Essential Questions

• How can new teachers use the Teaching Tolerance Anti-Bias Social Justice Framework to inform their teaching across disciplines?
• How can I support them in this process?

Reflective Practice

When I initially signed up to participate in the Institute for Diversity and Social Justice and be part of LREI’s Anti-Bias Task Force, I had done so as a Kindergarten teacher. I have felt passionately about DEI work since grade school and have embedded it throughout my 13 year teaching career. I was looking forward to digging deeper into my practice and developing a new unit with a DEI focus or perhaps redesigning an old one through an anti-bias lens.

And then my role changed. I became Assistant Principal of the Lower School, no longer responsible for the curriculum of one classroom full of children. What was I going to do? How would I apply the work I had done at IDSJ in my new role? I was happy, as I quickly realized, I actually had the potential to affect more change than I had imagined – I was responsible for the Associate Teacher program. This was an opportunity to share what I had learned and support new, growing teachers to design, create, teach, and reflect through an anti-bias lens.

So off I went! I designed a workshop that I led during one of our bi-weekly Associate Teacher Meetings. It had 3 parts – understand the format of a solid lesson; explore the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards; build a lesson that targets (at least) one of the standards within the four domains – Identity, Diversity, Justice, Action. I shared with them several templates for lesson plans, the K-2 and 3-5 Grade Level Outcomes (which were essentially the anchor standards and domains translated into kid friendly language), and the Teaching Tolerance website’s “Classroom Resources” which included sample lessons. We discussed how to incorporate Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences into lessons, the similarities between the Teaching Tolerance Anti-Bias Framework – Social Justice Standards and the Anti-bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves goals by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards. And then everyone got to work designing their own lesson.

• Some of the lessons associate teachers created:
• Storytelling (Writing) lesson: Who is your favorite changemaker? (Fours)
• Social Studies: How are our names the same? How are they different? (Kindergarten)
• Writing lesson: What is an aspect of your identity that is important to you? (First)
• Math lesson: What makes a triangle unique? What makes people unique? (Third Grade)
• Social Studies lesson: What can we learn about the Lenape Native Americans by studying their clothing? (Third)
• Reading lesson: What can oral histories of immigrants teach us? (Fourth)

I am invigorated by the thoughtful ways in which our associate teachers planned, executed, and reflected on their lessons, and their drive to infuse anti-bias teaching into their current practices. I look forward to the continued work I will do with them this year, as well as the ways in which I can expand this work for future associate cohorts.

I am grateful for The Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards. This is a tool I can provide teachers with that will allow them to promote social justice, challenge bias, and engage students in meaningful work about identity, diversity, justice, and action. A tool that will continue giving.