Exploring Humanity, Protest & Justice: 4 ideas for teaching BIG ideas to little kids

For a long time, but especially ever since George Floyd was tragically killed earlier this year while in the custody of four uniformed Minneapolis police officers, I've been reading, thinking, reflecting on and discussing how best to help elementary-aged students explore the concepts of humanity, protest and justice. Surely, these young students have heard the news, their parents and older kids in their lives talking about these issues, so avoiding the topic all-together would not a responsible approach.

Here are four big ideas that I will continue to consider as I plan the most developmentally appropriate ways to help my class of 9- and 10-year-olds navigate these important, yet sensitive ideas.

1. Dialectical Thinking

Dialectical Thinking is being able to look at an issue from multiple perspectives and to arrive at the most "reasonable reconciliation of seemingly contradictory information". It is our jobs as educators to help students understand the importance of looking at an issue from several possible angles; to weigh the many sides of very complex events and issues so that they might then come to a rational conclusion on their own. Using Project Zero's Thinking Routines such as Circle of Viewpoints or Step Inside (or the version that includes Stepping Out and Stepping Back) are essential tools for any classroom where dialectical thinking is a goal.

Disclaimer: this does not mean that all viewpoints should be explored and considered. Especially in our current public discourse, there are individuals who share views that are not based in fact, reason and/or civility. These perspectives do not get a place at our table. 

2. No Tragedies Before Fourth Grade

In his book Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart of Nature Education, David Sobel suggests that "big, complex problems beyond the geographical and conceptual scope of young children" should not be considered, in most cases, well beyond fourth grade. He offers teachers the question: "When do children have the emotional and cognitive readiness for dealing with overwhelmingly sad and conceptually complex issues?" This is not to say that concepts of humanity, protest and justice should not be explored with children, even those much younger than fourth grade. But it is to say that horrific details of specific tragic events should be avoided, as many children do not developmentally have the capacity to take on such subject matter. We must remember that far too many young children in our classrooms are living through adverse situations and experience trauma first-hand on a daily basis. This unfortunate reality only strengthens our commitment to sheltering our students from further trauma, not exposing them to more of it. 

3. There Are No Monoliths

Ibram X. Kendi, who wrote How To Be An Antiracist, reminds us to attribute racist behavior - nay all behavior - to the individual. We must avoid the temptation to generalize the actions of individuals to an entire group. Individuals do not, and should not, represent an entire race. Humans are biologically wired to look for patterns in order to survive and we instinctually form biases, unconscious and conscious, to better make sense of the world. But our logical brains must overcome this temptation because ascribing particular thoughts, motivations and perspectives of individuals to a large group of people is not fair and it does not represent truth.

4. Involve Families

Public school teachers are charged with helping shape the next generation of an informed citizenry. We are tasked with developing young people into active citizens who are ready and able to participate in their communities and have the skills of critical thinking to weigh all evidence before they do. We mustn't back away from our charge of exploring complex issues and ideas with students so that they are prepared to live in our increasingly changing and complex world. However, we are not our students' only teachers. Students' families must be informed of what we're doing in the classroom and invited to be involved, so they can help their child process and reflect the big ideas that we're exploring in the classroom. Further, when we bring families into the conversation, we broaden the perspectives to which students are exposed and thus they're better able to develop their dialectical thinking (see #1).

Ron's Big Mission

One way that our teaching team decided to help our fourth grade students explore the timeless, abstract, universal and transferable ideas of humanity, protest and justice was to do a deep dive into the book Ron's Big Mission by Rose Blue & Corinne Naden, illustrated by Don Tate (listen to the book here).

Our team chose this book from a collection of approved books our district had given us to use during our integrated unit of study at the beginning of the year. The book details an episode (based on an event in the childhood of astronaut Ron McNair) where a young black boy in South Carolina is denied a library card. After peacefully, but forcefully, demanding the right to check out books, he is eventually given that right. During his on-the-counter stand-in, several people are called to help intervene, including police officers.

Before reading the book with our students, our team had a thoughtful conversation where we discussed the importance of providing students a safe place to explore ideas presented in the book, but also not steering the conversation in any particular direction. We agreed Blue and Naden's book would help our fourth graders explore the concepts of humanity, protest and justice in a developmentally appropriate way.

In addition to exploring the aforementioned concepts, our goal was also to help our students as readers develop their abilities to deeply think about texts. Our instruction was carefully designed to give students the opportunities to meet these two Minnesota reading benchmarks:

• 4.1.1.1. Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
• 4.1.2.2.Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.

Gist

To kick off our study, we had the students listen to the book and then write out what the book was "mostly about" or the book's gist. We had the students reflect on what the book was mostly about in ~20 words so that we could check for their understanding of the big idea of the book. We had the students use this character counter website to help them keep their gists to around 20 words.

Story Structure

Next, we had the students map out the story's structure, which gave them the opportunity to "see" the action and gave us the chance to see the students' thinking. We had them use a story structure map and the framework "Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then".

Summary

Next, we had the students use their story structure maps completed previously to write a summary of the book Ron's Big Mission. We gave them success criteria to help them know if they had a successful summary. 

Ron's Big Mission: Ron wakes up. He gets offered breakfast. He said, "no." He went outside. He starts to walk. He gets offered a donut. He said, "no." He walks. He gets offered to play basketball. He said, "no." He goes to the library. He gets his books. He tells the librarian, "I'd like to check out." The librarian doesn't answer. He steps on the table. "I'd like to check out." She calls the police. She calls his mom. She said, "Get off the table." He doesn't get off. The librarian gets him a card to check out with.

Theme

Next, we had students infer the theme of the book; the big idea that the author wants the reader to understand. First, the students brainstormed big ideas they thought the author was trying to communicate. Then, they picked one of those ideas and provided evidence from the text that would support their selection. Although our chosen text took place in the past, exploring the theme helped the kids understand how big ideas presented in the book can apply authentically to our lives, regardless of time, place or circumstance.

Application

Finally, we asked students to reflect on the character traits Ron showed and think about how they too could demonstrate those same traits. 

By using the text Ron's Big Mission, we were able to help our 4th graders begin to explore the concepts of humanity, protest and justice. Continued exploration of these and related concepts will continue with books from our district-approved E.B. Lewis [Illustrator] unit of study like The Other Side and Across the Alley. Clearly, simply reading books, however thoughtfully, will not give students enough of a chance to understand these abstract and complex concepts. Discussion and out-loud thinking will have to continue to take place throughout the academic year. Why? Because our students deserve it. Ignoring that our students hear about tragic events isn't an option. We must insist on helping them, with their families, make sense of our sometimes chaotic world in developmentally appropriate ways.

Successful Student / Successful Teacher

At the beginning of the year, it is important to honestly discuss with students what traits and behaviors they'll need to succeed during the academic year. During this process, it is essential that educators and students speak honestly, so that everyone knows from the get-go what they'll be expected to do in order to reach the formidable goals that are set during the creation of their hopes and dreams.

One way to frame this discussion is by leading students through the Successful Student / Successful Teacher activity. Teachers could also lead parents through a similar Successful Parent activity during open house or early-in-the-year curriculum night.

One fifth grade teacher lead his students through the Successful Student activity to identify specific traits and behaviors they all would have to show in order to have success in the classroom.

First, the teacher asked the students to think independently of what traits, characteristics and behaviors a successful student must have. Students were instructed to write down ideas so they would be ready for the next step of the process: small group conversation.

In small groups, the individual students shared their ideas. Finally, the groups merged together and as a whole class, the students and teacher filled out their Successful Student on the whiteboard.

As students contributed their ideas, the teacher asked the students to tell him where they thought the characteristic or behavior would be located on the person. The teacher found the students highly engaged and that they really enjoyed the activity.

After, the students completed the same procedure for the Successful Teacher.

The teacher commented how telling it is that the students identified successful teachers as professionals who know how to teach students, who believe in himself/herself, and who are patient with students. Certainly worthy goals of any teacher!

After reading about how one fifth grade teacher led his students through the Successful Student / Successful Teacher activity to identify traits, characteristics, and behaviors one needs in a classroom to be successful during the academic year, how could you use this activity with your students?

Step Inside

At a recent book club where we were discussing Paul Tough's book, How Children Succeed: Grit, curiosity, and the hidden power of character, someone pointed out that "Chapter 4 says these character traits are hard to teach as students get older and lack of motivation affects GPA for many students." He then followed up with the question, "Should character education start in elementary school and how could that happen and why is it important?"

After working in a Primary Years Program of the International Baccalaureate for the last three years, I feel that our school does a wonderful job with character education, since much importance is placed on students' development of the attributes of the IB Learner Profile and the PYP attitudes. To answer the question then, from the perspective of the book's author, I boiled character teaching and learning down to these three steps:

1. Teach character.
2. Expose kids to "child-sized adversity" and (sometimes) let them fail.
3. Let them make their own decisions.

Quickly though, I realized these steps follow a traditional teaching model. From an inquiry stance though, a teacher would inversely follow the steps above:

1. Let students make their own decisions in authentic situations.
2. Thereby exposing kids to "child-sized adversity" and (sometimes) letting them fail.
3. Teach character by providing students with feedback.

These steps don't just work for character education though. In a PYP, teachers are charged to teach this way all the time. In a blog post dated February 13, 2014, I wrote about the power of providing feedback to 4th graders on their personal narratives. I wrote about how Professor John Hattie found that providing students with effective feedback has a high influence over student achievement (for a summary of his findings, check out this infographic but to read more in-depth about feedback, check out pages 129-154 of Hattie's book, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing impact on learning).

Paul Tough, Angela Duckworth (a researcher whose TED talk about grit is amazing), and MANY others have referenced Carol Dweck's research when discussing the key to students' success. Overly simplified, Dweck's idea is that a growth mindset involves believing that one's intelligence is not fixed and that growth and learning require effort.

Therefore, for students to be truly open-minded enough to receive the feedback Hattie is promoting teachers give, which will undoubtedly help them grow and learn their character AND their intelligence, students must adopt a growth mindset.

In order to investigate this mindset with students, I guided students through the thinking routine "Step Inside" multiple times. This thinking routine comes from Making Thinking Visible: How to provide engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners by Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison (p. 178-184).

During this thinking routine, students are asked to think about a person that is connected to what they are examining. They are instructed to "step inside" the situation to see things from the person's point of view. To do this, students answer the following:

1. What can this person see, observe, or notice?
2. What might the person know, understand, hold true, or believe?
3. What might the person care deeply about?
4. What might the person wonder about or question?

Following the simple inquiry cycle developed by teachers at my school, I first wanted to INVITE students into the inquiry by answering the above questions from the perspective of a person with a growth mindset.

I showed them this:

http://lanaalattar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/mindset.jpg

Together, we created this.

The next day, we entered into the INVESTIGATE stage of the inquiry cycle. To investigate a growth mindset, I showed them this video:

http://youtu.be/hqh1MRWZjms

Again, we used the Step Inside thinking routine to dig deeper into growth mindset, coupled with Chalk Talk, another thinking routine from Making Thinking Visible: How to provide engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners by Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison (p. 78-85).

And then synthesized all their ideas into this:

Lastly, we entered into the DEMONSTRATE phase of the inquiry cycle, the step where learners are given opportunities to demonstrate their newly gained understanding.

To see whether or not they truly understood the concept of a growth mindset, I had the kids "Step Inside" themselves and record their thinking in their notebooks. Below are a few samples.

After reading about how sixth graders used the thinking routine Step Inside to better understand the perspective of a growth mindset and thus ready themselves to receive feedback which has proven effective at increasing student achievement and success, how could your students use the thinking routine Step Inside?