Affinity Groups in Lower School

We ran a Students of Color affinity group for grades 3-5 at our school and hope to be able to meet again later this year. We used to meet during lunch (pre-COVID) which was so lovely, but since that’s currently not possible with all of our protocols, we are trying to find another time and space. We’ve found that many schools have affinity groups for older students, but want to share support and ideas for starting an affinity group with some of the younger ones as well. Our crew really benefited from it and it was a time we all looked forward to as a breather during the week!

What to Prepare 

  • A general overview of your proposal/plan to share with administrators so they know and take this endeavor seriously. Everything about this process is easier if you have administrator buy-in. They will be bombarded by at least a few parents as you get going, soon enough. 

  • Maps/globe

  • Vocabulary: Race, ancestors, minority, majority, POC, BIPOC, see below 

  • General ground rules you want to pitch to the students (ie: what is said here stays here, what is learned here leaves here.. Or something that allows them to tell stories and talk freely about what they want and need without becoming too messy or mean of a situation if it is about a classmate or one of your colleagues). It will get messy, FYI. And we wanted students to share whatever was on their mind, but we were careful that we didn’t want all the kids leaving the room at the end of the group dog piling or mad at a certain kid that was talked about during group.

    • Along with this, general expectations for how you would like students to behave in the space. For us, teacher-led rules that were non-negotiable were about cleaning up our classroom and respect for one another. We recommend teaching these explicitly like you would in your classroom to set everyone up for success, you are a new group together (from different classrooms!) with new personalities. It is hard for them otherwise to know what part of this get together is casual vs. what part is regular school so be really clear so they can be successful. You can also choose where to make room for them to add in what they want the group to be and expectations/rules they have etc. 

  • Games, food, and memories are part of forming a community. Make a plan with the admin to set yourself up for some of these to be expected and supported in your group. 

  • At minimum, a second adult. We recommend this for a few reasons, practically speaking, a weekly commitment is hard for anyone to always be able to make (things come up!) and it’s important to not cancel the group as much as possible (the kids will let that be known!). Also, more teachers of color means a fuller community and more connections for everybody :). In addition to this, tough things come up, and it is important to have another adult in the room to balance out how to respond and also to discuss with after if you need to handle a difficult situation in a careful way etc. 

  • A space! A time! Where will you meet? When? We had our meetings in our classroom which was great for us (and our crew), but it also meant we had to ensure the rest of our class knew they couldn’t come barging in the room at lunch or stay after to ask a question or manage a meltdown. Think about what space will work best for you all collectively that you can get to. 


Expected Bumps & Pushback 

  • We were told that 3rd graders don’t know what race they were.

  • Push back from students & families who are not part of the affinity group. We had parents claiming this is segregation and a violation of the Civil Rights Act.

  • Teachers who don’t agree, like it, or understand and might pass this feeling on to other students knowingly or unknowingly. Also, teachers pitching a white affinity group. 

  • “Tan” students trying to come to our group, or kids trying to bring their friends and explaining why they could or should come who weren’t POC.

  • As mentioned above, talk about someone who upset or hurt a student’s feelings. Think about how you want (and need) to navigate this for the students/families and your position. Things will come up. 

  • Time! It’s limited! Plan for a little bit of passing time. Kiddos coming from different classrooms and grades will need some wiggling time and they will talk and joke as they see each other and enter the room. Also consider the buffer of clean up (it is their responsibility in our group!). So if you want to plan a discussion topic or specific activity, think with your teacher brain about the realistic amount of time you have to do it and how it can work. 


Useful Explanations & Language 

  • Explain affinity group means we share an facet of identity - also we share being in the minority

  • This is the one time a week we are in the majority

  • Explaining to students that people of color don’t trace their ancestry back to Europe

  • A communal event any culture/community might have (going to Temple, celebrating a Quince, going to a Friends meeting) you might need and want space from someone who doesn’t share that cultural background so you can just BE. Be with your community, relax, share, laugh, eat etc. and not feel the gaze of someone outside or answer their questions for what they don’t understand about your community right at that moment! A big part of enjoying affinity is getting to be with your people and relax! 


Activities We Loved & Our Favorite Parts! 

  • The joy! The laughs! And selfishly, it was a community for both of us, too! It was also a nice way to check in with POC kiddos from different grades who we had our eyes on in a routine way and make sure they were feeling cared for and doing okay. 

  • Weekly share - they loved having the time to share and be unfiltered in ways that felt different from their classroom and school day experience. Any way that we could step our voices off and give their voices and bodies the space to just be, we tried to for the short time they had this space! Even if we wanted to, they never would’ve passed up on their share time (even when we said we’d use the time for games or other fun stuff!) as they really wanted to talk. 

  • Sharing positive current events and moments in history!

  • Games & food are part of becoming a community! 

  • Kids connecting from different groups. 

  • Kids from different POC backgrounds learning more about one another and their backgrounds without the white gaze! Just because we’re all some kind of brown, doesn’t mean we suddenly know everything about everyone else. We loved the learning moments that got to happen for and with our students in this smaller setting. 

  • Celebrating and being proud. Kids shared a lot of things they did with family, but also other parts of their lives that when we checked in with their teachers they didn’t hear about in class. This group was so excited to cheer or to join in with kids in being proud of themselves for something they accomplished or a way they handled a tough moment. 

  • Which segways nicely to the shared knowledge/advice. Students were really thoughtful and supportive about advice and being supportive of how to handle some of the tougher parts of being a minority in our school. They said it in ways only they could have and also heard one another in ways that only could be heard from a peer. We found this really powerful and beautiful. 

  • Music! We had some fun/ dancing. 

  • Books! Our end of the year gift to our students were books (surely you are shocked!) and it was really nice to write a note to each one of them and give them a book to take with them as they graduated from our division and left our group for the older POC group. 

  • A meet up with the older kids! We had some meet ups with the older POC group which was great for both groups. Knowing personalities, thinking about what would be the best use of time, planning something that works for all ages are all things to consider. We found that our kids really just wanted to...talk with one another. 


Other Thoughts 

  • It’s worth it! It really is! Our kids told us so, families told us so, and we felt it, too. 

  • You also have affinity and are not alone! You can always reach out to others (or us!) for tips or thoughts about what is happening in their affinity groups. 

  • Your kids, like always, will guide a lot of what you do so no two affinity groups will be exactly alike. 

  • A big part is just jumping in. Our school is now used to the concept and we look back years later and remember a lot of the bumps (we are always and still learning of course) and are grateful to have gotten it off the ground so it can be where it is today for today’s students. Even if we haven’t and won’t ever make it ‘perfect’ they deserve their own space. 

Resources 

Resources from Rosetta Lee's website

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Seven Ways to Approach Black History Month in Your Classroom published by McGraw Hill!

Our piece about Black History Month in the classroom was published by McGraw Hill’s Inspired Ideas! You can see the live piece here. We thought today was a good day to send it out, as is it February 1st. Today is also the first day of Black Lives Matter at School week. I (Nina) am not teaching today as we have a snow day (hence the photo of the masked snowman above), but already started having conversations with and hearing questions and thoughts from students last week. This year, I am hoping to go over all 13 of Black Lives Matter’s Guiding Principles which will naturally take more than a week (for everyone, but especially 3rd graders).

DC Area Educators for Social Justice (a project of Teaching for Change) has some really useful resources for educators.

Also, read about the first year we participated in Black Lives Matter at School Week here! We also wrote a piece with teaching and classroom ideas for Black History Month and BLM at School Week in 2019 that has a lot of read alouds.

Please share resources and ideas below. We’d love to hear from you.

Black Lives Matter.

"What is always on your end of year list?" A quick 10 always on there items from us.

We were asked what is always on our end of year to do list.. Below are a few pieces we always have on that list. Ironically, for me the end of the year has so many of its own mini lists and rituals. 

EndofYear-1.jpg

A few things that are always on there for me are: 

1. Write thank you notes (this includes personal ones I write, and also putting aside class time and guiding the students to reflect and write their own. These include notes to students, ridiculously reliable, wonderful maintenance staff, an amazing receptionist, a family that has been really kind, a colleague/peer that helped you out, a class of students you used to have that is graduating etc..) 

2. Log that all our classroom books have been returned! Have students help out, remind families etc. 

3. Set aside class time to solicit student feedback. We wrote blog posts about how and why we do this in 2017 and 2018. End of year feedback from students (post from 2017), Always Ask for Student Feedback! (post from 2018). Our work of teaching and learning is grounded in reflection, this is so important! 

4. Take pictures / make a slideshow/ do some sort of comparison from beginning of the year end of the year. This can be photos from then and now, opening the letters we wrote to ourselves in September, or comparing work from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. 

5. Assign a lot of student helpers to take things down/ clean! 

6. Play more games/ plan for fun moments together, this is the last time this learning community will be together in exactly this way and time will fly and the year will be over. We love making a point to just enjoy each other as the year winds down. 

7. Prepare summer reading lists  (we also wrote a blog post on this, Setting Students Up for Summer Reading) --  foster continuous reading excitement (and let them enjoy giving you and one another recs!), and set them up for success to have books they know they want to get at the library or the bookstore. (We have tons of posts on books we love, here is the most recent one about books we extra loved for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

8. Finish that all class read aloud! We wrote about how we wrap that up in an older post (Looking Back to Look Forward). 

9. Reflect- use that student feedback, consider the pieces that worked and haven't worked, and congratulate yourself. There is always more we could do or a piece that could have gone better or a student we wish we reached or supported better. Make note and also celebrate another great year of fostering forever learners! 

10. Plan an end of school meal that you're excited about (for me, it's usually an Ethiopian dish.. or sushi! I just got hungry writing that). We both just love food so.. yep! 

This piece was also published on Medium through McGraw Hill’s The Art of Teaching Project!

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