When first introduced, our nation’s annual celebration of our African American History was just a week. Black History Month followed, and it still isn’t enough time to cover the richness and diversity of African American contributions to our country. Hopefully, you include African Americans in your curriculum throughout the year, by teaching Black books, by featuring Black contributions to each period in history and each topic in math and science. But this time of year is a chance to step things up a bit to ensure that our Black students feel celebrated and the rest of our students can have a more complete understanding of their peers. Here are five tips to support you in doing just that, with some recommendations along the way.
1. Celebrate Black Joy
Black History Month shouldn’t be a time to shove all the oppression that Black Americans have faced through history at kids. For our Black students, this results in making a month of celebration a month of reminded trauma. For our non-Black students, it perpetuates a message of victimhood for African Americans. Instead, celebrate Black Joy and times of powerful resistance. Go beyond Barack Obama and Dr. King to celebrate African American inventors and leaders throughout history. It means showing how the Black community has come together to bring Jazz, HipHop, and visual art. I love reading Tar Beach to show the closeness and spirit of the families represented in the book and then inviting students to mirror Faith Ringold’s art.
2. Don’t think you have to choose between Black History Month and teaching standards.
Culturally responsive teaching makes it clear that making the classroom relevant for students of color isn’t reading a picture book about Black Americans and then going back to a eurocentric math curriculum. Culturally responsive teaching is weaving student’s home cultures into lessons. This can look like Daily Do-Nows that practice key reading skills while celebrating the contributions of Black Americans like my popular argument reading skills mini-passages or new African Americans in STEM Informational Reading skills. It may be reading that picture book and then using it to practice narrative reading skills. It may mean doing a month-long novel study that features Black community with a Black author like student favorite Zora & Me. This year my students completed a STEM Biography project that focussed on Black inventors. Now they are mapping out the design thinking process as it was used by a Black inventor.
3. Use this time to notice what activities most engage your students.
This goes two ways. First, notice if there is a difference for students in engagement studying these topics. If you’ve been unsure about stepping outside the curriculum at other times of the year to use more culturally responsive resources, take note at how your students, especially students of color, engage with this content. On the other hand, with a variety of cultural heritage months through the year, it helps to have a routine that works for your classroom. I use specific picture books for different heritage months. I also maintain my regular routine of a Do-Now at the start of class but use short response passages for each cultural heritage month so that the routine is consistent.
4. Introduce students to less common examples of Black strength and community.
The Civil Rights movement isn’t just upsetting if not presented appropriately, it’s also something students have generally been exposed to by 4th or 5th grade. Instead, teach about the Black Panther Party. The Harlem Renaissance is engaging and fun to teach, and an excuse to play music in the classroom that you pick. My students are excited to learn about different African American Townships each year with this no-prep lesson.
5. Give students choice
We know that students learn best when they feel a sense of ownership and choice. This is particularly important when you are helping students learn about culture- if they feel forced, it may impact their feelings about that group. Student-driven Black History Month research projects allow students to choose their topic to explore. I love book clubs because they inspire a joy of reading and practice with academic conversations but mostly because kids get excited about them too. Do a book club unit around historic fiction featuring Black stories and Black authors.
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