Gearing up for the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action is no small feat. While educators in the D.C. area likely have already been uplifting BLM at School work with participation in the Year of Purpose, the Week of Action is often taken as an opportunity to engage in more and perhaps larger scale efforts to uplift the guiding principles and national demands…

Athena Kopsidas welcomed Teach the Beat back to Seaton ES in February for a series of visits that were part of the way Seaton was participating in the Black Lives Matter Week of Action this year. Matt “Swamp Guinee” Miller facilitated the two visits with students in the school cafeteria, leading students through interactive lessons on different percussive instruments used in go-go.

Children learned about the history and fundamentals of go-go and each child got a chance to play an improvised tune on Sweet Cherie’s bedazzled keyboard. They danced when they heard their name called by the talker, just like at a go-go.

Athena Kopsidas, art teacher at Seaton ES (DCPS), led students through projects that incorporated books and art during the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

Students were introduced to Black writers, poets, and photographers who have recorded the power of community among Black people, then created unique visual presentations and taught middle school students at Hayfield what they learned. 

Using the Pan-African colors as their palette, students transformed blank canvases into stunning recreations of the Sankofa bird, Black power fist, or their own original creations

This story’s title gave it away, but Sacred Heart students, and the wider community, are beaming with pride because their book, Historias y Dibujos: Students of Sacred Heart School, Washington, D.C., 2022, is now available to purchase online,and eight copies are a part of D.C. public library’s permanent collection! 

During a middle school assembly, there wasn’t an empty seat in Washington International School’s theater — unless the students and teachers were up dancing to Sweet Cherie’s music! Cherie dove deep into the history of go-go, speaking to students about the different sub-genres and their many bands.

As part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action at Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS, 4th graders studied the importance of representation in books and the book bans that have been escalating throughout the country since 2021.

Students learned about the Gods & Goddesses of the Nahua, Aztec, and Maya, and then made Hojalatas based on symbols and imagery from different cultures in the area, honoring the Indigenous cultures that paved the way for much of what is still celebrated and practiced in the countries of Central America through food, art, literature, music, dance, and language.

The third annualk Teach Central America Expo at Bruce-Monroe ES @ Park View (DCPS). remained an intentional, collaborative, and joyous expression of the importance of teaching about Central America!

Students at Cardozo EC — most of whom are newly arrived students from outside the United States — taught other students about the countries from which they migrated.

Hannah Halpern and Megan Burleigh welcomed Teaching Central America advisor Jeannette Noltenius and her colleague Flori Berrocal to their classes at Hearst ES (DCPS) for a reading of Mario Bencastro’s A Train Called Hope/Un Tren Llamado Esperanza.

Teaching for Change partnered with Filmfest DC: The Washington, DC International Film Festival for an eleventh year to spread the word about the international film festival and to bring filmmakers for some of the films into D.C. classrooms in April 2022.

By Kimberly Ellis

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously stated, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This demand for a better world is doggedly pursued by students in Beth Barkley’s Human Rights and Social Justice class at Cardozo Education Campus (DCPS).

By Bridget Fuller

On March 29th, the Elementary working group gathered to connect and discuss Women’s History Month and how gender and racial biases are confronted in our schools.

By Vanessa Williams

Walking into the front office of Hayfield Secondary School (ACPS), you’re greeted warmly by the office assistant and with cold-looking portraits of the past administrative staff at the school. Nestled in a classroom inconspicuously on the second floor, Ms. Ariel Alford is prepared to launch into a lesson on Black Lives Matter from an international perspective, focusing that day on Denmark.

The fifth annual Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action wrapped up recently and educators in the D.C. area and beyond participated in powerful ways.

By Kimberly Ellis and Vanessa Williams

What is the Tulsa Race Massacre? How do we, as a nation, tell the story of the massacre? What is owed to the Black community as a result of the massacre? Ashley Bryant created two weeks of lessons to explore these questions in celebration of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action and Year of Purpose.

By Makai Kellogg

During this session, Rapoport led participants in an activity where we thought about our favorite place and associated a color with it. We then added feeling words, more colors, and sensory experiences connected to the place.