DEAR BLACK TEACHERS, WE SEE YOU! - Philly's 7th Ward

DEAR BLACK TEACHERS, WE SEE YOU! - Philly's 7th Ward

DEAR BLACK TEACHERS, WE SEE YOU!

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his [her] influence stops.“

—Henry Adams  

At the Center for Black Educator Development, we believe that the impact of a great teacher is everlasting  and lifesaving. 

So, to all the great Black teachers out there, know that you’re special. You’re special not solely because you choose to educate—reason enough—but because you are choosing to help bend the moral arc of the universe. 

With the tools you carefully honed with intentionality, compassion, expertise, data-driven decisions and culturally-affirming mirrors, you work every day against the misguided derision that affirming aggrieved children tends to attract.   

In the jewel of a book, Fugitive Pedagogy, Dr. Jarvis R. Givens makes clear the daring lineage we continue when we seek to teach Black children well: “Black education was a fugitive project from its inception—outlawed and defined as a criminal act…Black teachers were a distinct group of political actors. They CONTINUE READING: DEAR BLACK TEACHERS, WE SEE YOU! - Philly's 7th Ward

The Journey of Black Male Teachers in Early Childhood Classrooms - Philly's 7th Ward

The Journey of Black Male Teachers in Early Childhood Classrooms - Philly's 7th Ward

THE JOURNEY OF BLACK MALE TEACHERS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD CLASSROOMS

I am from a place where being home before the streetlights came on meant just that. I am from a neighborhood in Detroit where drugs and guns were more common than schoolbooks. I am from a place where milkcrate basketball hoops brought out the best in us. I am from a place where my past informed my “why” for becoming a Black male teacher. I am a Black male teacher from here to eternity.

On a fall day in 1997, I walked into a classroom with 25 eight-year-old Black children from the same neighborhood in Detroit. Their eyes looked like mine. Their hair looked like mine. Their potential looked like mine. Yet — I was the first Black male teacher they had ever experienced. Those moments as a Black male teacher in the classroom will live forever in my heart. My students taught me lessons about resilience and faith and demonstrated daily that their brilliance was more than a standardized test performance — something deeply rooted in their eternal optimism, despite tremendous odds. Now, years later as a Black male educator, I have found myself talking to a new generation of Black male teachers who teach in early childhood classrooms. I find myself talking as a friend, mentor, advisor, and researcher. Certainly, CONTINUE READING: The Journey of Black Male Teachers in Early Childhood Classrooms - Philly's 7th Ward

Black Reconstruction 2.0 Begins With Great Schools For Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

Black Reconstruction 2.0 Begins With Great Schools For Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

BLACK RECONSTRUCTION 2.0 BEGINS WITH GREAT SCHOOLS FOR BLACK CHILDREN

One morning during my junior year of high school, I remember my homeroom teacher saying to me in a dismissive tone that Malcolm X was a bad person. I am unsure how we got on the topic of figures in Black history, but I mentioned his name and that was the response.

That evening, I told my mom. After her phone conference with my grandmother, which was customary whenever something happened, she decided to call the school the next day. As per her rules, I called my mom when I got home from school the next day and I asked if she had spoken to my teacher. In her best Clair Huxtable cadence, she said that she did and that she promptly laid her out.

My mom then said, “It’s a shame that I had to do that. I thought that was a good school.”

The idea of a “good school” and/or a “good education” is subjective at best; such phrases are often ambiguous and open to interpretation.

I can’t help but think that a reason my father’s parents migrated from Attapulgus, Georgia to Camden, New Jersey was to find good schools and a good education for all of their CONTINUE READING: Black Reconstruction 2.0 Begins With Great Schools For Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

Should the Black Lives Matter Agenda Be Taught at School? - The Atlantic

Should the Black Lives Matter Agenda Be Taught at School? - The Atlantic

What Happens When a Slogan Becomes the Curriculum

Last month, a public-school district that serves mostly elementary and middle-school students in Evanston, Illinois, held its third annual Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action—using a curriculum, created in collaboration with Black Lives Matter activists and the local teachers’ union, that introduces children as young as 4 and 5 to some of America’s most complex and controversial subjects. For example, parents of kindergartners in District 65 were asked to spend time at home discussing a book on race that teachers had read aloud to their children.

Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, by Anastasia Higginbotham, begins with a white mother turning off a television set to prevent her little daughter from seeing footage of a white policeman shooting a Black man. “You don’t need to worry about this,” the mother says. “You’re safe. Understand? Our family is kind to everyone. We don’t see color.” The book corrects the mother: “Deep down, we all know color matters,” it states. “Skin color makes a difference in how the world sees you and in how you see the world … It makes a difference in how much trouble seems to find you or let you be.” The book teaches that the truth about “your own people, your own family” can be painful. Next to an illustration of the mother locking her car door and grasping her wallet while driving in a neighborhood where Black children are standing on the street, the narrator notes, “Even people you love might behave in ways that show they think they are the good ones.” Later, the little girl castigates her mother for trying to hide the police shooting and other racism. “Why didn’t anyone teach me real history?” she yells. “I do see color … You can’t hide what’s right in front of me. I know that what that police officer did was wrong!”

The book instructs a young white reader that she doesn’t need to “defend” racism, and it presents her with a stark decision. An illustration depicts a devil holding a “contract binding you to whiteness.” It reads:

You get:

✓stolen land

✓stolen riches

✓special favors†

WHITENESS gets:

✓to mess endlessly with the lives of your friends, neighbors, loved ones, and all fellow humans of COLOR

✓your soul

Sign below:

_____________

†Land, riches, and favors may be revoked at any time, for any reason.

In Evanston, parents are asked to quiz their kids on whiteness and give them approachable examples of “how whiteness shows up in school or in the community.” In its focus on “whiteness” and its invitation to readers to challenge racism by interrogating and rejecting it, the worldview of Not My Idea is similar to that of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, now a staple of diversity-and-inclusion programs and anti-racism training. Not My Idea is also a jarringly CONTINUE READING: Should the Black Lives Matter Agenda Be Taught at School? - The Atlantic

Black Women Like Mary Church Terrell Have Always Been Saving America - Philly's 7th Ward

Black Women Like Mary Church Terrell Have Always Been Saving America - Philly's 7th Ward

BLACK WOMEN LIKE MARY CHURCH TERRELL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SAVING AMERICA

Mary Church Terrell, Black Educator Hall of Fame Member

Mary Eliza Church Terrell, and eduactivist and trailblazer, was born in September of 1863 in Tennessee. Terrell’s parents were successful business persons, although they were once enslaved; her mother owned a hair salon and her father was one of the first Black millionaires in the South.

Her family’s affluence and belief in the importance of education enabled Terrell to attend the Antioch College laboratory school in Ohio, and later Oberlin College, where she became one of the first Black women to earn a bachelor’s degree in the United States. She later returned to Oberlin where she earned her master’s degree.  In 1913, Terrell became an honorary member of newly founded Delta Sigma Theta sorority at Howard University, and she received an honorary degree in humane letters from Oberlin College in 1948, as well as honorary degrees from Howard and Wilberforce Universities.

Professionally, Terrell was a professor and principal at Wilberforce University and two years later, she moved to Washington D.C. to teach at the M Street CONTINUE READING: Black Women Like Mary Church Terrell Have Always Been Saving America - Philly's 7th Ward

Seattle Town Hall Presents: “#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: An Uprising for Educational Justice”–Black History Month Online Book Event with Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Seattle Town Hall Presents: “#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: An Uprising for Educational Justice”–Black History Month Online Book Event with Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Seattle Town Hall Presents: “#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: An Uprising for Educational Justice”

Black History Month Online Book Event with Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian

Jesse Hagopian and Denisha Jones (livestream)

Black Lives Matter at School

Wednesday, February 24, 2021, 6:00PM Pacific

$5.00 / Free for youth 22 and under

Event Description

How can educators help destroy entrenched inequalities and enact the values of Black Lives Matter in their classrooms, schools, and communities?

Jesse Hagopian and Denisha Jones, both educators and members of the Black Lives Matter at School movement, join us via livestream to discuss this question. They believe that the United States is in the midst of an urgent moral and legal crisis over the safety, liberty, and well-being of Black young people. In an edited collection, Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice, they have gathered essential essays, interviews, poems, resolutions, and more from educators, students, and activists who have been building the Black Lives Matter Movement across the country. Hagopian and Jones lay bare the institutional racism inherent in our educational system, and present a critical call to radically reshape learning environments to make them safe, supportive, and transformative for all students.

Jesse Hagopian is a member of the Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and teaches Ethnic Studies at Seattle’s Garfield High School. Hagopian is an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine, the co-editor of the book Teaching for Black Lives, and the editor of the book More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing. Hagopian serves as the Director of the Black Education Matters Student Activist Award.

Denisha Jones is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and Director of the Art of Teaching, graduate teacher education program, at Sarah Lawrence College. Denisha is an education justice advocate and activist. She serves as Co-Director for Defending the Early Years, Inc, and is the Assistant Executive Director for the Badass Teachers Association. Currently, her research focuses on utilizing the BLM at School curriculum as cultural citizenship and documenting the value of play as a tool for liberation with an emphasis on global approaches to play.

$5.00 / Free for youth 22 and under

Seattle Town Hall Presents: “#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: An Uprising for Educational Justice”–Black History Month Online Book Event with Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Frontline Dispatches: The struggle for Racial Justice in the Schools during the time of COVID–A conversation with Gerald Lenoir and Jesse Hagopian – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Frontline Dispatches: The struggle for Racial Justice in the Schools during the time of COVID–A conversation with Gerald Lenoir and Jesse Hagopian – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Frontline Dispatches: The struggle for Racial Justice in the Schools during the time of COVID–A conversation with Gerald Lenoir and Jesse Hagopian

I am beyond excited to join my dad, Gerald Lenoir, in an online conversation about the struggle for racial justice in the schools during the COVID era on Wednesday, February 10th, at 7pm EST/4pm PST. From racial justice in schools during COVID, to the fight led by teachers’ unions to ensure safe school re-openings, and the role unions can play in broader social justice struggles, will will have a lot to talk about.

We will be joining the Frontline Dispatches program, an Organizing Upgrade show intended to amplify the voices of organizers and activists who are engaged in important, lesson filled, on-the-ground organizing, protest, or activism. Whatever the work, these talks engage with those on the frontlines of the most current and urgent work facing our movements. 

My dad is a life long organizer for racial and social justice and recently came out with fire book of protest poetry. As a young college student, Gerald was part of the student strike at University of Wisconsin–Madison that shut the campus down to demand Black Studies. I’m excited to see what questions he has in store for me about how we build the Black Lives Matter at School movement and organize for racial justice in these times.

Join us for this conversation at this link–then join the BLM at School movement!

Gerald Lenoir is the Strategy Analyst at the Othering & Belonging Institute. He works with community, advocacy, labor and faith partners to organize the research, development and promotion of a strategic narrative that fosters structural inclusion and addresses marginalization and structural racialization. Gerald was the founding Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Executive Director of the San Francisco Black Coalition on AIDS and a co-founder of the HIV Education and Prevention Project of Alameda County. He serves on the board of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Priority Africa Network.

Jesse Hagopain is a high school teacher in Seattle and a co-founder of Black Lives Matter at School, a national initiative. He is the co-editor of four books: Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice, Teaching for Black Lives, Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve, and More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing. 

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Frontline Dispatches: The struggle for Racial Justice in the Schools during the time of COVID–A conversation with Gerald Lenoir and Jesse Hagopian – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Black Educator Hall of Fame Member + WHEN WILL BLACK LIVES MATTER IN SCHOOL? - Philly's 7th Ward #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER #BLACKHISTORYMONTH

Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Black Educator Hall of Fame Member - Philly's 7th Ward

CHARLOTTE HAWKINS BROWN, BLACK EDUCATOR HALL OF FAME MEMBER

E’ry day this month, the Center for Black Educator Development, in partnership with Phillys7thWard.org, will highlight a Black Educator Hall of Famer.

But, don’t forget, e’ry month is Black History Month…February is just the Blackest.

Today, our featured Black Educator is Charlotte Hawkins Brown.

The work of eduactivist, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, personifies Black excellence in education. Born in North Carolina in 1883, Brown was educated in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she with her parents moved to escape the Jim Crow south. While in school, Brown was known as a brilliant student. After high school, she enrolled in the Salem Normal School to enter a career in teaching.

Encouraged by the Women’s Division of the American Missionary Association, Brown returned to North Carolina to educate Black children upon her graduation. When she arrived, she found a school with conditions unlike anything she experienced in Cambridge. The school was in such bad shape that the American Missionary Association closed the school down. However, she was not deterred.

Encouraged by local Black people and after hearing about Lucy Craft Laney’s work in a lecture, Brown, at the age of 18, moved back to North Carolina and CONTINUE READING: Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Black Educator Hall of Fame Member - Philly's 7th Ward

WHEN WILL BLACK LIVES MATTER IN SCHOOL?

In September of 1915, historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). ASNLH was dedicated to researching and highlighting the achievements of Black people in American and all peoples of African descent. To that end, ASNLH, under the direction Dr. Woodson, established Negro History Week to promote and celebrate the long history of accomplishments of Black people in America.

Thanks to the freedom fighters throughout the Civil Rights Movement, Negro History Week evolved into Black History Month because of a growing awareness among Black people of Black identity and the freedom fighters of the Civil Rights Movement and, in 1976, it was recognized by President Ford.

There has been a growing debate as to the usefulness or necessity of Black History Month. When engaging in these debates, I am reminded of the words of Dr. Woodson, who said of Negro History Week (which became Black History Month):

In 2016, a group of educators, parents and activists in Seattle, Washington organized a week of activities for racial justice in schools with the goal of teaching students about systemic racism, Black history and the Black CONTINUE READING: WHEN WILL BLACK LIVES MATTER IN SCHOOL?

“Young, Gifted, & Black”: #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Virtual Talent Showcase, Friday, 2/5, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PST. – I AM AN EDUCATOR #tbats #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER #BLACKHISTORYMONTH

“Young, Gifted, & Black”: #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Virtual Talent Showcase, Friday, 2/5, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PST. Don’t miss this culminating event of the week of action to support our Black youth! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Young, Gifted, & Black”: #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Virtual Talent Showcase, Friday, 2/5, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PST.

Don’t miss this culminating event of the week of action to support our Black youth!

The Seattle area NAACP Youth Council (N-YC), Puget Sound Black Lives Matter at Schools, and Social Equity Educators (SEE) are proud to co-sponsor this year’s “Young, Gifted, & Black Student Talent Showcase,” one of the keynote event of the 2021 Black Lives Matter at School week February 1-5. This event will be held on-line from 5:30pm–7:30pm Pacific. You can visit the Facebook page and find the link or click this link to view the event: Online: us02web.zoom.us

2020 Young, Gifted, and Black Showcase

Centering the creative and intellectual brilliance of African-American students throughout Seattle Public Schools and nearby districts, these youth–dancers, poets, filmmakers, singers, speakers, and more–follow in the footsteps of Nina Simone. Many considered her 1969 song “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black”, dedicated to the late Lorraine Hansberry, to be an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. These students today carry on the tradition of her and other civil rights activists by making the case for how to uproot institutional racism in education!The four national demands of the Black Lives Matter at School movement are:

1.) End “zero tolerance” discipline, and implement restorative justice
2.) Hire more Black teachers
3.) Mandate Black History and Ethnic Studies in K-12 curriculum
4.) Fund counselors not cops

For more national information on the week:
https://blacklivesmatteratschool.com and also see other events around the country at: https://www.blacklivesmatteratschool.com/blm-at-school-events.html

Check out Nina Simone’s song “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”, the inspiration for the event’s title:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hdVFiANBT

We hope to see you there!

2020 Young, Gifted, and Black Showcase

“Young, Gifted, & Black”: #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Virtual Talent Showcase, Friday, 2/5, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PST. Don’t miss this culminating event of the week of action to support our Black youth! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Online Book Forum: BLM co-founder Opal Tometi will join Brian Jones, Denisha Jones, Jesse Hagopian and Marshé Doss in conversation about making Black Lives Matter–from the streets to the classroom. – I AM AN EDUCATOR

#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Online Book Forum: BLM co-founder Opal Tometi will join Brian Jones, Denisha Jones, Jesse Hagopian and Marshé Doss in conversation about making Black Lives Matter–from the streets to the classroom. – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Online Book Forum: BLM co-founder Opal Tometi will join Brian Jones, Denisha Jones, Jesse Hagopian and Marshé Doss in conversation about making Black Lives Matter–from the streets to the classroom.

Register for this forum today at Register through Eventbrite 

Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi wrote the foreword for the new book, Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice, and she will be joining the book’s co-editors, Denisha Jones, Jesse Hagopian, along with contributing authors, Marshé Doss and Brian Jones. Join us for this conversation about making Black lives matter in our schools and beyond as part of this year’s Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

In her foreword to Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice Opal Tometi writes: “Both within classrooms and outside the school grounds, Black lives are under threat. The events that led to the creation of Black Lives Matter—the murder in 2012 of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer—weren’t isolated events. The culture of endangering Black lives is something students know well from inside their very own classrooms. . . Young people deserve safe, affirming environments where they know without a shadow of a doubt that their lives matter. The work that supporters of Black Lives Matter at School are doing is making this happen.”

Join us for conversation about making Black lives matter in our school and beyond.

***Register through Eventbrite to receive a link to the video conference on the day of the event. This event will also be recorded and have live captioning.***

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Speakers:

Opal Tometi is an award-winning human rights defender and one of three women co-founders of #BlackLivesMatter. Born to Nigerian Immigrant parents in the USA, her human rights activism crosses borders and extends almost 20 years. Tometi recently graced the #TIME100 Most Influential people of the year 2020 and March 2020 cover for #TIMES100 Most Influential Women of The Last Century. She is the founder of the new media and advocacy hub, Diaspora Rising and is a trusted advisor to various transnational organizations.

Denisha Jones is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and Director of the Art of Teaching, graduate teacher education program, at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the co-editor of Black Lives Matter at School.

Jesse Hagopian is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and teaches Ethnic Studies at Seattle’s Garfield High School. He is the co-editor of Black Lives Matter at School, an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine and is a co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives.

Marshé Doss was born and raised in South Los Angeles.She is a recent graduate from Dorsey High School in South Los Angeles. Marshé is an organizer and leader in the student-led movement Students Deserve. She leads the Making Black Lives Matter in Schools effort in LA, which tackles the school-to-prison pipeline and over-policing of schools in Black communities. She is a nationally recognized speaker, organizer, and activist, known for direct actions and addressing crowds of over fifty thousand people. She can be reached on Instagram at @its.marshe.

Brian Jones (moderator) is the Associate Director of Education at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He writes about Black education history and politics.

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This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programing work.

#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Online Book Forum: BLM co-founder Opal Tometi will join Brian Jones, Denisha Jones, Jesse Hagopian and Marshé Doss in conversation about making Black Lives Matter–from the streets to the classroom. – I AM AN EDUCATOR

A New Anthem for #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: “False Knowledge,” by the middle school duo Triple S! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

A New Anthem for #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: “False Knowledge,” by the middle school duo Triple S! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

A New Anthem for #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: “False Knowledge,” by the middle school duo Triple S!

To support the artists, Triple S, please buy the track on Bandcamp at:
https://southseattleswagger.bandcamp.com/track/false-knowledge

Black Lives Matter at School has a new anthem for the movement!

The middle school duo from Seattle, Triple S (South Seattle Swagger)–Mc’s Freeze 32 and Gucci Grape–is officially releasing their new track titled, “False Knowledge,” fuel the struggle for Ethnic Studies and Black Studies. As Triple S wrote about the song, “This track is a runaway enslaved African from the master(narrative).”

To drive this point home, Freeze 32 says in one of his lyrics:

This verse is dedicated to the black youth, ayy

Let me show you what the facts will do

Ethnic Studies now!

Give our youth the money now!

Gucci Grape celebrates learning from people’s history in the first line of the song,

Do you believe everything in your textbook?

Do you believe fake stories about Columbus, Captain Cook,

Look, don’t believe everything that you see,

False Knowledge could catch us yes, you or me

If you dig this track, please support the artists by buying the track on Bandcamp and sharing it with everyone in struggle and everyone who is still stuck in the false knowledge trap.

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A New Anthem for #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool: “False Knowledge,” by the middle school duo Triple S! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Big Education Ape: Join the 2021 #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Week of Action from Feb. 1-5 with these online events all week! – I AM AN EDUCATOR #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER #BLACKHISTORYMONTH - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/02/join-2021-blacklivesmatteratschool-week.html