Human Rights Day

Saturday is Human Rights Day! From Human Rights Day 2022 | OHCHR, “Every year on 10 December, the world celebrates Human Rights Day, the very day when, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).”

While you won’t be at school on Saturday, you can still have your students learn about Human Rights Day. I would start by asking my students what they know about human rights. Let students reflect and share out, and then share this definition (or modify it to make it work best for your students): 

Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death. 

I’ve paraphrased for students that human rights are the things that every human being is entitled to have.

Next, I would ask students what rights they think are the most important. 

They can make lists in small groups and compile a list of the 5 most important rights. Expect a lot of discussion and negotiation - it is hard to choose just 5! Once they have agreed upon a list, they can share out to the whole class and/or post their list somewhere in the classroom.

Next, use a read aloud or watch, listen, or read about the UDHR more here.

Two picture books that I’d recommend are: 

We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures (image above)

I Have the Right to Be a Child

After learning more about the UDHR, ask students if they would change their list or if there are any rights they are thinking about now that they didn’t consider earlier.

Then, give students an opportunity to share their learning or act! Remember that human rights are applicable to so many situations and can provide a helpful lens for students to think about injustice or action. Some ideas for further learning or actions are:

• Make your own zine and see ARTE’s UDHR & UPR zine here! ARTE is a great organization and resource, in general, but especially on Human Rights Day.

• Human Rights Education - Amnesty International

• Human Rights Text Set on Newsela

• 13 Teaching Ideas on Human Rights - Facing History & Ourselves

• ABC: Teaching Human Rights – Practical activities for primary and secondary schools - Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Happy Human Rights Day!

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Anti-Oppressive Education in "Elite" Schools is here!

We wrote about this last spring, but wanted to share that Anti-Oppressive Education in Elite Schools: Promising Practices and Cautionary Tales From the Field is out (Nina received her copy!). We co-authored a chapter and it’s very exciting to see our words in print.

You can read more about the book and enjoy some excerpts (including our chapter and an interview with us) here. We’ve been lucky enough to work with Katy Swalwell in the past and Gabby knows Ayo Magwood who we hope to collaborate with in the future. They are both doing really important work and are definitely worth following, but really the whole book has so much to offer. Please let us know what you think!

Map Exploration

My 3rd graders and I have been learning all about maps! We learned about different features of maps, different kinds of maps, made our own maps (which were so creative) and more. This week, my co-teacher and I asked students to bring in a map from home. We told students it was their “homework” so they took the assignment very seriously, reporting talking to their parents to get permission and reporting back to us that they looked at different maps they found at home and decided not to bring in some that were too large or fragile etc.

Once we all had maps at school (and we of course had some extra ones for students who forgot), we started our map exploration. First, as a class, we watched a Brainpop (not Brainpop Jr.) video about map skills and reviewed features of maps we might look for and reminded ourselves to use the map key or legend to help us understand the information the map was displaying. Then, we projected an image of this map of Washington, D.C. on the board. We let students have a minute to look at the map and see what they notice. Immediately, cries of, “Why is there so much white? It’s ALL white. There are so many white people!” filled the room. Students turned and talked about what they noticed and questions they had. 

They noticed so much. They had questions and observations about white neighborhoods taking over, why white and black neighborhoods are so separate, if it is like this everywhere, why there were so few (visible) Asian blocks, and what the gray areas meant (we explained those are areas where people don’t live because it’s Rock Creek Park or it might be a solely commercial district). Some students noted where our school might be and that it was in a white area as well. After giving students time for discussion and reflection, we passed out copies of these See, Think, Wonder sheets and told students to note one thing they discussed with their partner. 

Next, we gave each pair time to look at the maps they brought in and share with their partner. Students were very excited to share their maps! After they finished sharing and reflecting, they were free to walk around the classroom and look at other maps. We have a big world map on the wall and put out different books with maps in them as well such as My Map Book by Sara Fanelli and 50 Cities of the U.S.A.: Explore America’s Cities with 50 Fact-Filled Maps by Gabrielle Balkan. After students had time for (silent) exploration, they met in small groups (2-4 students per group) to discuss what they noticed, what questions they had, and anything they learned or wanted to learn more about next.

Eavesdropping on the discussion was fascinating! Students were surprised by the different types of maps and really wanted to explore more. One student had brought in a map of constellations, which really pushed us to think about maps as applying to everything, not just locations on Earth! Having students bring in the maps really led to strong investment and interest in the exploration as they wanted to share what they brought in and felt a personal role and connection. Starting with a map of DC also really intrigued students, as many of them were born in the area and have always lived here, so looking at DC in a new way really interested them. And of course, the questions and responses discussed (and a few responses included above) show how deeply they were thinking about who lives where and why that might be. Other maps that were really popular (that we provided) were this map showing each state’s favorite Halloween candy, this map showing ice cream consumption by state, and all the maps in My Map Book (linked above).

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Learning Through Photos

In my third grade class, we usually end our year with an integrated Social Studies, Reading, and Writing unit where we learn about the different regions of and research different countries in Africa, but this past year we ran out of time and weren’t able to do a lot of the creative grouping or sharing of materials that characterize this unit. So instead we focused on learning more about Ethiopia as a class. We chose Ethiopia as Washington D.C. is home to the largest population of Ethiopian born people in the United States. There are also many Ethiopian Americans in and around D.C. In past years, we’ve ordered food from a local Eritrean restaurant as part of our end of year celebration, but this year we were sadly unable to do that.

We started our study of Ethiopia by looking at maps, watching short videos, and reading nonfiction books and articles together. Students had so many questions and wanted to see more, so we gave them time to work in pairs and enjoy this photo essay about Ethiopia from The Atlantic: Beauty and Color: Scenes From Ethiopia (the first photo is the cover photo for this post).

Students looked at the essays on their individual laptops (we had one laptop per pair or group of three), although it can also work to look at each photo together as a whole class. We wanted them to have more autonomy to spend time with the photos that really interested them as well as have small group discussions (which are difficult when everyone is sitting at their own desk six feet apart). As they looked at the photos, we had them fill out a See Think Wonder chart which we found here (also pictured above).

You can see one student’s work here. This student said he had more questions, but wasn’t sure how to write them down (phrase them) and also talked about them a lot with his group mates. We reminded students about the importance of being respectful if something is new or different for you and asked them for suggestions for what you could say in that situation (This is something new for me, this is different from what I’m used to, I notice, I used to think, but now I’m thinking..).

I learned this approach of having students research or gain information from photos from Tony Stead whom I was lucky enough to work with at a public school in NYC. He taught me so many new ways of approaching reading and writing nonfiction which I’ve used in Social Studies, Writing, and Reading lessons since. (This idea that I’m writing about would also work for Science, but I don’t teach Science in my current position as we have separate Science teachers/class at my school). Tony Stead has a different chart called a R.A.N. (Reading and Analyzing Nonfiction) chart that is a modified/improved version of a KWL chart (what you know, want to know, and what you’ve learned) that is also a wonderful tool for a longer research unit.

I’ve used this approach of looking at photos and observing, pondering, and wondering in many different ways. It’s also really helpful with current or historical events (we took a similar approach, but with a slightly different chart when learning about sit ins). Also, if you are interested in learning about the large Ethiopian population in and around Washington D.C., we loved this story by WAMU!

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Talking to Students About Afghanistan

As we watched the tragic scenes in Kabul unfold this past week, we thought about how to broach the topic with students in the classroom. Many students might have questions or a vague idea that something is happening based on overhearing adult conversations or catching snippets of the news. Where to start?

One place to start that usually works well for us is with a read aloud. Sadly, we don’t have a lot of books set in Afghanistan, and the ones we could find (list of picture books here) are all about war, refugees, or women and girls being denied rights and education. These are unquestionably important stories, but we want to avoid presenting a single narrative about Afghanistan. It’s also hard to find picture books written by Afghan or Afghan-American authors, but we will keep looking now that we are aware of the deficit in our libraries!

One book that many of my (older elementary) students enjoyed is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. There is a graphic novel version as well. Two picture books that I hope to check out soon are Brave with Beauty: A Story of Afghanistan by Maxine Rose Schur and The Stranger's Farewell: English-Pashto Edition by Palwasha Bazger Salam. Neither of these books is about war and both are set in the past.

If you chose to start with a read aloud, have students respond to the story by making text to self (have they ever felt like the main character? What connections can they make with teh story?) and then text to world (how does this story resonate with something happening in the world today?) connections. 

Another way to start could be to look at one image or several photos. Have a table for responses with two columns: "I think/I notice" and "I wonder." You can do this on a large whiteboard or piece of chart paper, or individually (or in small groups) with handouts. It helps less confident students feel ready to share their thoughts and provides you with a way to find out what misconceptions versus accurate information students have and understand. The "I wonder" column also gives you a better sense of where to go to answer all of their questions and prompts them to ASK questions, which is an excellent place to start. Students also respond well to stories about individuals as they make the situation less abstract and are more humanizing.

And of course, look at a map! Always a great place to start - where are we talking about? What do we notice about the location? Look at a world map, regional map, and country specific map of Afghanistan.

Make sure you talk about what was happening 20 years ago when we started the war in Afghanistan (11-12 years before most of my students were born, I was in school etc.). This is helpful as younger students don’t have a clear conception of time or the past and anything before their lifetime (or even when they were a baby) is “a long time ago.” Or use a timeline! Great way to practice this tool, make the time before they were born tangible, and integrate math! 

Share Newsela articles for students who have more questions or want to know more. What’s helpful is that Newsela will have articles about the latest news, but will also have human interest stories about Afghanistan in general, so students can learn more about the country in different, humanizing ways.

Also, share basic information about Afghanistan. We also like to think of some ways to help kids talk about the place and people we are learning about. This includes considering what are likely mistakes (for example, with anything Africa related we know we ALWAYS have to review country vs. continent) and what would empower students to accurately and respectfully talk about people. In this way we might consider:

• helpful location/map cues like the bordering countries listed above, or also regional terms like South Asia and Central Asia.

• We’d also consider things like languages (Pashto, Dari, maybe not going into the full list of all represented languages in a country for over saturation purposes, but explaining how many languages are common; in Afghanistan there are about 8?), 

• religion (Islam, we’d definitely expect mistakes about this so we would want to think about how deep we’d want/need to cover students understandings of Islam and aligned vocab, ie Muslim etc). 

• Finally! There are other words that we might consider that are heavy but have multiple uses like displacement, patriarchy, corruption...which we might choose. However, we are careful to think about how if this is the one and only time a teacher chooses to discuss/teach this topic what will be the takeaways of the place? In this way, without minimizing the tragedy and failure of what is happening right now in Afghanistan and the US’s responsibility within it, we also consider images that show aspects we can all connect on. We typically turn to a country's flag (always so cool!), food, and art. Pottery in Afghanistan, for example, could be a great way to integrate with an art teacher and be in awe of the millennia (!!!) long creations of pottery. Even just an image or two or another class connection can support rounding out a perspective and reminding us of the multitudes that we could go on to learn more about even if the focus of the lesson is on heavier pieces. 

There are resources for talking about refugees here. If you are worried about backlash or concern from families, helpful language is available here.

Vocabulary 

We like the vocabulary highlighting you can do through Newsela. Vocabulary instruction is frequently something teachers (ourselves included!!) miss in instruction and that miss impacts our students who need it the most. We won’t go into the numbers but the research is there if you care to know how important it is that we provide access to our instruction through vocabulary in as many ways and with as many routines and frequency as we can. 

When we think about vocabulary instruction for difficult topics like this we try to keep it minimal knowing that the content (and emotional weight) is already heavy, while still giving students ways to access and talk about this new idea. 

We aim for general good vocabulary practices like: providing the word in context, student friendly definitions, multiple examples of use, trying to choose target words that we know we can integrate into other social studies lessons or tough world conversations so they will have repeated exposures and opportunities to practice them, and then of course like we mentioned before, lots of visuals. Visuals for examples/non-examples is one of our go to ways to gear towards a word’s definition and assess if students have a sense of where it lands (ie more positive or negative?). Variations of a Freyer model in a writer's notebook and a vocabulary wall are also great tools to support students in utilizing the language to let them engage in these conversations! 

Some vocabulary options for this content that could be considered: 

• Capital (capital city, we would use this in other conversations and other map conversations. A good way to introduce Kabul) 

• Decade (talk about how it has been 2 decades, helpful vocab for math and SS) 

• Civilians 

• Taliban 

• War/ war-torn

• Invasion 

• Billion, Trillion (when we talk about the cost of the 20 year war, we would also use this in math, or in our Econ conversations) 

• Afghanistan (of course), could consider a few countries bordering (ie Pakistan, Iran etc, point out China to the northeast which might be a big recognizable location that you’ve discussed previously for when they situate themselves on a map as the lesson(s) continue). 

• Government 

• Fear / terrified/ distraught (we like to choose a social emotional vocabulary word or two to give us the space to grow our vocabulary and skills in this realm too. It also supports clarifying the range of that word (ie livid is at a different level of intensity than mad) and the emotions we might feel within it, as well as reminding us of how we connect to other humans all over the world). 

We try to keep vocabulary lists to 10 or less, and they can definitely be less and still be very valuable (oftentimes more valuable because students will actually be able to... learn the words!!) so think about your crew and choose accordingly for them to be successful.

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Black History Lesson: Sit Ins

This past February, we spent most of the month taking time to learn about, talk through, and create our own statement for Black Lives Matter at School Week. However, we wanted to address Black History Month and explicitly connect American history to our lives today. There are, of course, many ways to do this, but one way I’ve always loved teaching history to elementary school students (or really any students) is using primary sources and read-alouds. They can make the past tangible and far more real for students, as well as feeling “grown up” and authentic. 

I took inspiration from PBS History Detectives and modified one of the lessons they created for high schoolers or middle schoolers. We started by watching the 2nd video titled Integration Report. (It’s the one that is 2 minutes long. The 6 minute video clip included in this lesson included hate speech and violence so we decided against showing it to our third graders.) 

Photo credit: http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/slideshow/the-civil-rights-movement/#

Next, we showed students two images (numbers 1 and 3 in this slide show/ the cover image for this post as well as the image above) and had them analyze what they saw (as inspired by this resource from PBS), as well as answer some reflection questions to tie the activity into BLM, American history, and the present. 

We let them know that these photographs were primary sources (and explained what that means) and showed important moments during a significant historical event. Students were aware of the civil rights movement before we taught this lesson.

We created this handout and gave a physical copy to each student (with other reflection questions on the back).

We gave students time to look at each photo and respond. We let them know that they might write more in some boxes than others, and that was totally fine! You can see one student’s answers below.

One student’s responses after/while looking at the photographs.

Once we had given everyone time to look at both photos and fill in the table above, we moved on to the reflection questions (on the back of their papers) which were: 

• Why is this American history (not only Black history)?

• How are the strategies activists used during the sit ins similar to or different from BLM activism today?

Once students had time to answer both questions, we shared, first as partners and then as a whole class. Students were able to make a lot of comparisons between protests today and in 1960. We talked about how long ago (or relatively recent, based on your perspective) 1960 was, as conceptualizing the past and understanding the magnitude of time is always tricky for concrete third graders! I tried to make it more clear by saying that my parents were children when this was happening and that this is something my students’ grandparents lived through and might remember if they were in the United States at the time. I find that putting something in a family member’s lifetime helps students as otherwise a thousand years ago versus twenty years ago doesn’t feel that different to them since both occured before they were born.

Student’s response! She misspelled “signs” in her second answer.

Above is one student’s responses. They felt that the question about this being American history and not only Black history was obvious and therefore they did not need to elaborate in their written response, but explained to me verbally that this was something that affected everyone and still matters today. 

We followed up with sharing other resources available that students could use to learn more, including Newsela articles, books on Epic, Brainpop videos, and physical books in our classroom. Students asked if we could hear the read aloud in class as they wanted to know more about it, so we watched Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney. I have the physical book in my class library, but due to distancing requirements and the fact that I had two students on Zoom (while the rest of the class was at school in person with me), video or online read alouds worked best for us this year.

This was just one lesson and of course there is so much more to address and learn, but hopefully it kindled some primary source excitement as well as starting connections in students’ minds from history to today. We wanted to avoid the pitfall of teaching Black History as something that happened a long time ago and is now “fixed” or even “better,” as well as equip students with tools to be media literate, think critically about images and information, and notice, ponder, and wonder about what they see and hear.

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Black History Month: Past Ideas & Thoughts!

Seeing all of the activity around Black History Month on various social media platforms inspired me to write a blog post again (I know it has been a long time - I (Nina) was busy having a baby!). I am on maternity leave, so won’t be teaching in a classroom this February, but will link to some of our past posts with our ideas and reflections. 

My memories of Black History Month when I was in elementary school are pretty vague, but I remember learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and maybe even singing some songs about how he helped our country. As an elementary school teacher myself, I definitely have had to teach into the idea that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “fixed” racism in our country or that racism was something bad from our past. You can read more about one way we approached MLK Day in the past here. The past few years, my co-teacher and I have been participating in Black Lives Matter at School week. It’s a nationwide movement that occurs the first week of February.* 

It’s important when teaching history (especially to concrete third graders) to tie it to the present, and I always think about any of the “history” months (Black History Month, Women’s History Month, etc) through this lens. Starting with Black Lives Matter at School week is a great way to do this. You can read more about our participation in Black Lives Matter at School week and get some resources and ideas for Black History Month here, as well as read our reflections after participating with more details about how we chose to approach the week in our classroom here. 

I’m sure we’ve said this before, but it’s also really important not to relegate Black history to one month of the year (we love the title of the book How Long 'Til Black Future Month, has anybody gotten their hands on this one yet??). Black history is American history and should be part of our curriculum year round. Also, our curriculum should reflect our world, and the world we want our students to live in.

Some things to keep in mind when approaching Black History Month: 

• Since your curriculum reflects the diversity of our world, you do not need to cover all of Black history in one month (often times depth in one area they didn’t know about can be more quality instruction with essential ideas than the grand sweep over conversation). Choose your focus based on student interests, knowledge, or ignorance or what works well with other units. Students will often need background information and time to process, so it is far better to cover something in depth than give them information out of context. 

• Make sure you have time for student reflection and feedback. We had a student who wrote a comment on an article we read that helped us know what we wanted to do next. Open ended comments and reflections also let students have a way to let you know what they are thinking and feeling.

• Give students opportunities to share and process, but do not expect Black students to share or answer other students’ questions. They are not in the classroom as examples to white students. Also, make sure students of color have a way to communicate with you in case they need to process or feel uncomfortable about the way something is framed or understood by others.

• Think critically about the resources you use (which of course we teachers do each and every day). Just because a picture book is about a Black historical figure does not mean that it is a good resource for your students. Think about framing, whose story or voice is highlighted, and unintentionally reinforcing stereotypes. Also consider context you might have to provide for the resources you choose (if there is slang, slurs, or historical terms your students don’t understand -- ie: the use of “Negro”, for example, you have to prepare to teach into these!). 

• As a side note beneath this- we are huge fans of explicit vocabulary instruction. Students rarely have opportunities to have these conversations, and when they do, the big ‘adult words’ do not get broken down for them and that is a missed opportunity for learning and excludes them from participating in the conversation. Freyer models, group work, vocabulary logs or what have you--  you can bring your Black history vocabulary into systems you already have! 

• Use original sources! There are so many ways to do this. Some ideas are through videos of historical events or speeches on YouTube, adapted text of speeches or letters on Newsela, and documents. It is a wonderful way to bring history to life and preserve the voice and intent of the primary source.

• Poems can be an excellent way to start. I have always believed we need to use poetry more in all subjects. For example, the beginning of the Langston Hughes poem, “Let America Be America Again” is below. Have students read the poem and write connections and questions. Also, teach them about Langston Hughes! We’ve also used poems from Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming (if you are stuck on where to start, she has so many wonderful books for a variety of ages!).

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

-Langston Hughes, from Let America Be America Again

Please share your thoughts and ideas below! We’d love to hear what other educators are trying out this month. I especially enjoy hearing about other classrooms as I am away from my own students right now.

*We love Teaching For Change and if you want resources or a good community in the DMV area they are worth connecting with and receiving emails from! 

**This asterik is from Gabby just to note that she has yet to see schools that she has been working in, in Oregon, participating in BLM week. Of course, the work continues!

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Inquiry in Social Studies

I’ve always loved teaching Social Studies through inquiry. Start with questions students have, and then let them explore, research, and learn from there! This approach has led to biographical essays about inspirational historical and contemporary figures, case studies about different countries, companies, and Virginia Indian tribes, investigations into various holidays, and so much more. My hope is that teaching Social Studies through inquiry supports my students in continually learning about the world in a curious and open way.

Some essential parts of inquiry in Social Studies (for me) are:

• Keep the final product open or at least open ended! There are so many ways to share what you learned - let students figure out the best way to do so and personalize it.

• Encourage creativity! We asked our students for annotated illustrations of the Virginia Indian tribe they studied, and every single one of them interpreted that a different way.

• Be clear that what you are learning is limited in scope and in perspective. Use a concrete example to show that sweeping statements about all individuals who share an identity (or other) trait don’t work. I often use my wearing glasses as an example of what is generally true, but not always true for people who wear glasses versus what I prefer. The concrete example helps students to see the fallacy of overgeneralized statements and they can suggest how to reframe or rephrase statements to avoid this. Some words and phrases my students brainstormed included: usually, sometimes, some, in this instance, this example, one possibility (and of course, there are more).

• Always start with student questions! This is where inquiry begins - with asking a question. Keep in mind that students may need an introduction to a topic or some background knowledge before they can pose meaningful questions. Photographs, video and audio clips, and primary source documents are a great way to get students interested in a topic and give them some context to start asking questions.

• Find out what students already know (or think they know) and act accordingly! Background knowledge is so important to learning and understanding. So is identifying and clearing up misconceptions. Skipping ahead to research and learning new information without engaging in this pre-inquiry step can lead to more confusion.

One example of an attempt to do many of these things was our Native American Studies unit with 5th graders. We started by asking students what they already know about Native Americans, and immediately needed to clear up confusion about names and proper terms (many of our students claimed that saying “Indians” was offensive). One way we did this was by taking a field trip to the wonderful National Museum of the American Indian here in DC.  At the museum, our students were surprised to learn Native Americans are still very much present today. 

Many of our students shared that the Disney movie, Pocahontas, came to mind when we first started learning about American Indians. So we took some time to delve into an investigation of Pocahontas and see how what we discovered connected with what we already learned and had questions about. Students were shocked to see how quickly they generalized from an animated movie with limited historical accuracy to all Native Americans.

Our takeaways from this information our students shared (and were missing) was that we needed to learn more about American Indians today! So we learned some new vocabulary and background information from documentaries, articles, stories, and more. We also learned about the Virginia Indian tribes as a concrete example of American Indians living near us right now.

Our final project for the unit was a case study! We gave students time and resources to learn about a Virginia Indian tribe. We started with questions like: what do you want to know? What are the 10 most important things to know & share about this tribe? How would you depict your understanding? Students wanted to know SO MANY THINGS! The Top 10 List was a really effective structured way to share their knowledge while allowing them to follow their own lines of curiosity. We also included an “annotated illustration” as something to share to allow creativity and freedom to express their learning in an unstructured (non-written) way. As you can see from one of our students’ finished products (cover photo), they had so much to share. 

*An important disclaimer we started our case study work with was to remind students that our understanding is limited! We don’t know everything about an entire Virginia Indian tribe and couldn’t share it if we did.

The best way to do inquiry might vary from class to class and subject to subject, so these are just a few general guidelines we try to follow that have worked for us.

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Womyn's/ Womxn's/ Women's Herstory Month!

It's Womyn's Herstory Month! Every day is women's day etc etc.. and yet, we are also loved celebrating women and putting women (besides ourselves!) even more at the forefront this month. Full disclosure we are both huge book people so the list of books could go on for a while. Below are a few fantastic anthologies that we turn to often in our classroom and have used for many different projects throughout the year. We put these in the front of our room and hype them up extra for this month (along with books from March Book Madness especially Ada Twist, Scientist, The Most Magnificent Thing, I Dissent, The Water Princess, and Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean's Most Fearless Scientist).

Through these read alouds (which the student's have been loving and asking for more of!), we've enjoyed the way we can tie this into conversations about maps in Social Studies!

In Reading, we've been working on "thick" and "thin" questions (thin questions you can look at text and simply identify the answer, whereas thick ones require some thinking and we especially loved some of their questions about Annette Kellerman (1886-1975) from Shaking Things Up, and why bathing suits even needed to be designed for women, or why women would be told wear corsets in the first place (this conversation became very fixated on corsets at one point)...

We love this multiple perspective narrative-- a lovable cast of characters and so much suspense! 

We also started a new read aloud, Hello, Universe! We got to a scene where the main character's dad scolds him and says, "Boys don't play piano!" and our room erupted in silent signals meaning "agree" or "disagree". Our students had a lot of opinions about this (especially a few of our boys who play piano!), and we had passionate reflections after that read aloud block as to how gender should never dictate what any human has access to.

In Writing, we have been wrapping up writing about people from history (most of them are women, although not all) and we are now writing about someone we love (many of which are women!), which has been such a great way for our students to see mirrors of themselves, or windows into someone else's life experiences.

On International Women’s Day, we started our day by writing letters to amazing women in our life and telling them why we appreciate them. Students wrote to teachers, babysitters, moms, aunts, grandmas, and even women we had read about (Dominique Dawes reppin' Silver Spring, Maryland got quite a detailed letter from one of our students! It included a very self-aware: "I know you are busy but please please reply! K, thanks!").

We also went to one of our favorite bookstores  (and places!) in DC, Politics and Prose! We loved getting to see Patricia Valdez, who is an amazing scientist and author (AND is also a woman!) who wrote the fantastic book, Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor: The Woman Who Loved Reptiles. We were all enraptured learning about Joan Procter (1897-1931), and the way in which she took such thoughtful care of reptiles, learned so much outside of college, and designed such intentional spaces for them to live. Her design of the London Zoo reptile house is something we all decided we must see! (and it is in a Harry Potter movie so of course we found that oh, so exciting).

All in all, it has been a blast to put an extra spotlight on womyn and we could go on forever, of course, with all of the endless ways a human could be an inspirational woman. As we wrap up this month, we take the energy that our students have about finding new role models and guideposts in their lives, and carry it with us as we strive to be the best we can be, too!

We feel so wonderfully saturated with inspirational women this month-- maybe we'll go to bed listening to Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls new podcast! And one more book we love below (we warned you)! 

What continent do you think they are from? Drawing humans to reveal internalized bias

In the process of teaching (and learning) geography in our third grade classroom, we found that our students were very North America and Europe centric. While eight year olds are naturally egocentric, we wanted an activity to shift their perspectives and push them to realize that there are “real, important people” ALL OVER the world.

So we redesigned our beloved activity where we draw people to realize our internalized biases (that we wrote for 5th graders, but have used with adults as well) to make it more geography focused and 3rd grade appropriate. While we were focused on introducing inspiring (and unexpected) people from different continents, we also thought we might uncover some gender and racial biases along the way.

We have been learning about world geography starting with the seven continents and five oceans since the first week of school. We started with the continents and learning about the differences between a continent, country, state, and city in order to make sure that our students could be clear and accurate.

The Procedure

For this activity, we refreshed our memories by sharing some information about each continent as a whole group. Then, we had students work independently on what we called a puzzle. We gave them a handout with five descriptions of humans, a space to draw each human, and a line to write what continent they thought each human was from. We also gave them a bag of crayons to draw with. We’ve discovered that asking people to draw with crayons means they have to choose a color for their humans and often surprise themselves with the assumptions they make.

We read each description out loud and asked students to follow along on their paper. Then, we gave them two minutes to draw a person. We told them to draw “whomever you imagine in your head when you hear the description.” The descriptions lacked gender specific pronouns or any clues to age, race, or background. After they finished drawing, we told them to write an answer to the question, “What continent do you think this person is from?”

Some students happily drew whatever they imagined, including props, speech bubbles, and detailed accessories. Others were more hesitant and expressed concern about getting the answer wrong. In general, students found assigning a continent to a description of a person easier as they could copy down one of the seven continents so their choices were more concrete.

Revealing the Answers

In typical third grade fashion, some students were disappointed that they didn’t guess all of the continents correctly when we revealed the actual humans we had been describing at the end (and what continent and country they were from). But our students were also fascinated by hearing about new (and very inspiring) people, so they quickly moved on and realized that learning, thinking and understanding were far more important than getting “the right answer”. They also loved hearing what country each person was from.

We chose one person from Asia, Africa, South America, Europe, and Australia. Multiple students identified the person we described from Asia - Malala Yousafzai - from our description of her and wrote her name down next to their drawing of her. However, when we read our description of Sadiq Khan, which included the fact that he is a practicing Muslim, no one guessed that he was from Europe.

The person we described from South America was Michelle Bachelet (the current and first female president of Chile), which confused some of our students because we mentioned that she is the president of her country. One student asked how that was possible because there have only been boy presidents? We reminded her that this is true in the United States, but not in many other countries.

Students comparing responses and discussing their thinking process

Many students were surprised that the Nobel Peace Prize winning scientist who studied at three different universities (Wangari Maathai) was an African women. Many students also thought most of the people were from North America or Europe (except for the person who is actually from Europe). We had one female student who drew only women, and one male student who drew only men. Another student drew androgynous people because she said she couldn’t tell from the descriptions and she didn’t want to make assumptions.

Debrief and Reflections

After we revealed the identities of each person described and discussed our reactions, questions, and comments about each person, we asked students to complete one or more of the following prompts.

While doing this activity...

I was surprised by..

I felt..

I learned…

I used to think… , but now I’m thinking …

Students shared out at the end, and had thoughtful reflections (see quotes from students’ reflections below). We love that they are embracing studying geography in a humanizing way and challenging the assumptions or stereotypes that they may have learned from Western centric media in the past.

Student quotes:

“I thought I would be right, but all of my answers were wrong, but I realized it was okay and they didn't all have to be right.”

“I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t want to get it wrong or offend anyone, but then I realized [after our discussion] that we make assumptions about people whenever we meet someone new.”

“One thing I learned was some things that some people do different things and they are actually really important, but aren't always recognized because we learn mostly about North Americans.”

“I learned don't judge people by what they look like or by first impressions.”

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Northwest Teachers for Social Justice: Always Worth the Trip!

We are back in DC and reunited with our 3rd graders, a little wiped, but feeling very grateful. We just returned from the NWTSJ Conference (Northwest Teaching for Social Justice) in Seattle! We were graciously asked to return and do another presentation, and we couldn't pass it up. As we met participants along the way, we frequently got the question, "Wow, DC!? Why did you come all the way here?"  

The answer is simple. We love this conference. The energy is infectious, and we love checking out the hard work of largely West Coast public school educators. The conversations are dynamic and the passion seems neverending.

A few highlights beyond the Seattle fresh air and rain were:

• A workshop about how to teach about the not so distant, painful history of Japanese-American Incarceration. We have been looking for resources for how to make this history more visible and this definitely fueled our thinking.

• A workshop on how to keep Teachers of Color in the profession. Gabby especially enjoyed this workshop and it truly felt like a space to be vulnerable and heal. Longoria (one of the leaders of this workshop) is both brilliant and hilarious. There was a thoughtful conversation about what 'teacher of color' even means and the problems the label perpetuates. There was also a conversation about what 'teacher' means, who we sees as people of knowledge or 'valid' to share and educate our children (many of us receive our first education in our homes/communities/ within our own cultures that are not the dominant one).

• We ran into Bill Bigelow of Rethinking Schools. He was kind and personable and it was exciting to put a face to a name!

• Lunch was also fantastic-- this is just a sidenote, but the two of us really do love food. We were so impressed with how the food line (and entire conference) was run!

As always, we are grateful to the wonderful humans who joined us for a session as well. Participants in our session had many thoughts on their personal reactions to being placed in different groups (representing different amounts of wealth) in our beloved pom pom simulation. After our drawing activity that highlights  Participants also shared about internalized oppressions and where to take a conversation once we've made these stereotypes more tangible. We enjoyed all of the personalities in our group, and want to say another thank you to everyone for rallying with us at the end of a long, but productive day.

We left the conference feeling inspired. We are thinking about how to create this space and energy in DC as we know teachers doing great work here, but we don't have the organization quite yet. We are looking forward to pushing something like this forward with DC Area Educators for Social Justice with Teaching for Change, and potentially other avenues as well. Our brains are also rattling around with questions of what it looks like to organize private school teachers, and in what ways it would be most effective.

If we met you at some point on this quick trip to the West Coast -- thank you and keep on keeping on!

Holiday Inquiry: Columbus Day

Last week, we reconsidered Columbus Day. While our school does not recognize the holiday and remained in session on Monday, it is still a federal holiday and many of our students’ parents had the day off.

To lead up to our inquiry work, we asked students to respond to the question, “If you could create a holiday, what holiday would you create and why?” for their Morning Work. They had predictably fun and silly ideas - Kids’ Day when you get unlimited candy, Pets’ Day when pets can go everywhere, etc. However, the idea emerged that a holiday is about celebrating someone or something POSITIVE.

Later that week, we did a read aloud of Encounter by Jane Yolen and David Shannon, which tells the story of Columbus arriving in San Salvador in 1492 from the perspective of a Taino child. After reading the story, we had students complete an I think/I wonder chart about the the events described in the book.

We then had a whole class discussion about who Christopher Columbus was, with students calling into question the idea that “he discovered America.” We found San Salvador on a world map, and looked at this map showing his Columbus’s four voyages. Students were surprised that he never actually came to the continental United States, and confused by the idea of “discovering” a new place when people already lived there.

One student clarified, “He discovered the Americas for white people in Europe.”

Other students had questions about how Columbus and the other Europeans with him treated the Taino people. In Encounter, the narrator (a Taino child) describes touching a sword and getting “bitten.” We discussed how there will be an imbalance of power between someone who has weapons and someone who does not. Students asked what Columbus did that should be celebrated with a holiday (other than the previously mentioned “discovered the Americas for white people in Europe.”)

Next, we watched Reconsider Columbus Day. Some of our students had heard of Indigenous People’s Day, but most had not. They liked the idea of going back to their original idea of a holiday to celebrate someone or something positive. One student asked, “Why would there be a holiday for someone who was bad?”

We let students reflect and discuss that question, and then had them write responses to what they had learned and what they were still thinking or wondering about. Many of them still had questions and continued to grapple with the idea of a holiday for someone who hurt other people.

One of our student's written responses after our discussion.

On Monday, in honor of Indigenous People’s Day, we watched Indigenous People’s Day and Daunette on Being Native American. We will continue our investigation of holidays, monuments, and whose perspective is heard, valued, and prioritized all year.

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Pom Pom Simulation

Our pom pom simulation is a personal favorite. It simulates privilege, the cyclical effects of poverty, oppression, and more. Students always make new connections and take their reflections to a level we never could have anticipated. This year was no exception!

There are 3 rounds to the pom pom simulation. Round One consists of collecting pom poms. You have one minute to get as many pom poms as you can. Pom poms, of course, simulate wealth (and power). There is a catch. Students receive slips of paper with “assignments” on them. These instructions make it harder for some people to gather pom poms than others. Some examples:

You can use both of your hands, but you may not move your feet at all.

You may not bend your knees.

You must wear an oven mitt on your non-dominant hand and use that hand to pick up pom poms.

You may only use your two pointer fingers behind your back.

Only two people are allowed to use their hands and move around as they normally would.  We also caution all students that if you touch or bump another body, you lose pom poms. This is a safety requirement more than anything else, but does make it harder for the students who are already limited by their instructions!

Once pom pom collection is over, we put students into three groups based on the number of pom poms they collected.  This year, we had:

Students were very engaged, animatedly talking about how the collection process was “not fair” and how they deserved another chance.  So we told them, ok, here you go - Round Two.

Round Two consists of making “baskets” of crumpled up balls of paper. Each group had different color paper. I told the 3rd group - little wealth and power - that they had an advantage due to their large number of members, as every time one member of the group made a “basket,” every member of the group would earn another pom pom. There were cheers when this was announced, but the celebration was short lived as we soon showed each group where they had to stand to shoot.

Group 1 was right up front, Group 2 was behind them (still too far away to easily make a basket, especially with a ball made of paper), and Group 3 was in the back of the room. Naturally, Group 1 made lots of baskets, while Group 2 and 3 only made one each. During this round, we witnessed some very creative teamwork and division of labor as well as enterprising blocking tactics and questions about whether you were allowed to take paper balls out of the baskets. After Round 2, we heard more frustration about how “unfair” the whole situation was and many requests for a new “fair” round.

So we moved on to Round 3. In Round 3, each group gets to decide what they think is a “fair” system to distribute ALL of the pom poms. We give them five minutes to discuss with their group and come up with a system they support. Each group must choose a spokesperson to present their plan to the class. They have one minute each to make a pitch for their group's plan. What students don’t know until voting happens is that voting is weighted as shown below.

Group 1 members: 5 votes each

Group 2 members: 2 votes each

Group 3 members: ½ vote each

When students saw the unequal voting power, Group 3 was livid. They had planned on winning the vote by virtue of their large number of people. Group 1 was pleased as they planned on retaining their “wealth and power” and now had the votes to do so.

Here are the plans they proposed:

Group 1: Play steal the bacon to earn pom poms. 2 people would go out from each team. Keep doing that until pompoms are gone. There are restrictions- the same as the first ones from the beginning (the slips of paper we handed out).

Group 2: Our plan is everyone gets the same amount of pompoms and if it is an odd number, we cut it up into thirds. We don't want to keep repeating what we did before. We want every group to have the same.

Group 3: Everyone would start off with 5 pompoms to meet needs and then you could work your way up by doing different challenges. No restrictions.

We voted, and Group 1’s proposal got the most votes (once we calculated in the weighting). The other students were FRUSTRATED. Group 1 was pleased - they had started out trying to think of a “fair” system, but soon realized “it doesn’t say it has to be fair.” They also were influenced by two members who repeatedly said “Stay wealthy! We should keep our power!”

At this point, we stopped the simulation and had a debrief. First we asked students to share their reactions and feelings (one sentence per person). Here are some samples:

Student from Group 3:

“When I first saw the amounts each group got, it made me feel like the people in the 3rd group were being treated like they aren't humans… ½ a vote. ½ human! Half not real. Not seen. When the people with more wealth get so many more votes, it feels like just because they have more they also should get more of everything always. We are the people working the hardest but we can’t get the things they have that we want and need.”  (lots of me too’s)

Student from Group 1:

“I do agree with [student’s name] that it wasn’t fair. But our group was trying to make it so that we would still be at the top of the ladder, so it wouldn’t be as fair  - you had to be strategic and life isn’t always fair.”

Once everyone shared, we reminded the students that this was a simulation that lasted less than two hours and therefore is NOT THE SAME as actually experiencing poverty, oppression, lack of privilege, discrimination, etc. This was just an activity about pom poms. We DO NOT suddenly understand how others who are actually in these situations feel, just have a tiny experience we can think about and hopefully learn from. Then we asked them to make connections to real life, both in discussion and then later as a homework reflection.

Here are some of their thoughts:

"I used to think that if you work hard you can get wealth but now I think there is more to it. I think this because If you are born without wealth you will have a disadvantage and you will be stuck behind someone who started with a lot of resources and wealth."

"I used to think that in life everything started out fairly and equally and you get to be a higher class based on what job you have and your choices. But now I know that some people are born with an advantage such as rich parents who can afford to send you to a good college which could result into a better life."

We will be presenting this simulation (among other activities) on Friday, March 10th at the Private Schools for Public Purpose conference and look forward to trying it out with other educators. We’d love to hear your reactions and questions!

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75th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066 (Japanese Incarceration) Resources

Sunday, February 19th is the 75th anniversary of the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 (in 1945) which led to the removal and internment of approximately 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry. Many of them were US citizens. Many of them lost property or were forced to sell at a loss when they were removed and relocated. I personally find “relocation” and “internment” misleading as people were incarcerated and given no choice about their removal from their homes.

Image credit: http://hdjapaneseinternment.weebly.com/uploads/6/8/7/3/6873644/9418554_orig.jpg

While this shameful occurrence in American history is and always will be relevant, it feels especially relevant today with the recent Muslim ban, fears of a Muslim registry, and frequent executive orders. You know your students and school best, so I compiled some resources to potentially use in the classroom. This list is by no means exhaustive, so please comment if you have other resources you’d recommend.

In our class, we will start with a sign in on our front board with images and the writing prompts “I think..” and “I wonder..” We will respond to students’ questions and clarify misconceptions.

Image credit: http://katieyamasaki.com/work/fish-for-jimmy/

Later, we will do a read aloud of A Fish For Jimmy by Katie Yamasaki. It has gorgeous illustrations and is a tale of an older sibling taking care of a younger sibling, so many of our students find the main character relatable.

We will also look as some images from this photo essay: Photo essay with some background information from the Atlantic

We will watch the video below by Frank Chi. This video is poignant and clearly makes the parallel to today without directly saying anything political. It’s worth watching yourself and sharing with others even if you don’t share it with your students.

Muslim Kids Read Heartbreaking Letters From WWII To Show How History Is Repeating Itself

Other resources:

Eight Essential Japanese American History Books for Young Readers

Life in a WWII Japanese American Internment Camp (educator resources from the Smithsonian Museum of American History)

Oral histories from of Japanese Americans from Telling Their Stories (Elders interviewed by students - this is a great resource for Social Studies teachers in general!)

Information about the Supreme Court case, Korematsu v. U.S., which legalized Japanese-American internment.

Zinn Education project related lesson and materials archive

We'd love to hear if you use any of these or have resources you'd recommend of your own!

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Factory Simulation

“I don't understand why other companies treat their factory workers inhumanely if you can still be successful if you treat people like people.” 

Economics 101 is in full swing in 5th grade!

We tried out a BRAND new simulation today and were reminded how difficult it is to check all of the details for experiential learning activities. Whew!

That being said-- we are pleased with what our students experienced and how they are now thinking about different types of work, wages, and the many levels and layers of circumstances that can alter people's financial stability.

SET UP:

This one is complicated to set up. We have three groups, and each group had different tasks and varying working environments:

Office workers (5 students)

• Task: read news articles and created a presentation
• Could takes breaks whenever, used computers, talked with one another, had company snacks (pretzels).  

A group of unionized factory workers (11 kids, based off of Alta Gracia and employees we interviewed there this past summer-- check them out!!!)

• Task: creating beaded bracelets according to strict requirements
• Had organized break times and healthcare (we created a water issue that affected the entire city they all worked in), but still needed to meet deadlines etc.

A group of factory workers (10 kids, based off of Levis and Timberland factories we learned about this summer).

• Task: “food production” (food was drawn on paper)
• Had to stand the entire time, no healthcare, no breaks, no clean water

We also ended up having a 4th group (slightly unplanned..) who ended up being unemployed (they went on strike and their classmates did not follow them so they got fired!). They were hired for temporary employment by the office workers and did small jobs around the classroom. This proved to be an interesting dynamic that added to the simulation.

EXPERIENCE:
Students work hard following the directions on their assignment sheets. Every once in awhile teachers would come over and say it was 'pay day' (we had 3 of these) and give each member of the group the points they earned for their work. For the most part, the students worked really hard at their jobs and had interesting conversations about quality of their work environment and how to best navigate it. The majority decided to 'put their heads down' and work harder.

TWISTS:
Teachers also came around when it wasn't 'pay day' time and provided circumstance cards that students needed to calculate into their paychecks. The circumstance cards ranged from "Your child had a fever, you bought medicine -2 points" to things like "You have had a death in the family and you need to cover the funeral costs". There were multiple health related cards that could add up (hand pain from repetitive motions, back pain, breathing issues from dust in the factory) all of which we learned different individuals suffered from especially in the Timberland and Levis factory locations. These cards began to frustrate students and heightened the stress in the room. Of course there were some cards (especially for the office team) for getting +4 for a promotion or a boss noticing their hard work.

Another twist we saw was that some of the Office workers went to 'donate' points to the factory workers. They donated 1 point to each person. (They were making 100 points per paycheck while the non-unionized factory workers were making 10 points per paycheck). It was interesting to see the different responses to these donations and how some of the donations didn't help people's overall situations.
 

THEIR REFLECTIONS:
Our students were STRESSED!!! They talked a lot about how they were worried about making deadlines, how hard they were working, and how scary it was to receive a card and know you were barely keeping any money. A couple of them talked about how they felt they weren't paid for the level of work they were doing and felt like no one noticed how HARD they were working. The bracelet group made extra bracelets in hopes of a raise and they didn't receive one.

OUR OBSERVATIONS:
We found it fascinating to see the conversations about strikes and organizing.

We found it really interesting to see how the 'financial' hits felt -- from the higher Office group one student talked about how she took a big hit one week taking care of a family member and then she felt bad that she didn't want to be part of the office people who donated money to the factory workers who didn’t have clean water. And then she realized exactly how little her peers in the factories were making and felt like she should donate.

Overall we noticed that emotions ran high, we appreciated their thoughts on continuous stress and will continue that conversation as we take on other's perspectives -- constant stress is a very challenging struggle and we are glad they have the teensy-tiniest insight into what that might be like for someone.

We are thinking about the twist with unemployed workers and temporary workers (they would work for even 1 point) and how that added to the overall experience of learning about labor (even though we didn’t plan it). Next, we are going to work with the Math teacher to create a budgeting simulation!

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Ideas and Resources to Address the Muslim and Refugee Ban in the Classroom

Coming off a weekend of protesting, I find myself thinking hard about what to say to my students tomorrow when they ask me about the news. We saw some of our students at the rally at the White House today. They will want to share observations from their experience tomorrow. Students will also have questions about checks and balances since we recently concluded a unit on US Government. They will have overheard conversations between adults and understood only snippets of what was going on in the media. Where do we start?

Our planned read aloud for tomorrow!

Start with a read aloud. Ask students what connections they can make to the story. Can they make text to self connections? Model by thinking of a time you yourself were homesick or scared or missed someone. What about text to world connections? How does the story connect to events happening in the world today?

The Journey by Francesca Sanna is about a family who must leave their home and country to escape war and hopefully find safety. After you read it, talk about what the word “refugee” means. This is the book we will read aloud tomorrow. You can find more ideas for relevant picture books here. Naturally, there are many more out there- please comment below with your suggestions!

Discussion Ideas

Talk about the news. I like to start with an image (works well with my concrete 5th graders) for sign in and a table for responses with two columns: "I think" and "I wonder." You can do this on a large whiteboard or piece of chart paper, or individually (or in small groups) with handouts. It helps less confident students feel ready to share their thoughts and provides you with a way to find out what misconceptions versus accurate information students have and understand. The "I wonder" column also gives you a better sense of where to go to answer all of their questions and prompts them to ASK questions, which is always an excellent place to begin.

You can find images of the protests at airports here. You could also talk about the executive order and find the affected countries (and cities protesting) on a map. Here is an article describing the current situation in the seven affected countries (with a map highlighting their locations).

Here is a New York Times article with stories of some of the humans banned from the U.S. The article also includes a short video of protests at JFK airport. My students usually like to hear stories of individual people or families as it aids their comprehension by making the situation less abstract.

Other Useful Resources

UNHCR Teaching Resources and Toolkit for Teaching About Refugees

Brainpop video about religion (requires a Brainpop login; Brainpop also has informational videos about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Citizenship).

A People’s History of Muslims in the United States (from Zinn Ed Project)

The First Amendment and Freedom of Religion lesson from Teaching Tolerance

8 educational resources to better understand the refugee crisis from Amnesty International

Naturally, there are SO many directions you could go and topics to cover. These are only some suggestions for ways to get started. You know your students (and school, and families, and administration) best. If you do try out one of these ideas or have other suggestions, please comment below! We’d love to hear how tomorrow goes in your classroom.

 

 

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Sinking Ship Simulation: Who do we VALUE?

"Well in the real world not everyone can get everything and this kind of showed me that not all our decision making processes are fair."

Notes on our whiteboard from the students' brainstorming and decision making process.

How it Works:

Yesterday in Social Studies, we did our Sinking Ship simulation (idea credit: we first read about this here). We had the students in half groups (when half the class is with us and half the class is with a different teacher) so we only had 13 students at a time. For each group, we started by handing out “assignments” on folded slips of paper.

The different roles were:

migrant worker

senator

someone who is currently unemployed

child

firefighter

teacher

nurse

doctor

babysitter

college student

taxi driver

lawyer

scientist

We then asked our students to get in a circle and told them that they were on a sinking ship, and there were only FIVE spots in the lifeboat. They had to work together to decide as a group which five people should go in the lifeboat.

Students immediately started making arguments for why they should be on the lifeboat. The senator claimed that he should get on the boat because he is important. Another student countered, “Not on the lifeboat!” One of our favorite funny moments occurred when someone agreed with the “senator” that he should be on the boat and another student said quietly to himself, “It depends if he is a Democrat or a Republican.”

Why We Love this Simulation:

We love this simulation for so many reasons--

• It is fascinating to watch the students work it out amongst themselves!

• It’s also interesting to hear the arguments the students come up, and note which students give up immediately when they read their assignment and decide that their job isn’t “good” enough.

• It is also very telling (and part of our debrief) to note when students laugh. Some laugh out loud when they read their role to their classmates and others start play acting their preconceived idea of that role. For example, the student who received “you are currently unemployed” said, “I just graduated from college. I don’t have a job and I live in my mother’s basement!” in a goofy voice as if he was acting out a role, and put labels on himself.

The Two Group's Decisions:

In the first group, the students worked collaboratively and ensured that everyone’s voice was heard (with some raised voices, but general agreement), while in the second group, one student took charge and made decisions for the group that were later challenged as “unfair.” The two groups also came to different conclusions about who should get a spot on the lifeboat. Their final choices for which "characters" should be on the lifeboat were:

Group One:

1. Doctor

2. Child

3. Nurse

4. Scientist

5. College student

Group Two:

1. Child

2. Person who is currently unemployed

3. Doctor

4. Senator

5. College student

Student Reflections:

"I thought it was unfair because it was based on stereotypes and generalization."

"One thing that did not go well was there was a lot of stereotypes of "taxi driver" and the "currently unemployed". This is bad because just because someone does not have a job does not mean they are not smart. Also people were saying things like how can a taxi driver help. This made us choose people whose jobs make more money, not on their basic humanity!"

"I can connect this to the real world with people who say people who have bad paying jobs aren’t smart. In this I felt stereotyped and I can connect that with the real world because people were using the same stereotypes."

Who would you choose to go on the lifeboat? Do you have other ideas for collaborative problem solving simulations? How else can we push our students to think critically about who is valued in our society and how different people or roles are valued?  We’d love to hear your ideas!

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Columbus Day Debates

We love debating as a way of developing critical thinking, practicing analytical skills, and thinking through persuasive arguments before we start writing them down as essays. Today, on Columbus Day (still a federal holiday), we had our students debate whether or not Columbus Day should be a holiday.

To set up this lesson, we have the students in two groups and give each group a different text.  One is framed to be pro Columbus and one is framed to be anti Columbus. We have them read and learn more about Christopher Columbus and then we offer them the opportunity to choose a side for the debate.

This series of lesson serves to introduce debating and giving them an opportunity to be try it out themselves, help students recognize the problematic nature of history from one perspective, and demonstrate that author’s purpose really does make a difference.  We go on to teach more lessons about critical reading and looking at language used, voices heard or omitted, and facts emphasized to understand the author’s perspective and biases.

This year, we were pleasantly surprised that only a few students wanted to be on the pro Columbus Day side of the debate. Many were undecided or in the middle, which was resolved after they went through the debate experience. We did hear the usual, “If he hadn’t come here we would never be here” argument as the lack of authentic or humanized Native American peoples in history, society, their lives means they identity with Columbus.

We also had to teach our students to say “discovered” in quotes, but they don’t fully understand how problematic that is until we give them an example that relates to them. Also, it is so hard to stop the “he discovered America” narrative because they have heard it SO. MANY. TIMES! No matter how many times we show them a map with his route to the Caribbean, it is something they “know” and is in mainstream society’s collective “knowledge” and consciousness.

The students continue to say that they enjoy learning about history even when it is painful, and that they prefer to know more sides to a story and something closer to the truth. They asked about why we (as adults and schools) continue to not correct the narrative and share more of the truth.  They had many thoughtful questions about why weren’t they taught the correct events and wanted to know why we (as a society) still teach children that Columbus was a good person?

Related resource:

Reconsider Columbus Day

Zinn Education Project: Abolish Columbus Day

 

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How do we START? Setting up a community that talks about current events!

Is it only Wednesday? There's so much happening this week!

The world keeps spinning! In our classroom especially there is a buzz about the upcoming election (especially the debates) and protests on protests on protests. One realm of protests our students have some background on in different capacities are the Black Lives Matter protests, largely the sports related ones. Another area of protest news that we have had energy around is water protectors against the DAPL (largely from us, because that protest has had a severe LACK of coverage).

All of this is to say, while we have been working hard in 5th grade to tackle routines and settle in for the school year-- the world continues on! Finding the time and space to be informed about these news stories and issues can seem daunting and frustrating.

Meet… the current event case studies block!

We created this block using only one hour of instructional time to give our students the time to get 'briefed' on multiple different news issues. We do what many people call a jigsaw.

How it works:

• Students vote for issues they are excited and interested about.

• They get assigned a work group in which they study a topic (Immigration to the US, Campaign 2016, BLM, Water Protection.. etc)

• They are given a document with a list of resources. One resource is a 'Must read' and is an overview of their topic. We also provided some "Must watch" resources for some groups.

• Once they have completed the mandatory reading, they had choices of reading anything from the second list of resources. We love to find places for choice!

• Then they had time to talk with their group and take notes: What did they learn? What is going on around their issue? What are they still wondering about?

• They prep to share for a collective 2 minutes (in an informal way). They need to be ready to brief the class so we can all be filled in on the topic.

The benefits:

• They are excited about reading the news and the world around them

• They practice research skills without feeling like it is tied to a big project (it has been a great spot to observe how our students approach research at the beginning of the year)

• Independent time and group time give them multiple ways to process tough information and build on their ideas

• They have some ownership to be in front of the classroom with the responsibility of filling the rest of us in on what they have learned

• It is dynamic (and fun!)  

• It gives us a great starting point and a basic foundation about these issues for every single student

• It sets us up as educators to be responsive and to continue to have conversations and bring in different news stories as the year progresses

We love current event case studies as a way to get the year started and as an accessible way to progress with integrating world events into our curriculum. We highly recommend it! How do you all get started talking about the news with your students? Colleagues?

More soon! 

Nina + Gabby 

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Update from the Classroom: Covenant Usurp Simulation!

Background: 

Following the Responsive Classroom model, the norms and expectations in our classroom are called our 'covenant'. 

In our classroom, we spend the first month and a half (!) trying to sort out what we value individually and as a class, so that we can create a covenant that feels true to us. We have three dynamic simulations in which students 'experience' Anarchy, Totalitarianism, and Republicanism.  After each class period, we reflect on each government model to decide what we like best about it. We take these positive aspects and try to figure out how we want our classroom to run and which pieces we would like to incorporate into our community. The covenant is a labor of love and becomes all their own. This year, our class created a written covenant, a song (they are an incredibly musical bunch), and a logo which was "reproduced" (AKA copied and laminated) for everyone to put on their lockers, computers, notebooks etc.. 

The idea is that our students sincerely care about their covenant. 

One simulation we do as a part of our Indigenous American/ American Indian/ Native American Studies unit is to have our covenant... usurped! 

How it works: 

This simulation requires 6th graders (older students) to come into the classroom and they tell the 5th graders that their rules are useless, they will not be prepared for 6th grade, and ultimately, they give the 5th grade class new and 'better' rules. We then dramatically take down all aspects of our covenant and the 5th graders become upset and frustrated. We spend the rest of the day/lesson abiding by the new rules put on us by the 6th graders. 

*FYI. Prior to this simulation we have given students plenty of background about European contact, along with discussed methods for oppressing Native people in the US (extermination, assimilation in boarding schools, forced into debt, reservations...). 

The response and reflection: 

This simulation is a visceral experience for students as their rules, community, and classroom culture is taken away from them by a group of people who have no context to who they are or what they have been working on all year. As we debrief this simulation we STRESS repeatedly that we would NEVER want to simulate any actual aspect of disenfranchisement of Indigenous people, and that this experience is a mere sliver of shallow understanding that might create more space for empathy as we continue our unit (and our lives). We come back to this point repeatedly. 

This covenant usurp simulation helped students be more invested in our discussions and learning about  people who have been in the Maryland and Virginia areas for thousands of years. We especially love the passion they bring to their work after this simulation, and their increased determination to comprehend  American history better, from essential points of view, and in more depth.