eanwhile, the effort to find and work with primary documents presents a valuable opportunity to teach older students how to carefully vet resources—a foundational, critical thinking skill that involves understanding the cultural context and values from which primary sources spring, and determining the credibility of resources. In social studies,

Her approach changes each school year, depending on the students in her classroom. “It’s about ‘Who is this class? What do they bring?’ I’m growing my curriculum based on the community of children that I have each year, which means learning about my students and their cultures and making sure that they’re represented.”

These authors remind children and adults that Black excellence is not confined to athletics and entertainment. How can we promote the academic excellence of Black children without introducing them to Black intellectuals—individuals they can see themselves someday becoming?”

the role of grassroots activists and women, nuanced portraits of leaders like Parks and King, and racial and social justice battles that link the past to contemporary issues of inequality,” writes Melinda D. Anderson, a journalist.

“What does it mean to be living on land taken from Indigenous people? How can a nation recognize that many of its institutions were built and made possible by the labor of enslaved people?” Boudreau writes, referencing an inclusive vision of history that asks us to acknowledge the contributions of women, Black, Latinx, Asian, and LGTBQ people, for example.

they have a similar message about how liberalism is degrading American society.

Efforts to erase the stories of the obstacles, trials and triumphs people of color and other marginalized populations face in the United States are part of a partisan, politically driven effort to dismiss, minimize or ignore the systemic racism and other inequalities that continue to exist today.”

have no problem with my white kids learning the actual history of our nation versus what I learned in school. People are worried about white kids being sad or it hurting their self-esteem. Hopefully it will make them sad, but I don't think we give kids enough credit. They are able to understand and process far more than we think. I'd be all for these opportunities being available to every kid in our schools. I guess, overall I'm about truth telling. Honestly though, telling the truth is complicated and takes more work and intensive parenting. Some days I understand people who create a happy, conflict-free bubble for their kids, even though I worry for those kids when the bubble pops.”

If their white kids have to think critically about the racism behind the Civil War or slavery, they might struggle with negative feelings of self-worth about being white.

e. Particularly if you're a white educator, you might be getting into that danger savior area, so you need to be in conversation with other people as you do this.

With that example, it's a matter of historical content knowledge and not necessarily knowing the actual history of what happened to Indigenous people under colonization. In that example, it does matter because when it was brought to his attention there was no resistance, there was no, "But that's not true," or fighting through whiteness or any of the things that might come up if it's coming from a different place. It does matter in terms of how we, as teacher educators, are trying to intervene.

They're used to derail conversations on race, to avoid talking about race. They're used in all the different ways in which we maintain racial hierarchies by obscuring the way race operates.

t assumes that this is an individual problem and that this is just one bad apple teacher, but the reality is, is that this is an institutional problem. These examples are embedded in the curriculum.

I think it depends upon how racially literate teachers are.

Understand that not all oppression is the same. Anti-black racism manifests itself differently than sexism, and drawing a false equivalence among them can cause more harm.

Begin with the premise that public schools never intended to educate all children equally and look for the ways in which this holds true today. Likewise, the curriculum has never been neutral, but always ideological. In making decisions about what texts to include, look for the voices that are marginalized or missing and bring those voices into your text sets.

inequities persist.

I am heartened by the inclusion of more diverse voices in the curriculum, but the truth is that it’s not enough. Although schools may bring more “diverse” texts into the curriculum, these “contributions” and “ethnic additive” approaches, in the words of researcher James A. Banks, do little to actually change the system of power that marginalized those voices in the first place.

As literacy teachers, we have one of the most powerful resources available to fight against hate and bias: We have stories. The stories—and, more important, the counter-stories, the counternarratives—that we choose to share with students are instrumental in helping all our students be seen and heard, appreciated and understood.

Our classroom libraries, therefore, must contain a variety of texts, allowing each student to read across his or her continuum. All readers should be able to find texts that affirm their lives and experiences. All readers should be able to find texts that affirm the lives and experiences of others.

This approach centers the reader, not the text; because one cannot determine where a text falls on the continuum without first considering the reader.

What if we no longer thought about individual texts as diverse or not diverse; instead, viewed texts as existing along a continuum and how individuals from minoritized groups are represented in those texts.

A binary lens of diversity only further others the narratives of individuals from minoritized groups.

So, if you find yourself holding a book list and notice that the creators have simply compiled a list of non-white authors, know that you are not holding a diverse book list.