Pictured above: Third and fourth-grade students participating in a recent letter-writing campaign.
At Friends School, we approach Black history and antiracism work as year-round pursuits. Any study of history, current events, society, the SPICES, must be inclusive to be accurate. There is no US history without Black history (or women’s history or the history of other groups in our country). We can’t get a full picture of our world without including voices that have been marginalized. Seeking truth means seeking out others’ truths as well as our own. Though this work is every-day-of-the-year work, Black history month is a good touchpoint to reflect on our antiracism work– particularly as it relates to centering diverse voices in our curriculum– and to take stock of how we are doing and where we are falling short.
The faculty are looking forward to resuming our intensive professional development series White People Confronting Racism in March to support a continued deep dive into how to do this work better.
Below are excerpts from classroom weekly updates that are useful examples of the ways in which teachers and students are engaging issues of identity and racial justice in different ways in their daily work together.
Carie Garret's Kindergarten:
February is a time that the Kindergarten class explores Love Week concepts in-depth. The work we have done over the year to this point regarding friendships, feelings and what to do with them, and how we are the same and different from the people around us have been great beginning points for us in this work. Recently, we read the book Let's Talk about Race by Julius Lester, during which children talked with their classmates about the little and big things that make them the same or different from one another. Children were asked to consider a query that we will refer back to again and again over the course of our Love Month. We asked children to think about What Makes You You? Below you will find their thoughts on this query as we begin our Love Month work together.
Everyone is part of you. Everyone has everyone in their hearts.
We are not just our skin.
Food, air, water... the things that help us grow make me me.
Religions.
Different things we like, like what you like doing, but other people don't like doing makes you who you are.
Some people are the same if they have the same culture.
Your skin is part of you and who you are.
Inside of us, our hearts... basically inside us is who we are.
We are all special. It doesn't matter if we are a boy or a girl.
What you have been through makes you you.
All of your family probably loves you. It's nice to have a family, and that's what makes you you.
We are different and the opposite of that is the same!
Nobody else can be you like you are you.
Even twins are different from each other.
Lindsay Holt's Third and Fourth Grade:
This past week we continued to delve into our Sense of Place unit. As has been our goal all year, we look at an idea from multiple perspectives. The students pointed out that this not only helps us understand other people and their experiences better, it also helps us understand our own.
As we think of why it is important to tell the story of a place, and how places shape identity, we were reminded of earlier in the year when we explored Wabanaki peoples relationship to land and the natural world in our Casco Bay unit. Through two videos we watched parts of, we learned about the Penobscot people and their relationship to the river, and the Passamaquoddy people's Kuwesuwi Monihq (Pine Island).
This year, children have wondered how they can get involved and actually help people, or make changes in the world. This coming week, there is a very important hearing for a bill that affects Wabanaki Tribal Rights, (LD 1626: An Act Implementing the Recommendations of the Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act) and we learned as much as we could about it.
We asked ourselves the question: "Why would we or why wouldn't we want to get involved?" We defined the terms sovereignty, ally, bill, hearing, sustenance, and stewardship. With the help of Sunlight Media Collective and the First Light organization, we learned together as much as we could about the bill. Students asked SO many good questions in the process, some that it took adults from all of these organizations working together to answer. After quite the journey, students were given an option to write a letter of testimony or not, and all of them enthusiastically chose to participate. They looked into their own systems of values and identity and wrote letters that reflected their beliefs and understandings about big ideas. This process has asked us the question, "How do we start building trust again?"
Allie Miller's Fifth and Sixth Grade:
In social studies, students considered the question of whether violence is ever justified. We used the 1967 Newark riots as a case study. Through eyewitness accounts, an excerpt from the 1968 Kerner Report, and background knowledge they built in previous weeks about the Civil Rights Movement, students contemplated this question. In a class discussion board on Google Classroom, responses indicated that most students felt that when all other methods of nonviolent direct action hadn't been effective, sometimes violent protest is understandable. I was impressed with how they grappled with and discussed this difficult question.
Pete Nowak's Seventh and Eighth Grade:
Studying the Great Depression recently and its role in jumpstarting the American Liberal movement, the 7-8 class was struck by those who were left out of FDR's various social welfare programs. We found out that during Malcolm X's childhood in the 1920s and 30s, his family struggled mightily and wasn't entitled to the same assistance offered to white Americans. We took this as an opportunity to learn about his life and about how these institutional failures shaped his views as a voice for black empowerment.
This small unit was bolstered by exploring the contrast between the non-violence policies championed by the Civil Rights movement compared to Malcolm X's encouragement that the black community use any means necessary to achieve their goals. We were also interested to learn about the ongoing questions surrounding Malcolm X's assassination and the ways that his life and work continue to resonate today.