Thank you to all who joined us for our most recent webinar, The Power of Connection, Community & Civics in Children’s Books featuring authors Katheryn Russell-Brown (She Was the First!: The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm), Aixa Pérez-Prado (Mercedes Sosa: Voice of the People), and Michael Genhart (Edie For Equality: Edie Windsor Stands Up for Love).
If you missed it live (or just want to watch it again), you can access the webinar below, or here on YouTube. Keep reading for an links to resources and booklists shared during the webinar, as well as an excerpt and a link to the complete transcript. Feel free to reach out for more information and/or a Professional Development certificate.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation. Click here for the full transcript.
Katie Potter:
What advice do you have about teaching these historical figures in the classroom? We’ve talked a lot about their accomplishments and what they were known for, but now we’re going to dive in really to some strategies about about teaching. So, you know, again, as I mentioned, what advice do you have for educators about teaching these historical movements and figures? And how can we engage educators and families in these critical conversations? So, Michael, I’d love to start with you. More specifically, in terms of Edie, how can you get administrators, colleagues, and families on board when you’re teaching about Edie and using Edie for Equality in the classroom?
Michael Genhart:
Okay, I’ll try to tackle those those questions the best I can. I want to start, though, with a shout out to educators, especially during these trying times. As a father of an elementary and middle school teacher, I hear from my daughter all the time how tough it’s it is. And the same for parents. They’re on the front line. Many, many, many fighting battles to not let others dictate what their child can read. So, I want to just put that out up front. I think we’re all in this together, hopefully.
But I have to say, I I don’t really know what it’s actually like to be in the classroom, especially in in various states in the in the country. So, I’m going to offer a few thoughts, but it’s with complete humbleness that I, that I share these ideas. Starting with it, does feel like this is the time when we we need to get both louder and quieter at the same time. And I’ll I’ll explain what I mean by that.
The louder part to me is, if we can keep these books in classroom libraries, in school libraries as resources for teachers and librarians and students and parents, please let’s do what we can to to make that happen because we know that succumbing to censorship is is like agreeing with it, and that no resistance really matters. We also know that censorship and ant-DEI stuff and book banning is is a real thing, of course, and that teachers are being mandated, you know, what they can say and can’t say. And, in some cases, teachers can’t even talk about their own family. Right? We also know that words like “diversity” and “equity” and “inclusion” we cannot use in so many classrooms now. But, as I understand it, the language is changing. The educators are trying to change the language, so that these important conversations can continue, and that they’re not shut down. So, words like “belonging” and “building community” and “making room for for everyone,” these make sense to me, and I hope they they stick. But I also worry that even changing the language might be problematic in the future, especially with, you know, government agencies now being told, “Hey, if you learn of a colleague or a peer still doing the DEI stuff, that’s a that’s reportable.” Right? So, are we entering, entering a culture that involves, you know, reporting on your your colleagues and peers? So obviously, that’s problematic. I think continuing to teach history is important and and historical figures. But I think it’s the values that they embody that are maybe a lens through which the teaching can happen. By values I mean celebrating differences. And everyone wants, you know, equal equal protection and the same opportunities as as everyone else.
So here comes the quieter part. I just wonder how many of these conversations that have been taking place in the classroom will need to be more and more at home with parents and and really engaging parents and and supporting them. Many families, of course, have these conversations already, but in those that don’t, right? The importance of talking about people like Mercedes and Shirley and Edie, and all that they stand for may have to happen around the kitchen table more and more where there aren’t those same restrictions. Okay.
And so, your question about Edie in the classroom in particular. I think I’m talking about Edie is really more about talking about what she did and how she did it. That is, she was not a lesbian woman who was who is pushing a queer agenda. Right? She was just fighting for fairness, right? What we all want. And so, I think, centering that. Also, I think, centering the child. Remember, we’re talking about kids here, and that our goal really is to help help develop good citizens, solid citizens and good human beings. And so, we do that by hopefully teaching good good values, including things like respect. That’s all she wanted. Right? Is to be be respected.
Katie Potter:
Thank you so much, Michael. So next, Katheryn, you know, in you know, following up on on some of the things that Michael said, you know, what resources and suggestions do you have to families about teaching about Shirley? How can we demonstrate to educators that Shirley is a critical historical figure to feature in our curriculum?
Katheryn Russell-Brown:
Yeah, so to that last question, I think this is tied to the mentorship role that she’s played. So she’s not, you know, saying earlier, just a historical figure, or like my kids like to say, you know, just someone born in the 1900s like you, Mom. But there is a clear connection. And so, I think her work, her efforts, her strategies, maintain, or rather, are still relevant, excuse me, today. So, I think just just in terms of you know her approach, that’s what I would say to that.
As far as not just being relevant, but just kind of how to get her story out there and stories like hers out there at a time when books that address race issues are being targeted, or books that talk about unpleasant but true histories are being targeted. And so, one of the things I thought about while Michael was talking was certainly, you know, kind of what the shift is, and has been in terms of being in the classroom versus being at home. But I think in terms of being able to expose more students to, you know, a broader group of stories, I think one way to do that might be to get stories from students presented in the classroom. And then that’s a way that they could be talked about. And you know, if students were, for instance, given an opportunity to interview a neighbor or to interview, you know a friend of the family, and some of these stories come up, then teachers can talk about them in the context of what students have shared. So, I think this is going to require a level of creativity that is, you know, may not have been asked before, but we can’t stop telling the stories. We can’t stop sharing them with children because it’s the truth. So, these stories represent real people, real real fights, real you know, real political decisions. And so yeah. So I mean, those are that’s just just one thought I had is, you know, kind of turning things around and having children getting kind of, you know, getting the stories bringing them to the classroom where they can then be talked about because the teacher didn’t initiate, or in any way to attempt to, you know, to to get to indoctrinate young people.
Katie Potter:
Hmm, thank you. Thank you so much, Katheryn. So, Aixa. Lastly, how can you know Mercedes model, teaching with Mercedes in the classroom, how can that model these critical conversations? And I’d love to, you know, for you all to share for you, Aixa, to share about your work with peace linguistics, and how that’s influenced your work, and and if you could let everybody know about that as well. And dealing with the pushback and criticism about children’s books.
Aixa Pérez-Prado:
Yeah. So, building on what Katheryn was talking about, I think the focus—and I’m going to answer this as a university professor, which is my other other life besides children’s books, and also as an artist. Okay? I think that the focus should be on sort of inquiry over ideology. So, we’re really approaching these people their histories and their stories as a problem that we want to explore and discover with curiosity. Like asking the question, why did this happen? What if they’d done something else? What if their actions had been different? Why did the author make the choices to write about the person in this way? And why does the art look like that, as well? There’s as an illustrator most illustrators hide things all over their books, little Easter eggs. I have a bunch of hidden things in Mercedes book that I encourage children to question. Like, why is there a bird on every page, or is there a bird on every page? What does that represent? So, really tapping into like using these books as a vehicle to teach creative and critical thinking and inquiry-based pedagogy is, I think, where to go with this because it shifts the focus from we’re teaching history that we don’t really, not everyone wants us to teach is to we’re teaching kids to think and teaching kids to be curious and teaching them to wonder and teaching them to listen with understanding and empathy and thinking flexibly and all of these habits of mind, I’m also a habits of mind trainer. So, I really focus on in my own teaching to inspire curiosity, right? And just as a musician will not play with one note or an artist use only one color or a show writer have only one character, we need a variety of colors, notes, tones, hues, and personalities in the classroom to bring up all kinds of questions and to really raise children’s curiosity about the world.
And I think all of these women that we’ve heard about are certainly figures that ask us to ask questions of them and to be curious about how they made the choices they made in their lives. And every child is the main character of their own story, right? So, as Katheryn was talking about the storytelling or telling their own stories. I think that these books are also springboards for telling your own story and inquiring about the own history of your family and the challenges that have come up as maybe as immigrants, or as for other reasons in your family. And how this could be a story. And how could you tell the story? Would you tell it in a book? Would you tell it in a painting? Would you tell it in music? How would you tell your own story? I think that’s really the way we have to tackle this new our, I don’t know how new it is, but this world we’re living in right now where books are being challenged for what they contain. Focusing it to books being used as vehicles of critical thinking, of discovery, and of inspiring curiosity and creativity in classrooms.
