#BlackHistoryMonth Edition

“Sometimes I think people talk about diversity and inclusion. I think the best way for that to make a difference is just to see people that look like you kind of doing jobs you didn’t know existed.”  – Oscar nominated filmmaker, Matthew Cherry

January 2020 was quite a year!

Oh, but it was only the first month! 

Yet, here’s February which offers us multiple opportunities to celebrate Black History (in the US)!  (The UK celebrates in October.) One of the themes I’ve noticed in my networks has been a call to highlight Black accomplishment, Black excellence, Black joy, and Black diversity while still building a nuanced understanding of Black struggle.

First of all, one of my esteemed educator colleagues, Diversity Practitioner Tamisha Williams, along with Cheleah Googe, has put together the “Above and Beyond Black History Month Calendar” which is available to download. The calendar includes links to carefully curated resources which are as multifaceted as they are compelling. She writes: “I wanted to create a tool that could be used throughout Black History Month but also serve as a resource well beyond it. I created the tool that I need and will use.”

 Tamisha also tweeted a generous shout out for Bending the Arc: 
“True story, the idea was actually sparked after reading
@edifiedlistener January social justice newsletter for educators. She ended it by asking if folks were prepping for #BHM
#BlackHistoryMonth and I was sitting there like…oop. I need to prep!”
Always lovely to hear where our work is bearing fruit.


Of course, Twitter is chock full of remarkable resources for examining Black History with students at various levels: 

• For secondary audiences, I suggest looking into the Black History In Two Minutes video library hosted by Henry Louis Gates. These high quality short films provide a discussion-starter overview of significant historical events, themes and movements. 

• For elementary learners, Scott Woods has produced a fantastic list of children’s books (one of three!) featuring Black children and adults that, as the title indicates, are not about boycotts, buses or basketball.  

• Students of all ages will also enjoy this animated short film, “Hair Love” by Matthew Cherry which has been nominated for an Oscar. It’s the story of a father learning to comb his daughter’s natural hair.  

In closing I want to share an essay that has been ringing in my ears since I read it. As an African-American living in Central Europe working in an international school for 25 years,  “Immigrant vs. expatriate: on being a third culture kid,” by Paniz Khosroshahy  reached me with an unusual relevance: 

“There are many, many TCK-identifying people of colour, and I don’t wish to ignore that reality. However, by TCK culture I refer to the discourse around TCKs, the way TCKs are studied, written about and represented. This discourse is undeniably and overly dominated by the experiences of upper class white people, and its representation of people of colour is tarnished by respectability politics and class privilege.”

To be honest, I hadn’t thought very deeply about these aspects of the Third Culture Kid framing, although the varying distinctions between immigrant and expatriate make up a stream I have straddled for decades. As educators whose students’ ethnic, language and nationality backgrounds are increasingly varied, complex and in some contexts hotly contested, I invite all of us to wrestle with this rethinking of a popular social and cultural framework.

May your February prove generative and thanks for tuning in!
Happy Black History Month!

Sherri

Sherri Spelic

@edifiedlistener on Twittter

edifiedlistener.blog


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