We require Black History Month now more than ever. While we need to keep in mind that Black history (Asian American history, LGBTQ history, etc) is AMERICAN history and should be incorporated into our curriculum and lessons throughout the school year, Black History Month offers us an opportunity to double down on teaching and learning more about Black history and culture

Find out about Black and Brown leaders in our own communities and invite them into the class to share their experiences and journeys.

( Additional resources on teaching Black History Month can be discovered here: https://centerracialjustice.org/resources/black-history-month-resource-guide-for-educators-and-families/)
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Black History Month (and all the other “minority” awareness months) must function as a reminder of and a motivation for ongoing, deeper work towards humanizing and boosting the history and perspectives of traditionally marginalized peoples and neighborhoods. Only then can our previous genuinely inform our present so we can develop a better future for ourselves and all of our children
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Here are other concepts to support you in adopting an anti-bias frame of mind to Black History Month and all the awareness months
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Trainees in all of their healthy, complicated identities need to see themselves shown in …

Read Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Walter Dean Myers, Jacqueline Woodson, Nikki Grimes, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, and the wide range of brand-new Black and Brown children and young person authors, like Jason Reynolds, who have been published over the last few years.

Learn more about the unheralded and unacknowledged contributions and achievements of black leaders in other social justice motions like Bayard Rustin, Shirley Chisholm, Dorothy Height, and Martha P. Johnson.

Posters that represent the variety of the classroom and society.

Images that counter stereotypical portrayals (ladies as engineers, African Americans as scientists, Asian Americans as artists, and so on).

Books and curricular products.

Teach about the back-to-Africa motion, the Niagara Movement and the starting of the NAACP, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, the Black Power Movement, and the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Learn about Brown and black mathematicians, scientists, physicians, military leaders, artists, legal representatives, inventors, educators, reporters, and engineers.

Find out about the day-to-day acts of resistance and the methods in which enslaved individuals from Africa and their descendants maintained and continue to maintain their pleasure, humanity, culture, and neighborhood, and not simply the scary and oppression of slavery and the Jim Crow age.

Likewise talk about Marcus Garvey, Sonia Sanchez, Ella Josephine Baker, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Fannie Lou Hammer, Angela Davis, and Francis Harper.

Trainee work displayed in the classroom and corridors.

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The racial uprising of 2020, the white supremacist revolt at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the mis- and dis-information and pushback around vital race theory in education have actually revealed us that Americans require to discover the different, intricate, and often outrageous history of the United States in order to much better comprehend how race and bigotry serve to divide our nation today. As the Buddhist stating goes, “If you wish to know your present, look at your past. If you desire to understand your future, look at your present actions.”
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Thus, lets use Black History Month to provide a more precise narrative in order to start to break down the systems of injustice that necessitated a Black History Month in the first location
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Lets broaden what we are teaching throughout Black History Month and beyond so its more than the single story of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr, and the primary events of the Civil Rights Movement. Lets:.

Celebrations of all kinds of accomplishments (scholastic, artistic, athletic, activism, etc)

From using a varied set of neighborhood resources.

About diverse leaders and thinkers in a field.

From the cultural contributions of the households in your class.

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They ought to learn …

About history and literature told from numerous viewpoints and through varied lenses (telling the Columbus story utilizing main files and accounts from Columbus, his funders, the Taino People, and so on).

From diverse visitor speakers and experts, especially counter-stereotypical ones.

Examples and information that represent the interests of varied neighborhoods (utilizing earnings disparity data to understand percentages, utilizing Supreme Court cases which relied on racism or sexism ideology race to comprehend the subtleties, chances, and restrictions of written laws versus the practice of laws, and so on).

Curriculum with more than “a single story” about a group of individuals, particularly among injustice. What are the complex histories of a group that are more than simply … slavery and African Americans, Pearl Harbor and Internment and Japanese Americans, Trail of Tears and Native Americans, and so on)?

( List is adjusted from “Inclusive Classroom Practices” By Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee)

Background details, including crucial terms and ideas, on the resource and topic.

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Here are some free lessons on navigating tough conversations on race and bigotry with children from AMAZEworks, a not-for-profit that provides Anti-Bias Education curriculum, resources, training and support to schools and educators
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Browsing Difficult Conversations With Children And Youth On Race, Racism, And Discrimination.
While these lessons are intended at caregivers to have conversations on race and bigotry with their children and youth in the house, they can quickly be adjusted for the class and are variations of lessons from our primary and middle school curriculums. Likewise, for the primary lessons, you will need to have access to the book, which can be discovered at a library or acquired. There are also free videos of much of these books being read aloud online
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In each lesson, you will discover:.

Self-reflection questions for the adult.

Summary of resource.

Connections to Anti-Bias Education and Social-Emotional Learning.

Conversation Questions.

Journal Prompts/Follow-Up Activities

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Schedule lessons for ages 3– 12

The racial uprising of 2020, the white supremacist revolt at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the mis- and dis-information and pushback around critical race theory in education have revealed us that Americans need to discover the varied, intricate, and often outrageous history of the United States in order to better comprehend how race and racism serve to divide our country today. As the Buddhist saying goes, “If you desire to know your present, look at your past. While these lessons are intended at caregivers to have conversations on race and bigotry with their children and youth at home, they can easily be adapted for the classroom and are variations of lessons from our primary and middle school curriculums. For the elementary lessons, you will require to have access to the book, which can be discovered at a library or purchased. There are likewise totally free videos of numerous of these books being read out loud online
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Video lessons for ages 11 and up.