Recently we outlined one of our preschool classroom’s week exploring activism. We wanted to give some context about how the week came about, how the teachers planned the lessons, ideas for implementation in your classroom, and resources used. The following is from the Koala teachers, Katie Heimsath and Morgan Powell:
Context & Planning
We divided a week of lessons into four sections: community service, public art, using words, and marching together. While there are many different forms of activism and advocacy work, these four made the most sense for our group – they were age-appropriate both in scope and content, and simple enough for us to really delve into over a week. We started with our trash clean-up, which is a more concrete activity that produces tangible results, and then took a more scaffolded approach as the week went on. Our school was fortunate enough to partner with many people and teams, like Teaching for Change, Julie Olsen Edwards who is the co-author of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, and the early childhood team at NMAAHC during multiple professional development days to learn more about anti-bias education. While planning this week, and all of our curriculum, we take into consideration the four core goals of anti-bias education:
“Goal 1: Each child will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.
Goal 2: Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity; accurate language for human differences; and deep, caring human connections.
Goal 3: Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.
Goal 4: Each child will demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.”
-As cited on NAEYC’s website
By using the research and expertise of these incredible leaders, we planned this week with many kinds of diverse examples of helpers, including children, etc. When looking to fill our bookshelf, we made sure that there was a large representation of many kinds of lifestyles, cultures, and people. As we mentioned before, the concepts we built on during this week are woven into the fabric of our days and the framework of our classroom, and is therefore easy for us to continue practicing.
Ideas for your Classroom
Mural blocks – Print pictures of murals or public art from your community sized for wooden blocks, and use clear packing tape to secure the pictures to the blocks for students to play with inside the classroom. Alternative block images: recognizable buildings from your school’s neighborhood or landmarks from your community.
Movable Mural – Place a large white sheet on top of a tarp, fill spray bottles with liquid watercolors, and invite students to take turns adding colors to the class mural. After completely drying (if possible outdoors), ask students where they would want to hang up this movable mural in the classroom or somewhere in the school.
Book Connection: Maybe Something Beautiful by
Student Blocks & National Mall – Print full-body pictures of students sized for wooden blocks, and use clear packing tape to secure the pictures to the blocks for students to play with inside the classroom. To create the National Mall we used a green yoga mat and map of the Mall; a green blanket or green construction paper could also create a miniature National Mall inside the classroom which the student blocks can “march” on.
Book Connection: We March by Shane W. Evans
Click, Clack, Moo Students Who Type – Set up a station with old keyboards, notepads, pens, and the book Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin. Students can pretend to be the cows in the book, typing away at the keyboards and “writing” letters to Farmer Brown.
Online Resources
Teaching for Change is a non-profit whose goal is to provide teachers and caregivers with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world.
Social Justice Books is a project of Teaching for Change that selects lists of books for children on a variety of themes, reviews books to bring attention to any potential bias, and promotes books by diverse authors and illustrators.
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)on Anti-Bias Education.
seecstories.com 