Teaching "Ferguson"

At New City School, an independent school serving approximately 350 students in grades preK through 6th grade, we could not have begun to engage in deeper conversations in August and September if the groundwork hadn't already been established with our community—both students and families. Diversity is embedded in our curriculum, and many of our older students have participated in lessons about race and privilege since being in our preschool classrooms at age 3 and 4.

Preschool lessons include reading the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" and having students make observations about various colors of eggs. One is brown. One is white. What's similar? What's different? When it's time for Humpty to fall off the wall and the eggs crack open, children have an opportunity to observe how the eggs that were different on the outside are very similar on the inside, and they then make personal connections with the metaphor.

Another activity our youngest students do is to mix various amounts of chocolate, butterscotch, and strawberry syrup into white milk to match their skin tone. This simple (and delicious!) activity encourages students to talk about skin tones from an early age and not make the topic of race taboo. Although these young children might not understand the structures of power and privilege that exist in our society, these exercises help them get more comfortable talking about differences, so they'll be better prepared for more in-depth conversations later.

Adapting the Curriculum

Our teachers in 3rd grade and below did not address the events in Ferguson directly, although these topics certainly came up in morning shares. When a 3-year-old answers, "What did you do this weekend?" with, "My Dad was drumming," teachers may help round out the conversation by noting that he was drumming down at the protests. To do this, we need to know our families. In our parent-teacher conferences during the opening weeks of school this year, we asked families how often they discuss or address current events at home with their children. This was a good opportunity for teachers to begin to gauge what conversations were happening at home as well as engage in a more in-depth conversation with families who wanted to discuss these events.

Our 4th through 6th grade classes addressed these topics directly. While on a field trip to our state capitol, our 4th graders observed the NAACP protests in Jefferson City, and we organized guest speakers to come in and speak with students about the power of protest. As we drove through North County on a field trip to a recycling plant, our 5th grade students talked about racial disparities and how these disparities could have led to the anger and frustration that we're seeing on the news. Our 6th grade teachers used texts that discussed protesting and white privilege in their reading lessons, and some of our recent graduates now in 8th grade came in to share how they had organized protests for their school so that our students could connect with the fact that kids could organize and participate as well.

Having the Conversations

The protests immediately following the death of Michael Brown began just before the start of our school year. One of the biggest challenges for our teachers was that we didn't know our students' names yet, let alone had an opportunity to establish community norms and build a classroom community where everyone felt safe and valued. Regardless, students came in and wanted to talk about what they were hearing and seeing. We felt it was imperative to honor this desire and to let kids know that we welcome these conversations, but we also knew that we needed to give our faculty a chance to process these events as well.

We quickly created a space for our faculty to have discussions before and after school so that they could use others as a sounding board as they grappled with these emotional issues themselves. Some teachers were not comfortable leading discussions about Ferguson, and although we challenge our students and teachers to lean into discomfort, we also realize that students pick up on the comfort level of their teachers. It is important that those who facilitate conversations about race be comfortable and experienced with discussing the topic.

Similarly, not all students want to have such conversations. In a 5th grade advisory, students were told that at snack time, if they wanted to join a conversation about Ferguson, they could. But if they wanted to play games or silently read on the other side of the room, they could do that as well.

Students divided into three groups: those who quickly brought out Connect 4 and Othello, those who wanted to engage in conversation, and those who lingered quietly just outside the conversation. Within 15 minutes, members of the third group had inched their way closer and closer to the dialogue until they were finally folded in. Some of these students never spoke, but others began to contribute their thoughts and feelings. The teacher helped facilitate and redirect the conversation when necessary. It was helpful to establish that we were not debating the facts, because we didn't know them. Instead, most conversations focused around questions like, What frustrates you the most? What would the best possible outcome look like? Sound like? Feel like?

Recognizing that some students wanted to go deeper, we began a "Food for Thought" lunchtime discussion group for 5th and 6th grade students. Students who wanted to participate had to sign up in advance and had to miss recess and lunch (coveted times in the schedule, particularly at the beginning of the year!). Even so, nearly half of all students in grades 5 and 6 chose to participate. Students from this group decided to meet monthly and continue the dialogue.

Social studies classes directly addressed the Ferguson events in current event units, but the topic also came up in language arts classes. In one 5th grade language arts class, students created "Praise Poems" about something society tells them should not be valued but that they want to reclaim and praise in a poem. Students wrote about body image, growing up in a non-traditional family structure, socioeconomic status, or even their love for fairies. All of the black students quickly began brainstorming and writing about race. Below is one 10-year-old's poem:

My Praise Poem

By Mikhail Abdul-Hamid

it is winter in America

and we are being killed

not for the season

nor for any reason

and we still cry

hands up don't shoot

and I can't breathe;

will anyone hear our plea?

we protest

we speak as one.

we are one human race

and, we shall overcome!¹ 

Facing the Questions Together

Our community includes not just students, but also their families. After all, students will take what we discuss in classes home to their families. So we've also taken some time for family education.

In early September, we hosted a panel focused on Ferguson with members of our Families Committed to Diversity group. The panelists included the St. Louis Chief of Police, a professor, a small business owner, an African American parent, and a public school educator. Our principal, Tom Hoerr, discussed this event in his Educational Leadership column this month. Similarly, in October, we hosted our annual Diversity Dinner and Dialogue at which we showed clips from the Ferguson panel and then posed questions that helped the nearly 100 people in attendance look inward and focus on the formation of their own personal identities. At each table, someone was assigned the role of "provocateur" to help push people and ask more challenging questions of themselves and others.

Our school has developed a collective courage to address these topics with everyone in our community. Although we have a director of diversity, teachers know that they are all the director of diversity in their own classroom, and they create their own curriculum accordingly. The entire school community is challenged to embrace respect (re- meaning again and -spect meaning look). We all need to look again and care enough to ask questions and learn more about others and their perspectives.

Many people have a goal to speak more articulately, but it should be an equally important goal to listen more articulately. James Baldwin is frequently quoted as having written, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." That sentiment guides us in these conversations at our elementary school.