The Learning that Cannot Wait

For my family, this is the final week of school. Wherever you are, some version of school has likely already or will soon be coming to a close for summer break. We’ve heard about summer slide and there has been amplified worry over the COVID slide, given the loss of learning that has already happened from disrupted schooling this spring.

I had already been gathering thoughts about ways to stay engaged and learning this summer, while still feeling the fun and freedom of summer. I had been returning to my ideas around sparking curiosity with media and engaging in project based learning. But suddenly it is abundantly clear that there is learning that cannot wait around social justice and racial inequities.

Media is helpful for creating meaningful and engaging learning opportunities. It often has fun and playful contexts that are motivating and can facilitate and accelerate skill building. It can build from prior experiences or create a foundation from which to build skills in new contexts.

With all of that in mind, below are some media resources for getting started. I hope you will spend some time being thoughtful about the books, movies, games, and experiences you select to specifically engage your children and family for maximum impact. You may have seen the saying going around about resistance not being a one lane highway. Think about what lane you and your family are currently in (having conversations, understanding the messaging in language, making signs, joining protests…), as this is the best way to ensure you will actually engage your energy in a sustainable way. My hope for my own family is that books will shine a light on new perspectives, paint new characters from different backgrounds, share new lessons and draw from rich histories that are different from our own. From there, we can question, listen, understand, and seek out more. We can be spurred to action and broken from our silence. And just like with reading and math, we must use it or lose it to avoid that backward slide towards complacency.

• NPR’s Talking Race with Young Children: You might listen to this episode with your children, as it helps start the conversation about skin color and other physical differences rather than avoiding it. Beverly Daniel Tatum and Jeanette Betancourt (who were also on the Sesame Street/CNN Town Hall) are featured speakers, and I really appreciate their clear, child-friendly language and messages.
• Social Justice Books, referenced on the Sesame Street Town Hall by Beverly Daniel Tatum, has book lists by age group and around specific areas of social justice, and is also a great place to start conversations and educate yourself around race, racism, anti-racism, and social justice.
• There are so many other book lists, like these by Common Sense Media for younger kids, The Brown Bookshelf, The New York Times, Black Books Matter, and even Little Passports, so you should be able to find some books that work for you. And one thing I appreciated in these lists is that, while some of the books are on the topic of social justice, many of them are fictional or non-fictional accounts about the experience of Black children and families, or even fantasy stories by Black authors, like this Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky that I ordered for my Percy Jackson fan.
• While Daniel Tiger definitely targets our youngest viewers, this episode on Not Hurting Your Friends, with this song in it, just feels so applicable to everything right now: “Stop, stop, stop. It’s okay to feel angry. It’s not, not, not okay to hurt someone.”
  
• This PBS blog post gives ideas on sparking conversations about Black history through art and stories.