Using the PYP’s 7 Key Concepts to Talk about Race, Injustice and Change

NOTE: PYP Coordinator Melissa Powers and I collaboratively authored this post. In addition to being a PYP Coordinator in Arizona, United States, Melissa is a part of the IB Educator Network (IBEN), leading PYP workshops and participating in site visits. She and I first went through our initial IBEN training together. I am grateful for her partnership, her thoughtful perspective and her voice.

The International Baccalaureate’s (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) posits that “The Learning Community” is inclusive of everyone involved in the life of the school. Together, this community’s goal is to, “live peacefully together, prioritize people and their relationships, and assume shared responsibility for learning, health and well-being,” (A Community of Learners from PYP: From Principles into Practice > The Learning Community).

With the recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the hands of police officers, there is a sense of urgency from principled and caring elementary-school teachers to speak with their learning communities — their students — about issues of safety, race, justice, change and action.

As we engage with our immediate learning community, it is important to have a clear objective and structure. Successful teachers use thinking routines and discussion protocols so that conversations that center around seemingly controversial topics do not stray off course. As PYP teachers, we are empowered to take risks and should not be afraid to facilitate these discussions in our classrooms. 

Those who work in PYP schools can leverage the components of the PYP’s international framework to help structure spaces and opportunities for meaningful processing and reflective conversation. The PYP’s key concepts are seven powerful, broad and abstract organizing ideas that can frame conversations and drive learning. When PYP teachers identify topics and investigate them through the key concepts, students learn to be inquirers and think critically about big ideas. It is essential to explicitly teach critical thinking skills so that students learn how to think for themselves and not blindly emote. 

When teachers view the key concepts as a set of open-ended questions, they can more easily direct purposeful and manageable conversations (Concepts from PYP: From Principles into Practice > Learning and Teaching). Below, we have brainstormed key concept questions with the intention of provoking PYP teachers to think about how they will provide safe spaces and opportunities for their students to critically engage in meaningful conversations that lead to authentic and mindful action.

We sorted the questions by primary and intermediate, as the conversations that will take place in these two different settings will inevitably require different approaches, however we encourage teachers to use the questions that best fit the needs of their contexts; you know your students the best!

Think of the questions below as a start. We call to you, dear reader, to contribute questions that you'd want to ask your students. As you put forth ideas, we’ll update the collection below.

Form

• Primary
• What is racism?
• What is antiracism?
• What is a protest?
• Intermediate
• What is racial injustice?
• What is systemic racism?
• What does it mean to be an antiracist?
• What is a protest?
• What is implicit bias?
• What is prejudice?
• What is privilege?

Function

• Primary
• If someone does something wrong, how can they make it right?
• Intermediate
• How important is the study of racial injustice?

Causation

• Primary
• Why do people protest?
• Intermediate
• What effect do dehumanizing and devaluing black and brown people have?

Change

• Primary
• How can something unfair change into something fair?
• Intermediate
• What can young people do to promote change?
• How can you challenge any implicit biases you might have to make a change in your own beliefs and actions?

Connection

• Primary
• How are different people groups connected to each other?
• What sets us apart and makes us unique?
• Intermediate
• How is the US’s history of slavery and Jim Crow connected to current events?
• How are the seemingly separate incidents of violence against black and brown people connected?
• Are racism and prejudice the same thing? How are they different?

Perspective

• Primary
• What are the ways we can appreciate and celebrate others who don’t look like you / are different from you?
• Intermediate
• Why do we say “Black Lives Matter” and not “All Lives Matter”?
• What biases do you have about racial groups different from yours?

Responsibility

• Primary
• How can you show other people you care?
• How can you stand up for other people when wrong is being done to them?
• Intermediate
• What action can you take to fight racial injustice? Use the PYP’s 5 types of action to help frame your thinking: social justice, advocacy, social entrepreneurship, participation, lifestyle choices.
• How can you be a responsible inquirer and critical thinker? Why is it important?
• How can you show other people you care?
• How will you learn about racial groups that are different from yours?
• How can people examine their own privilege and use it to help?

For more information about facilitating challenging or difficult conversations, check out this resource from Common Sense Education: A best-of-the-best collection of resources for social justice- and equity-focused educators.

Think-Puzzle-Explore

In fifth grade in Minnesota, students need to meet 31 social studies benchmarks. Among those benchmarks are seven history benchmarks that fall within the era of "Revolution and a New Nation: 1754-1800":

• Identify major conflicts between the colonies and England following the Seven Years War; explain how these conflicts led to the American Revolution.
• Describe the development of self-governance in the British colonies and explain the influence of this tradition on the American Revolution.
• Identify the major events of the American Revolution culminating in the creation of a new and independent nation. 
• Compare and contrast the impact of the American Revolution on different groups within the 13 colonies that made up the new United States.
• Describe the purposes of the founding documents and explain the basic principles of democracy that were set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
• Describe the successes and failures of the national government under the Articles of Confederation and why it was ultimately discarded and replaced with the Constitution.
• Describe the major issues that were debated at the Constitutional Convention.

With so many knowledge-based standards, the fifth grade teachers collaboratively decided to focus on the concepts, or big ideas, of causation, change, perspective, and organization so that the students could construct an understanding of the statement that voicing perspectives stimulates change.

In order to examine different perspectives and change during the era of the Revolution and the New Nation, fifth grade teachers planned to have their students inquire into the following events. The whole class would study the French and Indian War and then small groups of students would inquire into the remaining events.

• Imposition of taxes
• Start of the American Revolutionary War
• Declaration of Independence
• Changing sides

Teachers were noticing though, that their students were having a hard time inquiring into these topics, as they had such little background knowledge on this time in our nation's history. So, to help guide their inquiry, the students in one fifth grade classroom used the Visible Thinking Routine: Think-Puzzle-Explore.

Think-Puzzle-Explore is a Visible Thinking Routine from the book Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Morrison, and Church. It is a routine for introducing and exploring ideas. According to the authors, students are able to activate prior knowledge, wonder, and plan their research with this routine. This routine is good to use at the beginning of a unit to direct personal or group inquiry and uncover current understandings as well as misconceptions (p. 51).

Together with the teacher, the students identified what they thought they knew about each event. (It is important to note here that the students understood that what they thought they knew might be wrong; but their thinking was still acknowledged and recorded.) Then, students thought about what they wanted to know, or what puzzled them. Finally, as a class, the students came up with resources they could explore, to help answer their questions.

As students investigate the different perspectives voiced and changes stimulated during this point in American History, they are able to identify misconceptions they had previously believed to be true. Furthermore, as they gain knowledge on the important people (who), events (what), dates (when), places (where), and causes (why), they are able to link their new knowledge with the questions they had posed before.

After reading about how one fifth grade class used the Visible Thinking Routine Think-Puzzle-Explore to activate prior knowledge, wonder, and plan, how can you or have you use this Visible Thinking Routine with your students?