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Encourage curiosity and caring in young learners, and support an understanding and appreciation of differences.
Conversations about race are not easy. They can bring about feelings of fear, anger, and frustration, and as a result, these conversations are often avoided. However, grappling with topics of race and diversity are truly important, especially with young children who are cultivating their understanding and their perceptions of the world. Experts argue that children are never too young to learn about kindness, fairness, and human rights. Research states that children “as young as three months old...may look differently at people who look like or don’t look like their primary caregivers.”
As a parent of a soon to be two-year-old and a professional development consultant who works closely with educators of young children, I am committed to seeking ways to engage in and facilitate my own conversations about race, especially in today’s world, as well as share strategies with educators that they can use in their own classrooms. What follows are a few strategies I’ve curated and adapted from my own musings and readings, as well as some concrete strategies inspired by one of our reimagining education initiatives: Literacy Unbound. These strategies can be particularly helpful when it comes to facilitating conversations about race with young students and cultivating skills, mindsets, and capacities that will serve us well today, and in the future.
The importance of asking questions
One of the most effective ways to grapple with topics of race and diversity is to ask questions. This is particularly effective with elementary students, as they commonly ask many questions of their own. By encouraging their curiosity and caring, and creating a safe space for them to be inquisitive, you can help pacify concerns, address confusions, and support an understanding and appreciation of differences. Additionally, you can raise your own questions focused on topics of race, diversity, and exploring differences to get students thinking and recognizing how they can be advocates of positive change. Here are some examples of questions that I turn to, curated and adapted from websites like PBS.com:
These questions can be a part of morning circle time, a weekly reflection or journal writing prompt, or even as a theme for a bulletin board, where students can share their responses using post-its or index cards (or, while online, students can add their thoughts online to Padlets and Jamboards).
Introducing & exposing students to diverse books
As Dr. Aisha White, Director of the P.R.I.D.E. Program at the University of Pittsburgh, explains, books — especially picture books — are a safe place to start when talking to children about race and racism. She suggests selecting picture books that offer multiple perspectives and explore various entry points for addressing complex topics. Some popular texts she suggests include:
These texts can be read as part of designated read aloud time, as part of a school-wide, character building initiative where the books are read in every classroom, or as a central text that guides and inspires a larger unit of study. But as Dr. White explains, it’s not enough to just read the book. “If a parent (or educator) just reads the book and doesn’t have a conversation — doesn’t start to talk about racial disparities and racial discrimination and racism in America — then it won’t really affect a child’s attitudes toward race…it comes back to…having a background knowledge before speaking with their children, and being brave enough to have the tough conversations.” What does it look like to support students in reading complex texts more closely, more carefully, more creatively, and more critically?
Sparking conversations around texts
Literacy Unbound, one of our signature initiatives, aims to unbind traditional approaches to the teaching of reading and writing using drama and play-based strategies to spark conversations that are inspired by questions raised in a specific, shared text. Teachers and students are brought together in this process as critical and creative thinkers, which helps foster a space for collective inquiry and exploration. Using drama and play can be particularly effective with young students, especially when looking to support engagement and participation, while also providing a safe entry point for complex and challenging conversations. Let’s look at a few strategies from Literacy Unbound to see how they can be effective and what they can look like when applied to one of my favorite texts, The Other Side, by Jacqueline Woodson. The Other Side follows the story of a little Black girl named Clover who sees a little white girl across a fence, but is told by her mom that she can’t cross to the other side of the fence because it isn’t safe.
Facilitating conversations about race with young students is no easy task. It takes courage, patience, and a lot of thoughtful planning and reflection on the part of educators, parents, and caretakers. Moreover, it takes a lot of persistence. Being open-minded and developing understanding, kindness, and an appreciation of others who are different from us is not something that happens after reading one text or engaging in one conversation.
As Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton note in their book Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, courageous conversations about race require that we stay engaged and anticipate feelings of discomfort, as well as expect and accept non-closure. We encourage you to create space for these conversations with your students and reimagine the ways in which you can spark curiosity and critical thinking around race and equity in a safe and supportive classroom. 
About the text
Published in 1899, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young woman from Kentucky who marries into an upper-class Creole family in New Orleans, Louisiana. As Edna becomes increasingly alienated from the domestic demands of marriage and motherhood, she meets a young man who offers her a glimpse of an alternate path, one of her own choosing. Biographer Per Seyerstead writes that with The Awakening, Kate Chopin “broke new ground in American literature… revolting against tradition and authority; with a daring which we can hardly fathom today.” The Awakening transcends its historical setting as it speaks to women’s agency and desire, issues which remain fraught in contemporary society.
Invitations to Create
Finding ways to engage students in the reading of classic texts can be difficult, particularly when so much teaching and learning is happening remotely. Invitations to Create — a method from our Literacy Unbound initiative, which reinvigorates students and teachers through project-based, collaborative curricula developed around challenging texts, ultimately increasing student engagement and building classroom community in the process — offer engaging multimedia prompts that are designed to support students in their reading and understanding of a shared piece of literature. Each invitation offers an opportunity to reflect, analyze, and synthesize the text at hand. Our Invitations to Create provide key opportunities for educators to move students from talking about the text to experiencing the text. Through Invitations to Create, students can feel the story in ways that might not otherwise be possible — they can talk from within a text, and speak directly from the perspective of the characters. This process allows rich meaning-making to happen, and will allow you and your students to find ways to experience literature together, even while apart. Each invitation is focused on a meaningful quote that our team identified as a hotspot for further thinking, discussion, and creation. Additionally, the hotspots are accompanied by multimedia connections such as photographs of the New Orleans landscape, maps from the 1890s, audio clips of the quotes, and connections to current events or related media. These connections are meant to inspire further thinking, engagement, and curiosity for students while they're reading. Who is Edna? Why is she struggling with being a wife and mother, and is the end inevitable?
To access additional free K-12 resources from our team, please visit our Resources page.
About the text
Set in the rural South in the 1970s, Alice Walker's short story gives readers a window into the world of an African-American family when a daughter who left for school in the city returns to visit her mother and sister who remained behind. Walker uses quilting and other rural craft work as a metaphor for exploring the historical legacy of the enslavement of Africans in the United States.
Invitations to Create
Finding ways to engage students in the reading of classic texts can be difficult, particularly when so much teaching and learning is happening remotely. Invitations to Create — a method from our Literacy Unbound initiative, which reinvigorates students and teachers through project-based, collaborative curricula developed around challenging texts, ultimately increasing student engagement and building classroom community in the process — offer engaging multimedia prompts that are designed to support students in their reading and understanding of a shared piece of literature. Each invitation offers an opportunity to reflect, analyze, and synthesize the text at hand. Invitations to Create provide key opportunities to move students from talking about the text to experiencing the text. Through each invitation, students can feel the story in ways that might not otherwise be possible — they can talk from within a text, and speak directly from the perspective of the characters. This process allows rich meaning-making to happen, and will allow you and your students to find ways to experience literature together, even while apart. Each invitation in this set is focused on a meaningful quote that our team identified as a hotspot for further thinking, discussion, and creation. The hotspots are accompanied by multimedia connections such as historical photographs, audio clips of the quotes, and connections to current events or related media. These connections are meant to inspire further thinking, engagement, and curiosity for students while they're reading.
To access additional free K-12 resources from our team, please visit our Resources page.
Offer your students an opportunity to authentically engage with content, even when learning remotely.
Over the past year, school has been a rollercoaster event filled with openings, closings, virtual connections, and dramatic shifts in teaching and learning techniques and experiences. No matter the grade level or subject area, our learning spaces have been completely redefined. And it isn’t just due to in-person or online learning schedules — many teachers are finding that what worked in person may not be working as well online or in other virtual settings. Additionally, changes to state tests and other accountability measures have created opportunities for teachers to redesign their teaching methods and learning outcomes to authentically engage students in the core elements of their content areas.
Finding ways to engage students in content can be difficult, particularly when so much teaching and learning is happening remotely. We understand this challenge. Our Literacy Unbound team faced the same concerns about how to engage teachers and students in our 2020 Summer Institute — traditionally a 2-week, in-person immersive learning experience. Rooted in the belief that students learn best through authentic inquiry, curiosity, and through the multimodal embodiment of a text, Literacy Unbound brings teachers and students together with teaching artists to explore the in-depth themes of a shared text, independently. In a typical summer, we would develop a series of Invitations to Create as a way to invite and entice students into the world of the text. These invitations might prompt readers to journal, draw, collage, create a playlist, or explore some other form of expression related to a key quote or “hotspot” in the text. As readers collect their responses, they traditionally come together for a dynamic experience in which they construct an original performance based on their responses to the invitations. While much of the in-person institute needed a complete redesign to fit a virtual institute, the structure of Invitations to Create did not. Invitations provide the perfect setup for virtual reading, writing, and collaboration. And they come with plenty of choice, freedom, and personal exploration, which means that participants can be authentically engaged from the very beginning.
Creating your invitation
Even though Invitations to Create begin as prompts to pieces of literature, they’re extremely flexible and are a promising practice for all content areas and grade levels during remote and/or blended learning experiences. How can we begin to incorporate invitations into curriculum for math, science, and social studies, and beyond? To get a sneak peek of the process, we’ve developed the sample below to experiment with Invitations in Mathematics, adapted from A Guide to Crafting Invitations to Create by Dr. Nathan Allan Blom. Note: As you read, look for the examples in blue of building an invitation for A Mathematician’s Lament.
Step 1: Jot
Whatever the content, there are literacy expectations in your field. What are the reading and writing requirements in your field? In your course(s)? In the exam? Jot down some of your thinking as a warm-up. Step 2: Identify What is a text you go back to over and over again that you want to introduce to your students — or -- what is a text you already plan to use in a future lesson? Have the text handy.
A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart
Step 3: Choose Choose a “hotspot” within the text. This is a passage of the text that captures your attention. Typically, it’s helpful if a hotspot contains:
Explain in a few words the context of the hotspot within the larger text.
In the first chapter, the author shares about a nightmare an artist has about how art is taught so that children don’t hold a paintbrush until they are young adults. Instead, they learn about art for years before they experience it for themselves. He says that life is very much like that in the real world of mathematics:
“Everyone knows that something is wrong. The politicians say, “We need higher standards.” The schools say, “We need more money and equipment.” Educators say one thing, and teachers say another. They are all wrong. The only people who understand what is going on are the ones most often blamed and least often heard: the students. They say, 'Math class is stupid and boring,' and they are right.” Step 4: Offer Offer an idea you had or a connection you made during your reading. Share with the voice of a fellow student, rather than an authority on the subject.
This makes me wonder how much more often math is seen as boring instead of beautiful.
Step 5: Connect Connect the hotspot to a piece of media to illustrate and/or extend your connections, questions, or ideas. Explore media to find something that connects and inspires you, like:
Video: The Beauty of Mathematics
Step 6: Prompt Create your prompt, using this structure: In whatever way seems best to you (equation, movement, experiment, poetry, prose, music, art, video, etc.), explore ______. Let's look at our invitation for A Mathematician’s Lament created from steps 1 - 6:
A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart
In the first chapter, the author shares about a nightmare an artist has about how art is taught so that children don’t hold a paintbrush until they are young adults. Instead, they learn about art for years before they experience it for themselves. He says that life is very much like that in the real world of mathematics: “Everyone knows that something is wrong. The politicians say, “We need higher standards.” The schools say, “We need more money and equipment.” Educators say one thing, and teachers say another. They are all wrong. The only people who understand what is going on are the ones most often blamed and least often heard: the students. They say, 'Math class is stupid and boring,' and they are right.” This makes me wonder how much more often math is seen as boring instead of beautiful. Listen and watch this: The Beauty of Mathematics In whatever way seems best to you (equation, collage, drawing, music, etc.), explore the idea that, in the real world, math is beautiful. Include directions about how students will share their creation with you and each other. This process supports students to make their own meaning of the text, and is also a way for you and your students to experience an invitation together, whether you’re in the same concrete or virtual space. If possible, create your own response to the invitation and share it at the same time your students share theirs.
Each invitation offers an opportunity to reflect, analyze, and synthesize the text at hand. Once the invitations have been developed, students are invested in their interpretations and eager to share their ideas. This sharing is a powerful tool, inspiring motivation and encouragement across the community.
What can you invite students to create using this simple and effective structure?
Using Invitations to Create
Engaging students in the reading of classic texts can be difficult, particularly when teaching and learning is happening remotely. Invitations to Create reinvigorate students — and teachers! — through project-based, collaborative curricula developed around challenging texts, ultimately increasing student engagement and building classroom community in the process. WHAT'S IN AN INVITATION? If a prompt is like a camera lens, pulling your task into focus, an invitation is like a colorful string you can’t resist pulling to see what happens next. Writing an invitation for the reader to connect with a text offers them an opportunity to reflect, analyze, and synthesize the text at hand. 
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The Center for Professional Education of Teachers (CPET) at Teachers College, Columbia University is committed to making excellent and equitable education accessible worldwide. CPET unites theory and practice to promote transformational change. We design innovative projects, cultivate sustainable partnerships, and conduct research through direct and online services to youth and educators. Grounded in adult learning theories, our six core principles structure our customized approach and expand the capacities of educators around the world.
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