Week 3: "Whose copies are these?"

Over the past month or so, I have been working with my students on a unit comparing the Civil Rights Movement to the Black Lives Matter movement. When I began designing this unit and thinking about the different components, media and imagery to include, assignments to work on, my mind began to race. Teaching about the Civil Rights Movement is nothing out of the ordinary, and I knew if my principal happened to drop in during a lesson about Freedom Summer, she would most likely smile and nod at the students’ sharp analysis of the evils of segregation. I wasn’t so sure about a surprise visit during an analysis of the Black Lives Matter policy demands or a video about Trayvon Martin.

The irony does not evade me, but teaching about Black Lives Matter and the current political moment has definitely increased my anxiety at school. Nervously eyeing the door as I pull up graphs of mass incarceration data, lowering the volume on a video interview with youth from BYP 100. The process of teaching this unit actually has been more grounding and instructional for me than the content itself.

Truly teaching for social justice means unapologetically supporting students’ analysis of history and its connection to current events. I know this and I believe this deeply, but I still sprint to the printer before anyone sees my guided notes on an interview with Alicia Garza whereas I could easily leave a copy of Letter from Birmingham Jail on the copier without a care in the world. I have been thinking SO much about this contrast, and how time and space allow for the valorization and appreciation of historical freedom fighters who were actually demonized, imprisoned, and grossly misunderstood during their lives and times.

The second thought I have been grappling with in these weeks, and, frankly, since my journey as an elementary school teacher began, is the perceived “appropriateness” of different topics for younger children. Even as I browsed through the BLM curriculum in preparation for the week of action, I was dissatisfied with the elementary content that was presented. I know and understand child development as well as any other elementary school teacher, and I do not believe that all topics are “appropriate” for elementary school students to discuss, but I also wish that teachers would push the envelope a little more with younger students.

Even on the most useful of websites (i.e. Rethinking Schools, Teaching Tolerance), I am constantly frustrated with the quantity of elementary-level lessons and activities that focus only on broad themes that are essentially disconnected from structural inequality and that do not dive into the crux of the issues or ask the hard questions. From my own experiences, I have consistently been blown away at the analytical genius of a nine year-old, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to engage my students, both past and present, in meaningful conversations about justice, oppression, privilege, and systems, both historical and current.

I think that at the base of this worry about students’ “abilities” to engage with complicated social issues is a deeply entrenched ageism on the part of both parents and educators. So much of my planning time is spent adapting and scaffolding the incredible high school or middle school-level lessons and resources that already exist so that they can be accessible for my students. They can and should access this content, and, when they are presented with the right conditions, they are able to think and analyze at levels far beyond what most adults think they are capable. Fundamentally, I believe that our job, as educators, is to present the right conditions.

Speaking of the right conditions, one of the most incredible elementary school teacher educators I know, Bree Picower, created this framework for social justice teaching in the elementary school. Check it out here! Her blog, Using Their Words, also has amazing resources from her college students with full units, lessons, and activities for social justice teaching in elementary school.