Stereotypes and Our Socially Responsible Library

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for all the gracious holiday gifts! I was so touched by your kindness. THANK YOU!!!

It's been great to have the students back in the classroom. On Tuesday we discussed stereotyping. I told the students to imagine that they’d been asked by NASA to hire the lead engineer and project manager for a space station on the moon! This is obviously a challenging job that will make history so it is important to hire an innovative, talented leader. I handed each student 7 cards with first names on them and explained that those seven names represented the seven candidates for the job. I then told the students to eliminate one candidate right away and they turned over one name. Then I showed them the candidates last names and they eliminated another person. They continued in this manner as I showed them the ages of the candidates, then their photographs, and more. With each bit of new information they eliminated one candidate. On the last round they saw the candidates' work experience and education. 

Then we discussed the following questions:

•      What choice did you make?

•      Are you pleased with your hired engineer?

•      Would you have made a different decision if you had the qualifications information first?

•      Why didn’t it work to judge the people with such little information?

•      What do you think influenced your decisions?

•      Do you think people judge one another like this in our everyday lives?

•      What could be the consequences of pre-judging people?

We defined the term stereotype and added this qualifier to our list of “Questions To Ask About Books In Our Socially Responsible Library”...

One way that I'm working to build a more socially responsible classroom is to periodically select some books for the students to examine. They're looking to decide if the book is one that we want to have in our Socially Responsible Library. Some questions that we ask are: What is the message of the story? Does it help us better understand other people's experiences? Does it share ideas that are biased and inaccurate? Is it full of stereotypes about certain races or genders or family structures? If a text doesn’t fulfill our criteria or if we’re not sure, we’ll either remove it from the library or put a sticker on the cover that says, “Think About It”.

I think it’s important, especially with the access young people have to media, for students to practice thinking critically about the information presented to them. Our Socially Responsible Library program is an accessible way to practice.

I will continue to stock our class library with more great novels, biographies, and picture books that help students gain perspective on the blessings and privilege in their lives, help them to feel connected with children of diverse cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds, and share true explanations of historical events. 

It's great to have Charlie back from his grand Tanzanian adventure! Below, the students are reading letters that the students at the Jitihada school wrote to us!

Research on Native Californian tribes:

Stay tuned next week for pictures from our Thursday field trip to the Marin Museum of the American Indian (thank you drivers!) and a spotlight on our climate change unit.