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Stand Up!
This activity will remind students that no one deserves to be bullied and that everyone has a responsibility to report unkind acts.
Peaceful Lessons from Peaceful Leaders: Tri-Leadership
This shortest month of the year is typically filled with history reports, pageants, guest speakers, cultural fairs and the like. Seldom a day goes by that we don't hear the names of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Madame C.J. Walker, George Washington Carver, and so on.
Women Who Inform Our World
Many schools observe Women's History Month as a way to highlight contributions women have made in the past. This month, Mix It Up encourages you to help students explore the positive impact of girls and women on their own lives and communities today.
Fighting Hunger
This lesson encourages students to investigate domestic hunger in the United States as well as in their own communities and offers resources to support youth in the fight against hunger.
Blues Music Activity
A guide to classroom activities exploring arguments about what blues music is "authentic"
School Mascots Explored
Use these ideas in the classroom to explore racial and ethnic imagery in school mascots.
Using Obama's Speech on Race in the Classroom
Three new lesson plans for grades 9-12 offer educators fresh, engaging strategies to deepen students' understanding about race and racism throughout history and today.
Oral History and Civil Rights
Little Rock isn't the only city or town with a civil rights history.
Put-Ups
Students are used to put-downs, but what about put-ups? This activity helps students see the positive things that their schoolmates are doing and gives them skills to affirm each other across social boundaries.
Romeo and Juliet Mix-It-Up
Shakespeare’s classic play is a must-read for all high school students. Might the tragic end of Romeo & Juliet have been different if the Montagues and the Capulets had crossed their social boundaries?
Controversial Issues
Students always have passionate opinions about controversial social topics. They also often become friends with others who reinforce their ideology. And students don’t often possess the skills to disagree gracefully. This activity invites students to cross their ideological boundaries and become friends with others who think differently than they do.
Celebrate Each Other
On the first day of each school year, my students and I form a circle and I ask them these questions:
Brush Up on Respect
Whenever I feel that students are starting to pick on each other and get disrespectful, I use this activity to get them to think about their behavior. For this activity, you need a tube of toothpaste, a four-by-six index card, a marker, a popsicle stick and a toothpick.
Discrimination in Banned Books
The last week of September is Banned Books Week. Many teachers use the event to talk about free speech with their students. I also use it to begin a conversation about discrimination.
Core Samples
Core samples are fascinating columns of rock and mineral cut from deep below the earth's surface with a drill. They are marbled with shades of color. This activity helps students to identify their own core values, much like core samples.
Rooting Out Termites
Termites, small and overlooked, can knock down forests and turn buildings to powder; intolerance operates in much the same way.
Linguistic Tolerance
I am a Spanish Language teacher and I have students who are from Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina and many different Spanish-speaking countries. I find the diversity in the Spanish-speaking community to be truly fascinating. We Spanish speakers are not all alike, as popular media often portray us. Because I am teaching language, I use the diversity of Spanish to highlight the diversity of our community.
Should Your Hairstyle Be A Constitutional Right?
This lesson uses the strategies of “student questioning for purposeful learning” (SQPL) and jigsaw grouping to engage students in examining Constitutional issues related to school-based grooming policies.
Hairy Tales
I capitalized on my 10th-graders’ obsession with their hair by devising a writing exercise that I hoped would open a dialogue between my black and white students. As part of a unit on individuality, I had them write a “hair-ography”—an autobiography told from the viewpoint of one’s hair.
Mixing and Mattering
Last year at Seth Johnson Elementary, in Montgomery, Ala., the fourth- and fifth-grade students participated in the National Mix It Up at Lunch Day. In preparation for the day, we challenged fifth-graders to think about how they matter to the people around them – and to write essays titled “We All Matter.”
Letters to the Editor
Students identify parts of arguments – using the ARE framework – by reading and evaluating letters to the editor. They identify weaknesses and strengths of letters, suggesting improvements to arguments used within the letters.
The Assertion Jar
Students produce assertions on slips of paper and “stock” the classroom Assertion Jar. As a daily or occasional activity, students practice refutation skills by pulling an assertion from the jar and refuting it either orally or in writing. Appropriate as a writing prompt or journal activity.
The Color of Freedom
We developed a unit based on common children’s books on the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement.
A Song for Anti-Bullying
This activity involves a simple song that can help younger students deal with the issue of bullying and bullies.
Gender Stereotyping Awareness
During my career unit with seventh-graders, I take the opportunity to look at gender stereotyping in the work force. After students have an opportunity to familiarize themselves with careers, I challenge their learning with a game similar to the old game show “Password.”
The Resurgence of Hate
The purpose of this activity is to take a look at one of the most famous hate groups, try to understand why its members believe the way they do and learn what can be done to stop hate groups from returning to their historic levels of power and influence.
Linguicism
We all know each other’s names, but do we know the stories of our names?
Poverty and Natural Disasters: Exploring the Connections
In 1989 a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck San Francisco. Sixty-three people died. This year, a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti. A month after the disaster the Haitian government estimates that more than 200,000 people died. Why the huge difference? In this lesson students will answer that question as they identify and explore connections between poverty and natural disasters.
The Gift of Community
Building on the common early grades theme of “neighborhood and community,” this lesson uses a free, downloadable children’s book, “The Gift,” to drive home the idea that people—and their diverse interests—are what make our communities special.
Using Editorial Cartoons to Teach Social Justice
Using Editorial Cartoons to Teach Social Justice is a series of 14 lessons. Each lesson focuses on a contemporary social justice issue. These lessons are multidisciplinary and geared toward middle and high school students.
Compliment Tag! (Lunch Day Mixer)
As an elementary school counselor, I am continually amazed at the number of students who do not know how to give and receive a compliment. Students seem to have no trouble, however, with the occasional teasing or name-calling.
Who We REALLY Are
Sometimes students get stuck on superficial notions of identity, both in understanding themselves and in looking at their classmates. This activity uses literature to challenge stereotypes and help children think about their inner selves. It also allows them to explore metaphor, other poetic language and visual artistic expression as they get to know themselves and one another better.
Let the Hot Air Out of Bullies!
Here is an activity that is fun and teaches kids to recognize the problems associated with bullying.
Stars for Diversity
This is one of my favorite tolerance activities. It helps students think about leaving others out of groups and tolerating differences within the classroom. You will need many small self-adhesive stars of six different colors (any shape of stickers may be used).
Building a Bridge of Understanding
Each year in my art room, I introduce a unit of study focused on the art and culture of another country or region. This year I decided to focus on Islamic art and culture. Since I provide art instruction to approximately 500 students in my little corner of the world, I thought this focus would be an opportunity to help build a bridge between Muslim students and non-Muslim students and begin a dialogue about Islam.
A Social Justice Study
I am an eighth-grade language arts teacher in Durham, New Hampshire. My students have grown up in an environment where there is very little exposure to ethnic, racial or LGBT communities. They are ripe for learning, and are in a unique position to “be” the change.
Top Ten Ways to Be Successful (and Happy) in Literacy (and in Life)
One language arts educator's guidance for her new students.
Charity and Justice: What’s the Difference?
This lesson has students distinguish between charity (volunteering in a soup kitchen) and justice (working to end the inequalities that make soup kitchens necessary). It asks students to think about root causes (inequality) versus symptoms (poverty that leads to the need for soup kitchens).
What’s Your Name? (Lunch Day Mixer)
Based on Crossing Borders/Border Crossings and What's In a Name?"
Building Sentences and Stories (Lunch Day Mixer)
Students sit at tables with students they don’t usually sit with.
