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Diverse Pages, Vibrant Voices Fostering Connection and Understanding in Elementary Classrooms
By Amanda Ritchie
The AIU’s Reading Achievement Center, Training & Consultation Program, and Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion are teaming up with a teacher in the Hampton Township School District to offer a new training series to help spark identity conversations in elementary classrooms.
Diverse Pages, Vibrant Voices is a three-day series aimed to equip elementary teachers with resources and tools to diversify the texts in their classroom libraries and provide strategies for implementation; help teachers identify and address bias in classroom tasks so all students can be included; and finally, provide a safe space for children to explore their racial identities and become accepting of all.
The series is the brainchild of Deshanna Wisniewski, a second-grade teacher at Wyland Elementary School, who drew from her own experiences as a student and educator. “My teachers were predominantly white, and the characters in the books I was exposed to never looked like me. And if they did look like me, it was about slavery or the civil rights movement,” Wisniewski said.
When she joined Hampton, Wisniewski noticed a similar lack of representation in the curriculum. “Students of color in our classrooms weren’t seeing themselves. But I also realized that white students need to see different cultures too,” Wisniewski added. “If you live in a bubble — or in a community that isn’t diverse—you have no access to know about different kinds of people.”
Bridging the Gap
“Teaching diverse texts can be a tough topic for teachers,” said Jacob Minsinger, Ed.D., AIU training and consultation coordinator. “This series aims to give the teachers the tools and resources they need to become more comfortable with diversifying the world of literature that they expose our students to. Ultimately, it will help students broaden their perspectives and develop as global citizens who will have a deeper understanding of the various human experiences that exist around the world.”
Minsinger emphasized that the training also focuses on accessibility.
“It’s about ensuring all students are represented in the literature and that instructional activities are inclusive and accessible,” he said.
Lisa Yonek, Ed.D., curriculum and reading coordinator with the AIU’s Reading Achievement Center, said it’s an exciting opportunity for RAC to partner with local educational experts “to provide relevant and specialized professional development to our teachers in an area that we haven’t dug that deeply into yet, though we know we need to. Tapping into local experts will only strengthen our program, and the students will be the ones who ultimately benefit, and that’s what drives everything we do.”
Read on for companion article:
Teaching is My Favorite Color: A Network for Growth and Belonging
Deshanna Wisniewski, second grade teacher at Wyland Elementary School in Hampton Township School District, knows what it’s like to be one of the few teachers of color in a building or district. “It’s really isolating,” she said. “And it’s a lot because you feel the pressure to be the spokesperson for that race.”
To address those feelings of isolation, Wisniewski came up with the idea of creating a platform for educators to connect with other educators of color from across the region.
With grant money from Digital Promise from the League of Innovative Schools, three local districts — Avonworth, Hampton Township, and South Fayette Township — teamed up to bring the idea to fruition. Teaching Is My Favorite Color was established three years ago as a network for educators of color to come together through professional learning, mentorship, and culturally centered connection.
For now, the organization is local to Southwestern Pennsylvania, but, “We would love to see it grow and expand in the years to come,” Wisniewski said. They are currently working on getting funding to continue to provide professional development programming. “Instead of doing professional development for our districts, we’re doing it for ourselves—to make us stronger teachers of color,” Wisniewski said. Learn more at www.timfc-pa.org.
