How to Talk With Second Graders About Skin Again

This piece was co-authored by our project coordinator, Dr. Andrea Breau.

Concluding calendar month, we once again joined the excellent offer of Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemorative activities at Bates Higher, hosting the merely event on the twenty-four hour period-long plan for families with young children. To our surprise, in addition to the dozen or so children who attended with their parents and caregivers, some forty or so other adults — students, staff, faculty, customs members — came through the doors, eager to watch, mind, and larn!

Knowing that adults don't often get the adventure to observe in-the-moment conversations about race and racism with children, we viewed this unexpected attendance as an opportunity to allow the adults to exercise just that. However, wanting to as well ensure the children had their own infinite to discuss these issues with their peers, we afterward moved them to a split area for a hands-on activity. This also gave the adults a take a chance for a Q&A with Diverse BookFinder Manager, Dr. Krista Aronson.

Happy in our skin

2015

A delightfully rhythmical read-aloud text is paired with bright, bustling fine art from the award-winning Lauren Tobia, illustrator of Anna Hibiscus, in this blithesome exploration of the new skin of babyhood. A wonderful gift book for new mums and toddlers; all children can see themselves, and open their eyes to the world around them, in this sweet, scrumptious celebration of pare in all its many, many, wonderful forms.

Race/Civilization Concepts

We began our program with a big-group read of Happy In Our Pare. Instead of only reading the book to the children, we used the illustrations equally an opportunity to elicit responses from the immature audience: "What do you meet? What makes yous say that?" etc. This is known every bit Visual Thinking Strategies, a technique used to create inclusive discussions centered around dialogue and conversation. VTS is a specially useful strategy for discussions like this because the purpose is not to teach children what to think well-nigh race, merely to give them an opportunity to express what they've already absorbed nearly how race operates in the world around them and help them make sense of it.

We used this book to establish the baseline for our discussion:

People accept different colors of peel, colors and textures of pilus, colors and shapes of eyes, etc.

Children pointed out that there were people of different peel colors playing together, and since the group included by and large school-age children, we quickly got to content nigh inequity, even though the book didn't explicitly discuss that topic. We modeled for the adults that addressing content that isn't in the book is not only OK, but encouraged!

Hither are another titles for edifice such a foundation:

Skin again

2017

past bell hooks and Christopher Raschka

Celebrating all that makes united states of america unique and different, this book offers new ways to talk about race and identity. Race matters, but simply so much--what's about of import is who we are on the inside. Looking across skin, going straight to the heart, we detect in each other the treasures stored downwards deep. Learning to cherish those treasures, to be all we imagine ourselves to be, makes united states free

Race/Culture Concepts

You can use whatever title that portrays various racial features; what'southward essential is to build a word about race on a strong foundation of curiosity, information, and respect for differences. Without this base, going directly to talking about racism might create the association in young minds that racial difference itself is problematic and causes conflict, instead of a natural and beautiful attribute of beingness human.

Next, we built on the to a higher place discussion with images from The Barefoot Book of Children. We guided the children in brainstorming side-by-side lists:

1. What's the same virtually people? We all have/demand: Bodies (skin, eyes, pilus, etc.); Water, Food, Clothing, Housing, Families, Nurture/Honey, Language, Culture, etc.
2. And what's unlike about people? Variety in each of these things; i.e. ways of living (we all eat just we eat different foods, nosotros live in different countries, etc.). As well varying pilus textures, some people lose/don't grow hair. Tin include a discussion of melanin, etc.

Our goal for the give-and-take was to use books to build on the post-obit points, moving gradually from one to the adjacent, incorporating children's observations and experiences, allowing them to explore each idea:

• Race is virtually human differences that are natural, normal, and important.
• Only race is also about the stories we are told about those differences and what those stories teach us to believe about departure.
• Nosotros hear stories about race all the time -- from our schools, families, neighborhoods, the media, religious institutions, etc. Some of those stories are true and some of them are not. And we are frequently told the aforementioned stories about race over and over, even though at that place are and then many to tell!
• This ways that even though racial differences are normal and natural, they can brand people feel nervous or fearful, especially if:

1. The stories we hear about difference are always the same or are untrue or both.
2. We aren't often around people who are not similar usa

Together, these can atomic number 82 to IGNORANCE and PREJUDICE (pre-judging).

Hither we paused to read one poem, entitled "The Athlete," from the book Tin can I Bear on Your Hair? The poem explores, from the point of view of a black boy named Charles, the common "story" we hear well-nigh Black boys existence exceptionally able-bodied, and the consequence this has on Charles, who loves to read and write, and in fact, isn't very skilful at basketball game.

This allowed us to define STEREOTYPE as "the repeated stories we hear about racial differences," and discuss how even when they don't seem bad (like, "Black people are good athletes."), they tin can still cause damage (in the verse form, Charles wants to be seen/acknowledged for beingness a good student and is tired of beingness picked offset in basketball despite having no particular desire or aptitude for it).

At this point, we were able to move from race to racism in our word. For this, nosotros split off from the adults to explore the post-obit idea.

At that place are different types of racism.

• At that place'southward the kind of racism that sounds like this: "I'm agape of/I don't like/I am meliorate than y'all because you lot are different from me." This tin can look like 1 person being mean, excluding, or even existence fierce toward another person. Take you heard about, seen, or experienced this kind of racism? Here the children brought upwardly examples similar bullying, etc.
• So at that place's the kind of racism that looks like entire groups of people being treated unfairly or badly -- we phone call this OPPRESSION -- or treated very well or better -- we call this PRIVILEGE -- due to their race. Have you heard about any ways that a group of people accept been treated or are treated unfairly or meliorate than others, because of their racial features (or the country they came from, or the linguistic communication they speak, etc.)? The examples can be from a long time ago or now.

We had children as young as 2nd grade who readily gave u.s.a. examples of the latter, AKA SYSTEMIC RACISM (and every bit noted earlier, these examples even came upwards during our initial give-and-take nigh human being deviation!). Cheque out the Oppression & Resilience books in our drove, any of which could exist used with children bringing this level of awareness. However, because the grouping was mixed historic period and included pre-One thousand children, for our final book activeness, we stuck to a volume that would allow united states to:

1. Discuss interpersonal racism/individual prejudice and
2. Ensure that the children left with ideas almost how they might arbitrate on/interrupt this type of racism (particularly because the group was bulk white-presenting).

Hither nosotros used the book I Walk With Vanessa, about a brown-skinned girl who is bullied past a white classmate. In the book, Vanessa is eventually supported past her other classmates. Because this is a wordless story told entirely in images, we relied quite heavily on VTS and were able to model, for the few caregivers/parents who joined this activity, open-ended questions that fabricated race and racism explicit even when the text does not do so. In this particular book, there are besides some bully guided questions in the dorsum matter.

We started with questions about the cover and volume title:

• Who appears on the cover? Whose story is this? Who is telling the story? The title and cover epitome gives u.s.a. a clue...someone is telling a story about Vanessa.

So we moved to questions near the content:

• What's happening in this flick? What is this person doing to Vanessa? How does it make her feel? How practise y'all think information technology makes that person feel? Have whatsoever of yous always felt like Vanessa, or the person existence mean to her? Why might that person be treating her that way? Is it fair? How did the friend who witnessed it feel? What did she exercise? How did she show that she cared? What result did it have on others (she modeled standing upwards for what'southward right, etc.)?

Image Credit: Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College

We established:

• Sometimes people might treat others desperately because of the color of their skin, or any other perceived difference. Why might they do that? (Maybe they haven't been effectually someone with a different skin color and they are afraid. Maybe they have heard stories that aren't true most people with a dissimilar skin color than theirs. Mayhap they take been taught that one skin color is better than another.)
• That can be really hurtful and make people feel like they don't vest. How did Vanessa feel in the story?
• If we see people mistreating others (AKA a Eyewitness), we can do something about it by continuing up for what'south right (AKA an Ally).

Then nosotros did the following activity:

1. Brainstorm ways you have experienced or witnessed people feeling like they don't vest considering of one of the differences nosotros talked virtually during the big group read (sitting lonely during lunch, being excluded from a game on the playground, being laughed at, etc.).
2. What can nosotros exercise to make sure everyone feels like they belong in our classroom, in our schools, in our grouping of friends, on the playground, in the cafeteria, in our neighborhood or community?
3. Depict a picture of one of those things that you lot can or will exercise or have done (sitting with someone at tiffin, reading a book with someone at circle fourth dimension, inviting someone to play, continuing up for someone, asking a trusted developed for help, etc).

Drawings from the children's small-group action.

We encourage you to utilise any of these activities with the children in your life! Y'all may find that you share many of the aforementioned concerns or have like questions every bit the adults who attended this event. In detail, many were struck past only how astute the children'south commentary was during the big group read. As Dr. Aronson reiterated during the separate Q&A with the adults, this is simply a reflection of the fact that children are always already observing and experiencing race and racism in the worlds they inhabit. By explicitly engaging children in these conversations through the utilise of picture books, you are actively meeting them where they are rather than leaving them to sort through these experiences on their ain. Though fears that you may be "making them run across things" that they don't already see (or that "aren't there") are normal, you'll observe that the more you practice these conversations, the more than you'll discover just how much knowledge well-nigh race and racism children already hold.

More Resources

Handouts from the result

• x Tips for Reading Picture Books with Children Through a Race-Conscious Lens -- EmbraceRace
• 8 Tips for Talking to Your Child Nigh Racial Injustice -- EmbraceRace

Storytime Resources:

• Talking About Race in Story Time
• Reading Aloud with Kids to Spark Conversations about Difference -- EmbraceRace

Farther Learning:

• Talking with Immature Children (Age 0-v) most Race -- The Clan for Library Service to Children (ALSC)
• How To Talk To Your Kids Almost Race And Justice -- NPR's On Bespeak

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Source: https://diversebookfinder.org/browse/using-k-3-picture-books-to-talk-about-race-racism-with-children/

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