February is Black History Month

Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development, edited by Enid Lee, Deborah Menkart, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Washington, DC: Network of Educators on the Americas, 1998. 
A 463-page collection developed by educators, parents, and activists determined to create a valuable resource for change. Lesson plans and staff development activities are included, as well as critical examinations of controversial school issues such as bilingual education and tracking. Contains an extensive resource guide of teaching and learning resources and many helpful Internet sites.

Table of Contents here:

Here's the link to reviews at Teaching for Change

Don't Say Nothing

As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence. 

We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent. We have chosen a profession, which—like parenting—requires that our comforts come second to those of children.

Read the article here:

Don't Say Nothing

Bias Isn't Just A Police Problem, It's A Preschool Problem

Bias Isn't Just A Police Problem, It's A Preschool Problem

"...It's impossible to separate these findings from today's broader, cultural context — of disproportionately high suspension rates for black boys and young men throughout the school years, of America's school-to-prison pipeline, and, most immediately, of the drumbeat of stories about black men being killed by police.

If implicit bias can play a role on our preschool reading rugs and in our classrooms' cozy corners, it no doubt haunts every corner of our society..."

K-12 Teaching and Learning from the UNC School of Education

Teaching should be informed not only by the content of the discipline 

                                        but also by the lives of the students.

Culturally Relevant Teaching by Heather Coffey

The Danger of a Single Story: Writing Essays about Our Lives

This article is from Rethinking Schools.

The Danger of a Single Story Writing essays about our lives by Linda Christensen

Linda Christensen (lmc@lclark.edu) is director of the Oregon Writing Project at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She is author of Reading, Writing, and Rising Up and Teaching for Joy and Justice; co-editor of Rethinking Elementary Education and The New Teacher Book; and an editor of Rethinking Schools.

Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences That Make a Difference by Howard C. Stevenson

Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences That Make a Difference 

by Howard C. Stevenson 

240 pages Publisher: Teachers College Press (December 20, 2013)

Based on extensive research, this provocative volume explores how schools are places where racial conflicts often remain hidden at the expense of a healthy school climate and the well-being of students of color. Most schools fail to act on racial micro-aggressions because the stress of negotiating such conflicts is extremely high due to fears of incompetence, public exposure, and accusation. Instead of facing these conflicts head on, schools perpetuate a set of avoidance or coping strategies. The author of this much-needed book uncovers how racial stress undermines student achievement. Students, educators, and social service support staff will find workable strategies to improve their racial literacy skills to read, recast, and resolve racially stressful encounters when they happen.
Book Features:
* A model that applies culturally relevant behavioral stress management strategies to problem-solve racial stress in schools.
* Examples demonstrating workable solutions relevant within predominantly White schools for students, parents, teachers, and administrators.
* Measurable outcomes and strategies for developing racial literacy skills that can be integrated into the K-12 curriculum and teacher professional development.
Teaching and leadership skills that will create a more tolerant and supportive school environment for all students.

See inside here.

For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Christopher Emdin

For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: 

Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education 232 pages,Beacon Press March 22, 2016

Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, a prominent scholar offers a new approach to teaching and learning for every stakeholder in urban education.

Drawing on his own experience of feeling undervalued and invisible in classrooms as a young man of color and merging his experiences with more than a decade of teaching and researching in urban America, award-winning educator Christopher Emdin offers a new lens on an approach to teaching and learning in urban schools. He begins by taking to task the perception of urban youth of color as unteachable, and he challenges educators to embrace and respect each student’s culture and to reimagine the classroom as a site where roles are reversed and students become the experts in their own learning.

Putting forth his theory of Reality Pedagogy, Emdin provides practical tools to unleash the brilliance and eagerness of youth and educators alike—both of whom have been typecast and stymied by outdated modes of thinking about urban education. With this fresh and engaging new pedagogical vision, Emdin demonstrates the importance of creating a family structure and building communities within the classroom, using culturally relevant strategies like hip-hop music and call-and-response, and connecting the experiences of urban youth to indigenous populations globally. Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, Emdin demonstrates how by implementing the “Seven C’s” of reality pedagogy in their own classrooms, urban youth of color benefit from truly transformative education.

Lively, accessible, and revelatory, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y’all Too is the much-needed antidote to traditional top-down pedagogy and promises to radically reframe the landscape of urban education for the better.


Read an interview with the author here:
What ‘white folks who teach in the hood’ get wrong about education

Look inside here.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Pedagogy of the Oppressed 

183 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic; 

30th Anniversary edition (September 1, 2000) $25.95

First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.

Read Chapter 2 here.