Irina Y. Starovoytova, a teacher of English and American Studies at Tambov School #6 in Tambov, Russia, created this retelling of a traditional Russian fable especially for Teaching Tolerance.
Twenty-eight teachers in my master’s level class silently moved en masse to the right side of the room to signify that they would teach the civil rights movement to their elementary students. In fact, most considered it negligent to ignore this historic movement that brought about the end of segregation in our country.
Leslie has been an elementary educator in central Virginia since 2008. As both a fourth-grade teacher and diversity resource teacher, she collaboratively designs and co-facilitates a variety of professional developments on multicultural education and culturally responsive instructional strategies. Wills-Taylor also organizes diversity awareness events that build sustainable home-school partnerships. She is one of the recipients of the 2016 Teaching Tolerance Award for Excellence in Teaching. She can be reached via Twitter @LeslieWillsTay1.
Naomi oversees the Southern Poverty Law Center’s legal and advocacy work on behalf of immigrants in the Deep South. She represents clients who have experienced wage theft, discrimination, human trafficking and other abuses. Tsu was counsel for immigrant workers in David v. Signal, one of the largest labor trafficking cases brought in the United States, which resulted in a $14 million jury verdict and for which her team was awarded Public Justice’s 2015 Trial Lawyer of the Year award.
In this excerpt, the narrator, a young Chinese girl, poses as a boy with forged papers, trying to gain entry into the United States. When she realizes the American immigration agents are checking identity papers at the dock, she fights past them and runs for her life.
With this guide, we hope to help teachers and school leaders make curriculum and policy decisions that include LGBTQ students and prepare all students to thrive in a diverse democracy.