My 4-year-old daughter Sophia was confused. She looked to me for an answer. “Greyson's not black,” she said. “Her skin is brown.” This was the first time I had heard my daughter bring up the issue of race or skin color.
As a high school sophomore, I loved debate. My coach was a quirky, intelligent man whom I greatly admired. I learned a lot from him. It bothered me, however, that he didn’t seem to respect me because of my choices.
Like many schools being called on to reconsider their mascot, the University of Mississippi convenes a student-run committee to find a replacement for theirs—a Confederate soldier.
Kaia M. Woodford is a student activist who is passionate about improving educational equity for students of color in Bexley, Ohio. She is a founding board member of the Bexley Anti-Racism Project, a collaboration of students and faculty organized to amplify underrepresented student voices and to educate the broader community on issues of racial inequity. In this capacity, Kaia serves on the Bexley City School Anti-Racism Taskforce to ensure that Bexley City Schools administrators have the benefit of lived student experience to inform anti-racist board policy. She also serves on the Bexley
In this activity, students will read about local history projects designed to foster connections between the town they live in and the enslaved people whose labor built it. Then, they will use primary sources to research the hidden history of their community.
Educators who connect their teaching to students’ cultures, languages and heritage create classroom environments that value critical home-school relationships, affirm student identities and challenge stereotypes.