their own faith. Even though he was not allowed to speak and returned home in 1925, his vision nourished the generations that followed.

A similar journey was made by Maori religious leader T.W. Ratana. To protest the breaking of the Treaty of Waitangi concluded with the Maori in New Zealand in 1840 that gave Maori ownership of their lands, Ratana first traveled to London with a large delegation first to petition King George, but he was denied access. He then sent part of his delegation to Geneva to the League of Nations and arrived there later himself, in 1925, but was also denied access.

1981: Martínez Cobo Study

In the history of Indigenous issues at the United Nations, there is considerable thinking and debate on the definition of "Indigenous Peoples", but no such definition has ever been adopted by any UN-system body. One of the most cited descriptions of the concept of the indigenous peoples was given by Jose R. Martinez Cobo, the Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, in his famous Study on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations.

The study offered a working definition of "Indigenous communities, peoples and nations". In doing so he expressed a number of basic ideas to provide the intellectual framework for this effort, which included the right of Indigenous Peoples themselves to define what and who is Indigenous. The working definition reads as follows:

"Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions, and legal system.

This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present of one or more of the following factors:

1. Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them;

2. Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands;

3. Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an Indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.);

4. Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language);

5. Residence on certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world;

6. Other relevant factors.

On an individual basis, an Indigenous person is one who belongs to these Indigenous populations through self-identification as Indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized and accepted by these populations as one of its members (acceptance by the group). This preserves for these communities the sovereign right and power to decide who belongs to them, without external interference."

For more information on the concept of Indigenous Peoples click here

For more information on the Martínez Cobo study click here

1982: Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP)

In 1982 the Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) was established as a subsidiary organ to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. The Working Group provided an opportunity for Indigenous Peoples to share their experiences and raise their concerns at the UN.

As a subsidiary organ of the Sub-Commission, the Working Group was located at the lowest level of the hierarchy of UN human rights bodies. Its recommendations had to be considered and accepted first by its superior body, the Sub-Commission, then by the Commission on Human Rights and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) before reaching the General Assembly.

Following the reform, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 6/16 to request the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to convene an informal meeting to discuss the most appropriate mechanisms to continue the work of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations. The Informal meeting took place in Geneva on 6 and 7 December 2007. As a follow-up to the informal meeting, the Indigenous caucus and a number of governments continued informal negotiations to finalize a draft resolution to submit to the Human Rights Council. On December 14, 2007 draft resolution A/HRC/6/L.42 (HRC Resolution 6/36) was adopted establishing the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP).

As a result, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations met for the last time in July 2007.

For more information on the Working Group click here

For more information on the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples click here

1989: International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169

The ILO has been engaged with Indigenous and tribal Peoples' issues since the 1920s. It is responsible for the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), the only international treaty open for ratification that deals exclusively with the rights of these peoples. The ILO's Decent Work Agenda, with gender equality and non-discrimination as a cross-cutting concern, serves as a framework for Indigenous and tribal peoples' empowerment. Access to decent work enables Indigenous women and men to harness their potential as change agents in poverty reduction, sustainable development, and climate change action.

For more information click here

1993: International Year of the World's Indigenous People

In 1993, trough resolution A/RES/47/75 the UN General Assembly proclaimed the International Year of the World's Indigenous People with the aim to encourage a new relationship between States and Indigenous Peoples, and between the international community and Indigenous Peoples - a new partnership based on mutual respect and understanding.

The year was requested by Indigenous organizations and is the result of their efforts to secure their cultural integrity and rights into the twenty-first century. To assist with the Year's programmes and activities, and to foster educational and cultural events, the UN Secretary-General opened the Voluntary Fund to which Governments were invited to contribute.

1994: International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples

In 1994, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolutions A/RES/48/163 and launched the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples (1995-2004) to increase the United Nations' commitment to promoting and protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. As part of the Decade, several UN specialized agencies worked with Indigenous Peoples to design and implement projects on health, education, housing, employment, development, and the environment to promote the protection of indigenous peoples and their traditional customs, values, and practices.

2000: Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was established in July 2000 as an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council, with a mandate to discuss Indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health, and human rights. The Forum is made up of 16 members acting in an individual capacity as independent experts on Indigenous issues. Eight of the members are nominated by governments and eight by the President of ECOSOC, on the basis of broad consultation with Indigenous groups.

The Permanent Forum has a mandate to:

Provide expert advice and recommendations on Indigenous issues to the Council, as well as to programmes, funds and agencies of the United Nations, through the Council

Raise awareness and promote the integration and coordination of activities related to Indigenous issues within the UN system

Prepare and disseminate information on Indigenous issues

The Permanent Forum holds two-week sessions once a year, usually in May, in which Indigenous Peoples organizations, States, UN bodies and organs, inter-governmental organizations and NGOs - that have consultative status with the ECOSOC -participate as observers. The first meeting of the Permanent Forum was held in New York in May 2002.

For more information click here

2001: Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

In recent decades, the international community has given special attention to the human rights situations of Indigenous Peoples. In this context, the Commission on Human Rights decided to appoint in 2001 a Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as part of the system of thematic Special Procedures. The Special Rapporteur's mandate was renewed by the Commission on Human Rights in 2004, and by the Human Rights Council in 2007.

In the fulfillment of her mandate, the Special Rapporteur:

Promotes good practices, including new laws, government programs, and constructive agreements between Indigenous Peoples and states, to implement international standards concerning the rights of Indigenous Peoples;

Reports on the overall human rights situations of Indigenous Peoples in selected countries;

Addresses specific cases of alleged violations of the rights of Indigenous Peoples through communications with Governments and others;

Conducts or contributes to thematic studies on topics of special importance regarding the promotion and protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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2005: Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples

The Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (2005-2015) was proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 59/174 and the Programme of Action was adopted by General Assembly resolution 60/142 and is contained in document A/60/270. The goal of the Decade is the further strengthening of international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by Indigenous Peoples in such areas as culture, education, health, human rights, the environment, and social and economic development, by means of action-oriented programs and specific projects, increased technical assistance and relevant standard-setting activities. The second decade concluded in December 2015.
The five objectives of the Decade were:

1. Promoting non-discrimination and inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in the design, implementation, and evaluation of international, regional and national processes regarding laws, policies, resources, programs, and projects;

2. Promoting full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples in decisions that directly or indirectly affect their lifestyles, traditional lands, and territories, their cultural integrity as Indigenous peoples with collective rights or any other aspect of their lives, considering the principle of free, prior and informed consent.

3. Re-defining development policies that depart from a vision of equity and that are culturally appropriate, including respect for cultural and linguistic diversity of Indigenous Peoples.

4. Adopting targeted policies, programs, projects and budgets for the development of Indigenous Peoples, including concrete benchmarks, and particular emphasis on Indigenous women, children, and youth;

5. Developing strong monitoring mechanisms and enhancing accountability at the international, regional and particularly the national level, regarding the implementation of legal, policy and operational frameworks for the protection of Indigenous Peoples and the improvement of their lives.

Trust Fund for the Second Decade
The Trust Fund for the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples was established to promote, support and implement the objectives of the Decade. The Fund gave priority to projects concerning the main areas of the Second Decade: culture, education, health, human rights, the environment, and social and economic development. The Advisory Group for the small grants programme of the Fund in May 2011, recommended the preparation of an Evaluation of the small grants programme on the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People under the Trust Fund on Indigenous Issues ( E/C.19/2013/21).

The Fund was mainly used for providing small grants to projects that Indigenous organizations or organizations working for Indigenous Peoples applied for funding with a budget for up to US$ 10,000 covering one year's expenses.

From 2006 to 2014, the Trust Fund awarded grants to a total of 151 projects with a predominance of projects in Asia, Africa, and Central and East Europe and the Caucasus. Due to limited resources, the Trust Fund had, however, only been able to grant funds to 151 out of a total of 4110 project proposals submitted.

The projects funded have mostly covered the area of human rights (38%) and social and economic development (23%), with 32% focusing specifically on women and 31% on youth - a continually increasing trend. Also, of the funded projects, 57% provided an important opportunity for Indigenous Peoples to engage directly in dialogue with States.

The projects have mainly been implemented with a local focus (76%), with a majority in the rural areas (66%).

To see the list of projects selected for funding click here

Final Report of the Second Decade
The final report on the achievement of the goal and objectives of the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People follows a midterm assessment in 2010 and an assessment in 2012. It provides examples of current efforts to achieve the objectives of the Programme of Action for the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People. One of the major highlights of the Second Decade was the adoption, in 2007, of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The report also provides an analysis of the impact of the Second Decade on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. While there has been some progress in achieving the goals of the Second Decade, a substantial gap remains between the formal recognition of Indigenous Peoples and the implementation of policies on the ground. The post-2015 development agenda and the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly, to be known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, afford an opportunity to make indigenous peoples part of the solution and to build a life of dignity, equity, and hope for all.

Indigenous Peoples have also participated in major world conferences, such as the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, and the 1996 Social Summit. Indigenous Peoples also were prominent in the 2001 World Conference against Racism, which was held in Durban, South Africa.

2007: Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP)

The Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) was established by the UN Human Rights Council, in 2007 under Resolution 6/36 as a subsidiary body of the Council. The Expert Mechanism provides the Human Rights Council with thematic advice, in the form of studies and research, on the rights of Indigenous Peoples as directed by the Council. The Expert Mechanism may also suggest proposals to the Council for its consideration and approval.

The Expert Mechanism is made up of five independent experts on the rights of Indigenous Peoples which are appointed by the Human Rights Council. The Expert Mechanism holds an annual session, usually in July, in which representatives from States, indigenous peoples, indigenous peoples' organizations, civil society, inter-governmental organizations, and academia take part. The Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and a member of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues are invited to attend the annual session of the Expert Mechanism to enhance coordination and cooperation between these Indigenous mechanisms.

Funding for representatives of Indigenous communities and organizations to attend the Expert Mechanism can be sought from the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations .

For more information on EMRIP click here

2007: UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday, September 13, 2007. The Declaration is the most comprehensive statement of the rights of Indigenous Peoples ever developed, giving prominence to collective rights to a degree unprecedented in international human rights law. The adoption of this instrument is the clearest indication yet that the international community is committing itself to the protection of the individual and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Declaration is a culmination of over twenty years of work, that began in earnest at the Working Group which began the drafting of the declaration in 1985. The first draft was completed in 1993, and in 1995, the Commission on Human Rights set up its own working group to review the draft adopted by the human rights experts of the Working Group and the Sub-Commission. More than 100 Indigenous organizations participated in the Working Group of the Commission annually.

In addition to participating in large numbers in the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and other meetings, Indigenous peoples are also becoming more prominent as individual players on the world stage.

2014: World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP)

The first World Conference on Indigenous Peoples was held on 22-23 September 2014. The meeting was an opportunity to share perspectives and best practices on the realization of the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including pursuing the objectives of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

For more information click here

2019: International Year of Indigenous Languages

Indigenous languages matter for social, economic and political development, peaceful coexistence and reconciliation in our societies. Yet many of them are in danger of disappearing.

Since its inception, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has continuously expressed concern for threatened Indigenous languages and has been formulating and advocating policies to overcome the critical situation they face.

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs organized two expert group meetings (see E/C.19/2008/3 and E/C.19/2016/10) in response to recommendations of the Forum. The meeting reports describe the dire situation of Indigenous languages today and call upon Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations system and States to take action to avoid further deterioration and provide support to preserve languages in danger of extinction.

The Forum endorsed the recommendation emanating from the expert group meeting in 2016 for the proclamation by the General Assembly of an international year to draw attention to the urgent need to protect Indigenous languages.

On that basis, the General Assembly, in its 2016 resolution 71/178, proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages and invited the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to serve as the United Nations lead agency for the Year. In the resolution, the General Assembly highlighted the need to draw attention to the critical loss of Indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote Indigenous languages and to take further urgent steps at the national and international levels.

More information click here

2020: A Call to Action on Building an Inclusive, Sustainable and Resilient Future with Indigenous Peoples

In November 2020, the fifth anniversary of the SWAP-Indigenous Peoples, the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) took the opportunity to revitalize the action plan and strengthen collective and coherent UN system efforts by endorsing a call to action on building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future with Indigenous Peoples.

The call to action was developed through the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues and and approved by the High-level Committee on Programmes. The call to action affirms the Executive Heads' commitment to supporting Member States in the promotion, protection and realization of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and redoubling efforts to ensure collaborative and coherent United Nations system action to support the rights and well-being of Indigenous Peoples.

For more information click here.

2022: International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL)

Members States and the United Nations system, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recommended the General Assembly to proclaim an International Decade on Indigenous Languages in 2019 ( see E/C.19/2019/10, para 22). As recommended by the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the UN General Assembly proclaimed in 2019 through Resolution A/RES/74/396 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032).

The Permanent Forum believes that the International Decade provides a unique opportunity for creating sustainable changes in complex social dynamics for the preservation, revitalization and promotion of Indigenous languages.

The Permanent Forum welcomed the establishment of a Global Task Force for the International Decade. The Global Task Force will provide strategic direction and oversight in preparing, planning, implementing and monitoring progress made towards attaining the objectives established on the Global Action Plan for the Decade. Three members of the Permanent Forum are part of the Global Task Force, one in the Steering Committee and two in the Advisory Group.

The Forum believes that to achieve a successful International Decade, it is vital to ensure the worldwide engagement of Indigenous Peoples, States, the UN system and other relevant stakeholders. ( see E/C.19/2021/10, para. 55)

More information can be found on the UNESCO dedicated webpage for the Decade, click here.

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Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations | United Nations For Indigenous Peoples

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Indigenous Peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.

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lonizing Education: Nourishing Their Learning Spirits

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lonizing Education: Nourishing Their Learning Spirits

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Marie Battiste, University of Saskatchewan

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Decolonizing Education: Nourishing Their Learning Spirits

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Trauma-Informed Practice with Indigenous Peoples across the Life Span

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Trauma-Informed Practice with Indigenous Peoples across the Life Span

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Natalie Clark, Associate Professor, School of Social Work and Human Service, Thompson River University

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Trauma-Informed Practice with Indigenous Peoples across the Life Span

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An Indigenous Pedagogy for Decolonization

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An Indigenous Pedagogy for Decolonization

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Karyn Wisselink, AU Press

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Discussions about Indigenizing the academy have abounded in Canada over the past few years. And yet, despite the numerous policies and reports that have been written, there is a lack of clarity around what pedagogical methods could help to decolonize our institutions. In Sharing Breath: Embodied Learning and Decolonization, edited by Sheila Batacharya and Yuk-Lin Renita Wong, contributors demonstrate how the academy cannot be decolonized while we still subscribe to the Western idea of mind over body. They argue that connecting the body, mind, and spirit is integral to decolonization projects and to the reimagining of pedagogy. In the following excerpt, chapter author Candace Brunette-Debassige outlines eleven principles to consider when taking up a decolonizing pedagogy grounded in embodied-learning.
"Wabun Geezis nindishnikaas. Muskego iskwew endow. My Cree name is Morning Light and I am an Ininew iskew (a Cree woman) of James Bay Cree, French, and Métis heritage. I was born and grew up off-reserve in the small town of Cochrane in northeastern Ontario; however, my Cree lineage traces to Fort Albany First Nation, about 350 kilometres north of Cochrane, an isolated community near the shores of James Bay-a place where the stories of my ancestors continue to live beneath the landscape that I also call home. By beginning this chapter with sharing my cultural identity and ancestral lineage, I am both locating myself and grounding my work in an Indigenous epistemology. In Indigenous research methodologies, self-location is a significant entry point (Absolon and Willet 2005); it has also been recognized as "important in terms of being able to make research an embodied journey" (Batacharya 2010, 162). Indigenous research is becoming commonly seen as a "methodological approach that welcome[s] a more holistic, kinesthetic and soulful way of knowing" (Ritenburg et al. 2014, 69).

My story is unique but also akin to the stories of other Indigenous peoples. In fact, I have heard variations of my story many times from other Indigenous artists who have experienced the transformative impacts of learning through the body and expressing oneself through movement and story in the context of Indigenous performing arts. These artists, like myself, have awakened their bodies through embodied knowing and found in creative expression a means to release the internalized systemic silencing of colonization. Their experiences, along with my own story, have led me to recognize that embodied practices in Indigenous performing arts can contribute in essential ways to the growing discourses on embodied learning and can function as a decolonizing tool for Indigenous peoples.

[...]

I have reflected on and distilled eleven key principles to consider when taking up a decolonizing embodied-learning pedagogy. These principles-along with their purposes, underlying theories, and some practical applications-are outlined here.

Activate Indigenous pedagogies.

First and foremost, it is helpful for embodied-learning educators, when working with Indigenous people, to take up Indigenous pedagogies that privilege Indigenous ways of learning. Indigenous ways of learning inherently recognize the holistic nature of knowledge and its relationship with mind, body, emotions, and spirit within a powerful embodied centre of knowing. Indigenous approaches support students in coming from this subjective centre whenever possible, often through stories and sharing. Indigenous pedagogies are experiential in nature, often allowing for activities connected to or on the land; they extend learning outward to one's relationship with family, community, and nation, honouring the significance of community and social responsibilities. Sharing and giving back to the collective is a significant facet of Indigenous ways of knowing. Indigenous pedagogies also recognize the history of colonization and its impacts on Indigenous peoples in a contemporary context.

Embodied-learning educators play a powerful role by telling their own personal stories, locating themselves through sharing their identities and connections to land and place. Indigenous educational strategies like Fyre Jean Graveline's (1998) "circle teaching format" are useful in nurturing a sense of community and encouraging students to share subjectively and collectively. Especially for Indigenous people, who have learned silence, the act of sharing can be essential to processing experience. If time is limited, teachers can ask learners to share only a word, an image, or an idea that resonates with them. Augusto Boal's Image Theatre techniques are helpful in unlocking hidden messages of the body in nonverbal ways, thus dislodging the culture of oppression. Sound and movement techniques used in Indigenous Storyweaving approaches also provide powerful mirroring effects that privilege the body's centre of knowing. The purpose here is to give Indigenous learners space to be and to be heard or witnessed collectively.

Foster interconnections with land and cosmos.

Traditional Cree people have a deep respect for the bush and for our spiritual relationship with animals, who, in our understanding, sacrifice their lives for humans to live. The subsistence cycle of the Cree hinges in complex ways on respect, understanding, and communion with the movement of animals in relation to our six seasons (fall, freeze-up, winter, break-up, spring, and summer), which are influenced by larger cosmological factors, including the earth's relationship with the sun, moon, and stars. This understanding among Cree people has been transmitted orally through stories since time immemorial, passing on mythologies, teachings, language, and histories from generation to generation. Cree mythological narratives often centre on human-animal relationships and position animals as no less significant than human beings. While oral traditions have been impacted by colonialism, storytelling today continues to be a pathway for igniting the "learning spirit" (Battiste 2013) among Indigenous peoples. Many Indigenous stories of being alive and well involve listening and moving in balance with and in relation to the land, which is seen as integral to our collective survival as human beings.

The interconnections among humans, animals, and the land is a key principle and underlying theme to teaching an Indigenous embodied approach to decolonization. For that reason, yoga sequences like the sun, moon, fire, and water salutations; postures like mountain and tree pose; and asanas like the eagle, crow, pigeon, and turtle, to name a few, have always resonated deeply with me. Exploring aspects of nature in the body was what initially engaged me and drew me into yoga practice. Strengthening interrelationships to land and place is a foundational aspect of Indigenous knowing and learning. For instance, Indigenous powwow dances embody and strengthen human, animal, and land relationships.

Understand the kinesthetic impacts of colonialism.

It is also essential to teach Indigenous learners about the kinesthetic and embodied nature of colonialism and oppression. By introducing, examining, and reflecting on colonial histories and their impacts on our bodies, minds, and spirits, embodied-learning educators can help students unearth their lived experiences and dislodge colonial hegemonic ways of being. When settler-colonial ideologies about Indigenous people go undisrupted they form hegemonic thinking. Antonio Gramsci (1971), a Marxist scholar was one of the first to introduce the concept of hegemony which he related to the ways that the ruling class impose their values, beliefs, and perceptions onto society in a way that becomes assumed and common sense. From my perspective, hegemonic thinking about Indigenous people has been created by settler society and imposed onto Indigenous people. Teaching about how colonial narratives reinforce disembodied ways of being in the world and become internalized helps Indigenous learners not only to recognize colonial hegemonic silencing patterns in themselves but also to recover their own presence, voice, and agency, in turn opening themselves up to possibilities for change and transformation.

It is also critical for embodied-learning instructors to adopt trauma-sensitive approaches when working with Indigenous students. In the realm of psychology, the existence of traumatic experiences has been recognized since at least the late nineteenth century, and we have since gained a better understanding of the chemical and neurological impact of certain experiences on the brain. Feminist approaches to critical traumatology recognize that oppression is traumatic and often criticize psychology for its pathologizing tendencies (Burstow 2003). Critical pedagogies of embodied learning are well positioned to teach learners about the embodied impacts of trauma and oppression such as disassociation or alienation from the body, body shame, heightened startle responses, hyperarousal of the sympathetic system, bodily memories, and avoidance of stimuli. Rae Johnson (2007), in her doctoral work, uncovered three primary embodied responses to oppression and the embodied impact of trauma: embodied memories, somatic vigilance, and somatic withdrawal and alienation.

Within Indigenous scholarship, historical trauma has been linked to residential schools in Canada, the effects of which have been passed on intergenerationally (Wesley-Esquimaux and Smolewski 2004). The experience of colonization and residential schools has also been characterized as a form of "ethno-stress," or what Eduardo Duran (2006) calls a "soul wound," that has engendered a deeply ingrained lack of trust. While this wariness serves as a social coping mechanism, it also contributes to diminished health and well-being. The embodied nature of historical trauma, I believe, leads many Indigenous people to disembodied ways of being, manifesting in chronic tension, breathing and muscular holding patterns, and other forms of dis-ease that wreak havoc in our relationships with our own bodies and with others through inter-embodied relationships. In Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga, David Emerson and Elizabeth Hoper (2011) outline four key themes to a trauma-sensitive approach: experience the present moment, provide opportunities to make choices, talk about effective actions, and create rhythms to foster a sense of connection. These approaches may be helpful to those working with Indigenous people who have experienced trauma.

Critical theories also help educate students about how power, privilege, and systems of oppression are embodied and inter-embodied and, more importantly, how the body is simultaneously a site of both personal agency and social power that can help one cope with one's experience of oppression. In this sense, embodied learning can be considered a practice leading to self-determination that counters internalized oppression through raising one's consciousness and embodied presence.

Know through experience.

As the living libraries in Indigenous communities, Elders play a central role in Indigenous ways of knowing and learning. Indigenous ways of knowing, therefore, inherently honour the experiential way of knowing, recognizing that knowledge is not merely about content or conceptual learning but is activated through the process of life experience. Embodied learning educators can inherently honour Indigenous ways of knowing; they respect the learners' journeys by helping them to come back into their bodies to experience their own knowing. It is integral to begin a teaching session almost immediately by bringing Indigenous students back inside their bodies to experience their own sensations as reliable sources of knowledge. This practical work directly counters and resists the normative tendency of Western thought and education to privilege mind-intellect over mind-body-emotion-spirit centres of knowing.

Early scientific philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, and Descartes all asserted that the body was unreliable in perceiving objective truth. These dominant Western positivistic assertions have positioned the body at an inferior level, closer to animals, in the hierarchy of Western intelligence. The reorientation of becoming our own authorities according to our bodily sensations rather than relying on external objective truths can be foreign territory for many people, since in formal education in the West, we are taught from outside of our bodies. Bringing marginalized peoples who have been bombarded by external authorities speaking for them back into their bodies is critical in empowering them to discover their personal power and agency.

This can be a radical paradigm shift for Indigenous people and requires unconditional, gentle, and ongoing practical work, with reminders for students to listen to, experience, and open up to the subtle nuances of their bodily messages. The dominant mind will inevitably want to analyze and categorize sensations, but this experiential practice is simple and requires the temporary suspension of the mind. The purpose is to develop inner faculties that are nondiscursive (preverbal, with no need to search for cause or give title). It is simply to experience sensations and open up an expansive space of limitless possibilities inside.

Heightening one's awareness of one's breathing cycle is a freeing practice and a primary principle of a decolonizing embodied pedagogy. Frantz Fanon, the notable anticolonial scholar, famously linked the effects of colonization to breathing patterns of the colonized: "There is not occupation of territory, on the one hand, and independence of persons on the other. It is the country as a whole, its history, its daily pulsation that are contested, disfigured. . . . Under these conditions, the individual's breathing is an observed, an occupied breathing. It is a combat breathing" (Fanon 1965, 65).

Fanon shone a light on the damaging effects of colonization on one's breathing cycle. The focus on breathing is therefore foundational when addressing the effects of colonization for the oppressed. Since breathing generally happens at the perimeter of our consciousness, students can become greatly empowered by learning more about their own breathing patterns, especially in terms of how to release "combat breathing" through embodied techniques. Embodied-learning educators can provide students with various active and passive breathing techniques as tools for calming and energizing. Many yoga practices offer myriad breathing techniques connected to a long-held prāṇāyāma practice, which is meant to purify the complex meridian energy channels.

From a more scientific perspective, the reduction of autonomic stress responses through active breathing can be incredibly powerful, especially for Indigenous peoples, who have often experienced violence and oppression. Recent research has shown that yoga-including meditation, relaxation, and physical postures-can "reduce autonomic sympathetic activation, muscle tension, and blood pressure, improve neuro-endoctrine and hormonal activity, decrease physical symptoms and emotional distress, and increase quality of life" (Emerson et al. 2009, 124). As students become aware of and reflect on their own unconscious breathing patterns, they can begin to examine the ways in which they may interfere with their own natural breathing cycle during times of stress.

As part of an embodied-learning approach to decolonization, fostering the ability to relax is crucial. Educators can also share the theory behind this practice to help facilitate and integrate the learning. Yoga has greatly contributed to my appreciation for conscious relaxation at the beginning and end of one's embodied practice. In hatha yoga, this form of relaxation is called śavāsana (resting pose) and is believed to be integral to a healthy and balanced practice. Conscious relaxation is believed to help process information and learning and to facilitate deep integration of knowledge. In our society, we often move from activity to activity quickly without much time for repose, and through this orientation, reinforced via societal norms and educational approaches, we become socially conditioned to do rather than to be. This way of being can be unlearned through the practice of relaxation. Until the mind-body-spirit can rest, the integration and mending of disconnections caused by colonization cannot occur. Through various embodied techniques including yoga, meditation, or just simple breathing in silence, educators can help students recover from the withdrawing and alienating effects of colonial oppression.

The technique of grounding, or relating our bodies to the earth's gravitational pull, is a paramount principle in a decolonizing embodied pedagogy. This interaction initially happens physically and energetically by consciously and intentionally releasing one's weight, energy, and intention into the earth-exhaling, giving, releasing, and letting go into gravity and then waiting for the spontaneous, natural, and reciprocal response of inhaling and rising. Students of yoga can learn to embody this concept of grounding in nearly every movement, every breath, and can reflect upon it in relation to their embodied reality and orientation toward others.

My former teacher Roxana Ng challenged us, her students, to consider this energetic relationship in our personal and professional lives and in our activist work. As a result, I often find myself coming back to grounding when I find myself in a difficult dynamic with others, and students can learn to do the same in their own difficult experiences. I find this concept philosophically compelling, since I have spent much of my life in unconscious states of resistance. The resistance became lodged in my body, resulting in a disembodied way of being. I find it empowering to notice when my energy shifts from being in strong opposition to others to trusting the earth beneath me to support me. I have discovered that the act of grounding is both embodied and inter-embodied. A striking example of embodied forms of resistance came with the Idle No More movement of 2014, when Indigenous people across Canada activated their embodied and inter-embodied ways of being through collective round dances.

It is especially important for colonized peoples-who, for complex reasons, are forced into states of resistance-to practice grounding in their personal and professional lives. For me, the purpose of grounding through yoga is not to ignore the colonial past or become complacent in the ongoing colonial present; instead, grounding provides me with a pathway to become aware of my disembodied states of being and, more importantly, to choose to create a more embodied way of being and living in the present. Grounding is also an excellent way to support survivors of historical trauma in self-care and self-determination. I do believe that there are times when Indigenous peoples need to resist in order to protect the earth and our sovereign rights; at the same time, I also believe that we need to have embodied learning processes in order to come back into our holistic bodies and Indigenous presence for the well-being of ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Release tension and obstructions.

It is helpful to recognize how tension, or the absence of relaxation, is embodied and constricts and inhibits the free flow of energy, breath, and bodily fluids, causing internal blockages. Many somaticists assert that muscular tension not only obstructs energy flow but also affects attitudes, thoughts, and feelings (see, for example, Green 1993). These obstructions need to be released. The release of tension absorbed in the fascia can happen in different ways, including muscle and fascia lengthening, yawning, sighing, voicing, spontaneous tears, and/or even spontaneous acts of creativity. The key for embodied-learning educators is to become stewards of a safe space where students can feel free to relax, let go, and release without having to understand, explain, or rationalize their experiences. Indigenous practices such as drumming, singing, sharing circles, and smudging can promote the releasing processes in culturally relevant ways (Nadeau and Young 2006). In my experience, relaxation and releasing go hand in hand and are greatly enhanced when a teacher can step back and allow learners to do their own embodied work in their own time. The role of the educator in these sacred moments is to act as a witness and hold a safe space. There is nothing more respectful of a person's learning journey than to be present and share the space in a noninterfering and compassionate way. Noninterference is an Indigenous ethical practice.

Unlearn and relearn movement patterns.

Our bodies move, act, and react in relationship to experiences, other bodies, and the environment (Johnson 2007). Every person's body has a somatic memory and develops its own habits, patterns, and tendencies of moving, which come to acquire hegemonic force, such that our movements become automatic. Somatic practitioners see their role as helping learners to become more aware of their movement patterns and, more importantly, to unlearn them and learn healthier, more conscious and empowering ways of being and moving. Many somatic techniques guide students through slow movements that identify individual patterns. Somatic education comprises a growing group of bodywork disciplines that tend to privilege the internal subjective experience of the body, including yoga, Laban/Bartenieff fundamentals, mind/body centring, the Feldenkrais method (1991), and Alexander techniques. Many somatic techniques are experiential approaches to movement that support self-observation and movement enquiry. Somatic techniques generally allow students to experience their bodies in space and to re-educate themselves into more conscious ways of moving. In my opinion, a teacher's pedagogy plays a paramount role in guiding learning and supporting conscious self-exploration. I have attended many different classes that involve movement (including yoga classes) in which teachers approach the body from the outside, as an object that students learn to manipulate, while also encouraging a competitive atmosphere among the students. Such an orientation is antithetical to both the spirit and the goals of embodied learning and, from that perspective, tends to produce counterproductive results. In my experience, it is helpful to expose students to various techniques and provide them with opportunities to explore what works for their subjective bodies and to reflect on their experiences and responses (for example, their holding patterns, breathing responses, emotional responses, preferences and tendencies, challenges and abilities in moving freely and maintaining focus). Being aware and observing consciously without judgment are critical to raising our embodied consciousness. It is also sometimes helpful to have a teacher as an external witness who can provide gentle feedback about learners' patterns of movement. Sometimes instructors can mimic students' movement back to them in a mirroring way or offer new ways of moving that allow students to shift holding patterns.

Develop embodied consciousness.

It is transformative for students to develop their embodied consciousness-the ability to be a witness to their own mind, body, and spirit connections. Meditation techniques offer gateways to developing this introspective embodied consciousness. The practice of meditation in the West draws primarily from the Buddhist vipassanā tradition. Mindfulness meditation has been introduced by Jon Kabat-Zinn (2003) as a form of stress reduction to treat anxiety, pain, stress, and illness in hospitals and health and medical centres around the world.

Meditation is also increasingly being practiced by a growing number of Indigenous scholars-including Bonnie Duran (2017) and Michael Yellow Bird (2013)-who recognize meditation's congruence with Indigenous epistemological frameworks. Deborah Orr (2002) considers mindfulness meditation to be a tool in an anti-oppressive pedagogy, and Renita Wong (2004) encourages bringing mindfulness approaches into the classroom when educating social workers about power and privilege. In Australia, mindfulness practices have been introduced as a part of curriculum in Indigenous educational contexts-drawing comparisons between mindfulness and the Aboriginal concept of dadirri, or deep listening.[1] Michael Yellow Bird (2013) also positions meditation as an Indigenous form of decolonizing the mind. In the United States, mindfulness approaches have also been implemented as a preventive intervention for suicide among American Indian youth populations, resulting in "positive indications in terms of better self-regulation, less mind wandering, and decreased suicidal thoughts" (Le and Gobert 2013).

Embodied consciousness helps students develop internal capacities, including the ability to witness their thoughts and feelings without judgment. This internal space within each of us is where our true willpower lives. As we learn to witness our thoughts, we realize that regardless of our social conditions, we always have a choice in our reactions, an understanding that is often extremely empowering. While distinct from mindfulness meditation practices, which are based in Buddhism, Indigenous spiritual practices support introspection while seeking guidance from the Great Spirit, or Creator, through fasting, dreams, and other types of meditative approaches.

Find your voice and express your truth.

The final principle in my decolonizing embodied approach is to help students find their voice and express their truth freely. To be silenced is to be unable to speak or be heard. Paulo Freire (1970) was one of the first scholars to articulate the silence of oppression, linking it to a culture of fear. The culture of fear plays out when the colonized refrain from speaking their truths. Silence, therefore, can become a learned behavioural pattern that is reinforced by institutions in government, education, and the media (Dunlap 2007). Silence manifests in many forms, from not having a political voice within larger governmental structures to not feeling worthy to express our own feelings out loud in smaller circles. This kind of silence creates knots and blockages among oppressed people that need to be unlearned and released.

Decolonizing approaches to theatre provide powerful mechanisms for releasing the voice. Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed (1979) provides pedagogical and dramaturgical approaches to social action. In a similar way, Spiderwoman Theater's Indigenous Storyweaving technique undoes the silencing nature of colonization by combining storytelling, acting, and writing to create theatre in response to Indigenous people's real lives (Carter 2010). Releasing the voice is an inherent part of Indigenous performing arts training. Indeed, voice work is a part of most quality theatre training programs. It usually begins by working at the impulse level and recognizing the role that inner impulses play in stimulating our breath. Kristen Linklater (2006, 13), a well-known voice teacher, describes the physiological mechanics of speaking in her book Freeing the Natural Voice and provides exercises that help people to release their voice and understand the complex relationship among impulse, breath, sound, and body. According to Linklater, the voice is an instrument of truth in that the natural voice makes direct contact with emotional impulses, which are natural reflexes powered by breath. Through relaxation, the muscular system loosens up, allowing energy to channel emotional impulses throughout the body. Linklater notes that, sadly, many people have been socialized to control the primary emotional reflex of their natural voices (19-20). The habit of restraining our emotional impulses can become so deeply engrained that it functions as form of social conditioning. I believe that Indigenous practices such as traditional singing, drumming, and dancing, as well as various other forms of creative expression such as poetry, monologues, journalling, and collage or vision boards, can serve to undo the silencing nature of colonialism.

The collective sharing process of our creative truths is an equally important facet of a decolonizing process. Educators may wish to facilitate a final culminating activity that involves a presentation of students' work to their family and community, which can further support students in undoing the silencing of oppression and in developing their agency and power. Through the collective sharing process, one's self is turned outward into the larger community (Nadeau and Young 2006) and thus can engage others in education."
References
Read the rest of the chapter, "From Subjugation to Embodied Self-in-Relation: An Indigenous Pedagogy for Decolonization," on our website for free.

Candace Brunette-Debassige is a Mushkego woman from the Fort Albany First Nation, in northeastern Ontario (Treaty 9 territory). She has been working in Indigenous education for more than fifteen years. She is an educator and storyteller with a background in Indigenous theatre and embodied and story-based approaches to teaching and learning. Running like a thread throughout Brunette-Debassige's work is a commitment to furthering the liberatory struggles of Indigenous peoples in the context of education. She is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Western University, where she is investigating the storied experiences of Indigenous women who are leading efforts to Indigenize universities in Canada.

Absolon, Kathy, and Willett, Cam. 2005. "Putting Ourselves Forward: Location in Aboriginal Research." In Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and Anti-oppressive Approaches, edited by Leslie Brown and Susan Strega, 97-126. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press.

Batacharya, Janet Sheila. 2010. "Life in a Body: Counter Hegemonic Understandings of Violence, Oppression, Healing, and Embodiment Among Young South Asian Women." PhD diss., Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Battiste, Marie. 2013. Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit. Saskatoon: Purich.

Boal, Augusto. 1979. Theatre of the Oppressed. London: Pluto.

Burstow, Bonnie. 2003. "Toward a Radical Understanding of Trauma and Trauma Work." V iolence Against Women 9: 1293-1317.

Carter, Jill. 2010. "Repairing the Web: Spiderwoman's Children Staging the New Human Being." PhD diss., Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, University of Toronto.

Dunlap, Louise. 2007. Undoing the Silence: Six Tools for Social Change Writing. New York: New Village Press

Duran, Bonnie. 2017. "Indigenous Presence: Decolonizing our Minds and Cultivating the Causes of Happiness." National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. Wellness Webinar, 22 February.

Duran, Eduardo. 2006. Healing the Soul Wound: Counseling with American Indian and Other Native Peoples. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Emerson, David, and Elizabeth Hopper. 2011. Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Emerson, David, Ritu Sharma, Serena Chaudhry, and Jenn Turner. 2009. "Trauma-Sensitive Yoga: Principles, Practice, and Research." International Journal of Yoga Therapy 19: 123-28.

Fanon, Frantz. 1965. A Dying Colonialism. Translated by Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove Press. Originally published as L'an V de la révolution algérienne (1959).

Feldenkrais, Moshé. 1991. Awareness Through Movement. London: Thorsons.

Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Herder and Herder. Originally published as Pedagogia do oprimido (1968).

Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York, NY: International Publishers. Originally published as Quaderni del car cere (1948-1951).

Graveline, Fyre Jean. 1998. Circleworks: Transforming Eurocentric Consciousness. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Green, Jill. 1993. "Fostering Creativity Through Movement and Body Awareness Practices: A Postpositivist Investigation into the Relationship Between Somatics and the Creative Process." PhD diss., Ohio State University.

Johnson, Rae. 2007. "(Un)learning Oppression Through the Body Toward an Embodied Critical Pedagogy." PhD diss., University of Toronto.

Kabat-Zinn, Jon. 2003. "Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context: Past, Present, and Future." Clinical Psychology 10(2): 144-56.

Le, Thao, and Jen Gobert. 2013. "Translating and Implementing a Mindfulness-Based Youth Suicide Prevention Intervention in a Native American Community." Journal of Child and Family Studies 24(1): 12-23.

Linklater, Kristen. 2006. Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Voice and Language. London: Nick Hern Books.

Nadeau, Denise, and Alannah Earl Young. 2006. "Educating Bodies for Self-Determination: A Decolonizing Strategy." Canadian Journal of Native Education 29(1): 87-101

Orr, Deborah. 2002. "The Uses of Mindfulness in Anti-oppressive Pedagogies: Philosophy and Praxis." Canadian Journal of Education 27(4): 477-90.Wong, Yuk-Lin Renita. 2004. "Knowing Through Discomfort: A Mindfulness-Based Critical Social Work Pedagogy." Critical Social Work 5(1).

Ritenburg, Heather, Alannah Earl Young Leon, Warren Linds, Denise Marie Nadeau, Linda M. Goulet, Margaret Kovach, and Meri Marshall. 2014. "Embodying Decolonization Methodologies and Indigenization." AlterNative 10(1): 67-80.

Wesley-Esquimaux, Cynthia C., and Magdalena Smolewski. 2004. Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing. Aboriginal Healing Foundation Research Series. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation

Wong, Yuk-Lin Renita. 2004. "Knowing Through Discomfort: A Mindfulness-Based Critical Social Work Pedagogy." Critical Social Work 5(1). http://www1.uwindsor.ca/criticalsocialwork/knowing-through-discomfort-a-mindfulnessbased-critical-social-work-pedagogy.

Yellow Bird, Michael. 2013. "Neurodecolonization: Applying Mindfulness Research to Decolonizing Social Work." In Decolonizing Social Work, edited by Mel Gray, John Coates, Michael Yellow Bird, and Tiani Hetherington. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

[1] See, for example, "Working Together: Module 2-Mindfulness," esp. 6-7. Available at "Working Together: Intercultural Leadership-Program Resources," Curtin University, n.d., http://academicleadership.curtin.edu.au/IALP/program/program_resources.cfm. Click on "Module 2 Resources" and then "Module 2: Mindfulness, File Notes."

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An Indigenous Pedagogy for Decolonization

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Discussions about Indigenizing the academy have abounded in Canada over the past few years. And yet, despite the numerous policies and reports that have been written, there is a lack of clarity around what pedagogical methods could help to decolonize our institutions.

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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching the Colonization of the Americas

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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching the Colonization of the Americas

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Suzanne Methot, Edutopia

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

Preparing for the emotions that may arise from discussions of genocide and oppression can help teachers avoid traumatizing students.

Trauma-informed teaching isn't just about reaching students who have a history of adverse childhood experiences and may have specific learning needs as a result. It's also about managing the emotional reactions that both students and teachers may have when sensitive topics are introduced into the classroom.

Teaching about the colonization of the Americas means tackling tough subjects such as genocide, the abuse of Indigenous children in boarding and residential schools, the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, slavery, systemic racism, and oppression. These topics are a necessary part of the curriculum if we are to make sense of the world today, but they can also be difficult for some students to handle.

Emotional reactions are part of learning. When students feel anger, confusion, or sadness, teachers can use well-crafted discussion questions to help them make meaning of their feelings and create new understanding. While teachers can't always predict which topics will create emotional reactions, they can come prepared with strategies for generating good discussions.

An Approach to Teaching Students About Indigenous Peoples

When teaching the history of the Americas, excessive empathy for Indigenous peoples often impedes inquiry and learning. This happens when the feelings of non-Indigenous students and/or the teacher become the center of the lesson. This can derail the discussion-which should be about power relations-and limit student understanding. When Indigenous peoples are portrayed as victims of history and students see the history of the Americas solely through an emotional lens, inequitable power relations are reproduced. As Potawatomi-Lenapé educator Susan Dion has written, empathy-centered teaching reduces historical inquiry to "a binary of self/other that situates the self/reader unproblematically as judge."

Teachers can avoid this situation by creating discussion questions that work outward from the self in the present day and backward toward a nuanced understanding of the events of history. This teaches students how to think (not what to think) and shifts the discussion from non-Indigenous people and their feelings toward relationships and responsibility. The following outward-looking questions help non-Indigenous students process their feelings, avoiding the vicarious trauma that can result from studying racism and genocide in the Americas. They also recognize the agency of Indigenous peoples, which avoids re-traumatizing any Indigenous students who may be present in the classroom:

What does this story mean to me?

What does it mean to my understanding of what it is to live in this country right now, today?

What does this story mean to my understanding of Indigenous peoples today?

How does my experience in this country differ from that of Indigenous people?

What aspects of the past do non-Indigenous people have to try to understand?

What does this story tell me about who has power in this country and who does not?

How does power relate to hardship and suffering?

How are Indigenous peoples addressing the challenges they face? How have they done so in the past?

One of the most common myths about Indigenous people in the Americas is that they all live on reservations (in the United States), on reserves (in Canada), or in rural communities. In reality, 60 to 70 percent of all Indigenous people live in urban centers. Despite this fact, Indigenous students tend to be invisible in urban classrooms, or they are often lumped in with other communities, including Latino, Black, or Asian. (Check the United Nations website for a primer on Indigenous identities.) For all of these reasons, teachers must assume that they have Indigenous students in their classrooms, which means they also have to consider how Indigenous students may respond when teaching this material.

The horrific events of colonization and the contemporary effects of racism and discrimination have had negative effects on the health and well-being of Indigenous people. Unresolved emotions such as anger, fear, and grief, as well as the everyday impacts of intergenerational trauma, can create difficulty for Indigenous students who are in the classroom when colonization is discussed.

Strategies to Avoid Re-traumatizing Indigenous Students

Share potential triggers with students before each lesson, and offer an alternative space or assignment for students who may not be willing to participate.

Do not insist that Indigenous students watch films related to colonization in a classroom setting.

Do not ask Indigenous students (or families) about their traumatic experiences. When Indigenous students choose to share personal stories and experiences, take the time to listen closely and validate the emotions and the impact.

Cultivate a relationship with school- and community-based resources for Indigenous students.

Additional Resources for Further Study

Fear of introducing sensitive topics-and of managing student reactions-often causes educators to avoid teaching the true history of the Americas, settling instead for a glossed-over timeline of settler colonial adventures. Using trauma-informed practice enables teachers to create safe spaces that allow Indigenous and non-Indigenous students to work through their feelings, unpack their connection to historical events, and create relationships based on respect and responsibility. Teaching Indigenous subject areas and stories might sometimes be challenging, but it doesn't have to be stressful.

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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching the Colonization of the Americas

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Culturally Responsive Teaching Preparing for the emotions that may arise from discussions of genocide and oppression can help teachers avoid traumatizing students. Trauma-informed teaching isn't just about reaching students who have a history of adverse childhood experiences and may have specific learning needs as a result.

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BLM at School

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Social Justice:  Lesson Planning Resources

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Social Justice:  Lesson Planning Resources

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Lisa Hollenbach,
The Teaching Channel

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When events like those in Charlottesville, Virginia happen, we watch the news in disbelief and despair. We scroll endlessly through our Twitter feeds -- tweeting, retweeting, sharing resources, and keeping abreast of the latest developments. Maybe what you saw invoked anger, maybe sadness, maybe fear.

The question that remains is, what are you going to do about it?

Teachers need to talk with their students about race, but before you begin to explore race, bias, and identity in your classroom, you'll need to do a bit of work to be sure you're prepared.

When you're ready, the resources below can help spur discussions about implicit bias, privilege, and systemic racism, and empower students to work toward a more just society.

Be Thoughtful About Curriculum

The resources we use in our classrooms say a lot about our values and priorities. Think about the types of resources you can include to support dialogue, critical thinking, and questioning. Also, be intentional about including more liberatory texts that challenge traditional textbook narratives by telling the stories of workers, women, Native Americans, African Americans, and others whose impact has been overlooked or dismissed.

Here are a few great resources to help you start to shift your curriculum:
Books: Blogs: Websites:
Teaching Channel Videos
Teaching for Civic Engagement
If you've been wondering how to engage young people in civic actionand prepare them to address the great challenges of our age -- from climate change to racism -- you need to see our Educating for Democracy in the Digital Age series.
VIDEO: Encouraging Students to Take Action
This video shows Matthew Colley's students thinking about the root causes and effects of contemporary social problems. You can learn about how Matt teaches for civic engagement all year long and pick up some of his best resources here.

In Infographics for Change, Chela Delgado's students design an infographic to visually represent a theory of change around a contemporary issue.

Although not in this same series, you can see students express themselves around social issues through 3D art in Walls and Barriers: Using Art to Express Social Issues.
Reading Like A Historian VIDEO: Reading Like a Historian: Overview
The Reading Like a Historianmethodology " turns history into a series of questions instead of a series of answers." Students become " Historians in Training," beginning their investigations with questions to focus their learning. Most lessons include one or more primary source documents, which allow students to practice skills like Sourcing, Repetition, Re-Assessing Reliability, Contextualization, and Corroboration.

You'll also notice how movement and space are important in Turn to Your Partnerand Philosophical Chairs.

One added benefit of this Tchvideo series is that after you view, you can head over to Stanford Education Group's website and check out the history curriculum and lesson plans available for you to use in your classroom.
Conversations About Race Charlottesville Related Resources
Curated Curriculum, Reading Lists, & Resources

Intersectionality of Social Justice

Conversations about race are front and center right now, but we can't forget that oppressive systems such as racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and the like are inherently interconnected and can't be examined separately from one another.

Here are a few resources from Tch ers Voice that extend beyond race to discuss social justice and equity in other spaces:

Teaching for social and racial justice is some of the most important work we can do together. I encourage you to lean into the discomfort, have courageous conversations, forgive yourself when you make mistakes, and be patient but persistent. We have a long way to go, but we'll get there -- together.

Topics: Class Culture, Equity, Social Justice, Lesson Planning, Social Studies, Supporting Students, Video Playlist, Summer Learning, Media Literacy

Lisa Hollenbach is a former high school Social Studies teacher and Department Chair, an adjunct professor, working with pre-service social studies teachers and behavioral science students, and serves as a mentor for the Teacher Leadership program at Mt. Holyoke College. Lisa is passionate about storytelling, teacher voice and leadership, collaboration, innovative instruction, social learning, and redefining professional development. Lisa is a member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Teacher Advisory Council, several ECET2 Steering Committees, and is a Co-Founder, Director, and Writing Coach for the National Blogging Collaborative, a non-profit organization that cultivates and supports the capacity of all educators to use their unique voice to elevate the craft of teaching and learning. Lisa leads the Collaborative in engagement and social media storytelling. Connect with Lisa on Teaching Channel, on her blog, or on Twitter: @lisa_hollenbach.

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Social Justice: Lesson Planning Resources

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When events like those in Charlottesville, Virginia happen, we watch the news in disbelief and despair. We scroll endlessly through our Twitter feeds -- tweeting, retweeting, sharing resources, and keeping abreast of the latest developments. Maybe what you saw invoked anger, maybe sadness, maybe fear.

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Black Star Rising

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Doing "The Work"

Black Star Rising creates socially-conscious educational material that inspires, enlightens and activates transformation. To do "the work" of debunking racial ignorance and eliminating inequality, it requires a serious engagement with history, power, ideology and culture.

"We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society." - Angela Davis

Black Star Rising curates educational experiences that draw from the best of Black intellectual traditions. Our aim is to elevate the conversation and empower individuals to make a difference.

Cultural Intelligence

Our Black history curriculum units & study sessions are designed to arm you with critical knowledge to navigate race with confidence and success. We save you time by identifying content that is innovative and inclusive.

How We Get Free

Sharpen your cultural intelligence beyond basic awareness and towards critical conscisousness and transformative power. On this journey, we "go for broke." A bold Black history education is imperative. Re-education is preparation.

Use Primary Sources to Explore "OUR"story

Our Black history units are designed for individual study, diversity professionals, and teachers (even with minimal-to-no training in Black Studies). Engaging primary source material sharpens your ability to interpret and analyze historic events and their present-day implications. We bring focus to those perspectives and events that have been undervalued, distorted or ignored in standard narratives of world history and school curricula.

"It is strange, then, that the friends of truth and the promoters of freedom have not risen up against the present propaganda in the schools and crushed it." -- Carter G. Woodson

A Few of Our Favorite Resources

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Black Star Rising creates socially-conscious educational material that inspires, enlightens and activates transformation. To do "the work" of debunking racial ignorance and eliminating inequality, it requires a serious engagement with history, power, ideology and culture. Black Star Rising curates educational experiences that draw from the best of Black intellectual traditions.

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Tolerance.org

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With so many significant issues in the balance, it's imperative that we pay attention to the upcoming midterm elections, particularly on the local level. Young people, families and communities need to know how powerful their votes are in our democracy. These LFJ resources can help you support your studentsand all the young people in your lifein learning about the voting process and ongoing civic responsibility.

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Learning for Justice | Education Resources

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Learning for Justice 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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Please note:  Additional learning and teaching resources are included in most of the "shelves" of this Padlet.  So, please browse widely to find a diverse collection of relevant resources for your students.  Thank you!

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Please note:  Additional learning and teaching resources are included in most of the "shelves" of this Padlet.  So, please browse widely to find a diverse collection of relevant resources for your students.  Thank you!

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L. Benson

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Zinn Education Resources

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The Zinn Education Project is my compass in a sea of corporate textbooks, packaged common core curriculum and standardized testing. My entire curriculum is based on lessons that can be found on the Zinn Education Project.

High School Social Studies Teacher, Portland, Ore.

Your support is needed to help more students learn people's history. 100% of Zinn Education Project funding comes from individuals like you. Donate today.

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

Oct. 17, 1837: Petition to Repeal Black Codes in Ohio...

Pledge to Teach the Truth...

I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for hope we don't need certainty, only POSSIBILITY.

-Howard Zinn

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Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

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The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people's history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. Based on the lens of history highlighted in Howard Zinn's best-selling book A People's History of the United States, the website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level.

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Dr. Erin Robinson, UWCSEA

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Also see https://twitter.com/decolonise_intl/status/1306649446520946695

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Another idea to change the way we approach field trips especially week long visits. We recognise that we these ideas may not be perfect & can be improved. Also that there are so many other things you can do let us know what you are doing/want to do 👇🏼👇🏼

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Another idea to change the way we approach field trips especially week long visits. We recognise that we these ideas may not be perfect & can be improved. Also that there are so many other things you can do let us know what you are doing/want to do 👇🏼👇🏼 https://t.co/as9MLNJ7Vq

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2 ideas that can be implemented. Let us know what your ideas are or how we can improve ours! https://t.co/IiriY1E4dF

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Another idea to change the way we approach field trips especially week long visits. We recognise that we these ideas may not be perfect & can be improved. Also that there are so many other things you can do let us know what you are doing/want to do 👇🏼👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/as9MLNJ7Vq
— Organisation to Decolonise Intl Schls (@decolonise_intl) September 17, 2020

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Another idea to change the way we approach field trips especially week long visits. We recognise that we these ideas may not be perfect & can be improved. Also that there are so many other things you can do let us know what you are doing/want to do 👇🏼👇🏼 https://t.co/as9MLNJ7Vq

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2 ideas that can be implemented. Let us know what your ideas are or how we can improve ours! https://t.co/IiriY1E4dF

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Another idea to change the way we approach field trips especially week long visits. We recognise that we these ideas may not be perfect & can be improved. Also that there are so many other things you can do let us know what you are doing/want to do 👇🏼👇🏼 https://t.co/as9MLNJ7Vq

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Another idea to change the way we approach field trips especially week long visits. We recognise that we these ideas may not be perfect & can be improved. Also that there are so many other things you can do let us know what you are doing/want to do 👇🏼👇🏼

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2 ideas that can be implemented. Let us know what your ideas are or how we can improve ours! https://t.co/IiriY1E4dF

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Catlin Tucker

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Strategies for Embracing Antiracist Work in Our Classrooms

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Strategies for Embracing Antiracist Work in Our Classrooms

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Larry Ferlazzo, Education Week

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What specific changes are you making in your teaching this year as a result of what you have learned from the killing of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests?
The shooting of Jacob Blake earlier this week highlights-yet again-that those of us who have not yet made anti-racism a central part of our curriculum can wait no longer.

Today, Keturah Proctor, Erika Niles, Dr. Theresa Capra, and Mark Holt share their plans and suggestions to do just that.

You can find additional related resources at Race & Racism in Schools.
Embracing Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist Work Keturah Proctor has just completed her 20th year in education in the Elmsford Union Free school district. She began her career as a special education teacher and for the last 18 years, she has taught 6th grade math and English/language arts:
In the wake of the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the horrific shooting of Jacob Blake, how can we not step back and reflect on our teaching and instruction? We are in the midst of transformational change in our country.

As educators, we must acknowledge that the events of our society impact the practice and activities of our classrooms. Students are coming in with knowledge and experiences that are rooted in real life, and teachers must be reflective and responsive enough to create space for this knowledge and these experiences to be valued as learning.

Chris Emdin speaks of "Reality Pedagogy" in his text, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...And the Rest of Y'all Too. This new look at pedagogy values creating a space for students' experiences to anchor the learning and welcomes what is happening in society as the catalyst for students and teachers to engage in the learning process together. It values and centers the experiences of the students over curriculum mandates and "status quo" learning experiences.

In our instruction, we must create opportunities where we are intentionally embedding learning experiences that are authentic for students. Our students must know that what they experience outside of the classroom has value and purpose inside of the classroom. We reflect that through text selection, assessments, projects, and discussion. We have to shift from what was to create what will be. Learning must be authentic but should also focus on creating space where our students have agency, or ownership and control over their own learning. We also have to make sure that the purpose of our instruction is rooted in action as a means to promote change. We want our students to question, analyze, and challenge so that they are also actively moving toward cultivating their understanding of systems of oppression and marginalization. As we begin to embrace anti-bias, anti-racist work, we want to provide the space where students can openly question and critique what is happening in their educational experience as well as what is happening in society.

In addition to examining our instruction, we must also look at ourselves and grow personally. Teachers must begin to look inward and grow their capacity in understanding racial equity and anti-bias, anti-racist work. This requires constant learning and unlearning as to how standards of whiteness actually create learning environments that are oppressive and marginalizing. It also requires being vulnerable and uncomfortable as we begin to challenge the biases and the standards of whiteness that live within us.

Overall, our commitment must be to challenge what we value as true and develop our critical consciousness so that we can work toward decolonizing the educational experiences of our children and embrace education as an act of liberation and freedom.

"Listen" Erika Niles is an instructional coordinator in the St. Louis area. She is passionate about ALL students:
When I first read the question, I wondered if I was the right person to respond. As a white educator, I don't have all the answers. However, all too often I have seen my Black friends and colleagues asked to do the heavy lifting when it comes to answering questions on racism and equity. While I know I don't have the same level of expertise and understanding, I also know that we have to stop asking the people experiencing the harm to do the teaching. It's on white educators to know better, to do better.

So, what should white teachers learn from the murder of George Floyd?
Decenter Yourself
As hard as it may be, and as much as you may want to, don't look away. History is unfolding before our eyes, and racial injustice is once again in the center. Take whatever sadness you may feel as a white educator and multiply that by a lifetime of pain and injustice; that is the experience of our Black educator colleagues. White people, this is not about you.
Learn History
We claim to be lifelong learners; however, we tend to limit ourselves to learning about 21 st-century education and pedagogy and fail to look at the hundreds of years that Black folx have suffered as a result of our actions (or inactions). We must make ourselves incredibly familiar with history that centers the perspectives and stories of Black folx. While understanding slavery and racism is important, there are also amazing accomplishments and achievements that go unmentioned or overlooked. We must learn about those, too. If we don't take time to educate ourselves on Black history, we are going to have a tough time confronting the systems and institutions that have perpetuated inequities and racism.
Understand Equity
We need to deepen and extend our understanding of equity to include the dismantling of systems perpetuating these inequities. In this understanding, we must acknowledge that diversity and inclusion, in isolation, will not change outcomes for our students. The best place to gather knowledge is from Black authors and educators. Read the books, follow the threads, and listen to the podcasts. And, when you think you know everything there is to know, find another Black author or educator to read or follow. And listen, again.
Don't Wait
Buying the books and reading the books aren't action steps. They give us background information in order to better understand what steps we should take. The first step is talking about racism. For far too long, we've let the wrong people set the tone and pace for this work. We can't pause and wait for people to catch up or feel comfortable. We have an ongoing crisis in our country where people have spent hundreds of years feeling uncomfortable as a result of our inability or unwillingness to act. Being anti-racist as a public educator should be the rule, not the exception.
Build Community
Have the right people at the table. I am not, nor will I ever be, an expert on racism. Experts are those who have, themselves, experienced racism. If we aren't working in partnership with our Black families and community members, it's time to start. We need to have open and honest conversations about how to hire and retain more Black educators and how to support our Black families and community members. And when these experts speak, we need to listen and be prepared to act.
ALL Kids
Building honest and trusting relationships with our students where we can talk about race, racism, and equity should be a top priority. We need to pay attention to whose story is being told in our class and how we amplify diverse perspectives. We must model anti-racism and equity in what we say, how we say it, and whom we say it to. We can't say we love ALL children unconditionally and then fail to talk to them about race, racism, and equity. In doing so, we are creating greater injustice for our Black students. And if kindergarten feels too young to talk about racism, remember that our Black students have had to learn about it firsthand from the time they entered this world.
Go Vote
Get out and vote. But don't just vote. Educate yourself on how candidates voted in the past. What did they support? What did they not support? Our sphere of influence has the potential to extend to those that we elect. Choose wisely. Black Lives Matter.
Thank You
I am not an expert. I am constantly learning from the many Black authors and educators who continue to do the heavy lifting: Michelle Alexander, John Hope Franklin, Wesley Lowery, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Layla F. Saad, Ibram X. Kendi, and many more. We must continue to magnify and amplify the voices of people who have fought so hard and overcome so much to help us in our quest to love and honor all students.

"Teachers must incorporate race into their teaching" Dr. Theresa Capra is a professor of education and clinical supervisor for teacher-candidates. She is the founder of edtapas.com, which focuses on research, trends, technology, and tips for educators:
The killing of George Floyd has sent shockwaves through the world, igniting protests. The Black Lives Matter movement has become a symbol of the enduring battle for racial equality. But there are quiet battles to fight, too, and schools should lead the charge. Now is not the time for diffidence in the classroom. Teachers must incorporate race into their teaching, and schools must support them.

It's a delicate endeavor for a number of reasons. First, 80 percent of public school teachers are white while over 50 percent of the students are nonwhite. Schools are more racially segregated than ever before, so in reality, there are classrooms filled with Black students led by white teachers, while white students have very few, if any, Black teachers. The last thing Black students need is a white teacher espousing the harms of racism.

However, such discussions seldom occur, and when they do, they are usually plucked from superficial social studies units based on textbooks that treat minority experiences with random precision. Compounding this problem is the fact that social studies itself has been marginalized. Many elementary schools only teach social studies for half of the year with a scattered, topical approach that achieves little more than checking a box. Ironically, social studies has become ancient history.

I am not suggesting schools and teachers can cure racism by discussing the killing of George Floyd. What I am suggesting is that the role of race, gender, stereotypes, and power constructs should be consistently treated with a well-planned curriculum commencing in the early-childhood years and enduring into college.

So how can teachers get this important work started? The increased use of virtual learning could actually make this easier for a couple of reasons. First, teachers will be exploring websites, tools, and resources with greater frequency, and there are a lot of sources to support engagement on sensitive subjects for all age groups. Next, as students continue to develop independent learning skills, they can take deeper dives into the material. Finally, using a blend of synchronous and asynchronous tools might make it easier for students to open up.

Another big step is identifying high-quality sources. We can expect an outstanding one very soon. Judeah Reynolds is a 9-year-old child who witnessed the killing of George Floyd while she and her cousin were on their way to the candy store. Judeah's cousin, Darnella Frazier, had the courage to hit record, while Judeah has the courage to share the painful incident in a children's book titled A Walk to the Store.

Such sources can help teachers bring race into the classroom. There are also organizations that have been supporting this endeavor for years. Here are a couple that stand out.

Facing History and Ourselves. Founded in 1976 to promote education that teaches students how to be upstanders against racism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism, its curricular materials and resources are geared toward middle and high school students. They offer lesson plans, visual media, articles, and much more. They also support teachers outside of the classroom with free professional development such as workshops, webinars, and self-paced online courses.

Teaching Tolerance. Founded in 1991 as a project within the Southern Poverty Law Center with a mission to conquer hate, this outfit has grown into a full-scale source to support educators with anti-bias teaching. They offer a plethora of lesson plans, articles, activities, print material, and film kits for streaming appropriate video for various ages (all free).

Social Justice Books: A Teaching for Change Project. Evaluating literature requires careful consideration. When it comes to literature based on race, gender, culture, and identity, it's even trickier because educators must avoid tokenism and stereotypes. The Social Justice site has curated about 60 titles to make the selection process easier. In addition, they offer a short guide to help educators evaluate anti-bias literature

Transforming "anger into action" Mark Holt currently teaches 5th grade at the Beech Hill School in Hopkinton, N.H. He has been in education for 19 years:
After reading numerous headlines from the past several months, I'm filled with sadness and anger. Why do some people in our culturally diverse country still see Black and brown people as being less important? In times like these, I'm reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." We must transform our anger into action.

As an educator, I'm bringing my positive message of unity into the physical or virtual classroom this September. One of my many goals for each new school year is to foster a sense of community and unity amongst my students. The mantra I use in my classroom is, "We're a family, and families take care of each other." I use this message to empower my students to look out for one another, in and out of the classroom. I also remind them that, like any great family, we will have our challenges and we will work through them together. I want my students to see that their voices and opinions matter just as much as mine. I will work to create an inclusive and open class community in which the students feel safe and comfortable speaking their minds.

Together as a class family, we will create the norms or rules for the year. I provide my students with opportunities to take ownership over how our classroom operates so that they will be engaged in what we are doing in the classroom. We will spend time talking about the kind of environment the students want to create. I will allow students to propose rules before we, as a democratic community, vote on them. We will then sign the document, as though it is our class constitution, and hang it in our classroom all year. As it's a living document, the students can propose changes at any time. Like all things in life, communities evolve and change, and I want the students to see the power in adapting to changing times. Empowering students to take ownership and responsibility over their learning process helps to foster a sense of care and community within the students. They want to take care of their classmates because they've chosen to do so and not because they were told to by their teacher. It's our classroom call to duty.

I use literature and current events as ways to help my students value their differences as strengths. Our first class read-aloud novel for the academic year will be Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson, which tackles important concepts including immigration, race, family dynamics, and white privilege. This will be a change for me that was brought upon by observing the state of our nation in recent months. Although I usually use a novel that introduces the concept of community in a less controversial manner, I've noticed that tiptoeing around topics considered taboo simply fosters a sense of silence and complacency. As educators, we need to teach our students how to talk about important topics dubbed "controversial" by many. I want my students to see that we will tackle imperative ideas and topics beginning on the first day of school. While the students review vital reading strategies using the text, we will also be discussing their thoughts on the big ideas introduced in the novel. I want to empower my students to form thoughtful opinions on issues that impact our country and world. By discussing these ideas within the context of the book, I can create a safe place in which students are able to cultivate their feelings and thoughts.

For change to happen, we need the next generation to be equipped with knowledge. Change makers aren't born; they are created through a culmination of their life experiences. As teachers, we must work to create a safe haven for students to tend to their garden of change in our classrooms this year.

Thanks to Keturah, Erika, Theresa, and Mark for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column

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Strategies for Embracing Anti-Racist Work in Our Classrooms (Opinion)

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The new question-of-the-week is: What specific changes are you making in your teaching this year as a result of what you have learned from the killing of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests? The shooting of Jacob Blake earlier this week highlights-yet again-that those of us who have not yet made anti-racism a central part of our curriculum can wait no longer.

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Anti-Racist Work in Schools: Are You in for the Long Haul?

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Anti-Racist Work in Schools: Are You in for the Long Haul?

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Elizabeth Kleinrock,
Teaching Tolerance

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Last year I received a consultation request from a school after two students posted pictures in blackface on social media. When I asked what time and resources they were committing to this issue, they said they had set aside 45 minutes of their upcoming staff meeting to address bias and racism. They were not interested in investing beyond that session.

Being called in reactively to support teachers and staff after a racist incident has never sat well with me. But now, as Black Lives Matter protests have swelled throughout the world, our entire country is reacting to centuries of white supremacy and violence experienced by the Black community.

As an anti-bias anti-racist (ABAR) facilitator and educator-in-progress, I've had the opportunity to partner with public, charter and independent schools across the United States and can tell you firsthand that there is no "one size fits all" approach to this work. There are, however, a number of things schools should consider as they create objectives for the short and long term.

ABAR is trending in mainstream spaces, and more schools are recognizing its importance and reaching out for resources and training. I do believe that it's better late than never, but schools must be intentional and thoughtful as they begin this life-long commitment.

While there is urgency in ABAR work, urgency cannot be prioritized over relationships or centering the voices and opinions of marginalized community members. Without careful thought and planning, schools risk alienating Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) stakeholders, reinforcing white saviorism and derailing the possibility of future efforts. Standards and skills can always be retaught, but school culture is too important to get wrong. Your north star is always centering your most marginalized and under-resourced students.

As schools and organizations plan for professional development in the weeks, months, and years ahead, consider the following thinking points and questions:

If this is the first time your school has focused on ABAR, why is it a priority now?

ABAR must begin with an honest evaluation of current practices. Recognizing how-and why-this work has been deprioritized in the past can help your school identify and plan for potential roadblocks in the work to come.

If your school has remained silent or limited work to surface-level diversity initiatives in the past, how, when and why did that happen? Remember that celebrating diversity and multiculturalism is not the same as anti-racism or dismantling white supremacy. Check out Paul Gorski's Avoiding Racial Equity Detours for examples of school practices that are often mistaken for ABAR.

How will you ensure ABAR is not just a box to check, and that no one is able to opt out?

While diversity directors or committees are important, ABAR cannot be compartmentalized within one or a few individuals. Oppressive practices exist at every level of schools, and people who work in every department and in every role have a stake in this work.

School leaders have immense power in creating a culture that values and supports ABAR. I have often heard from hesitant principals and administrators that they're concerned certain staff members of the community are resistant and unwilling. I'd ask them to remember this phrase: "What you permit, you promote." Every choice we make either upholds white supremacy or seeks to dismantle it.

To fully embrace ABAR education, schools must be willing to dive deep into their culture, policies, curriculum and the individual mindsets of all stakeholders. If you are truly dedicated to anti-racism, are you willing to let go of members of the community who are working against these goals?

How will BIPOC be centered in this work?

Consider who is directing ABAR at your school, who decides the priorities and determines if objectives are met. This work must center the voices of staff, families, caregivers and students of the global majority. Even if you have a racially and ethnically diverse staff, ABAR work is still necessary and important. Anti-Blackness and colorism are issues in every community, and these biases must be addressed.

Many schools are currently selecting books and resources for summer and fall professional development. But leaders should be careful. Particularly in predominantly white institutions, a focus on consuming and intellectualizing stories and histories of racial trauma can further perpetuate a savior mentality, inspiring pity rather than encouraging people to understand one another and work as accomplices and co-conspirators against racism. If books that center whiteness (such as Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility) are on the summer reading list, what else is being offered? There must be a balance of centering BIPOC history and narratives while also learning about culture, identity and joy.

At the end of the day, no matter how many books, podcasts, and documentaries your staff reads, an intellectualized account of racism will never outweigh the voices and lived experiences of BIPOC.

How will BIPOC be supported in this work?

There is a fine line between centering BIPOC and expecting them to do the work for others. While BIPOC should have the opportunity to lead this work, schools cannot expect or demand they expend more emotional labor in both experiencing racism, and having to educate others about it.

If you're asking BIPOC on your faculty and staff to lead ABAR training, how are you ensuring they are additionally compensated? If books and resources are being assigned that center racial trauma, what trauma-informed practices will you use with staff members of color?

How are you working to create long-lasting change in your community?

Having a person or a group that drives ABAR work forward is important (especially if these people have the power to hold the community accountable), but the goal is to embed ABAR within the culture of your school.

If this person left the position or the committee disbanded, how would you ensure all focus wouldn't disappear? ABAR is a lens that must be applied to school policies, curriculum, pedagogy, and interpersonal relationships. It is not just a teaching strategy.

Pay attention to the significant institutional support needed by those leading ABAR work. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and those who are the most active are likely to face emotional fatigue.

Despite being framed amidst the violence targeting the Black community, anti-racism work is often glamorized in the mainstream media, and some people do enter from a place of saviorism and expect recognition, which can lead to burnout for those who have been committed far before the latest media cycle.

The truth of the matter is, when you commit yourself to ABAR, you're in it for the long uphill battle. Prioritizing ABAR is not comfortable. Mistakes will be made. Parents and caregivers may complain. Some staff members may leave. It is unrealistic to expect that your school will get it right at the first try. At the end of the day, it is our job to center our students, and that means improving ourselves to set the example for the world they will inherit.

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Anti-Racist Work in Schools: Are You in it for the Long Haul?

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Last year I received a consultation request from a school after two students posted pictures in blackface on social media. When I asked what time and resources they were committing to this issue, they said they had set aside 45 minutes of their upcoming staff meeting to address bias and racism.

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10 Ways Educators Can Take Action in Pursuit of Equity

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10 Ways Educators Can Take Action in Pursuit of Equity

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Jennifer Gonzalez, Cult of Pedagogy

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10 Ways Educators Can Take Action in Pursuit of Equity | Cult of Pedagogy

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Awareness of educational inequity is important, but we also need to take action. Pedro Noguera shares ten ways educators can do just that.

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How do you teach antiracist curriculum to the youngest students?

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How do you teach antiracist curriculum to the youngest students?

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Arricka Washington, The Hechinger Report

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Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox
Ankita Ajith can recall learning about slavery, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks at her Katy, Texas, elementary school in the Houston area.

But looking back, Ajith, now a student at Northwestern University, also vividly remembers how superficial those conversations were, and how much she wishes that her predominantly white, suburban school district had given her the tools from a young age to understand America's racist past and its connection with the present.

"They taught us things that were easily digestible and sounded good," Ajith said. "It was definitely painted in the light that 'these problems are in the past,' and 'America is the land of the free' and 'everyone is equal here.' "

In July, Ajith and three of her friends testified before the Texas State Board of Education, demanding changes to the way students are taught. They are advocating for core curriculum changes in social studies - specifically American history - classes. The college students pressed the board to acknowledge the state's "deeply anti-Black, racist past as well as the oppression that continues today." To them, educators should teach significant topics like the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement with more depth and breadth. They believe that kids, no matter what grade they are in, should learn history through an antiracist lens, not only learning about the role of white supremacy and racism in history, but doing so in a way that empowers them to pursue social justice.

And they aren't the only ones advocating the adoption of such curricula. Ever since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May spurred what may be the largest social movement in U.S. history, education leaders have started to reckon with how to comprehensively teach history with an antiracism lens. Colleges are holding professional development online events for educators on how to reimagine education with racial justice in mind. And school districts are working to expand their curricula on race.

"They taught us things that were easily digestible and sounded good. It was definitely painted in the light that 'these problems are in the past' and 'America is the land of the free' and 'everyone is equal here.' "
Ankita Ajith, student at Northwestern University and graduate of Texas public schools

As education organizations and initiatives such as Teaching Tolerance, the Zinn Education Project, Black Lives Matter at School, the Pulitzer Center's 1619 Project Curriculum and others strive to give educators the tools to teach anti-bias and antiracism, educators are grappling with how to implement these resources in early grades.
Related: Students sick of 'lip service' from universities over racism
For Katie Cryan Leary, the principal of the newly opened Magnolia Elementary in Seattle Public Schools, creating an antiracist, anti-bias school can be a messy, uncomfortable journey. That's especially true in a district that, in the 19 years she's been working there, has committed to racial equity but still struggles to serve the needs of a wide range of students.

"I still see so many issues where our walk is not matching the talk," said Leary, who is white and leads a school where, she says, 62 percent of students are white.

To her, antiracism education in elementary school starts with students' awareness of themselves, of others and of how those interactions play out. She believes that social emotional learning - giving kids the tools to manage and express their feelings - is the heart of race and equity work. Developmental psychologists have called attention to the notion that children between the ages of two and four can start showing racial biases. And by the time students are in kindergarten, research shows that they show some of the same attitudes about race as the adults in their lives. Children also grow acclimated to favoring whiteness and privileged groups.

Leary uses resources from Black Lives Matter at Schools, a national movement started by thousands of educators in Seattle in 2016 that has spread to other large school districts nationwide. For the past four years, district leaders have strongly encouraged Seattle Public School educators to teach about the Black Lives Matter movement's 13 guiding principles - such as collective value, restorative justice and the empowerment of Black families - for one week in February. Some school leaders have welcomed that opportunity, and others have not, Leary said.

"When kids come to school, we have the opportunity to create a culture of school that may be different than their home culture, and really be able to expand their racial beings as antiracists."
Katie Cryan Leary, principal, Magnolia Elementary, Seattle

Additionally, throughout the year, students are exposed to a different concept every month through daily read alouds, project-based learning and classroom meetings. To help spur conversations with students about differences, race and unfairness, kindergarten to fifth grade teachers read books by writers that touch on issues of racial inequity, such as " The Day You Begin," " Ron's Big Mission" and " New Shoes."

"It's a way that we can access information and have conversations without making the white teachers the experts...," Leary said.

However, she and her teachers have found it challenging, especially since the pandemic forced teaching online, to teach students about the police brutality and other racist violence they may see in the media. The teachers are unsure how families will respond to students having those conversations, even though they have received little to no pushback about the social justice curriculum they've been using since last year.

"In our classrooms, it's a safe space where kids know and trust and are connected to their teachers," Leary said. But that's not always the case with online discussions, "so we've struggled with that and have had conversations about it as a staff, and we need to keep having conversations."

She said that as educators, creating a safe space in any learning environment is something they must take seriously.

Chanita Coulter, a preschool teacher, with a group of students at her school.

Related: Experts answer your kids' tough questions about race and racism
"When kids come to school, we have the opportunity to create a culture of school that may be different than their home culture, and really be able to expand their racial beings as antiracist," she said. "We have the capacity to create antiracist kids at school, whether they live in an antiracist home or not. And we don't have that ability remotely. And so we're working as a start to find out how to do that."

Chanita Coulter, a preschool teacher in Charleston, South Carolina, also believes in the importance of having open discussions with young students and not shying away from current events.

In June, with Sarah Frayer, an elementary school teacher and instructional coach in Washington, D.C., Coulter started a nonprofit organization called Reflective Pages that aims to help educators build multicultural, comprehensive curriculums in schools.

"Our children, even though they are young, they are aware of what's going on. . . . I remember like even my younger students, four or five years old, they were aware of who Trayvon Martin was and what happened to him."
Chanita Coulter, a preschool teacher in Charleston and co-founder of Reflective Pages

"Our children, even though they are young, they are aware of what's going on," Coulter said. "I remember like even my younger students, maybe like four or five years old, they were aware of who Trayvon Martin was and what happened to him."

Coulter and Frayer provide educators with information about microaggressions, implicit bias, systemic racism and other barriers that can hinder students' learning. They also talk to educators about how to successfully implement a curriculum that focuses on race and antiracism, centers Black voices and highlights Black stories and achievements. One way is to pull local Black authors into classrooms to talk about black activists and scholars.

"A lot of times people hear the word 'activism' and they might have a negative connotation to it. We try to provide enlightenment in that regard," Coulter said.

In her own classroom, she and her students sent videos and wrote letters to senators about school funding and state testing. In her preschool classroom, she said her students made signs and did a walk around to protest mass shootings during a national walk out movement.

"I think that it is important that students of color actively participate in conversations that affect their families and communities," Coulter said in an email. "Students are well aware of the social issues and sometimes have a hard time expressing their feelings and opinions."
Related: Inside one school's efforts to bridge the divide between white teachers and students of color
Coulter said when she engages in conversations with her students, they are more able to name their emotions.

"I also think it is important to acknowledge that their voices matter," Coulter said. "In order to make a difference one must first be heard."

But while more schools are getting onboard with the idea of teaching antiracism, Keffrelyn Brown, a University of Texas at Austin professor and former elementary school teacher, said she doesn't know of any school that is doing this work effectively. That's not exactly surprising, she said, because society as a whole is not doing it well.

"It's one thing to bring a person in to do a talk or even send your faculty to do workshops," Brown said. "It's another thing to say that this is deeply embedded in the work that we do. It is something that we are holding ourselves accountable for. "A vast majority of schools," she added, "are not focused on antiracism - not in a superficial way, and not in a deep and substantial way either."

Some elementary school educators and consultants, like Akiea Gross, believe that substantive, holistic antiracist work within an educational setting requires educators to think beyond academic content to their own role in systemic racism.

Early educator and Woke Kindergarten founder Akiea Gross does a read aloud to their audience of "Mr. Tiger Goes Wild" by Peter Brown. In the read aloud Gross talks about respectability politics and liberation for all children, particularly those who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, queer and trans.

Gross, who identifies as a trans nonbinary abolitionist educator, is the founder of Woke Kindergarten, a social media community space that hosts antiracist read alouds and shares resources about antiracism and liberation for the littlest kids. Gross said that that it's problematic if educators just add antiracist curriculum.

Instead, they must start by doing some deep reflective work on the ways they've caused harm to their students and also begin the healing with families who have had bad experiences inside schools. Teachers can also work collaboratively with students to set goals and guidelines instead of simply meting out the rules.

"We are a part of the curriculum, the way that we show up, the way that we enter spaces," Gross said. Gross believes that if there is a bureaucratic chain of command in a class setting, teachers must recognize and push against keeping that certain structure.

"You can actively teach being antiracist by discussing and pointing out that hierarchy and creating more of a communal learning environment where you are creating a mutual respect between you and your kids."
Akiea Gross, education and founder of Woke Kindergarten

"You can actively teach being antiracist by discussing and pointing out that hierarchy and creating more of a communal learning environment where you are creating a mutual respect between you and your kids," Gross said.

Gross's "Woke Read Alouds" on Youtube discuss topics on antiracism that go beyond the words and pictures of the books. In the read aloud for the book "Mr. Tiger Goes Wild" by Peter Brown, about a tiger who decides to act differently than his fellow anthropomorphic animal neighbors, Gross talks about big topics like "politics" and "rules" and who made the rules for Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Asian people.
This story about antiracist curriculum was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Ankita Ajith and her three college-age friends plan to keep fighting for a curriculum centered on antiracism. Since testifying before the Texas State Board of Education in early July, the college students have spoken to the board's chair and vice-chair about revisiting and reviewing the state social studies standards. Their proposed revisions will be placed on the agenda for the board's September meeting, said Nitant Patel, a friend of Ajith's who is also involved in the campaign.

"We can't afford to overlook this anymore," Ajith said. "I want to make sure that they're not avoiding teaching difficult subjects just because they are nuanced or uncomfortable to discuss."

She believes that the change they seek is now inevitable. "It's something that will happen sooner or later."

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How do you teach antiracist curriculum to the youngest students?

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Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox Ankita Ajith can recall learning about slavery, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks at her Katy, Texas, elementary school in the Houston area.

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Engaging White Students in Conversations About Race

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Engaging White Students in Conversations About Race

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Andrew Simmons, Edutopia

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A high school teacher shares strategies for using literature to guide discussions about race with students who would rather avoid the topic.

In February, my seniors read Toni Morrison's Beloved and were considering how a traumatic history can haunt the present. They had finished an article about George Washington's relentless pursuit of runaway slaves, and I asked if this piece of the first president's biography mattered. A few students had mumbled diplomatically: It matters a little, sort of; it doesn't detract from his legacy.

"Whiny people care," Jasper said.

"Does everyone feel that way?" I asked. A minute of silence. I knew that some students disagreed with Jasper but weren't comfortable speaking up, and I'd need to try to draw them out. The bell rang-I'd have to follow up later.

I'm used to White students, especially boys, checking out or offering resistance when race enters a literary discussion, as it does with Beloved, To Kill a Mockingbird, and There There. Some question the well-established historical record or suggest that merely talking about race sows division. Those who view racist jokes as essential free speech provoke classmates. Some White students complain that they can't relate to books written by people of color, as if any of them have been the prince of Denmark or stalked an ex on Long Island. I have often encountered White students who condemn slurs and wince at news of police killing Black people, but doubt they personally benefit from America's history of racism.

Amid June's protests, my students might have responded differently, but in February, apathetic or exhausted, their eyes glazed over. Despite having never really done so, they were tired of talking about race.

White students are 35 percent of my school population. Most of the rest, Latinx students largely, live in neighborhoods that are segregated from those of their White classmates, who often dominate both student government and class discussions. I started my teaching career in a different city, eager to help my Latinx and Black students find opportunity and power, but now, 10 years later, I believe that cracking through the silence and discomfort of White students may be a more pressing antiracist exercise.

This discourse is far from all I prioritize in my English class. But it's necessary, and through planning, frequent failure, honest reflection, and adjustments, I've settled on some strategies for using English class to improve these conversations.

Challenging the Canon

Beloved may be my favorite novel, and it treats race and history with a complexity that suits seniors. But like generations of students past, my ninth graders read To Kill a Mockingbird, which places the unjust trial and killing of an innocent Black man within one little White girl's coming-of-age story. Like many teachers, I don't have the freedom to jettison district-mandated core texts.

So my students critique the book as a vehicle for a meaningful conversation about race. Instead of presenting Atticus as a role model, I encourage students to parse his flaws. Do To Kill a Mockingbird 's lessons about racism really suffice in 2020? Students often come to the conclusion that Atticus's cuddly maxims don't assail the fundamental problem in his world or ours. And if that's the case, why do some teachers (and students) still see the book as perpetually relevant?

But, ideally, students would instead read Kindred or The Nickel Boys to participate in this conversation. I would love to bury Atticus Finch and instead share the latter's Jack Turner and Elwood Curtis, brave young Black characters resisting Jim Crow.

Reading the Book Is Not Enough

Diversifying the curriculum does not fight racism-it's unhelpful to read The Nickel Boys without excavating history, for example, or to shoehorn Kindred into an easy lesson about tolerance and forgiveness that never bends toward justice.

Teachers have to let books like these speak their full truths because many students prefer the easy lessons, sometimes indulging in delusional interpretations of texts for comfort. For example, Marina, a White girl, would not accept that Beloved 's vain abolitionist Mr. Bodwin all but re-enslaves free Black people through an exploitative economic arrangement. I was glad to upset her.

Sometimes we need to foster discussions that force the issue. Half a class of ninth graders insisted that, for trying (and failing) to exclude White kids from her church congregation, To Kill a Mockingbird 's Lula is as racist as bigots who vote and serve on juries. The ensuing debate led many to see racism as the product of power as well as prejudice.

Launching an Inquiry

Instead of force-feeding an opinion to students, I sometimes assign an inquiry after we read Beloved. For example, I've had student panels research the long-standing impact of race on housing development, health care, education, and criminal justice in their own county, and then formally present findings to the rest of class. This way, students own the search, even if they're initially unconvinced of the premise.

Teachers can invite school administrators or see if the media studies class can film the presentations. Make the work public, so what students discover and share can educate others.

Letting Students Write About Themselves (and Pretend Not To)

Sometimes, cautious students write most honestly about an uncomfortable topic when they can remain anonymous, or when they can use fictitious characters to reflect authentic experiences.

When we read There There, my students discuss how author Tommy Orange uses first-person narrators to capture an urban Indian identity ignored by pop culture and mainstream history. Last year, after finishing the book, each student contributed a single chapter featuring a first-person narrator to a book that served as a polyphonic portrait of their high school environment. I asked them to create characters to reflect authentic though overlooked experiences. I wanted them to think about whose experiences are discussed and understood least in the school.

Unsurprisingly, when we turned to the writing exercise, many students-emboldened by anonymity-wrote vignettes detailing personal experiences with racism. No one knew for sure who was responsible for each chapter of the photocopied publication, which we distributed to students and teachers, but many students learned something about their world, including the extent to which their peers confront prejudice.

Taking Steps Forward

I've been inspired by my former students taking to the streets in impassioned protest. Their anger is a healthy response to recent events. I did not understand racism's reach and breadth when I attended mostly diverse public schools in Kentucky. I try to give White kids the education I needed-a jump-start for a lifelong process of action, listening, reflection, and evolution.

In June, Paula, class of 2019, wrote to thank me for preparing her for the reckoning she was having with family and friends. Even more comforting was an Instagram story from Nick-a Jasper from another year. He hadn't posted anything in two years, but when he finally did, it was not a party pic or beach vista, but an earnest missive urging his college classmates to support Black businesses.

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Engaging White Students in Conversations About Race

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A high school teacher shares strategies for using literature to guide discussions about race with students who would rather avoid the topic. In February, my seniors read Toni Morrison's Beloved and were considering how a traumatic history can haunt the present.

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Thank you, Beth Pfannl

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The 1619 Project Curriculum in Lesson Plan Grouping - The 1619 Project, inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine, challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation’s foundational date. Here you wil…

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6 Steps for Creating Authentic Conversations That Center Race

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6 Steps for Creating Authentic Conversations That Center Race

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Natasha Harrison, CommunityBuild Ventures
*Thank you, Megan Holbrook Kuemmerlin

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Co-Authored by Neith Sankofa
Since the tragic lynchings of Ahmaud Arberry , George Floyd , Breonna Taylor , and, most recently in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks , there has been a heightened awareness of racism and white supremacy, and its impact on the well-being of Black, Indigenous and other People of Color. As a consistent voice for racial equity and Healing Justice, we have received inquiries from organizations about facilitating conversations that center racial equity. These inquiries are almost always fueled by a realization that 'we need to have a session' (checkbox focus) versus mapping out a thoughtful learning journey to help their organization confront their internal systemic racism in order to shift to a new paradigm that disrupts institutional racism. We continuously educate these organizations that centering racial equity requires a long term intentional commitment since we have been steeped in a culture of white supremacy for 400 years. Any conversations or initiatives that seek to help participants understand, embrace and embody racial equity and justice requires a prerequisite 'unmasking process' to allow participants to show up fully and share their authentic selves and experiences.

CommunityBuild Ventures supports communities in unmasking using our Brave Space Building™ protocol*. Brave Space Building™ is a 6-step process that is structured to allow participants to be their most authentic selves and lean more deeply into conversations that center racial equity. It creates a supportive "container" where participants feel connected to each other, the work ahead, and themselves. We have witnessed the powerful impact that this framework creates for and with organizations across diverse spectrums. We believe that Brave Space Building™ is a necessary framework to create a foundation for transformational work.

Brave Space Building™ Protocol for Centering Racial Equity

Coming into a new team or any group of people in a meeting can be difficult for everyone. Beginning any engagement with an invitation for each person to share the gratitude that is present in their lives helps a new, growing, or well established team bond and serves as an invitation to the group to operate from a place of curiosity, empathy, and trust.

Setting and living your intentions allows you to focus on who you are in the moment, to recognize and live your values, and to raise your emotional energy, which in turn raises your physical energy. Creating individual and group intentions guide the process and progress of the work. Intentions provide a road map and reminder for how you want to show up to live out each day. They concretize your purpose, and provide inspiration, grounding, and motivation along the journey.

Some emotions present an extra challenge when we encounter them in environments that have been shaped by ideals of professionalism that often negate the necessity and wisdom of human emotional response... Becoming more aware of the presence of emotions is essential self-care, self-worth and communal equity work. Identifying your feelings, and recognizing how they can assist in navigating towards solutions positions you to better understand triggers and learn to manage and articulate them more effectively.

Assumptions are used for centering or grounding around the approach to the work of racial equity. They are an intentional call-out of the inherent biases that are present within all individuals who have been exposed to a white supremacist culture. They are all taken as facts, which are brought to light in order to further participants' abilities to show up fully, willing to not only see other's potential for growth, but their own.

Community agreements provide a common framework for how people should work together as they take part in transformational action. Developing community agreements is a powerful strategy for coalescing a group into a team.

Shared language refers to people developing understanding amongst themselves based on language (e.g. spoken, contextual) to help them communicate more effectively. Developing a shared language is an ongoing process that requires intention and time, and results in deeper understanding and more effective solutions.
*This protocol is most powerful and effective when used within an ongoing professional learning community and facilitated by skilled facilitators.

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Co-Authored by Neith Sankofa Since the tragic lynchings of Ahmaud Arberry, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and, most recently in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks, there has been a heightened awareness of racism and white supremacy, and its impact on the well-being of [...]

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Building Student Understanding Across Racial Differences

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Building Student Understanding Across Racial Differences

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Melissa Collins, Edutopia

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

A partnership between an all-black class in Memphis, Tennessee, and an all-white class in rural New Jersey has helped students bridge racial and cultural divides.

Scott Laumann / The iSpot

Can you imagine a friendship that developed between Emma, a black second-grade student who attended a large urban school in Memphis, Tennessee, and Cassidy, a white third-grade student in a rural school in New Jersey? These two girls came from different backgrounds and lived in communities where they had little to no interactions with any other races or cultures. Based on a project I helped organize, they were paired as buddies and were provided opportunities to communicate one-on-one, becoming fast friends. Without knowing it, the friendship they developed-and still maintain-helped chip away at the racial and cultural barriers that continue to divide our society.
Courtesy of Melissa Collins
For many years, I grappled with how to create racially diverse classroom experiences for my students. I want my students to experience what I did during my childhood living in the very same neighborhood. My father chose this community for our family because of its access to the best schools, teachers, and resources in Memphis. But when I was young, my community looked very different than it does today-I did not have many neighbors who looked like me; nearly everyone was white. Because of the area's changing demographics, my students now have the opposite experience: They typically have little to no interactions with people of other races-especially people who are white. Recognizing how limited exposure to people of different races can contribute to racism and bias, I've sought ways to bridge the distance so that students like Emma and Cassidy learn to understand and appreciate others.

With the protests raging around the country right now, it is more apparent than ever that there needs to be a better understanding of racism and what it means in America. This starts in our classrooms and in our homes when children are young. As teachers, we need to work harder to ensure that our students make connections with people of other races. I believe that teaching our children about differences will help empower the next generation of dreamers and doers, and they will be the cure to end racism. I've tried to bridge those gaps in my classroom by connecting my students with the local community and leveraging technology to connect them with the world at large.

Fostering Cross-Cultural Connections
Courtesy of Melissa Collins
Though technology can be isolating, teachers can also use tech tools to connect classrooms and foster relationships between students. For the past three years, I have used a free online platform called Empatico to partner my second-grade class with another class in a different state. The platform also features lessons that help students develop social and emotional skills like communication and empathy.

After realizing that two New Jersey co-teachers, Michael Dunlea and Stacey Delaney, taught a class of all white students (and my Tennessee class had all black students), we recognized that we had an amazing opportunity to partner and provide our classes with a safe space to ask questions, show their creativity, and demonstrate understanding toward others.

Early on, we spent some time discussing the definitions of compassion, empathy, and respect, and students took time exhibiting these traits in discussions with their peers as practice. Then, we organized dual-class lessons through FaceTime; our students also exchanged letters and gifts; and simultaneously, they read the same books-like biographies of famous black leaders and one on Ruby Bridges-to compare insights. The positive relationship that developed between our classes was so strong that I decided to visit New Jersey in person several times, and Michael and Stacey surprised us once at the Civil Rights Museum.

Connecting With the Local Community

Taking the classroom experiences with our partner class as a foundation, I sought out field experiences and community speakers to help my students connect classroom lessons to larger issues and concepts. Every summer, I go to Little Rock Central High School (the first integrated high school in Arkansas, where the Little Rock Nine attended) to reaffirm to myself why I teach. During one visit, I befriended park ranger Toni and asked her to speak to my class and our partner class in New Jersey. On a Zoom video call, Toni discussed the Little Rock Nine, the civil rights movement, and segregation. Through this, the students developed a deeper understanding of the injustices and inequalities that the black race has experienced.

Broadening World Views

To encourage students to expand their understanding of race and difference even further, I collaborated with educator Jennifer Williams, a global educator and author of Teach Boldly, to connect with other educators from other countries such as China, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Through these connections, I'm able to broaden my classroom lessons with a global context and give my students more knowledge of how they can contribute to building a better world.
Courtesy of Melissa Collins
My class and our New Jersey partner class did a unit together on festivals around the world, where they identified commonalities and differences. My students also joined other students in the first-ever global "Peace Sign Project." Students around the globe created signs, read books and articles about peace, and led a peace march at their schools or communities. Then my students led the first-ever children's march at the National Civil Rights Museum on what would have been Dr. King's 90th birthday. With the relationship with their New Jersey friends as a foundation, my students learned to impact change in the world by taking a stand on issues that matter.

It's now been three years since Michael, Stacey, and I first partnered together, and we've continued the relationship with each new class. Through these impactful experiences we've had together, my students have shown both academic and social and emotional growth. They want to engage in more positive discourse-with each other and with people who are different. They ask probing questions to seek understanding from peers, and they aren't afraid to talk about race and build friendships across racial differences. I've heard the same from Michael and Stacey.

I will never forget the day when one of my students asked me if racism had ended. I asked her why she thought racism had ended. She said, "I have white friends in New Jersey. They love and care about me." I wanted her to have hope, so I responded, "Racism has not ended, but it can end with you."

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Building Student Understanding Across Racial Differences

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Culturally Responsive Teaching A partnership between an all-black class in Memphis, Tennessee, and an all-white class in rural New Jersey has helped students bridge racial and cultural divides. Scott Laumann / The iSpot Can you imagine a friendship that developed between Emma, a black second-grade student who attended a large urban school in Memphis, Tennessee, and Cassidy, a white third-grade student in a rural school in New Jersey?

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Teaching Black History in Culturally Responsive Ways

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Teaching Black History in Culturally Responsive Ways

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Rann, Miller Edutopia

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As Black History Month kicked off, I was reflecting on my time as a student. My experience all those years ago was similar to that of most Black children today: mostly White teachers teaching Black history primarily in February.

I was told of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass. I heard very little of Malcolm X, the FBI's campaign against civil rights leaders, the Rainbow Coalition put together by the Black Panther Party's Fred Hampton, or Hampton's assassination. I learned about the struggles of my enslaved ancestors, but not about Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, or Nat Turner.

I was taught about the marches and firehoses in Alabama, but I had to teach myself about the acts of terrorism committed against Black people in Rosewood, Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Wilmington, North Carolina.

Today, teachers continue that tradition, telling students about Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, and LeBron James, as well as King, Tubman, Douglass, and other inspirational figures. These folks are to be honored for their accomplishments-but we should not ignore lessons that explore the impact of racism in the Black experience. It's imperative that teachers not reinforce a milquetoast version of Black history that is anti-Black because of its erasure of painful truths.

No matter what subject you teach, there are ways you can infuse Black history into your daily lessons in a way that is prophetic and purposeful.

Black History Is American History

Infuse Black history into the curriculum year-round: Tom Joyner, the recently retired syndicated radio host, used the phrase "Black history 365 days a year" to mean that Black history isn't a gimmick meant for one month out of the year, with a student assembly or a potluck dinner with traditional Black foods. Black history is American history. Students should learn throughout the year and throughout all disciplines about the accomplishments, experiences, and perspectives of Black people.

How can teachers infuse Black history into their teaching? Here are some simple examples for core content areas:

English: Provide students with texts-poetry and fiction, and nonfiction as well-written by Black people. Teach students about the Africanisms in American English when discussing or teaching grammar.

Mathematics and science: Refer students to famous Black scientists and mathematicians throughout your course. Discuss how Black people showed an understanding of agricultural science in how they used soil in both West Africa and South Carolina to grow rice. Also, you can study the mathematical patterns of African art, and reference the rich history of math in sub-Saharan Africa in the areas of geometry, graphs, and numerical systems-you can engage students by playing African games like mancala that have a strong math component.

Social studies: Incorporate primary and secondary source documents by or about Black people into student reading lists. Create an assignment in which students interview Black history scholars to discuss the Black experience in America throughout a social studies course.

Use texts by Black authors, in every discipline: In history class, I learned from textbooks written by White scholars. I read the works of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare in English class, but never Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, or Toni Morrison. According to a recent report, more than eight of every 10 books that New York City students are likely to see in class from preschool to eighth grade are written by White authors. Students should be introduced to texts by Black authors that speak to Black experiences, Black perspectives, and Black accomplishments. These authors remind children and adults that Black excellence is not confined to athletics and entertainment. How can we promote the academic excellence of Black children without introducing them to Black intellectuals-individuals they can see themselves someday becoming?

Teach students about important Black figures-especially local ones: Teaching about Obama and King is a good start, but you can introduce students to hidden figures as you work through your content during the school year.

If you're a middle school science teacher and your students are interested in cultivating a community food garden, teach them about scientists like George Washington Carver, who developed methods to prevent soil depletion. If you're an elementary teacher teaching students how to tell time, introduce them to Benjamin Banneker, who created the first American clock. Teaching students about important people is a great thing-even better is doing it in the context of your lessons, rather than in a set-aside month.

And if you teach students about the history of slavery in America, remember to include two topics in particular: the economics of slavery, and acts of resistance and rebellion by Black people. The enslavement of Africans built this nation's economic foundation, and the entire nation benefited, so resistance and rebellion were met with brute force. Nevertheless, enslaved Africans and their enslaved descendants resisted through sabotage, running away, and outright rebellion and revolt- hundreds of revolts happened during African enslavement. Communities of formerly enslaved Black people along the East Coast fought to maintain their freedom and to free other enslaved people.

One task of teachers in the classroom is to acknowledge and honor students' humanity-and that means acknowledging and honoring Black humanity. That starts with acknowledging the good, the bad, and the ugly of our history as a nation.

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Teaching Black History in Culturally Responsive Ways

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Black history is American history and should be taught throughout the year across the curriculum-not confined to a single month.

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What Antiracists Teachers Do Differently: They view the success of black students as central to the success of their own teaching.

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What Antiracists Teachers Do Differently: They view the success of black students as central to the success of their own teaching.

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Pirette McKamey, The Atlantic

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They view the success of black students as central to the success of their own teaching.

Editor's Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The "On Teaching" series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.
Ask black students who their favorite teacher is, and they will joyfully tell you. Ask them what it is about their favorite teacher, and most will say some version of this: They know how to work with me. So much is in that statement. It means that these students want to work, that they see their teachers as partners in the learning process, and that they know the teacher-student relationship is one in which they both have power. In other words, black students know that they bring intellect to the classroom, and they know when they are seen-and not seen.

As the principal of San Francisco's Mission High School and an anti-racist educator for more than 30 years, I have witnessed countless black students thrive in classrooms where teachers see them accurately and show that they are happy to have them there. In these classes, students choose to sit in the front of the class, take careful notes, shoot their hands up in discussions, and ask unexpected questions that cause the teacher and other classmates to stop and think. Given the chance, they email, text, and call the teachers who believe in them. In short, these students are everything their families and community members have raised and supported them to be.

I have seen some of these very same students walk into another teacher's classroom, go to the last row of desks, and put their head down. I have seen them sit frozen in their seat, staring at an assignment-when earlier I had heard them make jokes, talk excitedly about the content of their history class, celebrate solving a vexing algebra equation, or shake a test tube with authority, waiting for a result. Their report cards often reveal this disparity in classroom experiences: A's and B's in classes where they feel valued and C's, D's, or even F's in classes where they don't.

When black students' academic strengths are overlooked, black students are marginalized. They are kept out of advanced courses, given bad grades, and sent to the dean's office. Over the years, the power that they initially bring to school is siphoned off by educators at every level of the educational system who do not respect, and in some cases do not wish to respect, the intellectual contributions of black students.

Anti-racist teachers take black students seriously. They create a curriculum with black students in mind, and they carefully read students' work to understand what they are expressing. This might sound fairly standard, but making black students feel valued goes beyond general "good teaching." It requires educators to view the success of black students as central to the success of their own teaching. This is a paradigm shift: Instead of only asking black students who are not doing well in class to start identifying with school, we also ask teachers whose black students are not doing well in their classes to start identifying with those students.

I spent the majority of my career in the classroom, and I loved it because-to do it well-it required that I call on all aspects of my humanity. Standing in front of my black students, I knew that it was my responsibility to invite them into the classroom and then to see, push, and protect them once they were there. Over the years, collaborating with other anti-racist educators, I co-developed an approach that was successful-and it showed in the students' attendance, grades, and quality of work.

We read articles and books, and we attend workshops centered around black pedagogy. That helps us examine cultural differences in discourse styles, so we can better understand black students' analytical approaches in essays. We learn how to integrate oral language into our curriculum, such as adding a debate unit or a poetry-recitation assignment, and to provide ample opportunities for students to work together. And we learn that nothing goes without saying and that praise and direction should be plentiful. In essence, we do what works for black students, which also works for all students.

Educators who are committed to black students use evidence in their own classrooms to find ways to improve. They analyze the assignments handed in, identifying ways in which their teaching reached-and didn't reach-all of their students. They recognize the brilliance of a black student's contribution to a class discussion and seize on it. They disaggregate data such as grades and attendance by ethnicity, look for patterns, and problematize their own practice-rather than assume that their students weren't motivated or sufficiently prepared to engage with challenging material. They ask themselves: Why did Taylor get a C on the final when he earned an A or a B on all of his other assignments, many of them equally demanding? Why is Vince silent in his group? What inspired Hile to write multiple drafts of her essay, each time asking for more detailed feedback? They seek support from colleagues who are effective teachers for all of their students, including black students, because they know that the changes they make to their teaching practice will have an impact on their students' achievement. All of this makes them better educators.

Teachers who do not value black students will shift the discussion away from their own practice when they see that black students are not succeeding in their classes. They will create bonds that eventually turn into factions with fellow educators who are also unwilling to change their approach.

To fight against systemic racism means to buck norms. Educators at every level must be willing to be uncomfortable in their struggle for black students, recognizing students' power and feeding it by honoring their many contributions to our schools. Teachers need to insist on using their own power to consistently reveal and examine their practice, and seek input from black stakeholders; they must invite black parents to the table, listen to their concerns and ideas, and act on them. Principals must clearly and consistently communicate the anti-racist vision for their school, create professional-development opportunities for staff, recognize teachers who successfully teach all of their students, and intervene when they see problems. District-level administrators must more firmly root their anti-racist messaging in black students' school experiences, making expectations for educators clear. And school-board members need to listen to educators who have shown efficacy in educating black students. They must enact policies that hold us all accountable to our black families. We must make demands of ourselves and work together in our communities.

The only measure of our anti-racist teaching will be the academic success of all of our students, including our black students.
This article is part of our project "On Teaching," which is supported by grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Panta Rhea Foundation.

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What Anti-racist Teachers Do Differently

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They view the success of black students as central to the success of their own teaching. Editor's Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The "On Teaching" series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.

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Engaging with Students in Conversations About Race

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Engaging with Students in Conversations About Race

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Larry Ferlazzo, Education Week

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(This is the 12th post in a series that has appeared over the past 10 months. You can see all of them here.)
The question-of-the-week is:
What are the best ways to respond to educators who say they "don't see race" when they teach?
One would hope that recent events will reduce the number of teachers who take the position that they "don't see race," but I think it's a safe bet to say that many will continue that way of thinking. Though the responses in this post were written prior to the death of George Floyd, the educators' advice is certainly still relevant.

Krystle Cobran , Dr. Mara Lee Grayson, and Dr. Felicia Darling "wrap up" this 12-part series.
When we're afraid we'll say the wrong thing
Krystle Cobran creates conversation about race that opens the doors of connection. Her work begins with listening-to you. You can drop Krystle a note and purchase The Brave Educator: Honest Conversations about Navigating Race in the Classroom by visiting krystlecobran.com:

Teaching that connects doesn't start with having all the answers. About anything. Including how to navigate conversations about race. But the reality is that many teachers feel pressure to know how to effectively navigate conversations about race in the classroom without ever having learnt how to do it. This pressure is real, and one of the ways humans tend to react to pressure is by getting defensive and making a quick escape.

Getting defensive is an understandable reaction, but when we shut down conversations about race in the classroom, we aren't just avoiding a potentially awkward moment. We're denying ourselves the opportunity to connect with the everyday realities our students live. Every student in the classroom is affected by race, regardless of how that student identifies. Every student. It's a painful thought to consider, but the reality is that every person in the classroom is affected by race-including teachers.

Which gets us just a little bit closer to what's lurking at the root of the statement " I don't see race" in the classroom context. This is about a fear of saying the wrong thing. A fear of inflicting more pain or causing accidental harm by diving into a conversation we feel ill-prepared to navigate ourselves.

When we teach from a place of fear, it's difficult for us to meet our students where they are. It becomes challenging for us to connect with the stories, experiences, and perspectives our students bring to the table. And as we cling ever more closely to what we think we know, the trust we've built begins to erode, and our ability to meet our students' needs decreases.

Feeling fear when conversations about race come up in the classroom isn't the problem. Reacting to that fear by dismissing our students' lived experiences is.

We need to engage our with students. Create shared understanding with our students. Build clear pipelines of communication with our students. And in order to do any of these things, we have to be willing to wrestle with the reality that race is much more than an abstract concept-it's a reality that both teachers and students live daily.

So instead of dismissing out of fear, engage with listening. Try replacing " I don't see race" with:

I want to learn from you. Tell me more about how you feel. (And then pause to intentionally listen with the goal of connecting, not judging/dismissing.)

Or

Your voice is important to me. I'd like to do some research on ______________ [insert student question here] so that we can dive deeper. Can we revisit this conversation on ______________ [insert specific class meeting day and time here]? (And then make a physical note of your student's question so that you can carve out time to educate yourself and return to the conversation a bit more prepared.)

And if neither of these options is a good fit, remember this: Conversations about race are conversations about real human pain. Dismissing unfamiliar perspectives because we aren't sure how to cope with the pain of race separates us from our students and can shut down learning. Choose to engage. Choose to discover. Resist the urge to dismiss.

Three actions teachers can take Dr. Mara Lee Grayson is an assistant professor of English at California State University, Dominguez Hills, whose work explores race rhetorics and equitable composition instruction. She is the author of the book Teaching Racial Literacy: Reflective Practices for Critical Writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Teaching English in the Two-Year College, English Education, English Journal, The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, St. John's University Humanities Review, and numerous edited collections. She is currently completing her second book:
Many white people in the United States have been taught, implicitly or directly, not to talk about race. Though race scholars now know better, at one point, colorblindness was framed as something to strive for, especially if you were white. I suspect that a lot of teachers who say they don't see race mean that they don't discriminate based upon race, but what they're really saying is that they don't acknowledge the distinct lived experiences of the students in their classrooms. Race is a social construct that has real, material effects; teachers who pretend not to see race are ignoring its impact on students' lives.

The majority of teachers in the U.S. are white; the majority of students are not. White teachers who "don't see race" are likely to base their pedagogies and practices on their own experiences and beliefs, which are informed by their positionalities as white people in a white hegemonic society. In other words, if we don't see race, we risk applying universally these situated-white ways of teaching and knowing through our instruction. This perpetuates the notion that whiteness is the norm and further marginalizes students whose experiences and ways of knowing are not grounded in whiteness.

So what can teachers do instead?

Bring students' experiences into the classroom. Invite students to share their languages, literacies, and ways of knowing in the classroom. Don't push and don't put students on the spot-forcing students to share can be a major violation, especially for students who feel marginalized. Instead, build opportunities for students to use their own discourses and existing funds of knowledge in your classroom. Assigning a personal narrative encourages students to make connections between the classroom and their lives outside of it. (Bonus: This helps you get to know your students better.) A Think-Pair-Share about a "controversial" topic can highlight the differences among students' beliefs and perspectives and help students explore where those differences (and similarities) might originate. Older students can do hands-on qualitative research in their own communities. These are just a few examples. Pedagogical approaches to honoring student experience will differ depending upon the class subject, the grade level of the students, the resources available, and other contextual factors.

Talk about race explicitly. Research shows that very young children are already aware of race, and pedagogies to encourage racial literacy have been shown to be effective as early as 1st grade. However, having so-called "courageous conversations" isn't enough if those conversations perpetuate inequity. Academic protocol tends to dictate the flow of classroom discussion, but the norms of that protocol (such as hand-raising and dispassionate, logical verbal contributions) don't do justice to the complexity of race talk and often wind up shutting down students of color. So, let students, particularly students of color, talk about race in the ways that make sense for them. Acknowledge emotions when they arise. Invite students to interrogate where those emotions come from. Share a list of readings and other resources available to help students engage in productive race talk and self-reflection.

Learn with your students. As a racial literacy educator, I believe that we must continue to learn, reflect upon our practice, and revise our curricula. For those of us who are white, if we believe ourselves to be nonracist, we must explore the implicit biases and assumptions we bring to the classroom. There are amazing resources out there, such as in-school and online implicit-bias trainings. Finally, to move beyond simplistic solutions like pretending to not see color, we must take on an anti-racist stance that challenges the systems that maintain racism. Notice what's happening in your school: Who benefits from the structures and policies put in place? Who is oppressed or marginalized by them? It can be difficult to do this work alone, so find allies and accomplices on campus or join a regional or national professional network. Think about this as group work-some projects are so big that they require a lot of hands on deck. Working with others toward anti-racist education is a far more inclusive and equitable endeavor than simply pretending race and racism don't exist, and this sort of work helps to model for students ways that they too can work to effect change.

Six questions
Dr. Felicia Darling is a first-generation college student who has taught math in grades 7-14 for 30 years. She leads workshops for K-14 educators and is the author of Teachin' It! Breakout Moves That Break Down Barriers for Community College Students:

A 7 th grade class of 35 students in Northern California might have 16 Hispanic students, nine White students, five African American students, three Asian students, one Pacific Islander student, and one Native American student. "Not seeing race" in this classroom is problematic for three reasons. First, ignoring students' ethnicity/race is ignoring an integral part of their overall identity and heritage that is likely a source of pride and personal power. Second, rendering race invisible is an act of oppression for students from ethnicities/races whose personal narratives may include their roles in the U.S. history of colonialization and discrimination. Third, teachers miss opportunities to build upon students' unique cultural perspectives to teach all students.

Ethnicity/race is not just what we can see on the outside. It cannot be separated from less obvious characteristics of cultural identity like family values, core beliefs and assumptions, attitudes about learning, prior knowledge about the subject matter, concepts of justice, sense of humor, and codes of behavior. To overlook what we see on the outside discounts what is happening on the inside and overwrites the funds of knowledge that students bring to class. We want to illuminate, not overshadow, students' assets. We want to help students draw from their prior experiences to co-construct knowledge with their peers.

Perhaps, the following series of six questions can help a teacher who espouses that "they don't see race" realize how important it is to build upon students' self-concepts around ethnicity/race instead of ignoring their ethnicity/race.

1. Can you tell me a little bit about who you are? Which identities are most important to you?" (e.g., ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, class, language, beliefs).

2. What are three core values or customs related to your identity that would not be immediately evident to others upon meeting you? (e.g., I am a survivor of sexual assault; I am Christian; I lived in foster care).

3. What are some aspects of your identity or your narrative that make you feel powerful and might be assets when learning? (e.g., I inherited my work ethic from my German-immigrant grandmother; I come from a long line of entrepreneurs).

4. What are some aspects of your identity that might make you feel less powerful and might be considered challenges when learning? (e.g., I did not go to a college-prep high school; I am a first-generation college student; I had a speech issue when I began school; I take a long time to write).

5. Do you think that a Latinx student might be proud of their ethnic/racial identity? What do you think would motivate this student more: for their teacher to ignore or to acknowledge their heritage about which they feel pride? Why?

6. Do you think that it would motivate or demotivate an African American student to disregard the reality of their daily struggle to navigate a system that does not treat them fairly? Why?

Hopefully, considering these six questions will help a teacher who espouses colorblindness to realize that this ideology is not harmless.

Thanks to Krystle, Mara, and Felicia for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar.

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Engaging With Students in Conversations About Race (Opinion)

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(This is the 12th post in a series that has appeared over the past 10 months. You can see all of them here.) The question-of-the-week is: What are the best ways to respond to educators who say they "don't see race" when they teach?

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Black Lives Matter: An Open Letter to the AISB Community

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Black Lives Matter: An Open Letter to the AISB Community

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Joel Jr Llaban @JoelJrLLABAN

*Thank you, Sharon Lawler-Sudell

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'The children are watching' and they have spoken. We have to listen and learn. "If reading that made you feel uncomfortable, good. Use that uncomfortability to fuel your proactivity". Thank you for teaching us, Omotoyosi Ariyo. #intAELOC @GlobalKdsl @DivCollab @CISEducation

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'The children are watching' and they have spoken. We have to listen and learn. "If reading that made you feel uncomfortable, good. Use that uncomfortability to fuel your proactivity". Thank you for teaching us, Omotoyosi Ariyo. #intAELOC @GlobalKdsl @DivCollab @CISEducation https://t.co/QtNV5Wb4Hm

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A must read: A first-person "open letter" to the international teaching community about how we can #dobetter. It's a long one, but worth every word.  https://t.co/oTGcZ0Rllz #BlackLivesMatter #Antiracist #Antiracism #blackvoicesheard #BlackVoice https://t.co/bdvX9SMpTN

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'The children are watching' and they have spoken. We have to listen and learn. "If reading that made you feel uncomfortable, good. Use that uncomfortability to fuel your proactivity". Thank you for teaching us, Omotoyosi Ariyo. #intAELOC @GlobalKdsl @DivCollab @CISEducation https://t.co/QtNV5Wb4Hm
— Joel Jr Llaban (@JoelJrLLABAN) June 15, 2020

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'The children are watching' and they have spoken. We have to listen and learn. "If reading that made you feel uncomfortable, good. Use that uncomfortability to fuel your proactivity". Thank you for teaching us, Omotoyosi Ariyo. #intAELOC @GlobalKdsl @DivCollab @CISEducation https://t.co/QtNV5Wb4Hm

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A must read: A first-person "open letter" to the international teaching community about how we can #dobetter. It's a long one, but worth every word.  https://t.co/oTGcZ0Rllz #BlackLivesMatter #Antiracist #Antiracism #blackvoicesheard #BlackVoice https://t.co/bdvX9SMpTN

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'The children are watching' and they have spoken. We have to listen and learn. "If reading that made you feel uncomfortable, good. Use that uncomfortability to fuel your proactivity". Thank you for teaching us, Omotoyosi Ariyo. #intAELOC @GlobalKdsl @DivCollab @CISEducation https://t.co/QtNV5Wb4Hm

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'The children are watching' and they have spoken. We have to listen and learn. "If reading that made you feel uncomfortable, good. Use that uncomfortability to fuel your proactivity". Thank you for teaching us, Omotoyosi Ariyo. #intAELOC @GlobalKdsl @DivCollab @CISEducation https://t.co/QtNV5Wb4Hm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
A must read: A first-person "open letter" to the international teaching community about how we can #dobetter. It's a long one, but worth every word.  https://t.co/oTGcZ0Rllz #BlackLivesMatter #Antiracist #Antiracism #blackvoicesheard #BlackVoice https://t.co/bdvX9SMpTN

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Project Implicit, Harvard University *Thank you, Liz Duffy

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Preliminary Information

On the next page you'll be asked to select an Implicit Association Test (IAT) from a list of possible topics . We will also ask you (optionally) to report your attitudes or beliefs about these topics and provide some information about yourself.

We ask these questions because the IAT can be more valuable if you also describe your own self-understanding of the attitude or stereotype that the IAT measures. We would also like to compare differences between people and groups.

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Note: This site is designed for adults, aged 18 or older.

Data Privacy: Data exchanged with this site are protected by SSL encryption. Project Implicit uses the same secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS) that banks use to securely transfer credit card information. This provides strong security for data transfer to and from our website. IP addresses are routinely recorded, but are completely confidential. For research purposes, data without directly identifying information is made publicly available. You can find more information on our Data Privacy page.

Important disclaimer: In reporting to you results of any IAT test that you take, we will mention possible interpretations that have a basis in research done (at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, Harvard University, and Yale University) with these tests. However, these Universities, as well as the individual researchers who have contributed to this site, make no claim for the validity of these suggested interpretations. If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further. You may prefer to examine general information about the IAT before deciding whether or not to proceed.

If you have questions about the study, please contact Project Implicit at questions@projectimplicit.net. To obtain more information about the study, ask questions about the research procedures, express concerns about your participation, or report illness, injury or other problems, please contact:

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I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed using a touchscreen OR using a keyboard.

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On the next page you'll be asked to select an Implicit Association Test (IAT) from a list of possible topics . We will also ask you (optionally) to report your attitudes or beliefs about these topics and provide some information about yourself.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture Releases “Talking About Race” Web Portal

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National Museum of African American History and Culture Releases “Talking About Race” Web Portal

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Portal Helps People Explore Issues Of Race, Racism And Racial Identity

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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Research shows that many people feel they do not have the information needed to discuss race in a way that is candid, safe and respectful of other viewpoints and experiences.

"The portal offers a wealth of resources to inform and guide discussions-videos, role-playing exercises, targeted questions and more, said Crew." "We hope that people will use this site to become more comfortable about engaging in honest dialogue and self-reflection."

Talking About Race builds upon decades of work by the museum's educators. It is the result of extensive research, studies, consultations, and educational resources from these fields: history, education, psychology and human development. It includes published research from leading experts, activists, historians, and thought leaders on race, equity, and inclusion, including Brené Brown, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Robin DiAngelo, Julie Olsen Edwards, Jerry Kang, Ibram X Kendi, Enid Lee, Audre Lorde, Beverly Daniel Tatum, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Tim Wise.

Phase one of the portal features eight foundational subjects including:

Being Anti-Racist: a conscious decision to make frequent, consistent, equitable choices daily.

Bias: the inclination or prejudice toward or against something or someone.

Community Building: connecting and engaging with others doing anti-racism work and exploring issues of race.

Historical Foundations of Race: how race, white privilege, and anti-blackness are woven into the very fabric of American society.

Race and Racial Identity: how societies use race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, disenfranchisement, and oppression.

Self-Care: caring for one's mental, emotional, and physical health to sustain the work of dismantling racism.

Social Identities and Systems of Oppression: systems built around the ideology that some groups are superior to others.

Whiteness: an ideology that reinforces power at the expense of others.

Explore Talking About Race at nmaahc.si.edu/talkingaboutrace. The portal is free and does not require a registration or sign-up to use. Talking About Race is generously supported by The Atlantic Philanthropies.
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About the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Since opening September 24, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture has welcomed more than 7 million visitors. Occupying a prominent location next to the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the nearly 400,000 square-foot museum is the nation's largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. For more information about the museum, visit, follow @NMAAHC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or call Smithsonian information at (202) 633-1000.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture Releases "Talking About Race" Web Portal

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The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture today launched Talking About Race, a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture.

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Educator Innovator.org

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NWP Radio, in partnership with the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield and Penguin Random House Books, has launched a special series called "The Write Time" where writing teachers from across the NWP Network interview young-adult and children's authors about their books, their composing processes, and writers' craft.
Here's a list of our featured guests. Click a name to jump to their video.
Past Episodes

Author Gene Luen Yang along with Educators Abu Bility and William King

We were so fortunate to have the one and only Gene Luen Yang with us to discuss his new graphic novel, Dragon Hoops. He was joined by Bryan Ripley Crandall, CWP-Fairfield, Mark Crandall, Founder of Hoops4Hope, and teachers Abu Bility and William King.

Author Nic Stone and Educator Kim Herzog

For this episode, our guests include Nic Stone, an Atlanta native and Spelman College graduate, and Connecticut educator Kim Herzog, a member of CWP-Fairfield. Nic Stone's debut novel for young adults, Dear Martin, and her debut middle-grade novel, Clean Getaway, were both New York Times bestsellers. In this episode, Nic Stone and Kim Herzog are joined by Kristin Shultz, Penguin Random House, and hosts Tanya Baker from the National Writing Project and Bryan Ripley Crandall from CWP-Fairfield.

Author Matt de la Peña and Educator Dr. Tracey Flores

Matt de la Peña is a #1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning author. He has penned six critically acclaimed YA novels, including Mexican WhiteBoy and The Living, which was a Pura Belpré Author Honor Book. Matt's picture book Love was a #1 New York Times bestseller, and Last Stop on Market Street was awarded a Newbery Medal. Matt lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Dr. Tracey T. Flores is an assistant professor of Language and Literacy at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Flores is a former classroom teacher, working for eight years alongside culturally and linguistically diverse students, families, and communities in K-8 schools throughout Glendale and Phoenix, Arizona. Her research focuses on Latina mothers' and daughters' language and literacy practices, the teaching of young writers in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, and family and community literacies.

Author Erika Sánchez and Educator Janelle Q. Bence

National Writing Project teacher-leader Janelle Q. Bence interviews New York Times Best-selling author Erika Sánchez in our special NWP Radio series, The Write Time. Sánchez is the author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and a recent recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry.

Author Jeff Zentner and Educator Susan James

In this episode of The Write Time we visit with Jeff Zentner, author of The Serpent King, Goodbye Days, and Rayne and Delilah's Midnite Matinee. Jeff is the recipient of the William C. Morris Award and his work has been selected as an ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults.

Jeff is interviewed by Dr. Susan Densmore-James, an assoiciate professor at the University of West Florida, the director of the Emerald Coast Writing Project at UWF, and is known as The Book Dealer for her work with literacy and Young Adult Literature.

Co-Founder of Project LIT Jarred Amato and Educator Sean Astle

In this episode of The Write Time, Jarred Amato the co-founder of Project LIT is interviewed by Connecticut English teacher Sean Astle. Jarred himself is a high school English teacher in Nashville, TN and Sean Astle is an English teacher in Connecticut where he is studying how young adult literature can be used to improve the literacy practices of all readers and writers.

Authors Marie Lu and Rose Brock with Educator Amanda Haugen

Marie Lu is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Young Elites series as well as the blockbuster Legend series. She has also been an artist in the video game industry, but is now a full-time author living in Los Angeles.

Rose Brock is an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University and a co-founder of the national literacy initiative, Guys Listen. She is also the editor of Hope Nation: Young Adult Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration and the author of Young Adult Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide.

Amanda Haugen is a high school ELA teacher in Pensacola, Florida and a teacher-consultant with the Emerald Coast Writing Project.

Author Laurie Halse Anderson and Educator Rebecca Marsick

In this episode of The Write Time we are honored to have Laurie Halse Anderson join us to discuss writing, learning, and life. She is the author of Speak, Prom, Twisted, Catalyst, Wintergirls, The Impossible Knife of Memory, and more.

Laurie is interviewed by NWP teacher-leader Rebecca Marsick who has taught elementary, middle, and high school, and is currently a Secondary Literacy Coach for Westport Public Schools.

Author Torrey Maldonado and Educator Rosanne Orta

Torrey Maldonado is the author of the critically acclaimed books What Lane?, Tight, and Secret Saturdays. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY where he still lives and teaches today.

Rosanne Orta lives in Arizona and has taught high school English for 12 years and is an NWP teacher-leader.

Author Adib Khorram and Educator Aram Kabodian

For this episode of The Write Time, we have the pleasure of visiting with award-winning author Adib Khorram. Adib is the author of Darius The Great is Not Okay and his next book, Darius The Great Deserves Better, will be released August 25, 2020.

Leading the discussion will be Aram Kabodian, a longtime educator, the 2016 MCTE Middle School Teacher of the Year, and a Red Cedar Writing Project teacher-leader.

Author Erin Stewart and Educator Esther Theodore

For this episode of The Write Time, we visit with author Erin Stewart. Erin uses her background in journalism to research and write fiction based on real life and her debut novel is Scars Like Wings.

Leading the conversation is Esther Theodore, an English Language Teacher at Stamford High in Connecticut and a teacher-leader with CWP-Fairfield. Esther is originally from Haiti and believes that every individual carries with them a story that enriches the educational journey, stretching it beyond the classroom.

Author Candice Iloh and Educator Sharonica Nelson

As part of a special back-to-school series of The Write Time, we visited with three debut Penguin Random House authors. For the first episode we visited with author Candice Iloh and educator Sharonica Nelson led the discussion.

Candice Iloh is a first generation Nigerian-American author and dancer based in Philadelphia, PA. Iloh has performed poetry and spoken word around the country and has served as a program director and workshop facilitator with Voices UnBroken, and as a teaching artist with Split This Rock, poetryN.O.W., and The American Poetry Museum. Throughout her work, Iloh has remained engaged with the communities she works and lives in by mentoring young people creatively within public school classrooms, athletic programs, and writing workshops.

Author Ger Duany and Educator William King

As part of a special back-to-school series of The Write Time, we visited with three debut Penguin Random House authors. For our second episode we visit with author Ger Duany and educator William King leads the discussion.

Ger Duany is a survivor of the tragic exodus of an estimated 20,000 Sudanese children, the "Lost boys of Sudan," and has been appointed as UN Goodwill Ambassador. Born in the town of Akobo, Ger was caught up in Sudan's north-south civil war and was forcefully recruited as a child soldier. At the age of 14, he managed to escape to neighbouring Ethiopia and was eventually resettled to the United States from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. In 2014, UNHCR helped Ger reunite with his mother and other family members in Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp. He is also a model and actor.

Author Kim Johnson and Educator Synthia Shelby

As part of a special back-to-school series of The Write Time, we visited with three debut Penguin Random House authors. For our third and final episode of this mini-series, we visited with author Kim Johnson and educator Synthia Shelby leads the discussion.

Kim Johnson held leadership positions in social justice organizations as a teen. She's now a college administrator who maintains civic engagement throughout the community while also mentoring Black student activists and leaders. This Is My America is her debut novel. It explores racial injustice against innocent Black men who are criminally sentenced and the families left behind to pick up the pieces. She holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Maryland, College Park. Kim lives her best life in Oregon with her husband and two kids.

Author Jerry Craft and Student/Actor Dereje Tarrant

In this episode of The Write Time, we visit with author/illustrator Jerry Craft and eighth-grade student, Dereje Tarrant.

Dereje's favorite subjects include creative writing, Latin, art, and biology. He is also a professional actor and enjoys playing soccer, doing hip-hop dance, practicing piano, spray-painting murals, or working at his latest craft-DJ-ing.

Jerry Craft is the New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal winning author of the graphic novel, . His second graphic novel, , was published on October 6, 2020. Craft is also the creator of Mama's Boyz, an award-winning comic strip which won the African American Literary Award five times. He is a cofounder of the Schomburg Center's Annual Black Comic Book Festival. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

Authors Jacob Kramer and K-Fai Steele along with Educator Sheryl Block

Jacob Kramer grew up in Providence, RI and studied film-making and writing at Harvard. Like Noodlephant, he loves hunting for mushrooms, eating noodles, and organizing with friends in pursuit of justice.

K-Fai Steele is an author-illustrator who grew up in a house built in the 1700s with a printing press her father bought from a magician. She illustrated Okapi Tale and Noodlephant, and wrote and illustrated A Normal Pig.

Sheryl Block was a 4th grade and special education teacher, and currently serves as the Coordinator of Professional Learning with the Louisville Writing Project in Kentucky.

Author Candace Fleming and Educator Megan Rodney

Candace Fleming awarded herself the Newbery Medal in fifth grade after scraping the gold sticker off the class copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond and pasting it onto her first novel-a ten-page, ten-chapter mystery called Who Done It? She's been collecting awards (her own, not Elizabeth George Speare's) ever since.

Today, Candace is the versatile and acclaimed author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize honored The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of the Russian Empire; Boston Globe/Horn Book Award-winning biography, The Lincolns; the bestselling picture book, Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!; the Sibert-Award-winning Giant Squid; and the beloved Boxes for Katje. She contributed the chapter on Katharine of Aragon to Fatal Throne.

Candace is interviewed by Ohio Writing Project (OWP) teacher-leader Megan Rodney. Megan is a former second- and third-grade teacher, and is currently the Elementary PD Lead with OWP.

Author Lamar Giles and Educator Kearstin Jacobs

In this episode of The Write Time we visit with award-winning author Lamar Giles and middle-school educator Kearstin Jacobs. Lamar writes for teens and adults across multiple genres, with work appearing on many "Best Of" lists every year. He is the author of the acclaimed novels Fake ID, Endangered, Overturned, Spin, The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, Not So Pure and Simple, and The Last Mirror on the Left as well as numerous pieces of short fiction. He is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books and resides in Virginia with his wife.

Author Gholdy Muhammad and Educator Christopher Rogers

This episode of The Write Time features educator and author Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad. Dr. Muhammad is an Associate Professor of Language and Literacy at Georgia State University and is the author of the best-selling book, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Model for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. She works with teachers and young people across the United States and South Africa supporting best practices in culturally responsive instruction.

Dr. Muhammad is interviewed by Christopher Rogers, a Ph.D student within the Reading/Writing/Literacy program at PennGSE. Chris also serves as Public Programs Director for the Paul Robeson House and Museum and serves as Curriculum Co-Chair for National Black Lives Matter at School.

Author Kwame Alexander and Educator Tyler Jones

Kwame Alexander's newest novel Becoming Muhammad Ali, co-authored with the best-selling novelist, James Patterson, is about the childhood of Cassius Clay, and therefore set in Louisville, Kentucky.

This episode of The Write Time features Tyler Jones, a teacher-consultant with the Louisville Writing Project, interviewing Kwame about this knockout novel.

Author Ann E. Burg with Educator Amy Bouch

Ann E. Burg worked as an English teacher for many years before becoming a full-time writer. Flooded, Requiem for Johnstown is her fourth verse novel published by Scholastic Press. Her books have received numerous awards and commendations, including most recently, the Bank Street College Claudia Lewis Award.

Ann is interviewed by Amy Bouch, a reading-obsessed 8th grade English teacher at Chartiers Valley Middle School near Pittsburgh. Amy is a Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP) teacher-leader and the Vice President of the Western Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE).

Author Matt de la Peña and Educator Aeriale Johnson

Matt de la Peña is the first author to make his second appearance on The Write Time! Matt is a #1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning author. He has penned six critically acclaimed YA novels, including Mexican WhiteBoy and The Living, which was a Pura Belpré Author Honor Book. Matt's picture book Love was a #1 New York Times bestseller, and Last Stop on Market Street was awarded a Newbery Medal. Matt lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Aeriale Johnson is a Reggio-inspired, abolitionist teacher of third graders at Washington Elementary School, a school bursting with the energy of multiculturalism and multilingualism in downtown San Jose, CA. Aeriale is dedicated to antiracism and works every day of her life to disrupt oppressive systems and promote a more just and equitable world wherein all folx can thrive.

Author Chris Crutcher and Educator Stephenie Eriksson

Chris Crutcher 's years as a teacher, then director, of a K-12 alternative school in Oakland, California through the nineteen-seventies, and his subsequent twenty-odd years as a therapist specializing in child abuse and neglect, inform his thirteen novels and two collections of short stories. Chris has received a number of coveted awards, from his high school designation as "Most Likely to Plagiarize" to the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award. His favorites are his two Intellectual Freedom awards, one from the National Council for Teachers of English and the other from the National Coalition Against Censorship. Five of Crutcher's books appeared on an American Library Association list of the 100 Best Books for Teens of the Twentieth Century (1999 to 2000).

Chris is interviewed by Stephenie Eriksson, a National Board Certified Teacher, a teacher-consultant with the Ohio Writing Project, and a past-president of the Ohio Council of Teachers of English/Language Arts. For over 22 years, Stephenie has taught readers and writers in Blanchester, Ohio. She started her career teaching seventh and eighth grade and currently teaches sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

Author Joseph Bruchac and Educator Caitlin Johnson

Joseph Bruchac is a Nulhegan Abenaki citizen and a leader among his people. He is the author of more than 120 books for children and adults, including his best-selling series, Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children.

Joseph is interviewed by Dr. Caitlin Johnson, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Dr. Johnson is an English teacher at Dakota High School in Fargo, North Dakota.

Author Abdi Nor Iftin and Educator/Author Kate Kennedy

Abdi Nor Iftin has been featured on various radio and TV stations sharing his life story of growing up in a country torn by civial war and immigrating to the United States in 2014. His new book Call Me American was released in 2018 and is a finalist for New England's Bookseller's Association book awards.

Abdi is interviewed by author and educator Kate Kennedy. Kate taught writing at Portland High School, was the director of the Southern Maine Writing Project, and is the author of Skin, A Memoir and End Over End.

Author Rachel Ignotofsky and Educator Soñia Galaviz

Join the National Writing Project's The Write Time with New York Times Best Selling author and illustrator Rachel Ignotofsky. Rachel will be interviewed by Soñia Galaviz a 5th-grade teacher and leader with the Boise State Writing Project.

Authors Kwame Mbalia, Varian Johnson, Julian Randall, and Educator Cosby Hunt

Join the National Writing Project's The Write Time with Kwame Mbalia, editor of Black Boy Joy, two additional contributors Varian Johnson and Julian Randall, and Washington, DC area teacher, Cosby Hunt.

Black Boy Joy, released on August 3, 2021 is a book that celebrates the excellence of young Black males, their happiness, their voices, and their stories. We are excited to discuss the project with them on this episode.

Author Felicia Rose and Educator Tonya Perry

Felicia Rose Chavez is an award-winning educator with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She is author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom and co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT with Willie Perdomo and Jose Olivarez. Felicia's teaching career began in Chicago, where she served as Program Director to Young Chicago Authors and founded GirlSpeak, a feminist webzine for high school students.

Dr. Tonya Perry is a Professor and Director of the Red Mountain Writing Project. In 2000-2001, she was named Alabama Teacher of the Year and further awarded National Teacher of the Year Finalist. In 2012, she was named by colleagues and students the recipient of the UAB Teaching Excellence Award. On a national level, she serves as a member of the Research on Women in Education executive board affiliated with AERA, director of the NCTE Cultivating New Voices program, a member of the Beloved Community in the National Writing Project's Write Now Teacher Studio, and a former National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Executive Board Member.

Author Varian Johnson and Educator Kim Tate

Varian Johnson is the author of several novels for children and young adults, including The Parker Inheritance, which won both Coretta Scott King Author Honor and Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor awards; The Great Greene Heist, an ALA Notable Children's book and Kirkus Reviews Best Book; and the graphic novel , illustrated by Shannon Wright, an NPR Best Book. Varian was born in Florence, South Carolina, and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received a BS in Civil Engineering. He later received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is honored to now be a member of the faculty. Varian lives outside of Austin, TX with his family.

Kim Tate is a fifth-grade dual language teacher at International Prep Academy in Champaign, Illinois, where she is a member of her school improvement leadership team, as well as co-chair of her school's equity committee. In addition to being a children's fiction enthusiast, Kim is a 2021-2022 Teach Plus Illinois Policy Fellow and an NWP Panda Fellow. She attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Millikin University, where she received her B.S. in Elementary Education. She is currently completing her MEd in Education Policy, Organization & Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Author Carmen Oliver and Ranger Lessard

Carmen Oliver grew up in Manitoba, Canada, surrounded by lakes and prairie grass where she built tree forts, caught tadpoles, and sailed on homemade rafts. She is the author of the picture book series Bears Make the Best Buddies (Reading, Math, Writing, and Science) as well as the nonfiction picture book biography A Voice for the Spirit Bears: How One Boy Inspired Millions to Save a Rare Animal, a Junior Library Guild spring 2019 pick. She's also the author of the forthcoming picture books The Twilight Library and The Favio Chavez Story. Carmen's work has been shortlisted for the Rainforest of Reading Award, The Writers' League of Texas Awards and the CLEL Bell Picture Book Awards for Early Literacy. In 2014, she founded the Booking Biz, a boutique style agency that brings award-winning children's authors and illustrators to schools, libraries, and special events. When she's not writing, she loves gardening, cheering on her kids from the sidelines and blue-sky days. Carmen lives in Round Rock, TX with her family.

Kristin Lessard has worked for the National Park Service since 2008, serving in varied professional roles across multiple disciplines. In her current position, Kristin oversees the park's visitor service operations and engagement initiatives, which include history and fine art education programming for approximately 40,000 visitors a year, as well as dynamic youth and volunteer programs. Kristin graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and has extensive training in public programming and 21st-century visitor engagement techniques.

Write Out (#writeout) is a free two-week event, led by the National Writing Project and the National Park Service. The event is organized as a series of online activities where educators, students, and the public are invited to explore national parks and other public spaces to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing.

The theme of this year's event is "Palettes, Storyboards, and Cadences" and will run from October 10-24, 2021 (which includes the National Day on Writing on October 20).

Author-Illustrator K-Fai Steele and Educator Heather Locke

K-Fai Steele is an author-illustrator who grew up in a house built in the 1700s with a printing press her father bought from a magician. She wrote and illustrated A Normal Pig and her latest book is All Eyes on Ozzy! She was a James Marshall Fellow at the University of Connecticut, a Brown Handler Writer in Residence at the San Francisco Public Library, and an Ezra Jack Keats/Kerlan Memorial Fellow at the University of Minnesota. Born in Charlton, Massachusetts, K-Fai now lives in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Heather Locke was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. She has been teaching for six years and currently teaches a fantastic group of second graders. As a kid, Heather had an amazing fifth-grade teacher who recognized her strengths and helped her grow. In high school, her volleyball coach and history teacher supported her through a difficult time. It is because of them that she achieved her childhood dream of supporting children through education.

Author Tiffany D. Jackson and Educator Delicia Greene

Tiffany D. Jackson is the New York Times Bestselling author of YA novels including the Coretta Scott King- John Steptoe New Talent Award-winning Monday's Not Coming, the NAACP Image Award-nominated , Let Me Hear A Rhyme, , and her latest titles , White Smoke, and Santa in the City. She received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University, her master of arts in media studies from the New School, and has over a decade in TV/Film experience. The Brooklyn native is a lover of naps, cookie dough, and beaches, currently residing in the borough she loves, most likely multitasking.

Dr. Delicia Greene is an assistant professor in the Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning in the School of Education at the University at Albany, SUNY. She also holds an affiliate appointment in the Department of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. Her work enhances teaching and learning in the urban secondary literacy contexts. Dr. Greene's research is at the intersection of digital literacies, Black girlhood studies, rhetorical studies, urban literacies, young-adult literature, and teacher education, where she examines (1) Black girls' literacy and language practices in out-of-school digital spaces and (2) teaching strategies designed to bridge Black girls' out-of-school and in-school literacy and language practices.

Author Laura Purdie Salas and Educator Lisa Lapina

Former teacher Laura Purdie Salas believes reading small picture books and poems can have a huge impact on your life. She has written more than 130 books for kids, including Lion of the Sky: Haiku for All Seasons (Kirkus Best Books and Parents Magazine Best Books of the Year), the Can Be... series (Bank Street Best Books, IRA Teachers' Choice), and Bookspeak!: Poems About Books (Minnesota Book Award, NCTE Notable). Laura shares inspiration and practical tips with educators about poetry, nonfiction, and more.

Lisa Lapina is currently teaching first grade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended Bloomsburg University where she earned a bachelor's degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education in 2011. Following BU, Lisa attended the University of Pennsylvania graduating in 2013 with a master's degree in Reading, Writing, and Literacy. She moved to Maryland in 2013 and taught first grade for five years. She moved back to Pennsylvania in 2018 and taught first grade in Upper Darby, PA before moving to The School District of Philadelphia in 2020. She taught kindergarten in 2020 and looped with her students to first grade in 2021. It's been a joy for her to spend a second year with this class. Lisa is grateful for all of the ways that the National Writing Project has positively influenced her career as an educator!

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Educator Innovator and its partners share the goal of creating more powerful and connected learning for youth through bringing together learning and leadership opportunities for teachers, youth workers, mentors, librarians, and museum educators that are open, re-mixable, and typically free or low-cost.

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Why #BlackLivesMatter in Your Classroom Too

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Why #BlackLivesMatter in Your Classroom Too

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Cornelius Minor

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I have a simple job. It has two easy mandates.

1. Love children with good teaching.

2. Love their teachers by supporting them with good stuff to teach with.

I work in classrooms all over the world. When there are pieces of your heart in far flung corners of the globe, a powerful kind of empathy grows. When communities hurt, I hurt.

When Trayvon Martin was murdered in Florida, I thought of the children I serve there. I thought of the books they like and the jokes they tell me when I get to town. I remembered his school and his teachers. I thought of his community and especially of his family that has had to find light in the traumatic void his absence creates. On some mornings, when I am particularly sensitive or tired, I can see his classroom. His empty desk haunts my dreams.

When the same thing happened with Mike Brown and Tamir Rice, a significant part of me broke. These names are not headlines or hashtags to me. These were children who read the books my colleagues and I suggested and wrote the essays we asked them to write. These are children who trusted us with their futures. Our system betrayed that trust.

I've worked in schools my entire career. The death of a student or family member is not a new occurrence to me. It is painful every single time. But I heal.

These recent wounds, however, are kept fresh not just by the regularity of these murders, but that they are carried out by agents of the state or their proxies and that they happen almost exclusively to black and brown children, to their siblings, to their mothers and to their fathers.

When educators talk about racism our conversation is often limited to individual acts of personal bias. As long as we don't know any mean or intolerant people, we are complacent in our thinking that these problems are not ours to contend with. Such a stance ignores the systemic complexities of how race is lived in America, on its streets and in our classrooms - and even when there are no people of color present.

Becoming more systemically aware means understanding the kinds of racism that shape our communities, schools, and classrooms, and where we stand in relation to those social forces.

Most people are aware of individual racism. If we choose to talk about race, it is what we spend most of our time talking about, but few understand how it works. There are two kinds of individual racism. The first kind of individual racism is internalized racism. These are all the conscious and subconscious racial biases, prejudices, and blind spots that we all have within ourselves as individuals.

The second kind of individual racism is interpersonal racism. This is what happens when we act out the biases we internalize on others. Most of us are sensitive enough to avoid acting out our internalized racism, but as humans, our biases, prejudices and blind spots are most likely to emerge when we are tired, stressed, late, scared or feel threatened. As educators we are tired quite regularly and stressed daily, so the work of avoiding interpersonal racism is real and significant, but it is not all.

There are also two kinds of systemic racism. The first kind - institutional racism - is the collection of racist policies and discriminatory practices in schools, government agencies, and workplaces that routinely produces unjust outcomes for people of color. These words may be new to us, but as teachers we are intimately familiar with this kind of racism. This is the "achievement gap." This is the testing industrial complex. This is school discipline.

Let's consider this: if there were an activity at school that resulted in the mass failure of kids with green eyes, we would not criminalize the kids with green eyes. We would ask, "What is it about this activity that excludes kids with green eyes?" and we would change the activity. Are we, as members of the education community, willing to do this for black boys who are suspended at rates that are exponentially more in comparison to their peers? What could this look like? If sitting in a desk all day listening to lectures leads to mass suspensions for a specific subset of kids, I need to get with my team and change the activity. To engage in this imaginative work - even if it is messy - is antiracist. It affirms that black lives do matter.

The second kind of systemic racism - structural racism - is the unjust patterns and practices that play out across societal institutions. It is the reality that those suspended black boys miss out on valuable instructional time and consequently miss out on opportunities that lead to college. It is the reality that this boy's earning potential over a lifetime is now a paltry percentage of his college educated peers. It is the knowledge that this reduced earning diminishes quality of life. To be antiracist is to know that all of these things are connected and to know that many of them start in school even when we express no interpersonal racism.

All of our students matter, but in a society characterized by its dogged refusal to treat all kids and their families equally, it is our moral imperative to affirm that black lives matter. If outcomes continue to be bleak for large groups of people, it diminishes the quality of all our lives. When there is massive disenfranchisement fueled by widespread failure and incarceration, the safety of all our communities is compromised.

In our search for solutions, people utter platitudes disguised as answers - we should love one another, I don't see color or race, let's talk more - and all of those things are lovely and important starts, but they alone will not change the systems that routinely produce unjust outcomes. To continue with business as usual, to do nothing, to be "neutral" is a passive declaration of racism because the system that we are most intimately connected with - school - will continue to produce unjust outcomes for people of color. To be antiracist is to be actively involved with the disruption of these systems.

What is our influence, as educators?

What can we do? We cannot reconstruct the world to reflect our views, but we are in a unique position to take action in our classrooms. We can start to disrupt the status quo by asking ourselves questions about our practice, community and curriculum. When I'm working in teams with other teachers, here are some initial questions we use to imagine what our disruption can look like.

1. Safety. In order for students to learn, they need to feel safe. How can I make sure that my classroom is a place where children feel safe and protected? Can I ensure the sustained management of the room while communicating respect (without cultivating fear, embarrassment or teacher dependence)?

2. Choice. Children read more when they feel capable and motivated. How can I create access to reading material that is high interest and appropriately challenges kids? How can I create consistent opportunities to do work that has both meaning and consequence?

3. Voice. When students have a voice, they feel empowered. When so much of childhood is about staying quiet and listening to adults, how can we give students a platform to talk, to write, to share what is important to them? How can we help them be heard by the constituencies that matter the most to them? Who are those people, can we get them to the classroom, and how can we communicate with them?

4. Growth. Learning is not an identical process for all kids; we cannot treat it as if it is. Where are my students now? Honestly. Where can they be by the end of the week? What kind of teaching and practice will it take for them to get there? How can I best facilitate progress - small groups, out of classroom activities, labs, centers, discussions, home visits? How can I measure progress? What tools might kids need in addition to what I have planned so that they may succeed? Do all kids need that tool?

5. Flexibility. Children and communities are changing all the time. What do we need to read to be more responsive to our kids and communities? Who do we need to learn from? What is the best way to share that learning with other teachers? How can we put that learning into action? Day to day, what can this kind of professional growth look like for us?

There is no right answer; rather, it's the questions that help us think about what actions or changes might lead to better outcomes for all of our students, particularly those who are underserved by traditional schooling. Being an advocate for black lives does not mean that I am an advocate against any other lives. When we make the conscious decision to address persisting injustices, this broadens access to justice for everyone.

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Why #BlackLivesMatter in Your Classroom Too

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I work in classrooms all over the world. When there are pieces of your heart in far flung corners of the globe, a powerful kind of empathy grows. When communities hurt, I hurt. When Trayvon Martin...

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The Tutu Teacher

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15 Classroom Resources for Discussing Racism, Policing, and Protest

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15 Classroom Resources for Discussing Racism, Policing, and Protest

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Sarah Schwartz, Education Week

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As nationwide protests against police brutality continue, teachers in their virtual classrooms are once again searching for ways to help their students process the killings of black people in police custody in the United States.

Speaking with Education Week on Monday, teachers said that they and their colleagues have a responsibility to address these protests, which erupted when George Floyd, an unarmed black man, died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

"Teachers cannot be silent during this time," said Patrick Harris, a 6th and 7th grade English and social studies teacher at the Detroit Achievement Academy. "Teachers have to take a stand. Students are absorbing this, [and] they're going to ask themselves later on in life or even now, 'What was my teacher doing during this time?'"

Talking with students about these events, as they experience them, is top priority right now, said Abdul Wright, who teaches 8th grade language arts in North Minneapolis. "I have to find a way to make meaning of this in a way that creates a better society for them," he said.

Some teachers whose classes have already ended for the school year are reaching back out to students, particularly their black students, giving them space to talk about their emotions and ask questions.

Other teachers in schools still in session are seeking materials and resources to teach about this moment, such aslesson plans that engage students in conversations about racism, policing, and protest.

On Monday, Chicago Public Schools released "Say Their Names," a collection of lessons and materials designed "to help foster productive conversations about race and civil disobedience."

The toolkit links to other organizations' resources on supporting black students' mental and emotional health, discussing the Black Lives Matter movement, and talking about anti-black racism with non-black students. And it encourages teachers to educate themselves on racism in the U.S. before broaching these topics with students.

In California, theLos Angeles Unified School District posted a collection of resources for teachers, for talking about race with children and addressing trauma. The superintendent of education in the state, Tony Thurmond, said the California Department of Education will also be releasing online materials and trainings.

For teachers looking for more classroom resources-for themselves and their students-Education Week has compiled the following list:

Resources about George Floyd's death and the current protests:

The Anti-Defamation League has created a short lesson on Floyd's death and police killings of black people, which includes a reading, discussion questions, and action steps for students aged 11 and up.

Resources for talking about race, racism, and Black Lives Matter:

In addition to addressing race and racism in lesson plans, experts and advocates have urged teachers to build a diverse classroom library with protagonists who look like their students.

The group Embrace Race compiled a list of 31 children's books that address race, racism, and activism. And the nonprofit Teaching for Change put together a list of social justice books for teens.

Joe Truss, the principal of Visitacion Middle School in San Francisco Unified and a consultant on racial equity in schools, has curated a list of books for teachers who want to engage in anti-racist work.

Starting these classroom conversations can be uncomfortable and challenging. But for black teachers, talking about police brutality and anti-black racism can be particularly emotionally draining. The Practice Freedom Project, founded by Atlanta educator Tamara Pearson, is hosting virtual meditations and reflections for black educators.

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15 Classroom Resources for Discussing Racism, Policing, and Protest

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As nationwide protests against police brutality continue, teachers in their virtual classrooms are once again searching for ways to help their students process the killings of black people in police custody in the United States.

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Becoming Upended: Teaching and Learning about Race and Racism with Young Children and Their Families

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Becoming Upended: Teaching and Learning about Race and Racism with Young Children and Their Families

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NAEYC

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At the beginning of the year in Ms. Verwayne's kindergarten class, the children are working on an All About Me project. They begin by drawing pictures of themselves based on observations of their reflections in a mirror. Next, the teacher provides them with sentence starters asking them to describe their hair color and texture, their skin color, and their eye color. In this racially and ethnically diverse class, the children learn a variety of vocabulary words they can use to describe these differences.

On the playground after school, some of the parents chat about the project. One White mom, Ellie, tells the other parents that the project made her feel a little uncomfortable. She explains, "Since this is the beginning of the year, shouldn't the kids be doing things that help them see what they have in common, rather than emphasizing their differences?"

Many parents and teachers of young children share Ellie's concern that children should be shielded from learning explicitly about race and racial differences. Adults often worry that introducing these topics too early could be harmful (Husband 2010). Early childhood educators who wish to make space for learning about race and racism in their classrooms may feel unprepared to approach these complex issues (Vittrup 2016). Shaped by their own experiences with issues of race and racism, parents and teachers may hold differing views regarding the appropriateness of teaching about this topic in the early childhood classroom.

Research demonstrates that children's awareness of racial differences and the impact of racism begins quite early (Tatum 2003; Winkler 2009). Multiple studies document the ways that young children take notice of racial differences and note that as early as preschool, children may begin excluding their peers of different races from play and other activities (Winkler 2009). Many argue that creating safe spaces for children to explore these topics is more important than ever, given the current political and cultural climate, where these issues are highly visible (Pitts 2016; Harvey 2017; Poon 2017). As such, parents and teachers have an obligation to teach and learn with children about these critical and complex issues (Delpit 2012; Derman-Sparks, LeeKeenan, & Nimmo 2015; Ramsey 2015). This article documents how one kindergarten teacher, Diandra Verwayne (the second author), worked with the parents in her classroom to grow together in their understandings of the role we all must play in talking with young children about race and racism. Additionally, this piece offers curricular and pedagogical resources for adults who are committed to engaging with young children in this crucial work.

Learning about race and unlearning racism

In her seminal research and writing on this topic, Beverly Daniel Tatum (a former psychology professor and president of Spelman College) has written extensively about the ways in which the unjust structure of racial hierarchy in American society is normalized and transmitted to children from birth (Tatum 2003). In discussing how messages about race-based privilege and oppression are internalized, Tatum provides a powerful metaphor. She explains that in the same way residents who live in highly polluted areas cannot avoid becoming "smog breathers," Americans who are immersed in the structures and practices of white supremacy unwittingly become "racism breathers" (6). Many of us may not realize the degree to which these toxic beliefs shape our perceptions and experiences of the world. Unless we have opportunities to unlearn racism, these messages become absorbed and have consequences.

Schools, in collaboration with families, have an important role to play in fostering young children's positive racial identities.

More recently scholars have documented the negative impact that being subjected to racism has on young children's academic success, as Lisa Delpit (2012) conveys in her aptly titled book chapter, "There Is No Achievement Gap at Birth." These consequences vary depending on our levels of privilege and oppression, which intersect across our diverse identities. Early childhood educators can support the unlearning of racism-and minimize later breathing in of racism-by intentionally teaching about race and related issues. Schools, in collaboration with families, have an important role to play in fostering young children's positive racial identities. Teachers who intentionally plan curricula that affirm children's racial identities have seen the benefits this produces in supporting children's growth and learning across many domains of development (Ladson-Billings 2009; Wright, Counsell, & Tate 2015).

There is often confusion about the difference between racially based bias and racism. Racism is a system of oppression that results from a combination of prejudice and power. This combination produces institutional structures and social practices that deny equity to people based on race. There is a common misconception that biases or prejudices that some people of color hold against White people constitutes "reverse racism." Anyone can hold a bias against people of another race, but only some races are subject to oppressive structures and practices as a result of that bias. To illustrate, consider a comparison to sexism. Some women are biased against men, but this is not "reverse sexism"; only men's biases against women have produced the conditions in which women are subjected to far more sexual harassment and sexual violence than men (Breiding et al. 2014). Similarly, racism has created structures and practices that deny equity and justice to people of color, including, for example, great disparities by race in family wealth. One of the most reliable ways to accumulate and pass on family wealth is through home ownership. Until recently, many Black Americans-including those with high incomes-were unable to buy houses because of redlining, a practice by which banks refused to offer mortgages in predominately Black neighborhoods. This is a key factor explaining why median wealth for White families in the US is about $134,000, while the median wealth for Black families is about $11,000 (Jones 2017). This disparity in family wealth accumulated over several generations and will likely take several more generations to address; meanwhile, it continues to have broad implications for access to opportunity, such as parents' ability to pay their children's college tuition.

For all children to understand that the effects of racism are not the fault of people of color, we need to address these issues early in children's lives. We begin by fostering the positive development of every child's racial identity. This work must be paired with opportunities for young children to learn where and how injustice and inequality operate in our society. When children are armed with this knowledge and these skills, they can begin to disrupt these systems and work toward building a more equitable society for all of us.

Lessons Learned

When planning to implement a curriculum that addresses issues of race and racism, consider the following:

Identify colleagues who are also committed to a racial justice curriculum and work together. Alternatively, seek out communities online to support your teaching practice. Remember, you're not alone!

Anticipate the kinds of concerns or misconceptions that children and families might have, and prepare in advance some strategies for responding.

Recall experiences that have expanded your own thinking about these issues, and consider sharing the story of how your perspective has grown and changed.

Make yourself available, either in person or over the phone, to communicate with families about their perspectives on the curriculum. Email communication can often amplify disagreements, so try to keep communication face to face, if possible.

Model a stance of respectful openness. Even if you disagree, strive to set a tone that maximizes the possibilities for considering different viewpoints.

Recognize that we-children, families, and colleagues- are all on a journey of growth with respect to these issues. Draw upon the ways that you scaffold children's learning in other areas and apply these skills when supporting others' growth.

One teacher's work

Ms. Verwayne teaches kindergarten at a racially and economically diverse public school. Born in Guyana, she moved to the United States at the age of 6 and recalls that when she entered school, she was made to feel like an outsider because of cultural differences. She reported, "When I was in elementary school, I felt like I had to hide my culture so that I could be accepted by the masses. I don't want that to happen within my classroom. I want my kids to be able to recognize who they are." Ms. Verwayne is committed to affirming children's racial and cultural identities throughout the year.

In her planned curriculum, Ms. Verwayne begins by offering learning experiences that allow children to observe and celebrate their unique identities. She also acknowledges the need for teachers to reflect on potential questions and concerns in order to prepare (as much as possible) for unplanned teachable moments. While she knows that some adults may resist addressing topics like identity, race, and racism with young children, she remains committed to the idea that these issues are an essential part of the early childhood curriculum. Musing about this tension, she shared the questions she asks herself as she designs curriculum:

If I do talk about race, will it offend anyone? How do you talk about it in a way that doesn't offend people? . . . I think a lot of teachers will just choose not to address it because if you don't address it, you're not offending anybody. . . . I think this is the problem that we have in our country. . . . We never have an honest, open discussion about race ever.

Considering the current climate in America, where racism and racially motivated violence are visible to adults and children, Ms. Verwayne feels the stakes are too high to ignore this topic in her classroom.

Responding to parents' anxiety

Because Ms. Verwayne is committed to openly and collaboratively addressing these topics, she believes it is important to discuss families' concerns. For this article, two parents whose children were enrolled in Ms. Verwayne's kindergarten classroom were interviewed by Kirsten Cole (the first author) about the curriculum. Fabiola is a Haitian American mother of two. Ellie is a White mother of two. Both mothers' first-born children were in Ms. Verwayne's class.

After moving to the United States at the beginning of kindergarten, Fabiola was frequently the target of racial epithets and other acts of racism. Fabiola described the painful consequences of having internalized these oppressive messages, in large part because as a child she did not have the opportunity to process these experiences with her parents or teachers. As a parent, Fabiola has prioritized giving her children many opportunities to celebrate their racial identity and making space for their questions about race and racism. Nonetheless, Fabiola recognizes the potential for some families, particularly White parents, to feel uncomfortable with such a curriculum. She explained,

I think the teachers have to be prepared to deal with the parents and manage the anxiety of the parents. Because I think instructionally and educationally teachers know that it's important. . . . I strongly believe that the kids can tolerate it. It's the parents that are the hardest to convince.

Given the tendency of some adults to avoid these topics, Fabiola was pleased to discover that Ms. Verwayne made learning about race an integral part of the curriculum.

Ellie, in contrast, expressed some initial resistance to having her daughter participate in open discussions of racial differences. Ellie grew up in the Midwest in mostly racially homogenous environments. As is the experience for many White children, Ellie recalled that race was never discussed. Echoing the "colorblind" view that many White families espouse, Ellie recounted, "I don't think I thought about it much. I always thought, 'Everybody's wonderful. Everybody's the same.'" When her daughter began to attend public school, Ellie and some of the other White parents discussed their concerns about Ms. Verwayne's curriculum. Ellie recalled,

In kindergarten they did a worksheet for social studies about identity. The worksheet asked them to note their physical traits: eye color, skin color, hair color, hair texture, things like that. That was the first time anything like this had come up. I was thinking, "What is this? This is ridiculous. There's no reason that 5-year-olds should be doing this sort of exercise. This is futile. Why should my kid be having to say that she's White?"

In recalling how she felt at the time of this incident, Ellie articulated a stance many White people are raised to adopt: claiming to not see color is the most equitable way to approach teaching and learning about race.

Especially in recent years, many scholars have questioned the presumed benefits of the colorblind approach (Pollock 2005; Husband 2012). As society is not equitable and racial bias does exist, the colorblind approach denies children the validity of their experiences of the world. Because the impact of racial bias is visible, not allowing children to process this injustice is confusing, and it denies them the opportunity to see themselves as agents of change to resist injustice. Colorblindness fails to acknowledge the impact of racism on all people and, further, does not push White people to do the important work of reckoning with the legacy of white supremacy in our lives (Derman-Sparks, Ramsey, & Edwards 2006; DiAngelo 2012).

Ms. Verwayne has a practice of encouraging families to meet with her during weekly parent engagement time. At one such meeting, she asked if anyone had any questions about the curriculum. Ellie responded, "Actually, there was a worksheet that came home, and I don't think this is a useful thing. I think it's really hurtful, because it makes them identify things they haven't even realized about each other." Ms. Verwayne recalled being surprised by Ellie's reaction to the assignment, but she was grateful to have the opportunity to open a dialogue about their different views. She explained, "I needed to understand where that parent was coming from, and that parent needed to understand where I was coming from." For her part, Ellie had the opportunity to hear both Ms. Verwayne's intentions and also other parents' perspectives on the curriculum. Ellie recalled,

Fabiola responded, "Well, as a Black woman, we take a lot of pride in who we are and we want to talk about it a lot." As soon as she said that I realized, "Oh, of course. You're proud of your race. And I am not."

Ellie's reflection on this experience revealed another tension the colorblind view often masks. In naming the root of her discomfort, Ellie illuminated one of many challenges teachers face when doing this work in schools. The false premise of colorblindness is often deployed to obscure the discomfort White people have with confronting ongoing and historical racial oppression and injustice (Harvey 2017). As Fabiola noted in a later interview, "I think it's really detrimental to tell children they don't see what they're seeing and they're not feeling what they just felt-that they can't trust their eyes and they can't trust their gut."

While Ellie had entered the conversation seeking to maintain the colorblind view, she suddenly realized that not speaking about race with children does not protect them. Having had the opportunity to see the issue from another perspective, Ellie reported being transformed. Reflecting on this incident in a later interview, she recalled,

It was just totally eye-opening. It upended me. Ever since then I just thought, there are so many parents of both Black and White kids and kids of every race that need to have those conversations about these differences, and that the differences are good. I realized that it has to be talked about.

This transformation-this "upending"-would not have been possible had Ms. Verwayne not opened this potentially challenging dialogue with families.

Particularly in early childhood, it is essential to build trusting and respectful relationships with families. Not all families will be receptive to a curriculum that addresses these issues, nor will all families be as open to being transformed in their thinking, as Ellie was. Ellie remarked, "What I really appreciate about Ms. Verwayne is her openness and respect for different viewpoints. Whenever I have had a concern, she has always been willing to talk and listen to my position with great interest and care." For early childhood teachers seeking to do the critical work of teaching about race and racism, it is important to be prepared to address parents' myriad responses, including being ready and willing to create space for conversations many of us have been taught to avoid. While some families may never be open to a new way of thinking, teachers who model this openness will set the tone for approaching disagreements respectfully. As Fabiola noted, the hesitation that many White parents have stems from adults' issues rather than any difficulty children may have in exploring the topic (DiAngelo 2012). She mused,

It's not a scary thing. It may be uncomfortable, but it's a good thing to be having this conversation at this stage. And it was fine. We pass on these anxieties to our kids. The more anxious we are in talking about it, the more anxious they feel. They think that there's something wrong with what they're saying.

It may be surprising that children are ready for us to facilitate these learning opportunities. As parents and teachers, it is critical that we make ourselves ready for planned and unplanned opportunities to learn about race and racism.

Following children's leads

As with the curriculum that sparked the previous discussions, teaching and learning about race should begin with children's observations. Children notice differences and need to feel safe and supported in asking questions about what they notice. Fabiola explained that her daughter's learning about race "has been very child directed. . . . If she asks a question, more times than not it's just an observation of something. So I acknowledge the fact that she's absolutely right. She's noticing differences." Ms. Verwayne concurred; she likes to follow children's leads and design projects, activities, and read-alouds that emerge from their questions and concerns. She emphasized that children's innate sense of justice and fairness creates opportunities for them to wrestle with these questions. She explained, "Their questions mean that they're seeking an answer about this topic. And they have a lot of curiosity and wondering, and they need a way to figure out that answer." As with other inquiry-based learning experiences, a curriculum that emerges from the children's process of making sense of the world often yields the most engaging opportunities for learning.

While some of children's observations and questions about racial differences may be straightforward, at times children echo harmful biases they have heard elsewhere. Ms. Verwayne recalled an afternoon when her class returned from lunch in a state of distress. One of her students, an African American girl, had told another child, "I don't like White people." At the time, the nightly news was full of reporting about police brutality against African Americans, so Ms. Verwayne suspected that the child was repeating something she had overheard an adult say. Though math was on the schedule for the afternoon, Ms. Verwayne asked the children to join her in a circle on the rug. Drawing upon strategies she had learned in Responsive Classroom workshops, she reminded the children of their classroom norms that create space for each child's voice. She reminded the children to use accountable talk grounded in their experiences and to listen to each other with care. As they shared their feelings about what had happened at lunch, Ms. Verwayne prompted them to reflect on the sense of community and friendship they had cultivated together in class. They concluded that, while some people of any race may "not always be nice," we cannot draw conclusions about a whole race based on the actions of individuals.

Planning for learning through children's literature

For parents and teachers wishing to open a dialogue about racial identity and racism, children's literature provides an excellent starting point. Well-written children's literature allows children to identify with and develop empathy for characters, particularly those that may be different from themselves. Stocking the classroom library with children's books that represent a diversity of experiences is essential. Providing books that allow children to see themselves in the pages offers the kind of high-interest materials that support children's early literacy (Klefstad & Martinez 2013). Especially when children are beginning to do the challenging work of learning to read, it is important for them to be able to select books that allow them to feel a connection to the content. If children do not see their lives and interests reflected in the books in your library, they may feel that reading is not for them.

Stocking Your Library with Equitable and Inclusive Children's Titles

For teachers seeking to foster an appreciation of difference and empathy, it is especially important to have a classroom library that represents a range of characters and experiences. Great children's books allow us to get inside the protagonists' experiences. Fortunately, excellent resources exist to guide teachers and families in creating such libraries (see "Stocking Your Library with Equitable and Inclusive Children's Titles" above). The classroom library can offer a child-friendly opening to learn about important histories and to celebrate the accomplishments of seminal figures in the fight for racial equality. However, be sure to provide a balance and to also include books that represent diverse characters engaged in ordinary, everyday experiences.

Once you develop a classroom library that addresses issues of race and racism from many perspectives, prepare yourself to respond to children's questions as they arise. Ms. Verwayne recalled that when reading about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., her children wanted to know more. When the book addressed the topic of segregation, they asked, "But why would people do that?!?" Ms. Verwayne was glad that she had anticipated these questions and was able to provide context by talking about Jim Crow and how it institutionalized racial bias and made it the law of the land.

Developing strategies for responding to teachable moments

In addition to planning a curriculum that addresses issues of race and racism, Ms. Verwayne described how she often needed to think on her feet in responding to children's natural curiosity about race and difference. Many teachers may have a desire to address these topics but feel unprepared to respond when the issues arise in their classrooms. Teachers need resources and support to develop the tools to do this work skillfully and thoughtfully. Ms. Verwayne argued that this includes trusting teachers to think on their feet and to ground their responses in the deep knowledge they have of their classroom communities. She noted,

Some people definitely do not want to discuss issues of race and difference at all. They think it's best to sweep it under the rug and just act like it doesn't exist. That's the safest space to be in. But is it the right space to be in, knowing the times that we're in? I think we need to give teachers the leeway to be unconventional and try different ways to address this.

In an era when many educational reforms have argued for standardization and "teacher proofing" the curriculum, the work of responding to complex issues requires that we give teachers the training and time to reflect on and discuss them, and also trust teachers to write their own script when teachable moments arise.

As described earlier, Ms. Verwayne uses protocols and practices offered by the Responsive Classroom to facilitate a complex conversation about racial bias. By developing these routines, Ms. Verwayne asks the children to join her in taking ownership of creating the kind of classroom in which they all feel included. These pedagogical strategies are supported by the content of her social studies curriculum, which explores the meaning of community.

A number of organizations have created forums for the exchange of social justice curriculum ideas (see "Preparing for and Responding to Teachable Moments" below). Responding to teachable moments is never one size fits all; but resources that provide candid and thoughtful sharing of teacher knowledge can provide teachers with models of practices and strategies. Even pedagogical models that do not explicitly address race and racism, such as the practices offered by the Responsive Classroom, can be adapted to create a framework for talking about race in the classroom. Whatever the approach, we must acknowledge the need to offer these kinds of curricular and pedagogical strategies to teachers throughout their professional development experiences.

Preparing for and Responding to Teachable Moments

Committing to teaching for equity and justice

This article, along with the suggested resources, provides a starting point for teachers and families seeking to do the important work of supporting young children's learning and understanding about race and racism. As Ms. Verwayne's experiences illustrate, this work is both challenging and essential. Concluding her reflections on her own experiences with Ms. Verwayne's kindergarten, Ellie emphasized, "In a school where you don't have the kind of diversity we have, it might be even more important." As we prepare young children to be members of the human family, we must offer them opportunities to celebrate all aspects of their identities and to resist bias and oppression. In the field of early childhood education, we spend much of our time and energy nurturing children's capacity for kindness and respect. Helping children see the role they have to play in fostering equality and inclusion through racial justice is a critical piece of this project.

References

Breiding, M.J., S.G. Smith, K.C. Basile, M.L. Walters, J. Chen, & M.T. Merrick. 2014. "Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence, Stalking, and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization-National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, United States, 2011." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Surveillance Summaries 63 (8): 1-18. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm.

Delpit, L. 2012. "Multiplication Is for White People": Raising Expectations for Other People's Children. New York: The New Press.

Derman-Sparks, L., D. LeeKeenan, & J. Nimmo. 2015. Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change. New York: Teachers College Press; Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Derman-Sparks, L., P.G. Ramsey, & J.O. Edwards. 2006. What If All the Kids Are White? Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families. New York: Teachers College Press.

DiAngelo, R. 2012. "What Makes Racism So Hard for Whites to See?" Chap. 10 in What Does It Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, 167-89. New York: Peter Lang.

Harvey, J. 2017. "Are We Raising Racists?" Opinion, New York Times, March 14. www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/opinion/are-we-raising-racists.html.

Husband, T. 2010. "He's Too Young to Learn About That Stuff: Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Early Childhood Social Studies." Social Studies Research and Practice 5(2): 61-75.

Husband, T. 2012. "'I Don't See Color': Challenging Assumptions about Discussing Race with Young Children." Early Childhood Education Journal 39 (6): 365-71.

Jones, J. "The Racial Wealth Gap: How African-Americans Have Been Shortchanged Out of the Materials to Build Wealth." Working Economics Blog, Economic Policy Institute, February 13, 2017. www.epi.org/blog/the-racial-wealth-gap-how-african-americans-have-been-s....

Klefstad, J.M., & K.C. Martinez. 2013. "Promoting Young Children's Cultural Awareness and Appreciation Through Multicultural Books." Young Children 68 (5): 74-81.

Ladson-Billings, G. 2009. The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pitts, J. 2016. "Don't Say Nothing." Teaching Tolerance,no. 54. www.tolerance.org/magazine/tt54-fall-2016/feature/dont-say-nothing.

Pollock, M. 2005. Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Poon, O. 2017. "Our Schools Need to Teach a Fourth 'R': Racial Literacy." Rewire. https://rewire.news/article/2017/03/01/schools-need-teach-fourth-r-racial-literacy/.

Ramsey, P.G. 2015. Teaching and Learning in a Diverse World: Multicultural Education for Young Children. 4th ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Tatum, B.D. 2003. "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race. Rev. ed. New York: Basic Books.

Vittrup, B. 2016. "Early Childhood Teachers' Approaches to Multicultural Education and Perceived Barriers to Disseminating Anti-Bias Messages." Multicultural Education 23 (3-4): 37-41.

Winkler, E.N. 2009. "Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn Race." PACE: Practical Approaches for Continuing Education 3 (3): 1-8.

Wright, B.L., S.L. Counsell, & S.L. Tate. 2015. "'We're Many Members, but One Body': Fostering a Healthy Self-Identity and Agency in African American Boys." Young Children 70(3): 24-31.

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Becoming Upended: Teaching and Learning about Race and Racism with Young Children and Their Families

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At the beginning of the year in Ms. Verwayne's kindergarten class, the children are working on an All About Me project. They begin by drawing pictures of themselves based on observations of their reflections in a mirror. Next, the teacher provides them with sentence starters asking them to describe their hair color and texture, their skin color, and their eye color.

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Teaching Tolerance

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Cultivate positive identity formation, encourage students to confront racial and ethnic injustice, and prepare them to live and work together in a diverse world. Our resources can help you facilitate discussions about race and guide students through lessons on white privilege, economic inequality, m…

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How Indigenous, Black and POC Educators Envision a Better School Experience

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How Indigenous, Black and POC Educators Envision a Better School Experience

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KQED

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When organizing the series, Ebarvia and Parker asked contributors to pick a date and left the choice of what to write about open. During a month when the U.S. coronavirus death toll passed 100,000 , with disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities, and when the and harassment of Black men and women dominated non-COVID news, they said their project had to be able to hold both pain and joy. In a post addressed directly to Black joy , second-grade teacher Aeriale N. Johnson pointed to how this duality has long been necessary for marginalized communities:

"That a people could rail againstthe horrors of chattel slaveryfor centuries,spend every moment since emancipationfighting for our humanityand have you remain,unspeakable,in our heartsis nothing short of a miraculous

gift from the ancestors."

And it's the joy that motivates the cofounders of #31DaysIBPOC. Parker said what she loves most about the posts, along with the retweets and comments they generate, is the chance to celebrate IBPOC educators. "We've always known they're excellent," she said. "It's nice that other people can know that, too."

With that recognition, Parker and Ebarvia hope the series will challenge teachers to reflect and to adopt anti-racist and culturally responsive practices . They also hope education leaders will ask families what they need from education during the pandemic and how their assets can be leveraged to transform schools. "Especially at this time, I think that there is a need to recenter education on a ethos of community and collectivism and organizing around those principles that has not traditionally been the mode of operation of most American schools which function on individualism and competition," said Ebarvia.

"You have to show people what it could look like to be different," said Parker. "[#31DaysIBPOC] is what is created just by asking people. And so, more people can do this."

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How Indigenous, Black and POC Educators Envision a Better School Experience - MindShift

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When organizing the series, Ebarvia and Parker asked contributors to pick a date and left the choice of what to write about open. During a month when the U.S. coronavirus death toll passed 100,000 , with disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities, and when the and harassment of Black men and women dominated non-COVID news, they said their project had to be able to hold both pain and joy.