Anti-Racist Resource Guide for Educators
Anti-Racist Guide for Educators
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Learning by Listening
Combat Racism
Policy: Diversity and Equity
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Book Lists for Educators
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Anti-Racist Teacher Planner
Resources for Reflection
Teaching children to be antiracist: Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi discusses his latest book, 'Antiracist Baby'
Antiracism scholar Ibram X. Kendi doesn't believe it's possible to be "not racist." The award-winning author, director of Boston University's Center for Antiracist Research, and the 2020/2021 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study said during a recent TED interview that "the heartbeat of racism itself has always been denial, and the sound of that heartbeat has always been 'I'm not racist.' And so what I am trying to do with my work is to really get Americans to eliminate the concept of 'not racist' from their vocabulary and realize, we're either being racist or antiracist." Kendi, author of "How to Be an Antiracist" and the National Book Award-winning "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America," has just released "Antiracist Baby," a board-book primer for children and parents. The Gazette spoke with Kendi about his latest work, how to start difficult conversations about racism with children and adults, and how to go about dismantling racist policies.
Classroom Libraries as Windows and Mirrors: Ensuring Diverse, Representative Books for Our Students
Classroom Library Questionnaire
This tool can also be completed by students (upper Elementary/Middle/High School) to critique their classroom library collection (or school library) and provide feedback as to what gaps are present.
Can children's books help build a better world?
I feel the idea of "us and them" lies at the root of many problems in the world. When a group of people see themselves as "us", and reject everyone else as "them", prejudice, exclusion and violence often follow. You can see this happen with nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, gender, sexuality, ability. You can see it at every level of human life: from playground gangs to countries at the UN
I think books can help transcend "us and them". Fiction lets us experience another existence as if it was our own, because readers bring stories to life in their own minds, each in their own way. That's why reading books increases empathy: something neuroscientists have now proved.
Diverse Leveled Bookrooms
Lee & Low Books is proud to be the nation's largest publisher of multicultural children's books. With the launch of our new Diverse Reading Bookrooms, districts across the country will now be able to bring more equity, inclusion, and diversity into their leveled bookrooms. We will work with you to ensure your students have access to hundreds of award-winning, culturally responsive, contemporary books at the levels they need.
Learn more at: leeandlow.com/educators/diverse-leveled-bookrooms
Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children's Books
Children's books continue to be an invaluable source of information and values. They reflect the attitudes in our society about diversity, power relationships among different groups of people, and various social identities (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, and disability). The visual and verbal messages young children absorb from books (and other media) heavily influence their ideas about themselves and others. Depending on the quality of the book, they can reinforce (or undermine) children's affirmative self-concept, teach accurate (or misleading) information about people of various identities, and foster positive (or negative) attitudes about diversity. Children's books teach children about who is important, who matters, who is even visible. Consequently, carefully choosing quality children's books is an indispensable educational and child-rearing task. (Derman-Sparks, 2016).
How to Actually Implement More Diverse Libraries at Your School
Book Smarts
Both Nuñez-Janes and Sanchez say that the storytelling process is central to classroom publishing. Their students join a story circle to share their experiences and help each other decide where their strongest stories lie. Then they write. It's a delicate process, says Sanchez."You don't really know what's going to happen because you don't know what's in the room until you ask." (Pettway, 2015)
Missing Adventures: Diversity and Children's Literature | Brynn Welch | TEDxEHC​
Children's literature allows us to imagine a world of adventures, both ordinary and extraordinary. So what does it say about our imagination that most characters in that world are white? In this talk, Brynn Welch argues we are all responsible for the adventures that are missing.
Dr. Welch's research and teaching interests are in applied ethics and social/political philosophy. She has published in Social Theory and Practice, Journal of Medical Ethics, Journal of Political Philosophy, and Economics and Philosophy. Her work focuses on whether and to what extent public social justice goals should constrain private individual family decisions, such as what we owe our parents, whether to have children, where to send those children to school, and even what children's books to purchase.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.
Picture This: Diversity in Children's Books 2018 Infographic
As with the 2015 infographic, we relied on the multicultural publishing statistics compiled by the librarians at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) that were "about" particular populations: American Indian/First Nation, Latinx, African/African American, and Asian Pacific Islander/Asian Pacific American.
One important distinction between the 2015 and 2018 infographics is that we made a deliberate decision to crack a section of the children's mirrors (Rudine Sims Bishop, "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors," 1990) to indicate what Debbie Reese calls "funhouse mirrors" and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas calls "distorted funhouse mirrors of the self." Children's literature continues to misrepresent underrepresented communities, and we wanted this infographic to show not just the low quantity of existing literature, but also the inaccuracy and uneven quality of some of those books.
Reading Diversity Lite: A Tool for Selecting Diverse Texts (Teacher's Edition)
Reading Diversity: A Tool for Selecting Diverse Texts (Extended Edition)
Selecting and Rating Titles for Social Justice Books
Here are examples of guiding questions we share with students who are examining books (text and illustrations) in their home or school libraries. We use these same questions (and many more) when developing the book lists and selecting book reviews for this website.
How many books by or about people of color and Native Americans do you see?
Does this reflect the diversity that you see in your school, community, and/or the world?
Are people of color engaged in a range of activities and in contemporary settings? (Or just in historic injustices?)
If the books are about a famous person, is it someone you have not heard of or one of the same few people already on your bookshelf?
Is change made by an individual hero or a group effort?
Are there examples of "ordinary" people organizing and challenging injustice?
Are the root causes of inequities included or just the symptoms?
Are the books affirming, honest, age-appropriate, and read-me-again interesting?
What is the relationship of the author to the people and theme of the book?
The Black-Owned Bookstores You Should Be Supporting Right Now
Along with protesting and donating, many non-Black people are also taking the current Black Lives Matter demonstrations as inspiration to educate themselves — an action that is long overdue. The past week marks a breaking point in U.S. history, with millions of people demanding action in response to the ever-mounting list of instances of police brutality against Black Americans. As Angela Davis said, it's not enough to not be racist, you must be actively anti-racist, the distinction between which can be learned by reading books by Black authors and scholars. With that in mind, it's important to think about how Black people are supported and prioritized in every aspect of non-Black people's actions moving forward. If you're looking for books to educate yourself on Black history and anti-racism, make sure you're buying them from Black-owned businesses. (Lindsay, 2020)
Transformational Texts: Using Children's Literature to Open Doors on Historical and Current Events
Speakers: Jinnie Spiegler, Director of Curriculum and Training, and Libby Otto, Associate Director of Curriculum and Training, ADL
Books for young children about historical topics like enslavement, the Holocaust, Japanese-American internment, voting rights, segregation and genocide present these subjects with both sensitivity and insight. When it comes to current event topics there are many excellent books about immigration and the refugee crisis, racial justice, transgender rights, marriage equality and activism among others. Viewers will explore these compelling picture books from our Books Matter collection. and learn how they can be used to build empathy, provide the groundwork for both historical and literary analysis, and identify questions for further research.
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