Inside Atrium newsletter, February 2021

Social Justice

INSIDE

February 2021

ATRIUM

Dear Atrium Community, In this unsettling year of pain and injustice in America, we have been activated. Many at Atrium and across the country have found new and powerful voices to express what we are against, and more importantly, what we are for. There is always more work we must do, and yet our school’s strong founding principle of equity readies us to lift our voices. In every month of the Atrium school year, teachers and students engage daily across the grades to understand both the historical and human behavioral roots of injustice, and learn to recognize the systems that perpetuate bias today. So too do students learn about the impact of injustice on individuals and communities, and the powerful ways people rise up to create affirmative and durable change. We feel the rhythm and hum of social justice each day here, autumn to spring.

And yet, there is something special about February. This month we amplify the distinctive historical struggles, experiences and achievements of African Americans as we honor Black History Month; emails fly amongst teachers to share new resources for their classrooms. And in our preparations for Friday’s annual Freedom and Justice assembly, the building begins quite literally to pulse. Through my office wall, I hear the 3rd grade joyfully dancing to the anthem Wavin’ Flag by Somali-born musician K’naan. On the Atrium Space deck and around campus, steady parades of teachers and students carry their own handmade “Peaceful Protest” signs, advancing issues that concern and inspire them most deeply. To name just a few: equity for all; Black Lives Matter; LGBTQ+ rights, climate change and animal rights; immigration justice; peace, and family. Led by our faculty Anti-Bias & Equity Committee, this important assembly is not

simply a gathering for performances: it marks both a culmination and a continuation of daily curriculum. It is a moment to share our values and our daily commitment to those values. It is a reminder that the work towards justice must continue each day. I’ve been lucky enough to see a preview of the assembly video, and urge you to join us Friday at 11 a.m. to share the experience. This annual tradition is always moving; in 2021, it has unusual power, depth and substance, you’ll find.

This new issue of Inside Atrium also communicates to you some of the social justice work we do in classrooms at Atrium. In a year where safety practices must curtail parents’ views into daily classroom life at school, I hope these articles and features illuminate your children’s experiences here. You’ll learn how mathematical data is a powerful tool for understanding injustice in Middle School classes, and how upper elementary students connect through literature and art to the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration. Further, turn the pages to read how essential foundational skills in social justice are developed in our youngest students, and hear teachers describe the particular justice-themed lessons that they prize most.

Have a wonderful and well-deserved February Break, everyone!

Warmly,

Learning What it Means to be Human

by Jill, 2nd Grade Teacher

In 2nd grade, our theme is “What is a human being?” We learn about what is true about all human beings––that we all have feelings, thoughts, ideas and dreams––and we learn to challenge stereotypes. We learn that we all have smarts, and that all human beings are capable of courage and resilience. That is why, when I teach about the Underground Railroad later in the year, I hear children protest, “How can anyone ever think they have a right to own another human? How can anyone EVER think that they are more important than other humans? How can anyone think that some humans matter less than other humans, or that they are less HUMAN than other humans? We all have feelings, thoughts, ideas, and dreams.”

Every project I do is about making sure the children understand that we are all one human family, and that systems that oppress humans, such as systematic racism, are extremely damaging and unjust and must be dismantled. We learn about incredible historical and ongoing contributions of people of color in our country and in the world, and we learn to be part of the change we’d like to see in this world.

Math & Social Justice: A Match Made in Data

by Liz, Middle School math teacher

It’s a common complaint heard in math classes elsewhere: “When are we ever going to use this?” Often it can seem like the skills learned in math are divorced from real life. It is my goal for my students to see math as relevant, as a set of tools they can use in order to understand, analyze, and make predictions about the world around them. I accomplish this through a weekly routine called Math News and in deeper dives via long-term projects and units of study.

Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) identifies four strands to social justice education: identity, diversity, justice, and action. Sixth grade students explored their own identities in a recent project: “Timeline of your Life.” They applied fraction and integer operations to plot important events in their lives on a negative number line. Earlier this year in the Mathematician Research project, seventh graders chose a mathematician from any culture, time period, and gender and considered not only their accomplishments but how each mathematician’s identity affected their opportunities for success. In sharing their research with one another, students also saw how diversity of thought contributed to myriad mathematical discoveries.

Diversity is an intrinsic part of learning math. One of the few things hanging on the classroom walls is a small poster that reads “There is no one way.” It is part of our classroom culture that diversity of thought is valued and celebrated. Through listening to, understanding, and valuing one another’s perspectives, we all gain a deeper appreciation for the mathematics we are exploring.

Atrium Middle School mathematicians explore justice via our weekly Math News routine. I select data-heavy articles or videos or at times just a timely graph for us to analyze together. Often we start by noticing and wondering together. This practice brings to light important observations about who is and is not included in the data, or who might be unfairly represented. We also explore justice more deeply via the “Our World in Data” project in 6th grade, and in the 8th grade budget project, which uses census data to explore income inequality in the U.S. One area that I continue to build into my curriculum is how to empower students to take meaningful action in math class. In the Big Numbers project, 8th graders make sense of staggering statistics about the environment and share their findings by creating an illustrated infographic for children (to be shared at an upcoming assembly). In the interdisciplinary Absurd Dolls project, Ellie Koczela and I will combine ratios and media literacy to analyze different Barbie-like dolls. The project culminates in students writing letters to various toy companies where they make a data-driven argument as to why the toy-makers should create dolls with more positive messages for young kids.

As I ponder the impact of teaching social justice and math, I am reminded of a quote by Matthew R. Kay in Not Light but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom: “It is hard for a student to unlearn empathy, to forget discernment, to dismiss the importance of solid evidence once they’ve grown used to demanding it.” I truly hope that my students will feel empowered to use their math skills to fight for and build a more just world.

Creating Justice-Minded Citizens

by Paul, Middle School Social Studies teacher

What should students be learning about justice in the middle school years? To start, students should be learning the stories of diverse individuals in ways that constantly undermines stereotypes. They should become quick to recognize injustice and bias in its many forms, and object when unjust practices limit the rights and freedoms of people. They should know about the people, the groups, and the events that have worked towards justice in the world and plan to be among them. With that in view, the Middle School social studies program at Atrium threads foundational knowledge of civilizations, governments, civil and racial strife of the past with injustices of the present to help students better understand their responsibility to the world they inherit. Considering social justice to be the fair distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges in our society, students grapple with the historical realities that have denied justice for many of our population, as well as most of the world’s people. The story of history must include all voices.

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6th Grade: To that end, this three-year journey begins with 6th graders viewing U.S. history from the standpoint of those silenced from most history books - the workers rather than the owners, the oppressed as well as the oppressors. Students learn the foundations of our government in order to understand how power is used, and they take a critical view of how those powers created the Mexican American War and the Civil War. Understanding the promise of the Reconstruction period and the descent into oppression in the post-Reconstruction period sets them up for later analysis of the Jim Crow period.

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What is the most meaningful social justice lesson you teach?

D ia n e

5th Grade

How to be able to engage in civil discourse.

This includes looking at multiple perspectives, formulating their own strong ideas, being able to civilly express their ideas, learning to listen to others, being open to learning from others, and being able to extrapolate out from their strong ideas into action steps. Being able to engage in civil discourse is a big step in maturation and being able to see beyond one’s own wants and needs. This really helps broaden students’ capacity for social justice learning.

Each year in 7th grade we look at Redlining.

We use the wonderful resource Mapping Inequality to look at the redlined maps of Boston neighborhoods including our own Watertown. We discuss the coded, racist language referring to the “infiltration” of “lower grade,” “inharmonious” populations.

The catastrophic harm caused by the original injustice grows and becomes generational.

By the end, the students are outraged and demanding reparations.

K ri s ti n

2nd Grade • •

E lli e

Middle School

We teach that all human beings are unique, we all have different gifts and challenges, yet we are all the same too. Since all human beings have many things in common (i.e. we all dream, we all have feelings, we all need love), it’s important to treat everyone fairly and equitably no matter what their gifts and challenges are.

A Tree Grows from Harlem In an interdisciplinary art/library project, 4th and 5th graders have been studying the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration and learning about the artists and poets from that era.

Students read the novel Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome, about a young boy named Langston who comes to Chicago with his dad in 1946 during the Great Migration. Having just lost his mother, Langston is feeling out of place as a country boy in the city. He ultimately discovers the library, and through it and a kind librarian, his namesake, Langston Hughes. Students also read and listened to some of Hughes’ poetry, as well as watching a video that Jill made about his life and poetry. Susan, the library teacher, made a small anthology of the poems Jill shared, as well as some from Finding Langston, with some of Susan’s favorites. Susan taught students to read a poem twice before picking picking “a favorite line, a line that speaks to you in some way”. In the next class, students created a “found poem”.

Meanwhile, in art class, students were learning about the Harlem Renaissance through the work of Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden. Students watched a video with various artists in different creative fields, before touching on the Great Migration and how Harlem was a blossoming community of artists, including Langston Hughes. Students then made art inspired by Lawrence and Bearden, focusing on Harlem’s neighborhood people as subject matter through collage made of tissue paper, magazines and patterned paper (see banner on page 1). Once the found poems were created, students received a long stick on which they could design patterns of color bands to paint, with words from their chosen poem written into the bands of color. Ultimately, the branches will be hung on the wall so that the poem can be read, creating a Poet Tree.

A ria n a

1st Grade

In 1st grade, we teach (and practice) looking at a situation from multiple perspectives. When we make this practice habitual––to stop and listen, to think through how it might feel to be in someone’s else’s shoes––it becomes a powerful building block to creating equity and encourages children to advocate for themselves and also their friends.

7th Grade: In 7th grade, students investigate the origins of social stratification across multiple ancient civilizations while also analyzing different forms of government rule. Students have opportunities to connect themes from the ancient world with the present through weekly current events classes.

8th Grade: By 8th grade, students are prepared to take social studies to a deeper level. Beginning with reflections on identity and difference, they begin their first of three Facing History and Ourselves classes with Genocide and Human Behavior. They see how small, unkind gestures connect with larger systems of stereotyping and exclusion. They acknowledge how fear of difference can lead to violence. Through the various genocides we investigate, students gain a fuller understanding of 20th century history. They explore human choices that shaped history through all their 8th grade courses, particularly in Choices In Little Rock, which focuses on the history that led to the Brown v Board of Education (1954) decision and the subsequent desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock. In order to understand how this form of social justice was achieved, students consider the long, legal path from Plessy v Ferguson (1896) which launched the misleading idea of “separate but equal”, to the Brown decision that promised equal education under the law. In their final course, they analyze the social order of the U.S. South during the post-depression era.

While “To Kill A Mockingbird” raises concern over the absence of the black characters’ lives, our students take a critical view of this aspect of the novel, while also gaining insights into the society from which it came.

The goal is for Atrium graduates to be well-informed, responsible citizens equipped to effect positive change and promote respect and harmony among people in their future lives. The goal, beyond that, is a school, a wider community, and a world that is continually becoming more just.

What is A.B.E.?

Don’t Miss the Book Fair!

Welcome to A.B.E. (yes, we call it “Abe”)! A.B.E. stands for the Anti-Bias and Equity committee. A.B.E. is made up of Atrium classroom and specialist teachers, and is one of several active committees schoolwide. The committee meetsmonthly, with sub-committees meeting on alternate weeks to pursue specific projects. Although the acronym A.B.E. began in our current location a number of years ago, anti-bias and equity work has a long history at Atrium, and several committee members were a part of A.B.E.’s predecessor from our old building back on Main Street, called the Faculty Diversity-Action Committee (FDAC).

Every year, children and their families look forward to our week-long Book Fairs, when dozens of books show up from Porter Square Books, a local independent bookstore in Cambridge. Traditionally, we have one Book Fair in the fall and one in the spring, as a fundraiser for Atrium’s libraries. This year, Atrium’s book fair will be virtual, and will take place the week of February 22-28. To participate, simply go online to portersquarebooks.com, choose ANY books on the site that you would like to buy, and when you check out use the code ATRIUM2021 to ensure that funds come to Atrium! (You can start your own wishlist early––just be sure not to purchase until February 22!) Teachers usually put books in special bins at the Book Fair, and families can choose to donate a book to a classroom. This year, we will be making classroom wish lists available to you online, but we have also added a new element of giving. Atrium is partnering with the P.A. Shaw Elementary School in Dorchester. A wish list from their librarian will also be made available to you. We hope that during the course of the Book Fair, we can fulfill many––hopefully all!–– of their book fair wishes! Questions? Contact Susan at sjacoby@atrium.org.

The A.B.E. committee’s primary focus is on teaching and curriculum. We seek to bring resources to teachers across the grades that elevate curriculum by incorporating anti-bias and social justice practice and infusing racial, ethnic, language, religious, cultural, gender/sexuality, and ability diversity into all we do and into all our books and materials. In our meetings we frequently bring up issues and questions from our own teaching to get other perspectives, share reading and resources, and look for, acknowledge, and seek to fill gaps/blindspots in our curriculum schoolwide.

Our goals as a committee are to support all teachers and staff in DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) work, and through that to help every member of the extended Atrium community feel included, welcomed, and reflected in our school culture.

Sixth graders have been working on a Spanish/art project inspired by Raúl The Third, an author and illustrator whose work revolves around the Mexican-American experience of growing up in the border towns of El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

Social Justice From the Start

During this unusual school year, A.B.E. has been working on continuing to diversify classroom book collections, and specifically amplifying books by Black authors with Black protagonists; and seeking ways to bring diverse voices, especially voices of At Atrium, social justice learning begins in PreKindergarten. Well before PreK, color, “into” our classrooms, taking advantage of research tells us, children become aware of racial differences––and begin, early Zoom and other technologies that we are now so on, to develop biases and stereotypes. This means that early childhood is a critical frequently using. time to create a safe environment where parents and teachers can engage children in learning about such complexities. It is a vital moment in which parents and teachers, in tandem, affirm children’s racial identities. At Atrium, this takes place when our youngest students express themselves in writing (All About Me) and, still more when they read each other’s writing and each other’s self portraits.

by Kathy, Asst. Head of School

For the past several years, A.B.E. members and our music faculty have been tasked with planning and executing Atrium’s Freedom and Justice Assembly. While it is always centered around the themes of Freedom and Justice, the specific areas of focus differ from year to year. Last year, for example, our focus was largely on refugees.

This year, for many reasons, we have chosen the topic of “Peaceful Protests,” inspired in large part by the Black Lives Matter movement. With all our themes, our goal is to find ways in for children at every level, and to make the work of social justice relevant and accessible.

It happens still more in daily reading and daily discussion. In kindergarten this week, students read Jessica Love’s book Julian is a Mermaid. This is, certainly, a joyful and beautiful picture of individual expression, love, and acceptance. At the same time, it is what social justice learning looks like in kindergarten. Here, readers encounter a story that beautifully questions the stereotypes that they may have in mind and listeners begin to recognize the harmful impact that bias and stereotypes can have on the world. While following the pages of this tale, they get a sense of that “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

At the same time, in PreK, there is another story: Whoever You Are, by Mem Fox. It is, in its theme, a reminder of the common humanity of people around the globe. These pictures do even more than that, though. As children see the pages where there is joy and laughter or hurt and tears, they respond with empathy.

They understand that, just as is true in the classroom, our joys and our pains are shared. They also begin to develop a voice that speaks aloud when they see that someone has been wronged.