Across Seattle on Wednesday, from high school to kindergarten, students and educators engaged in what it means to affirm that black lives matter.
"We started our discussion with where the kids are at," said
Len Hill, 4th/5th grade teacher at Hawthorne Elementary. "Even the youngest kids have thoughts and experiences about fairness."
Thousands of educators, and many, many principals, wore Black Lives Matter tee shirts and stickers. As Broadview Thompson parents and staff assembled with a banner in front of the school,
librarian Marian Laughlin watched one young black student. "As she walked by, a smile broke out on her face. Then she walked back by again, with a bounce in her step. The third time past she was dancing!"
Racial equity teams in many schools, some of the official variety, others not, developed lessons that were used school-wide at schools as diverse as Cleveland, Nathan Hale, Washington, Loyal Heights, Wedgewood and dozens more.
"We literally had students cheering when they realized what we were going to be talking about," said
Laura Lehni, LA teacher at Washington Middle School.
As
DeShawn Jackson, special ed teacher at Muir Elementary, reminded us when he told the Seattle Times: "when the shirts come off, the real work begins."
SEA, through our new Institute for Equity, will be posting lessons and curriculum used for teaching about equity on our website so educators around the district and even the country can have access to them and help build on this critical work.