Learning for Justice (Formerly Teaching for Tolerance) is celebrating Women’s history by focusing of African American women. Kimberly Crenshaw and the phrase she coined intersectionality, deals with the idea that people experience life differently depending on their multiple identities. In this way African American women may experience the world differently from their white counter parts. Learning for Justice for justice provides a number of resources to study African American women’s history that can be used in classrooms. On this topic their website states:
“Historian Carter G. Woodson established the first Negro History Week in 1926—a celebration that later became Black History Month. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, a group founded by Woodson, selects a new theme for Black History Month each year. This year’s theme is “Black Women in American Culture and History.” Teaching Tolerance offers several activities about African-American women designed for K-12 students. Many high school and middle school students have heard about Rosa Parks. But many strong, courageous women came before her in the civil rights movement. They included important figures like Frances Watkins Harper and Ida B. Wells. For older students, we also offer a discussion guide for Sexism in the Civil Rights Movement. Meanwhile, elementary students can read about Susie King Taylor’s contributions during the Civil War or participate in a trading card activity that honors true greatness. These will just get you started discussing black women in American culture and history. That discussion can—and should—take you through the year.”
Please click this link to check out the Learning for Justice site and other resources for classroom use.
I love that this article highlights black women. The website Learning for Justice is celebrating Black Women. The article starts off with talking about Kimberly Crenshaw and how she wrote about intersectionality. Intersectionality is multiple identities being intermingled. For example, a woman can be a part of different identity groups. On the website, the history of Black History Month is mentioned and the theme was highlighting figures that are not spoke about in school like Ida B. Wells and Frances Watkins Harper. Another thing that was mentioned for high schoolers was sexism in the Civil Rights Movement and how many women are not mentioned. This is the start of learning more about black women and their part in American history.
I really enjoy the article and the information given to the audience. Personally, I feel that we, as a society, should start including Black women into history. While we do talk about Rosa Parks, there are multiple important figures such as Ida B Wells. It was surprising to see Ida B Wells mentioned, as I’ve only recognized her existence only recently before this article. By giving us more strong Black women to acknowledge, it makes everyone educated and gives these people the proper spotlight they deserve. As a future teacher, I would love to include these females and bring recognition to them into my student’s lives. It seems that Black women are truly underrepresented when it comes to Black History Month.
I think this article discusses an important topic that should be more prevalent in schools worldwide. Younger children should also learn the history of African American women. More of these courageous women should be known to students and talked about in much more detail. I’m glad these types of topics are starting to become more common so more knowledge of these important African American women from our past come to light. Maybe learning this at such a young age will help students in the future become more open-minded people.
I think that this article would be so useful to incorporate into the classroom. Going through my schooling career, I seldom heard any information about woman’s history, let alone black woman’s history. This article brings up so many impactful points that could be put into a lesson and discussed. The resource that was provided when teaching it in the classroom was also super useful. I am in a school where there is high population of African American students, this lesson would be so impactful to them and to help represent them in the content of the classroom. Really a great read!
I really liked this article! I think it is very important that this article emphasizes the importance of incorporating women of color when discussing influential women. It is also very important that elementary school children are learning about diverse influential women in history, it will help them be very educated and more well rounded as individuals!
This was an awesome article to read. I think incorporating Black Women into content is extremely important. Teaching students about different parts of history and including a variety of different historical figures will help students be well rounded people. From a soon to be teacher POV, I liked the different resources and how easy they are to adjust and include into standards.
The article addresses an issue that is prevalent, which is that Black women are underrepresented when discussing our history even if they had significant impact. I remember only learning about Rosa Parks in school even though there are many other civil rights activists who were women. I only learned of the other women who were civil rights activists when I watched documentaries or read about it in an article. The resources provided can help the issue that Black women are underrepresented when discussing our history since teachers can discuss other civil rights activists who may not be typically discussed.
I read the article on celebrating black women and women’s history month. As I can recall, I do not remember of every hearing about women’s history month until later in m lifetime. I think incorporating this is younger grades is significant. I liked how the article is focusing on black women specifically and how it states that this idea focuses on how people experience life differently depending on multiple identities. This topic can be hard to teach young students but games like the one listed in the article is a good way to introduce this to students and help them learn about the topic. The card activity is engaging and is a more fun way to get students learning about topics like this.
I loved this article as a woman. I especially like Browder v. Gayle: The Women Before Rosa Parks. I enjoyed learning more about the influential women who came before Rosa Parks and impacted the Civil Rights movement. I feel like sometimes women’s history month is overlooked, and I am glad to see the representation for women, most notable women of color.