The Blog

Harmful Books vs. Harm-Exposing Books abar books education ela joy literacy reading May 17, 2023

I guess that the nuance in knowing the difference between a book that exposes harm and one that is harmful isn't as clear for everyone as it may be for me. Let me change that. 

There are books that cause harm. Harm, in this case, refers to offense or insult. These are books that lead the...

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More than anyone, white kids need explicit anti racist instruction. #antiracistedu abar anti-racist schools antiracist antiracistedu classroom curriculum racism May 12, 2023

Let me preface this entire blog post by saying that all white kids are not evil or bad. They are not our enemies. This isn't an 'all white people' blog post. This is about what is missing from education and how it's disproportionately affecting white children. 

Recently, we posted on...

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4 Questions to Guide Your Back-to-School Planning #antiracistedu abar anti-racist schools classroom curriculum reflection Aug 12, 2022

When we're planning for the new school year, we're often thinking about classroom set up, decorations, start-of-the-year activities/events, and even what our first book or reading might be to welcome students. While those aspects are important, they're not the crux of teaching. You can have all...

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Studying Lula in To Kill a Mockingbird #antiracistedu #carbte #disrupttexts abar books classroom curriculum education ela literacy Jul 15, 2022

I know people really love this book and they struggle to let it go. One of the biggest hesitations expressed is that it's a great fodder for conversations about race(ism). However, my response to that is: it's written by a White woman and it is therefore limited in its scope. There will be...

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4 Tips for School Leaders Starting DEI Work #antiracistedu abar anti-racist schools diversity education educational equity equity May 31, 2022

Are you a school leader who wants to start or continue (in the early stages of) inclusivity work at your school? Are you unsure of how to start by building a strong foundation? 

Not doing this work at your school sets you up for failure. What will you say if/when one of your teachers lands...

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Talking, Laughing, Playing, & Naming in the Classroom #antiracistedu abar anti-racist schools curriculum resources social justice teachers Jan 05, 2022

Taking anti bias and antiracist (ABAR) ideas into practice is something like reinventing the wheel. Most of us didn't experience that in our own k-12 educational journeys, so we need to reimagine and reinvent teaching and learning in order to dream what ABAR teaching and learning might look...

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Whitening Our Students #antiracistedu #carbte #disrupttexts abar blackness csp racism reflection Feb 22, 2020

There exists a movement among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color all around the world (basically wherever there was colonization) to Whiten our skin. The lure of the proximity to Whiteness as a privilege and as a means for survival is both real and not new. For those of us that can’t...

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Unit: Language & Liberation #carbte #disrupttexts abar antiracist antiracistedu bipoc classroom csp curriculum education ela indigenous resources social justice Aug 05, 2018

I work toward welcoming marginalized voices into my classroom while moving my students toward a stance grounded in love and freedom. As a student, I never encountered a curriculum that did that. When I first became an educator, I struggled to find examples of curricula or lessons that effectively...

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Unit: TwitterLove&Magic #antiracistedu abar classroom csp curriculum education ela resources Apr 18, 2018

The Intersection of Rhetorics and Justice: An IB unit of study

When teaching about historically marginalized and oppressed communities, that’s usually what students understand: we are in pain, in sorrow, and are oppressed. While there is accuracy to that due to systemic oppression, we often...

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