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During this lesson, students will reflect on the ways they have experienced or participated in bias based on physical size and appearance—and will discuss how society’s expectations about body image and appearance affect people. Students build on their media literacy skills as they examine media images for messages that consciously and unconsciously affect attitudes and behaviors toward others. Finally, the class will explore ways to get beyond appearance as a dominant force in their social lives.Note: This lesson has been adapted with permission from the original created by GLSEN for its program, No Name-Calling Week.

Almost every teacher has heard students use the expression, “that’s so gay” as a way of putting down or insulting someone (or to describe something). These lessons will help students examine how inappropriate language can hurt, and will help them think of ways to end this kind of name-calling.

This lesson helps students appreciate diversity among their peers and the diversity of immigrants all over the world. Through hands-on exercises, students will discover similarities and differences they share with other children.

This series help students think about their bodies and body images in a social justice context. Each lesson looks at a different aspect of the relationship children have with their bodies. The series helps students take ownership over their own feelings and attitudes and develop an activist stance in terms of understanding body image and also looking after their own physical and emotional wellbeing.

“Issues of Poverty” is comprised of four lessons with two overarching goals. First, the lessons aim to help students understand that poverty is systemic, rooted in economics, politics and discrimination. Second, the lessons provide evidence to show that poverty, far from being random, disproportionately affects Americans who have traditionally experienced oppression—African Americans, Latinos, immigrants and children.