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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are the people concerned with a BLM-developed curriculum looking at the curriculum? It doesn't discuss Palestine, and at least at our kids' elementary school, it doesn't discuss extrajudicial killings / police brutality either.

The guiding principles for Black Lives Matter at School are: black families / collective value / empathy / intergenerational / loving engagement / restorative justice / black women ("free from sexism and misogyny") / diverse / transgender affirming / unapologetic black ("to love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others.")

It leads kids in a conversation about discipline in schools and the statistics around who gets what punishment for what offense (i.e. why do black kids end up suspended at higher rates for similar infractions than white kids), and that can be a way into the school-to-prison pipeline at a teacher's discretion.

The posters in school say things like, "There are lots of different kinds of people and one way that we're different is the color of our skin. It's important o make sure that all peopl are treated fairly, and that's why we--and lots of other people all over the country and the world--are part of the Black Lives Matter movement." (Here's a link: https://blacklivesmatteratschool.com/classroom-resources/)

I think that it's a thoughtful and open curriculum.

If you're concerned that the teacher will be having conversations about Palestinian liberation you should connect with them, but it's not in the curriculum.[/quote]

Is it taught from a critical literacy perspective that pulls in reasoned (not hysterical) critiques of the BLM movement as well (are they included?) and allow students to draw their own conclusions? [/quote]

Judging from the blog post on how teachers are using these resources, they're not talking about any of the BLM chapters. They're talking about the 13 principles and considering how these principles give context to Black History Month:

"Each group read a biography of one person who seldom appears in elementary school history lessons: Josephine Baker, Marsha P. Johnson, James Baldwin, Shirley Chisholm, and Dorothy Height.

"After they read and discussed in small groups, McCormick gathered them for a large group discussion and the students introduced their historical figures to the rest of the class. They explained what the figures were famous for and explained how they connect to the Black Lives Matter principles. For example, James Baldwin was a writer connected to the principle of "empathy." Marsha P. Johnson was a performer connected to principles like "transgender affirming" and "queer affirming." Shirley Chisholm was connected to "unapologetically black" and "black women.""

(https://www.dcareaeducators4socialjustice.org/blm/representation-and-marginalization-in-history-fourth-grade-exploration)

And this is the resource the ECE teachers used at the teacher resources fair for the week, called "They're Not Too Young to Talk About Race" (http://www.childrenscommunityschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/theyre-not-too-young-1.pdf), which makes the case--in my opinion--about the reason to use a curriculum grounded in these guiding principles to talk about the past and our present.[/quote]

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