Engaged Educator Coalition

Welcome to this space for Wisconsin educators to work together in community to support high-quality standards-based teaching that affirms, responds to, and sustains students' cultural and linguistic identities.fd

Selecting Learner-Centered Instructional Resources

Evaluate Instructional Resources for Bias: Comprehensive Tool

This resource is a comprehensive tool that will support educators in 1) grounding themselves in a shared understanding of how identity is developed, 2) understanding how specific identity biases have been constructed, 3) reflecting on their own lived experience, critically examining these biases within their lives, and seeking out counternarratives to society’s stereotypes and systems of privilege and oppression, and 4) critically evaluating instructional resources for bias and privilege as well as for how the instructional resource will amplify students’ identities and will promote joy in learning. Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-O33hHhbLipxovqK5o4fcKtJFDGALRiS_J89-xLIUwI/edit#

Evaluate Instructional Resources for Bias: “Push to Practice” Tool

This resource is for educators who have an understanding of how identities are developed and have been examining their own identities within systems of privilege and oppression. This tool jumps right into the “push to practice” in that it provides a quick-reference sheet for educators to critically evaluate instructional resources for bias and privilege as well as for how the instructional resource will amplify students’ identities and will promote joy in learning. Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1udn-4hfq813lCTS_LfwHERhkRXUOvGwVkqZgrPsneT4/edit. 

An Educator in Action: Evaluating an Instructional Resources for Bias

In this video clip, Christina Spears models her thinking while she is using the “Push to Practice” Tool to evaluate To Kill a Mockingbird for bias.

Professional Learning Webinar: Evaluating Instructional Resources for Bias

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, CESA 2, and ISKME teamed up to lead a year-long professional learning series, the Engaged Educator Coalition Learning Series, that focuses on how to develop instructional plans and assessments that center students and work towards healing and our collective liberation by using Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s 5 Pillars - Identity, Skills, Intellectualism, Criticality, and Joy. In this webinar (video, transcript, slides) the Engaged Educator Coalition Team steps Wisconsin educators through the process of evaluating instructional resources for bias.

Ensuring Instructional Resources Respond and Sustain Students’ Cultural and Linguistic Identities - Coming Soon!

Engaged educators are constantly reflecting and asking questions in an effort to ensure instructional resources respond and sustain students’ cultural and linguistic identities. This resource is designed to support educators as they critically interrogate their instructional resources to ensure that they are culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining. It is grounded in the research of Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, Dr. Django Paris, and Dr. Gholdy Muhammad.

Teaching with Learner-Centered Instructional Resources

Challenges to Instructional Resources

Being in relationship with students, families, and community members as partners in learning is important. If you experience a challenge to an instructional resource, reach out to your local school librarian. Together, you and your librarian can connect with the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), which is a local resource to support you in responding to challenges against materials in libraries and classrooms. The CCBC confidentiality assists Wisconsin librarians and teachers when they are facing potential or actual book challenges. You can call or email here: https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/intellectual-freedom-2/intellectual-freedom/#:~:text=If%20you%20are%20a%20Wisconsin,education.wisc.edu).

Facilitating Critical Conversations with Students

Educators play a crucial role in helping students talk openly about the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of social inequality and discrimination. Learning how to communicate about such topics as white privilege, police violence, economic inequality and mass incarceration requires practice, and facilitating critical conversations with students demands courage and skill. This guide offers classroom-ready strategies you can use to plan discussions and to facilitate these conversations with your students.  https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/publications/lets-talk

Promote Civil Discourse in the Classroom

Now that we have selected instructional materials that have been evaluated for bias and alignment with culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining teaching, we want to explore how to lean into - not away from - teaching a wide range of topics with a wide range of students. Learning for Justice has a four-part series that introduces educators to basic tools for teaching civil discourse in any subject area. Although the resource is designed for your adolescents, it can be adapted for students of any age. Link: https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/publications/civil-discourse-in-the-classroom

Teaching Hard History

 Learning for Justice developed a comprehensive guide for teaching and learning about the role slavery played in the development of the United States and how its legacies still influence us today. They have created frameworks for grade K-5 and 6-12 to ensure developmentally appropriate texts and teaching tools. https://www.learningforjustice.org/frameworks/teaching-hard-history/american-slavery 

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Community Partnership with the African American Jewish Friendship Group

WI DPI and the Engaged Educator Coalition welcome the partnership with the African American Jewish Friendship Group and their goal

to identify resources that support the development of an accurate, integrative, and comprehensive social studies and U.S. history curriculum for K through 12 grades,

with a focus on the critical role African Americans have played in the country’s development

 

 

The African-American_Jewish Friendship Group, Education Committee and Our Collaborative Work with WISELearn

The African American/Jewish Friendship Group, Inc. was formed by Gerald (Jerry) and Merle Sternberg in 1990 to improve race relations in Dane County. Over the years, the organization has grown and thrived with lively and honest discussions about the Group’s respective histories and current and continuing problems that impede progress in race relations and the quest for true equality within Dane County and the United States. The Friendship Group has been involved in several projects to promote the improvement of race relations, equality, equity, and inclusion. The Education Committee has taken on one of the major projects that have been established. The goal of the Education Committee is to identify resources to support the development of an accurate, integrative, and comprehensive social studies and U.S. history curriculum for K through 12 grades, with a focus on the critical role African Americans have played in the country’s development. To that end, the Education Committee created a proposal in 2019, "Reframing American History”, to share with Wisconsin school districts.

TAB 2 Reframing American History: Recommended Resources for Integratng the History of African Americans into the American History Curriculum

African American/Jewish Friendship Group member Jamie Murray-Branch explains the Resource Guide and the three goals behind its creation.

Resources

African American/Jewish Friendship Group member Dr. Gloria Hawkins explains how and why the Committee created "Reframing American History" which provides recommended resources for integrating accurate accounts of African American history into Social Studies and History courses. Here is a list of all of the resources. 

 

List of AAJFG Resources

Bundled Curriculum

African American/Jewish Friendship Group member Jamie Murray-Branch explains how the African American/Jewish Friendship group worked with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to create bundled curriculum resources.

Navigating WISELearn

WISELearn support specialist Joanna Schimizzi provides an explanation of how to navigate WISELearn.

Curated Collection

Please visit the Collection, where you will find resources that the Education Committee has carefully curated for educators.  Resources are remixable and can be customized on this platform.


 

Community Partnership with the Sikh Coalition

WI DPI and the Engaged Educator Coalition welcome the partnership with the Sikh Coalition and their goal of working towards the realization of civil and human rights for all people.

The resources below are part of the collaboration to ensure educators have access to resources that are culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining. Use the black arrows to toggle between resources.

Introduction to the Partnership of the Sikh Coalition and WISELearn

Harman Singh, (he/him) / ਹਰਮਨ ਸਿੰਘ, Senior Education Manager at The Sikh Coalition, discusses how partnering with WISELearn supports the overall goals of ensuring that all children deserve a safe and inclusive learning environment. The Sikh Coalition is leading efforts to promote Sikh awareness and prevent bullying in our nation’s public schools. Their goal is to build resilience and pride among Sikh American youth.

Featured Resource: Sikhism - An Educator’s Guide

This resource, found on both the Sikh Coalition page and on WISELearn, is featured in the collection in order to help provide an introduction for educators. 
 
There are more than 25 million Sikhs around the world, which makes Sikhi (also known as Sikhism) the fifth-largest major world religion. Yet the Sikh tradition remains largely unknown in the US and is often absent from the K-12 education system. Where it has been present, Sikhi has often been represented inaccurately.
 
These problems have contributed to the serious challenges that many Sikh students and Sikhs at large experience today, including bullying and harassment, negative stereotypes, discriminatory policies, vandalism and violent hate crimes. This guide aims to help facilitate learning about Sikhs and Sikhi in K-12 classrooms, provide educators with information about issues faced by Sikh children in schools, and give basic reference information about the Sikh tradition.

Introduction to Sikhism

CNN's United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell features an episode on the Sikh American community, entitled "Sikhs in America." In this clip, W. Kamau Bell joins Harpreet Singh, Sikh Coalition co-founder and Harvard University faculty member to discuss the basic tenets of the Sikh faith. Content courtesy of CNN.

 

 

Featured Resource: What do things I wear say about me?

Another featured resource is a collaboration between C3 Teachers and the Sikh Coalition provides a strong starting point for engaing students in meaningful discussion.

This third-grade inquiry lesson expands students’ understandings of how groups represent themselves through what they wear. The compelling question—“What do things I wear say about me?”—engages students in an examination of material culture by considering the factors impacting their own choices of what they wear such as geography, culture, and religion. Students will examine the similarities and differences they share with their classmates, as well as diverse cultures in their communities and around the globe.

Curated Collection of Resource from the Sikh Coalition

In this Collection, you can find the 11 resources that have been provided by the Sikh Coalition. Some of the resources, such as the Discussion Guides, are remixable and can be customized on this platform.

Oak Creek Public Library’s Sikh Culture Collection

 

The Oak Creek Public Library, in conjunction with the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, has put together a collection of books about Sikhs and Sikhism. This WISELearn resource contains a list of the books in this collection and an Excel spreadsheet that can be downloaded. 

 

To unveil the collection, an open house at the library will be held on Saturday, April 9 from 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. with brief remarks scheduled for 11:00 a.m. The list of speakers includes the following:
 

  • Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes
  • Mayor of Oak Creek Dan Bukiewicz
  • Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School Board President Frank Carini
  • Sikh community leader Dr. Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal
  • Former United States Attorney James Santelle
  • Oak Creek Public Library Director Jill Lininger


Light refreshments will be served. This event is open to the public, and registration is recommended; RSVP by visiting oakcreeklibrary.org/rsvp.