A short training guide in using project based learning for teachers and homeschool parents
Why Project Based Learning and Why Now?
I have designed this short workshop about using Project Based Learning during the outbreak of Covid-19 for a few important reasons. I will explain more about Project Based Learning below.
SHORT PROJECT BASED LEARNING WORKSHOP
1. I will walk you through understanding the concepts and such
2. I encourage you to provide any questions and feedback through the workshop
2. We will work on a short project towards the end and post our work.
1. The Challenges of Working From Home
As many teachers and parents are working and teaching from home, I can't imagine the stress and workload involved of doing one of those things, let alone both of them. I am a teacher and I am unsure how anyone could do both of those things, especially at once. Project Based Learning incorporates independent and engaged learning, allows student's to take the driver seat in their own learning, and can easily be incorporated into art, music, creative writing, video, and theater projects. The role of teachers in Project Based learning is closer to the role of a coach and drastically reduces the long planning and facilitating time involved with direct instruction.
2. The ability to Collaborate and Partner with Businesses, Community Groups, Parents, Teachers, and other Students
PBL allows and thrives through collaborative projects. This also takes the weight of this very hard task off your shoulders alone.
3. The Classroom can be Anywhere and Everywhere
A PBL classroom has no real walls. Students can explore in the real or virtual world and have hundreds of more resources that one room could offer. This also encourages students to be out in the world given the right social distancing safety requirement.
Don't get me wrong the goals here are not to try to get rid of your kid, but it can be a fringe benefit. After all one person can only do so much having double responsibilities as teacher and parent/guardian. The main benefit of PBL is it allows you to partner with your child or student and changes the relationship to generally encourage you will both get along in this process much better.
I have recently worked using PBL and I can assure you if its done right, students will actually enjoy school and the learning process.
I have designed this short workshop about using Project Based Learning during the outbreak of Covid-19 for a few important reasons. I will explain more about Project Based Learning below.
SHORT PROJECT BASED LEARNING WORKSHOP
1. I will walk you through understanding the concepts and such
2. I encourage you to provide any questions and feedback through the workshop
2. We will work on a short project towards the end and post our work.
1. The Challenges of Working From Home
As many teachers and parents are working and teaching from home, I can't imagine the stress and workload involved of doing one of those things, let alone both of them. I am a teacher and I am unsure how anyone could do both of those things, especially at once. Project Based Learning incorporates independent and engaged learning, allows student's to take the driver seat in their own learning, and can easily be incorporated into art, music, creative writing, video, and theater projects. The role of teachers in Project Based learning is closer to the role of a coach and drastically reduces the long planning and facilitating time involved with direct instruction.
2. The ability to Collaborate and Partner with Businesses, Community Groups, Parents, Teachers, and other Students
PBL allows and thrives through collaborative projects. This also takes the weight of this very hard task off your shoulders alone.
3. The Classroom can be Anywhere and Everywhere
A PBL classroom has no real walls. Students can explore in the real or virtual world and have hundreds of more resources that one room could offer. This also encourages students to be out in the world given the right social distancing safety requirement.
Don't get me wrong the goals here are not to try to get rid of your kid, but it can be a fringe benefit. After all one person can only do so much having double responsibilities as teacher and parent/guardian. The main benefit of PBL is it allows you to partner with your child or student and changes the relationship to generally encourage you will both get along in this process much better.
I have recently worked using PBL and I can assure you if its done right, students will actually enjoy school and the learning process.
The methods and PHILOSOPHY i use as a teacher
The primary tool I use as a teacher is Project Based Learning. The second tool I use is called Self-Directed Learning and works within the context of Project Based Learning. My third tool is called Art Integration which is really the heart and soul in creating well rounded learning projects with students. Lastly I also use a
I am not really a traditional teacher. I feel that learning is meant to be an experiential process and meant to be fun as opposed to having to complete specific tasks. I am trained as a Special Education teacher and therefore have trained to teach students based on setting up an individual process that takes into account the student's particular interests, learning styles, cultural experience, and how they process information in the best manner. Some people do better reading and some do better watching videos, or visual learning. Learning can be designed specifically for an individual student based on all of their educational needs. I have years of experiences in terms of the arts and have seen how bringing on art into a project can open up a world of excitement for the learner as well as work on important self esteem skills. The final and in many ways the most important tool I use is Trauma Informed Classroom design. In simple terms if students don't feel safe and welcome in your class, that will impede on learning in a variety of ways. Having a trauma informed setting will greatly improve students emotional and physical safety.
I am not really a traditional teacher. I feel that learning is meant to be an experiential process and meant to be fun as opposed to having to complete specific tasks. I am trained as a Special Education teacher and therefore have trained to teach students based on setting up an individual process that takes into account the student's particular interests, learning styles, cultural experience, and how they process information in the best manner. Some people do better reading and some do better watching videos, or visual learning. Learning can be designed specifically for an individual student based on all of their educational needs. I have years of experiences in terms of the arts and have seen how bringing on art into a project can open up a world of excitement for the learner as well as work on important self esteem skills. The final and in many ways the most important tool I use is Trauma Informed Classroom design. In simple terms if students don't feel safe and welcome in your class, that will impede on learning in a variety of ways. Having a trauma informed setting will greatly improve students emotional and physical safety.
PROJECT BASED LEARNING
What is PBL? Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects. Students work on a project over an extended period of time – from a week up to a semester – that engages them in solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills by creating a public product or presentation for a real audience. As a result, students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills. Project Based Learning unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers.
https://www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl
What is PBL? Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects. Students work on a project over an extended period of time – from a week up to a semester – that engages them in solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills by creating a public product or presentation for a real audience. As a result, students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills. Project Based Learning unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers.
https://www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl
13 Brilliant Outcomes Of Project-Based Learning
1. They learn project management.
Strategy: Use a project management board–even one used primarily by adult professionals–to help students manage individual or team projects. Trello is a great example, as is Redbooth.
2. They grow more empathetic.
Strategy: Begin project-planning with a specific audience with a specific and pressing concern.
3. They become hackers and rebels.
Strategy: Let students design their own projects. Or require that projects iterate or counter existing cultural trends and patterns or that address compelling social concerns (e.g.technology addiction).
4. They become systems thinkers.
Strategy: Use concept-mapping before, during, and after the project is completed.
5. They become explorers.
Strategy: Design projects that require students to combine both a physical and digital presence and physical and digital ‘behaviors’ and contexts. For example, a social media component combined with a local, community-based outcome.
6. They become problem-solvers.
Strategy: Use problem-based PBL–that is, projects based around a problem that requires critical thinking to solve.
7. They become wildly and unabashedly different.
Strategy: Give ‘points’ or other encouragement mechanics to reward students who deviate in some way that improves the quality of the work. For example, add a ‘free letter grade’ increase for students who take risks or develop ‘non-traditional’ solutions to otherwise ‘traditional’ social problems and concerns.
8. They are more engaged in the learning process.
Strategy: Create checkpoints in the project’s life-cycle–or better yet, have students suggest their own checkpoints, then be responsible for that checking in, what kind of feedback that would be useful and from whom, etc.
9. They are ready for the creative economy.
Strategy: Give students the opportunities to use their specific gifts, skills, and backgrounds in completing the project.
10. They engage in iterative thinking.
Strategy: Use model-based learning that allows students to identify and transfer existing ideas into new contexts and applications. For example, allow students to take an idea (Amazon’s platform business model) and apply it to family businesses, recycling programs, or creative efforts like music and art.
11. They think divergently. (Thinking outside the box by thinking differently about the box.)
Strategy: See #3 and #7. Make ‘deviation’ a core tenet, then model and reward it.
12. They make deep connections between ideas.
Strategy: Use cross-curricula planning–projects that include multiple content areas. This complicates the planning, but it also makes it more immersive academically. And like #4, concept mapping is a useful way to help students see the relationships between ideas.
13. They learn to take creative risks.
Strategy: Help students brainstorm the opportunities for creative risk-taking at the beginning of a project. Sometimes they’re not even aware of the kinds of risks that can be taken in PBL–from the scale of a project and its audience and purpose, to kinds of collaboration partners brought into the project and their talents and skills.
Also, give them a chance to change course if things aren’t working out as they thought they might.
https://www.teachthought.com/project-based-learning/outcomes-of-project-based-learning-pbl/
1. They learn project management.
Strategy: Use a project management board–even one used primarily by adult professionals–to help students manage individual or team projects. Trello is a great example, as is Redbooth.
2. They grow more empathetic.
Strategy: Begin project-planning with a specific audience with a specific and pressing concern.
3. They become hackers and rebels.
Strategy: Let students design their own projects. Or require that projects iterate or counter existing cultural trends and patterns or that address compelling social concerns (e.g.technology addiction).
4. They become systems thinkers.
Strategy: Use concept-mapping before, during, and after the project is completed.
5. They become explorers.
Strategy: Design projects that require students to combine both a physical and digital presence and physical and digital ‘behaviors’ and contexts. For example, a social media component combined with a local, community-based outcome.
6. They become problem-solvers.
Strategy: Use problem-based PBL–that is, projects based around a problem that requires critical thinking to solve.
7. They become wildly and unabashedly different.
Strategy: Give ‘points’ or other encouragement mechanics to reward students who deviate in some way that improves the quality of the work. For example, add a ‘free letter grade’ increase for students who take risks or develop ‘non-traditional’ solutions to otherwise ‘traditional’ social problems and concerns.
8. They are more engaged in the learning process.
Strategy: Create checkpoints in the project’s life-cycle–or better yet, have students suggest their own checkpoints, then be responsible for that checking in, what kind of feedback that would be useful and from whom, etc.
9. They are ready for the creative economy.
Strategy: Give students the opportunities to use their specific gifts, skills, and backgrounds in completing the project.
10. They engage in iterative thinking.
Strategy: Use model-based learning that allows students to identify and transfer existing ideas into new contexts and applications. For example, allow students to take an idea (Amazon’s platform business model) and apply it to family businesses, recycling programs, or creative efforts like music and art.
11. They think divergently. (Thinking outside the box by thinking differently about the box.)
Strategy: See #3 and #7. Make ‘deviation’ a core tenet, then model and reward it.
12. They make deep connections between ideas.
Strategy: Use cross-curricula planning–projects that include multiple content areas. This complicates the planning, but it also makes it more immersive academically. And like #4, concept mapping is a useful way to help students see the relationships between ideas.
13. They learn to take creative risks.
Strategy: Help students brainstorm the opportunities for creative risk-taking at the beginning of a project. Sometimes they’re not even aware of the kinds of risks that can be taken in PBL–from the scale of a project and its audience and purpose, to kinds of collaboration partners brought into the project and their talents and skills.
Also, give them a chance to change course if things aren’t working out as they thought they might.
https://www.teachthought.com/project-based-learning/outcomes-of-project-based-learning-pbl/
SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING - This is a process in which a teacher coaches a student through a process of self discovery that is meant to help them organize and guide and own their learning process. It's more about learning for its own sake then learning just so you can learn the next thing.
More info can be found at
https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/how-put-self-directed-learning-work-your-classroom
Arts Integration
What is Arts Integration and How Does it Work?
Arts integration uses teaching practices that have been shown in brain-based research to improve comprehension and long-term retention. For example, when students create stories, pictures, or other nonverbal expressions of the content they are learning -- a process researchers call elaboration -- they are also helping to better embed the information.
In Arts-Integrated Curriculum, the arts become the approach to teaching and the vehicle for learning. Students meet dual learning objectives when they engage in the creative process to explore connections between an art form and another subject area to gain greater understanding in both. For example, students meet objectives in theater (characterization, stage composition, action, expression) and in social studies. The experience is mutually reinforcing—creating a dramatization provides an authentic context for students to learn more about the social studies content and as students delve deeper into the social studies content their growing understandings impact their dramatizations. For Arts-Integrated Curriculum to result in deep student understanding in both the art form and the other curriculum area, it requires that teachers engage in professional development to learn about arts standards and how to connect the arts to the curriculum they teach.
More information can be found here
http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-hot-tos/articles/collections/arts-integration-resources/what-is-arts-integration/
http//www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-reform-overview
https://educationcloset.com/what-is-arts-integration-in-schools/
What is Arts Integration and How Does it Work?
Arts integration uses teaching practices that have been shown in brain-based research to improve comprehension and long-term retention. For example, when students create stories, pictures, or other nonverbal expressions of the content they are learning -- a process researchers call elaboration -- they are also helping to better embed the information.
In Arts-Integrated Curriculum, the arts become the approach to teaching and the vehicle for learning. Students meet dual learning objectives when they engage in the creative process to explore connections between an art form and another subject area to gain greater understanding in both. For example, students meet objectives in theater (characterization, stage composition, action, expression) and in social studies. The experience is mutually reinforcing—creating a dramatization provides an authentic context for students to learn more about the social studies content and as students delve deeper into the social studies content their growing understandings impact their dramatizations. For Arts-Integrated Curriculum to result in deep student understanding in both the art form and the other curriculum area, it requires that teachers engage in professional development to learn about arts standards and how to connect the arts to the curriculum they teach.
More information can be found here
http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-hot-tos/articles/collections/arts-integration-resources/what-is-arts-integration/
http//www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-reform-overview
https://educationcloset.com/what-is-arts-integration-in-schools/
Trauma Informed Classroom Design
I have been working in the field of community mental health for over 20 years with mostly inner city students. I worked mainly as a counselor and teaching coach with children and adolescents with unique emotional and educational needs. I also taught mostly art based community classes and life skills.
I went back to school to officially become a teacher because I saw the profession for me as a better toll to provide safety and healing then counseling and finished in 2013. I had experienced a good amount of educational based trauma as a student and even as a teacher. I actually had to go to an alternative school setting to be able to complete my student teaching because of the trauma I experienced as a graduate student. I had heard stories of school aged students having to be transferred to an alternative school to finish high school but never in graduate school. That experience really caused me to want to make a difference in at least the students I worked with to do my part in trying to make sure it never happened to anyone else.
My last teaching job fit my professional goals as the job was being a teacher working in general education mainly in the role of a Special Education teacher in a behavioral health setting. Students who are hospitalized for physical or mental conditions legally need an hour a day of school based on Pa. state requirements. I had known about Trauma Informed Education and used it organically and informally but my understanding of how important using it came from observing and experiencing working with a population of diverse learners dealing with a ton of past and current trauma. Please look at the suggestions below as it includes a lot of what I learned about the benefits of using trauma informed classroom design.
Suggestions for creating a successful and safe learning environment
1) Create a safe space for all children to learn. What does that mean? Most school personnel don’t need much coaching about how to ensure physical safety but what about emotional safety?
2) Predictability: When children have been traumatized, they are on high alert, always expecting the next blow. Maybe they live with an unpredictable parent who buys them toys and hugs them one minute, and descends into an alcohol-fueled rage the next. Writing up the day’s schedule on the board and preparing students for transitions (“We’re going to be clearing up in 5 minutes and then we are going to go to the sports field”) helps create predictability and thus a sense of safety.
3) Trustworthiness: You promised the class they would get free time after they completed an exercise, but then someone asked a question and you took the time to explain something that you realized you should have covered in the lesson. These understandable changes of plan might seem like small beans to us, but to a child who has been around adults who constantly break their promises it can confirm what is already a deep-seated suspicion – that adults are untrustworthy. If we can provide stability and trustworthiness it will allow a child to begin to change their perceptions about how safe the world is.
4) Control: Do you get upset when your carefully laid plans are upset or when a child wants to go in a direction you had not prepared for? Many of us who experienced high levels of control growing up felt disempowered, and as a result we have an understandable urge to remain in control all the time! This is magnified for a trauma survivor whose physical or emotional safety was compromised because they had no power to protect themself at the time of the trauma. How can we begin to empower our students and offer ‘power with’ rather than ‘power over’ strategies so that we don’t reinforce these harmful power dynamics?
5) Regulation: In many cases the behaviors that cause problems in classrooms (or at home) are a child’s best attempt to communicate something to you, the adult. How much they hurt, how confused they are, how scared, how overwhelmed. Or even how exuberant and full of energy they feel when our schedule is demanding that they sit quiet and concentrate. Sometimes children need calming down, sometimes they need energizing, and by paying attention to this we can keep the whole class in what is called “The Resiliency Zone” – the place where our higher brain is online and we can access learning and memory. Children who have experienced toxic stress or trauma are easily bumped out of this zone. As a teacher, it is good to have tools for keeping kids in the Resiliency Zone as well as methods to help kids deal with the big behaviors that come with getting stuck on hyperarousal (anger, fear, anxiety) or hypoarousal (checked out, numb).
https://www.acesconnection.com/g/aces-in-education/blog/do-s-and-don-ts-of-a-trauma-informed-compassionate-classroom
I have been working in the field of community mental health for over 20 years with mostly inner city students. I worked mainly as a counselor and teaching coach with children and adolescents with unique emotional and educational needs. I also taught mostly art based community classes and life skills.
I went back to school to officially become a teacher because I saw the profession for me as a better toll to provide safety and healing then counseling and finished in 2013. I had experienced a good amount of educational based trauma as a student and even as a teacher. I actually had to go to an alternative school setting to be able to complete my student teaching because of the trauma I experienced as a graduate student. I had heard stories of school aged students having to be transferred to an alternative school to finish high school but never in graduate school. That experience really caused me to want to make a difference in at least the students I worked with to do my part in trying to make sure it never happened to anyone else.
My last teaching job fit my professional goals as the job was being a teacher working in general education mainly in the role of a Special Education teacher in a behavioral health setting. Students who are hospitalized for physical or mental conditions legally need an hour a day of school based on Pa. state requirements. I had known about Trauma Informed Education and used it organically and informally but my understanding of how important using it came from observing and experiencing working with a population of diverse learners dealing with a ton of past and current trauma. Please look at the suggestions below as it includes a lot of what I learned about the benefits of using trauma informed classroom design.
Suggestions for creating a successful and safe learning environment
1) Create a safe space for all children to learn. What does that mean? Most school personnel don’t need much coaching about how to ensure physical safety but what about emotional safety?
2) Predictability: When children have been traumatized, they are on high alert, always expecting the next blow. Maybe they live with an unpredictable parent who buys them toys and hugs them one minute, and descends into an alcohol-fueled rage the next. Writing up the day’s schedule on the board and preparing students for transitions (“We’re going to be clearing up in 5 minutes and then we are going to go to the sports field”) helps create predictability and thus a sense of safety.
3) Trustworthiness: You promised the class they would get free time after they completed an exercise, but then someone asked a question and you took the time to explain something that you realized you should have covered in the lesson. These understandable changes of plan might seem like small beans to us, but to a child who has been around adults who constantly break their promises it can confirm what is already a deep-seated suspicion – that adults are untrustworthy. If we can provide stability and trustworthiness it will allow a child to begin to change their perceptions about how safe the world is.
4) Control: Do you get upset when your carefully laid plans are upset or when a child wants to go in a direction you had not prepared for? Many of us who experienced high levels of control growing up felt disempowered, and as a result we have an understandable urge to remain in control all the time! This is magnified for a trauma survivor whose physical or emotional safety was compromised because they had no power to protect themself at the time of the trauma. How can we begin to empower our students and offer ‘power with’ rather than ‘power over’ strategies so that we don’t reinforce these harmful power dynamics?
5) Regulation: In many cases the behaviors that cause problems in classrooms (or at home) are a child’s best attempt to communicate something to you, the adult. How much they hurt, how confused they are, how scared, how overwhelmed. Or even how exuberant and full of energy they feel when our schedule is demanding that they sit quiet and concentrate. Sometimes children need calming down, sometimes they need energizing, and by paying attention to this we can keep the whole class in what is called “The Resiliency Zone” – the place where our higher brain is online and we can access learning and memory. Children who have experienced toxic stress or trauma are easily bumped out of this zone. As a teacher, it is good to have tools for keeping kids in the Resiliency Zone as well as methods to help kids deal with the big behaviors that come with getting stuck on hyperarousal (anger, fear, anxiety) or hypoarousal (checked out, numb).
https://www.acesconnection.com/g/aces-in-education/blog/do-s-and-don-ts-of-a-trauma-informed-compassionate-classroom
Please reflect on the above information and then send any questions, comments, of concerns
You can email me here [email protected] or I can be reached by video chat, phone, text, or whatever is the best way for you to communicate. If you have any language or information processing needs, please let me know and I will do my best to provide those.
You can email me here [email protected] or I can be reached by video chat, phone, text, or whatever is the best way for you to communicate. If you have any language or information processing needs, please let me know and I will do my best to provide those.
Anti-Racist curriculum and process
To have a Trauma Informed Classroom there also needs to be steps taken that the classroom and teaching practices are in accordance with anti-Racist ideology.
I follow these guidelines for classes I teach and for myself.
Written by Dena Simmons.
1. Engage in Vigilant Self-Awareness People who are white or perceived as white have more privilege and fewer barriers to resources than Black people and other people of color. If we do not know our power, we can abuse it unintentionally or fail to leverage it toward antiracism. Constant self-reflection enhances our ability to disrupt white privilege when we see or enact it. Some questions to ask yourself include
How does your identity provide or prevent access to necessary resources?
Studies show that Eurocentric values and content dominate U.S. schooling, so these reflection questions are also relevant to educators of color who may have internalized negative messages about Black or Brown people.
2. Acknowledge Racism and the Ideology of White Supremacy When we let our discomfort or ignorance shield us from recognizing our country's racist history and present, we are part of the problem. Failing to acknowledge racism not only erases histories, cultures, and identities, but also ignores ongoing differential treatment based on race. For example, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos ignored three decades of research showing students of color are disciplined more harshly than white students when she decided to rescind Obama-era guidelines aimed at discipline equity. In addition, schools and districts have spoon-fed lessons on grit to mostly students of color, suggesting that we must "fix" them by making them grittier so that they can adapt to—rather than disrupt—racism and inequality in schools.
Acknowledging the social construct of race and racism and the ideology of white supremacy recognizes the problem so that we are not harmful in our ignorance and so that, together, we can strive for solutions. For educators of color, the work means continuing to call out racism and recruiting white coconspirators to join in antiracist work.
3. Study and Teach Representative History No matter what subject you teach, history (including African American history, which is U.S. history) is important. Knowing our country's whole history helps us make sense of how our current education system perpetuates inequity.
For too long, we have taught U.S. history devoid of a true depiction of Black excellence and have focused on erasing the truth of racial oppression and uplifting whiteness. Our curriculum superficially talks about slavery and civil rights (notably, textbook provider McGraw-Hill called enslaved Africans "immigrants" and "workers"), and teaching practices risk traumatizing Black students by enacting mock slave auctions, slave games, and underground railroad games. Alternately, resources such as Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s PBS documentary series on Reconstruction or The New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project provide a comprehensive opportunity to learn and discuss history and race with colleagues and students. The Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools also have teaching materials that explore topics like the Tulsa race riots and colonization.
4. Talk About Race with Students The educators I work with are mostly white (which matches the lack of teacher diversity on a national level) and often share that they do not feel comfortable talking about race. But when we shy away from open conversations about race with young people, we sow the seeds of prejudice by inadvertently sending the message that something is wrong with people from another race.
To open up conversations with young people, use stories from history and literature as a starting point, and ask students to take on the perspective of a character about whom they are reading. Reading literature and role-playing enhance empathy and other social cognitive skills. Teaching Tolerance's resource, "Let's Talk: Discussing Race, Racism, and Other Difficult Topics," includes suggestions for working through discomfort. The Educational Leadership article "Helping Students Discuss Race Openly" also has a great list of steps to begin the conversation. (And the September 2019 issue of this newsletter includes guidance from educator Liz Kleinrock on how to lead students through challenging topics like race.)
5. When You See Racism, Do Something We have to fight against racism—and other isms and phobias. All students deserve to live and learn in the comfort of their own skin. To combat racism, consider how the academic resources, policies, admissions, hiring, grading, and behavior management practices at your school might be racist. Whom do the practices and policies benefit and whom do they disadvantage? Are Black people and other people of color disproportionately affected negatively by disciplinary, pedagogical, and administrative practices? For example, what hours are family-teacher conferences held? Which families are excluded from these hours? Which students are most disciplined based on dress code or physical appearance? In 2018, a high school wrestler was forced to cut his locks because the referee argued that his hair was not compliant with regulations. Ask yourself whether a particular "rule" is applied to all people or just to some. Engage in vigilant awareness of your implicit bias to ensure that you are not part of the problem, too.
Most important, when we see racism—whether at the individual or policy level—we must have the courage to act. White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo provides guidance for engaging in gentle but firm conversations with offenders that prevents the defensiveness that race conversations inspire. Share data on specific practices and use stories to humanize the data. Build partnerships with racial-justice organizations in your communities to integrate their work in teaching and learning. Form a taskforce to assess data, policies, and practices with an antiracist lens to disrupt systemic decisions that historically have disenfranchised people of color. Be mindful that these efforts should not be carried solely by the people of color in your school, who are living and struggling with racism on a daily basis
http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/oct19/vol61/num10/How-to-Be-an-Antiracist-Educator.aspx
I follow these guidelines for classes I teach and for myself.
Written by Dena Simmons.
1. Engage in Vigilant Self-Awareness People who are white or perceived as white have more privilege and fewer barriers to resources than Black people and other people of color. If we do not know our power, we can abuse it unintentionally or fail to leverage it toward antiracism. Constant self-reflection enhances our ability to disrupt white privilege when we see or enact it. Some questions to ask yourself include
How does your identity provide or prevent access to necessary resources?
- How does your power and privilege show up in your work with students, take up space, or silence others?
- What single narratives are you telling yourself about students, and how does that affect grading, behavior management, and other interactions?
- Do you and the academic materials you use uphold whiteness or lift up the voices and experiences of people of color?
Studies show that Eurocentric values and content dominate U.S. schooling, so these reflection questions are also relevant to educators of color who may have internalized negative messages about Black or Brown people.
2. Acknowledge Racism and the Ideology of White Supremacy When we let our discomfort or ignorance shield us from recognizing our country's racist history and present, we are part of the problem. Failing to acknowledge racism not only erases histories, cultures, and identities, but also ignores ongoing differential treatment based on race. For example, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos ignored three decades of research showing students of color are disciplined more harshly than white students when she decided to rescind Obama-era guidelines aimed at discipline equity. In addition, schools and districts have spoon-fed lessons on grit to mostly students of color, suggesting that we must "fix" them by making them grittier so that they can adapt to—rather than disrupt—racism and inequality in schools.
Acknowledging the social construct of race and racism and the ideology of white supremacy recognizes the problem so that we are not harmful in our ignorance and so that, together, we can strive for solutions. For educators of color, the work means continuing to call out racism and recruiting white coconspirators to join in antiracist work.
3. Study and Teach Representative History No matter what subject you teach, history (including African American history, which is U.S. history) is important. Knowing our country's whole history helps us make sense of how our current education system perpetuates inequity.
For too long, we have taught U.S. history devoid of a true depiction of Black excellence and have focused on erasing the truth of racial oppression and uplifting whiteness. Our curriculum superficially talks about slavery and civil rights (notably, textbook provider McGraw-Hill called enslaved Africans "immigrants" and "workers"), and teaching practices risk traumatizing Black students by enacting mock slave auctions, slave games, and underground railroad games. Alternately, resources such as Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s PBS documentary series on Reconstruction or The New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project provide a comprehensive opportunity to learn and discuss history and race with colleagues and students. The Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools also have teaching materials that explore topics like the Tulsa race riots and colonization.
4. Talk About Race with Students The educators I work with are mostly white (which matches the lack of teacher diversity on a national level) and often share that they do not feel comfortable talking about race. But when we shy away from open conversations about race with young people, we sow the seeds of prejudice by inadvertently sending the message that something is wrong with people from another race.
To open up conversations with young people, use stories from history and literature as a starting point, and ask students to take on the perspective of a character about whom they are reading. Reading literature and role-playing enhance empathy and other social cognitive skills. Teaching Tolerance's resource, "Let's Talk: Discussing Race, Racism, and Other Difficult Topics," includes suggestions for working through discomfort. The Educational Leadership article "Helping Students Discuss Race Openly" also has a great list of steps to begin the conversation. (And the September 2019 issue of this newsletter includes guidance from educator Liz Kleinrock on how to lead students through challenging topics like race.)
5. When You See Racism, Do Something We have to fight against racism—and other isms and phobias. All students deserve to live and learn in the comfort of their own skin. To combat racism, consider how the academic resources, policies, admissions, hiring, grading, and behavior management practices at your school might be racist. Whom do the practices and policies benefit and whom do they disadvantage? Are Black people and other people of color disproportionately affected negatively by disciplinary, pedagogical, and administrative practices? For example, what hours are family-teacher conferences held? Which families are excluded from these hours? Which students are most disciplined based on dress code or physical appearance? In 2018, a high school wrestler was forced to cut his locks because the referee argued that his hair was not compliant with regulations. Ask yourself whether a particular "rule" is applied to all people or just to some. Engage in vigilant awareness of your implicit bias to ensure that you are not part of the problem, too.
Most important, when we see racism—whether at the individual or policy level—we must have the courage to act. White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo provides guidance for engaging in gentle but firm conversations with offenders that prevents the defensiveness that race conversations inspire. Share data on specific practices and use stories to humanize the data. Build partnerships with racial-justice organizations in your communities to integrate their work in teaching and learning. Form a taskforce to assess data, policies, and practices with an antiracist lens to disrupt systemic decisions that historically have disenfranchised people of color. Be mindful that these efforts should not be carried solely by the people of color in your school, who are living and struggling with racism on a daily basis
http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/oct19/vol61/num10/How-to-Be-an-Antiracist-Educator.aspx
Please explore this PBL Activity to get a sense of how this works. This project incorporates all three of these methods
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