About the Project
The inquiries and ideas presented in this website are the results of a multi-year teacher action research project led by Mills College professors Dr. Wanda Watson (School of Education) and Dr. Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer (Ethnic Studies). The purpose of this project is to explore the nature of ethnic studies curriculum and pedagogy at the elementary school level and to understand how elementary school teachers design, teach, and assess ethnic studies curriculum and learning opportunities in developmentally appropriate ways. Throughout the project, teacher researchers have been engaging in an iterative process of devising their own research questions related to this topic, maintaining journals and blogs, sharing artifacts from their classrooms, and other forms of data collection to document their practices and student learning.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Students, families, and educators of color face multiple forms of oppression that are codified and systematized into the contemporary educational system and beyond. White supremacy, patriarchy, economic dispossession, ableism, xenophobia, and settler colonialism result in the erasure, invisibility, and silencing of marginalized voices in our classrooms and curriculum. This project seeks to disrupt those trends and redefine the norm in urban classrooms by rejecting the common assumption that young children don’t witness/experience/think about difference and oppression or are otherwise "unready" to think critically about such content.
PARTICIPANTS ARE ASKED TO:
Ultimately, our hope is that examples from this project can inspire TK-6 ethnic studies curriculum and pedagogy across the nation.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Students, families, and educators of color face multiple forms of oppression that are codified and systematized into the contemporary educational system and beyond. White supremacy, patriarchy, economic dispossession, ableism, xenophobia, and settler colonialism result in the erasure, invisibility, and silencing of marginalized voices in our classrooms and curriculum. This project seeks to disrupt those trends and redefine the norm in urban classrooms by rejecting the common assumption that young children don’t witness/experience/think about difference and oppression or are otherwise "unready" to think critically about such content.
PARTICIPANTS ARE ASKED TO:
- Create and recreate questions driving one’s own practice as it relates to elementary ethnic studies.
- Deepen our collective knowledge and practice of developmentally appropriate ethnic studies at the elementary school level (TK-6).
- Help create a powerful, creative, committed community of educators who support each others learning.
- Maintain a stance of curiosity throughout the inquiry process, free of prescriptions, recognizing its complex cyclical messy nature
- Bring in documentation on students learning, their interests, their needs, their work, and teacher observations and reflections.
- Share resources, content, theories, tools, insights and strategies that will support each others inquiry.
Ultimately, our hope is that examples from this project can inspire TK-6 ethnic studies curriculum and pedagogy across the nation.