Let Black Students Be Kids: Down With 'Respectability'

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Use these resources to celebrate the diverse experiences of AAPI students and effectively teach AAPI history—this month and throughout the year.
Over the weekend, white supremacists burned Black Lives Matter flags that belonged to two Black churches in Washington, D.C. during a pro-Trump rally. Earlier this month, Casey Goodson Jr., a Black man, was shot and killed by police while walking into his Columbus, Ohio, home. It’s essential that teachers counter the insidiousness of anti-Blackness and white supremacy with students and affirm that Black lives do matter. These resources can help.
This Mental Health Awareness Month, we hope you find time and space to take care of yourself and support your students. These resources, including an article introducing the Crisis Text Line, recommend practices that can be used at the district, school or classroom level.
This week, the power of words is illustrated in two celebrations: the beginning of National Poetry Month and Maya Angelou's birthday. Angelou's life, words and activism offer a unique opportunity to show students how writing is shaped by identity and experience, and the power words can bring. These resources can help you make that introduction and inspire the poets, thinkers and activists in your school—so their words, too, can sing.