Episode 4 | Carceral Curriculum | Building Futures: There's No Other Option

In this final episode of our three-part series on the carceral curriculum, we engage educators with what manifesting freedom dreaming might look like in classrooms and curriculum. Our guests this episode are Ebony and Zani, two early childhood educators who are spending this year designing a small Montessori preschool in Washington, D.C. by engaging community members, families, and students as they create their curriculum. They insist that abolitionist and liberatory education must be done in community and with accountability to our students, their families, and their communities. In our Resource Room, elementary administrator Leensa Fufa returns to the classroom and shares how she uses self-portraits to facilitate conversation around identity with young learners. Michigan poet Carlina Duan shares her poem “Alien Miss Confronts Her Past,” from her newest book of poetry Alien Miss (University of Wisconsin Press). And monét and Erin sign off for a long winter’s nap of freedom dreaming and rest. We’ll be back February 5, 2022, with our next episode. Take care of yourselves. We love y’all.

Intellectual Inheritance

Ebony and Zani are opening a Montessori school with Wildflower Schools
All About Love, bell hooks
“Homeplace,” Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, bell hooks
Black Lives Matter Week of Action at School
Alien Miss, Carlina Duan
All The Colors We Are / Todos los colores de nuestra piel: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color/ La historia de por que tenemos diferentes colores de piel, Katie Kissenger
The Story of Austin’s Butterfly, Ron Berger
#DISRUPTTEXTS: https://disrupttexts.org/

Other Books We Like for Conversations about Identity and Self-Portraits

Early Childhood and Elementary

Skin Again, by bell hooks, Illustrated by Chris Raschka
The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad, Illustrated by S.K. Ali
The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi
Where Are You From?  By Yamile Saied Méndez, Illustrated by Jaime Kim

Middle/High School

American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang
American Street, Ibi Zoboi
The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo
El Color de mis Palabras/The Color of My Words, Lynn Joseph & Alberto Jimenez Rioja (Middle)
Mama's Girl, Veronica Chambers

All

Don't Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart: The Story of Elvia Alvarado, Medea Benjamin
Hair Love, Matthew A. Cherry (also an Oscar-winning short film)
Making Meaning of Whiteness: Exploring Racial Identity with White Teachers, Alice McIntyre
Poetry Like Bread, Martín Espada

Music

Chill Soul Rap Instrumental, Nkato [email protected] and @aI-instagram
Coffee, FYKSEN [email protected] and @fmfyksen
Just Cool, unminus (WowaMusik) [email protected]
Real, nat (BeatStars) [email protected]
Slowly, Smith the Master and @aI-instagram

Original music by Mara Johnson, monét cooper, and Elliott Wilkes