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Curriculum
AASL: Developing Inclusive Learners and Citizens
To help school librarians develop inclusive learners and citizens, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) tasked an ALA Emerging Leaders team with developing a guide of reflection activities, professional development, and resources based on the Include Shared Foundation in the National School Library Standards.
Antiracist Curriculum Project: Racist Policy and Resistance in Rochester
Our team is committed to empowering students, teachers, and educational leaders with instructional resources on the local history of structural racism and civil rights in Monroe County. We support students and educators in the co-creation, implementation, and evaluation of curriculum that will allow students to explore and interpret our local history through rich primary sources. We want students to be critical consumers of information, share their unique perspectives, and work with others collaboratively to make claims supported by evidence. Ultimately, we want students to be informed and engaged citizens in our community.
Black History Month Resource Book by Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Contains 390 activities and features related to the celebration of Black History Month, grouped within more than twenty topic areas, including art, architecture, and photography; arts and crafts; cooking and nutrition; genealogy; journalism; and sports.
Black Lives Matter at School
Black Lives Matter at School is a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education. We encourage all educators, students, parents, unions, and community organizations to join our annual week of action during the first week of February each year.
Lowell Milken Center: Teach Us All
(This comprehensive guide is available for a one-time tax-deductible donation of $11.) This year-long elective course is designed for students to develop an understanding of the history of 20th and 21st century student leaders and movements for education reform in the United States. Students will engage with the history of youth leaders such as the Little Rock 9, Ruby Bridges, Sylvia Mendez, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and many more. As students learn about the history of these historical movements, they will work to develop and elevate their own leadership so that they too can advocate for equal education today. The course can be aligned to Common Core ELA or Social Studies standards for credit.
NYSED: Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework
The Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) framework is intended to help education stakeholders create student-centered learning environments that affirm cultural identities; foster positive academic outcomes; develop students’ abilities to connect across lines of difference; elevate historically marginalized voices; empower students as agents of social change; and contribute to individual student engagement, learning, growth, and achievement through the cultivation of critical thinking. The framework was designed to support education stakeholders in
developing and implementing policies that educate all students effectively and equitably, as well as provide appropriate supports and services to promote positive student outcomes.
Pulitzer Center: The 1619 Project Curriculum
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 will find reading guides, activities, and other resources to bring The 1619 Project into your classroom. Wondering where to start? Dive into our Reading Guide.
Stanford University: Liberatory Design
Welcome to the Liberatory Design Resource Collection. The set of tools and resources available here were born out of an urgent need to explore and design process steps and mindsets for designers to integrate the practice of design thinking with a mission toward equity.
Classroom Management
NAEYC: Conversations That Matter: Talking With Children About Big World Issues
The current COVID-19 pandemic has produced a broad sense of unease and fear which transmits the message that the world is not safe (however much adults try to shield young children). Many children in quarantine with their families are experiencing exceptional amounts of screen time—and having to make sense of images, ideas, and terminology that can foster fear and prejudice. Included in these messages are racist ideas falsely attributing the cause of the coronavirus to people of Chinese descent and, by extension, to people of other Asian and Pacific ethnicities. However, as challenging as this period is, it also offers opportunities to engage young children in rich, meaningful conversations.
Center for Racial Justice in Education: Resources for Talking About Race, Racism and Racialized Violence with Kids
This document was compiled by Center for Racial Justice in Education. It is not meant to be exhaustive and will be continually updated as we are made aware of more resources. It includes interviews/advice from experts, resource lists, articles, examples, and affinity spaces.
Learning for Justice: Responding to Trauma in Your Classroom
Trauma can have significant and lasting effects on students. This PD Café will help you learn how to recognize the signs of trauma, better understand the causes of trauma, and take steps to establish social and emotional safety in your classroom.
NPR: How to Talk to Kids About Black Lives and Police Violence
Like most public school educators, Jesse Hagopian has spent the spring struggling to teach his students online. Some are homeless, while others are working frontline jobs to support their families.
And now many of his students, like others around the country, are on the front lines in another sense: protesting the deaths of George Floyd and other black people at the hands of police.
NYT: 10 Ways to Talk to Students About Sensitive Issues in the News
This week it might be the Trayvon Martin shooting, while last week it could have been the “Kony 2012″ viral video, the soldier in Afghanistan accused of massacring women and children, or the outcry over Rush Limbaugh’s criticism of Sandra Fluke: In a “flat” social media world, parents and teachers are no longer the gatekeepers, and news of all kinds reaches children — sometimes even before it gets to adults.
How do you talk about difficult or sensitive news stories with young people, whether in your classroom or at your dinner table?
University of Pennsylvania: "Talking to Children After Racial Incidents"
Parents have a natural instinct to teach and protect their children. Police-involved killings, the shooting of Dallas officers, peaceful protests that turn violent — incidents that are often traumatic for adults — can make these two instincts feel in conflict. Do we try to explain the strife our child sees on television? Or should we try to shield her from such “grown up” problems? Howard Stevenson, a clinical psychologist at Penn GSE, studies racial literacy and racial trauma. He works with educators and families to help them understand the emotions that racial incidents can bring about, and how to reduce their negative effects on health and well being. We asked Stevenson what ideas he had for adults who are searching for a way to discuss racial incidents with their children.
Lesson Plans
Social Justice Mathematics
Lesson plans by math topic -- algebra, geometry, probability & statistics -- with a focus on social justice.
The Washington Post: "Blackface -- Then and Now"
Understanding the origins of its use and historical context in which blackface emerged will help students to understand why photographs in old yearbooks and its use in Halloween costumes are offensive and part of centuries-old degradation of one race by another
Position Statements
NAEYC: Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education Position Statement
All children have the right to equitable learning opportunities that help them achieve their full potential as engaged learners and valued members of society. Thus, all early childhood educators have a professional obligation to advance equity. They can do this best when they are effectively supported by the early learning settings in which they work and when they and their wider communities embrace diversity and full inclusion as strengths, uphold fundamental principles of fairness and justice, and work to eliminate structural inequities that limit equitable learning opportunities.
NCTE: Statement on Anti-Racism to Support Teaching and Learning
Originally developed by the National Council of Teachers of English Committee on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English, February 2007, revised July 2018.
Research
"Antiracist Pedagogy: Definition, Theory, and Professional Development" by Aida M. Blakeney
The purpose of this paper is to define Antiracist Pedagogy and establish it within the sociological framework of Critical Theory. Antiracist Pedagogy is a paradigm located within Critical Theory utilized to explain and counteract the persistence and impact of racism. This paper indicates the need for the establishment of Antiracist Pedagogy within the school curriculum as well as the necessary professional development required to implement Antiracist Pedagogy effectively.
"Code‐Meshing and Writing Instruction in Multilingual Classrooms" by Alice Y. Lee and Lara J. Handsfield
Classrooms act as linguistic sieves when they continue to accept only dominant forms of English as the “correct” and “appropriate” language choice for all students. Students who speak other languages, such as African American Language or Spanish, are often encouraged to use those languages on the playground or at home but not in “official” spaces. This article interrogates such language practices by considering code‐meshing as an instructional approach that invites multiple languages within the classroom. The authors highlight the choices of teachers who encourage code‐meshing in their writing practices and offer pedagogical suggestions that can help teachers broaden their incorporation of all students' languages.
"Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in English Language Arts Classrooms: Toward an Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy" by April Baker-Bell
In this article, the author historicizes the argument about Black Language in the classroom to contextualize the contemporary linguistic inequities that Black students experience in English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. Next, the author describes anti-black linguistic racism and interrogates the notion of academic language. Following this, the author provides an ethnographic snapshot that shows how Black students in a ninth grade English Language Arts (ELA) class perceptions of Black Language reflected internalized anti-black linguistic racism. The author offers Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy as an approach that English Language Arts teachers can implement in an effort to dismantle anti-black linguistic racism and white cultural and linguistic hegemony in their classrooms using Angie Thomas’ (2017) novel The Hate U Give. The author concludes with thoughts about how an Anti-Racist Black Language pedagogy can help ELA students develop useful critical capacities.
Center for the Study of Social Policy: "What We Owe Young Children: An Anti-Racist Policy Platform for Early Childhood"
Early childhood is a crucial period of growth and learning that can influence children’s opportunities well into adulthood and can shape the future of families and communities. This new resource urges policymakers to enact policies that root out systemic racism and ensure all children can have a happy and healthy start to life.
Zero to Three: "Building Strong Foundations: Racial Inequity in Policies That Impact Infants, Toddlers, and Families"
This brief by ZERO TO THREE and the Center for Law and Social Policy explores racial disparities, and the policies that drive them, among infants, toddlers, and their families.
