This Mental Illness Awareness Week, we call on educators to see their vital role in removing stigmas that surround mental health issues, normalizing open conversations and recognizing the unique needs of students with historically marginalized identities or invisible disabilities. With these resources, we hope you and your students can take steps toward a world where—like Max at the end of our story "Washed Away"—you feel a little less alone and more prepared to face tough times alongside people who care.
This week, a photograph of a math assignment asking fifth graders to set prices for enslaved people went viral. Assignments like this are clearly harmful. But students can learn about slavery in ways that recover the lives and histories of enslaved people or dehumanize them; celebrate their resistance or erase their agency; recognize how slavery shaped our nation or ignore it completely. Educators can teach this hard history—and teach it well—in any discipline, to students of almost any age. Here are a few examples of how.
In racist tweets this weekend, the president again used dehumanizing language to describe a place that’s home to hundreds of thousands of people of color. When you talk with students about place, how do you uplift a diverse range of experiences, call out coded language and engage questions of justice? This edition of The Moment offers a few places to start, with recommendations for talking about Baltimore and stories of student and educator action that counter racist narratives about New Orleans and Detroit.
Today we celebrate the lives and work of Rep. John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian. We’re eternally grateful for their lifelong, courageous activism. As we remember these leaders’ relentless pursuit of equality, we hope educators will join us in continuing to work for justice and liberation for all. And we hope young people will join us in holding Representative Lewis, the Rev. Vivian and other change makers as models for who we can be when we decide to make “good trouble.”
During a season of protests and pandemic, our Fall 2020 magazine is here. Dive in to discover how students and educators are fighting for our rights, and how they’ve always done so. Here, we’ve highlighted an illuminating interview with This Book Is Anti-Racist author Tiffany Jewell, about engaging children and young people in anti-racism, and a Story Corner for young readers, about speaking up against Coronavirus racism. We hope you find value in these stories—and in every story in our new issue.
National Suicide Prevention Week reminds us that many people are struggling, including students and educators who need schools and communities to be safer, more accepting spaces. Support young people by helping to create inclusive school environments, speaking up against bias and bullying, and providing information about available resources. Talk about mental health, and encourage the people in your life to reach out for support when needed. We hope these LFJ resources help.