Curated Menu for Black Lives Matter at School’s Week of Action

Danny Stock

Feb 3 2022

This week is Black Lives Matter at School’s Week of Action, and GDS’s Lower School received a fantastic menu of ready-to-go resources for classrooms thanks to two of our staff affinity group co-leads.

Each day is dedicated to one of the 13 guiding principles of the Movement for Black Lives—loving engagement, empathy, restorative justice, diversity, and collective value—and includes lesson ideas, videos, discussion starters, books, inspiring quotations, and art. Items are also organized for our youngest Hoppers (PK-1st) and big kids (2nd-4th).

With all the wonderful child-centered resources out there, it has proven meaningful to GDS Lower School faculty to have this curated guide. We hope that educators and parents across the country will also find it valuable.

Many thanks to Azureé Harrison—Lower School instructional coach and Staff of Color co-lead—and Julia Tomasko ’05—4th grade teacher and co-lead for AWARE (Alliance of White Anti-Racist Educators). Stay tuned more teaching outcomes from Lower School at GDS!

UPDATE: Pre-K welcomed Dr. Denisha Jones, an education justice advocate and member of the national BLM at School Week of Action steering committee since 2017, for a discussion of the guiding principles. Students asked questions and gave heart-melting compliments to Dr. Jones. Thank you, Nichelle and Barbara, for hosting! As the students waved good-bye, one gave a spontaneous "Black Lives Matter!" cheer.