Eggcelent Lessons on Race

Last week was monumental for us in the YESS room at ACHS as we continued to tackle the subject of Race. We learned key terms regarding Race through activities and online research, explored concepts through videos and discussion, and aimed to understand different perspectives through a Privilege Walk and an eggcelent activity that will be very memorable for my students for some time to come.

We made sure to touch on a relevant issue in the media surrounding the NFL players kneeling and what they were kneeling for. Colin Kaepernick was a key topic of discussion and respectful debates were had, but in the end we all learned the important of using your brain to understand the history of race and racism, and how using that knowledge to use your voice to confront  situations of injustice is important to creating a better world for everyone. One of my students brought up a quote by Kurt Cobain which reads "It is up to the youth to confront corruption." This really resonated with me because I told them that this knowledge could potentially be useless unless they use it to better themselves and to change the world in the seemingly little and big ways that I know they can, as long as they feel safe. From standing up for someone in the hallway to using their knowledge to know their rights and educate others about the importance of equality and social justice, any act of spreading equality and positivity matters through knowledge and action.

The videos that helped us break down race are found at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnfKgffCZ7U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qD2K2RWkc

The activity that was the highlight of their week was called Privilege Point of View. In this activity, the students picked a word out of a bag that assigned them a role in which they were to view an event from their perspective. The roles were as follows:

• The Egg
• The Chicken
• The ACHS Janitor
• A random teacher teaching in a room on the other side of the building

I told them to not make any comments about which role they were, but to bring a pencil and paper over to the butcher paper to watch an event. They were instructed to start writing thier feelings from this role as soon as the event happened.

Hidden in my pocket was an egg and suddenly I threw it like a baseball and SPLAT! against the wall the egg exploded. This prompted gasps, laughter, and many different view points.

If you had the egg - you were hurt, scared, and dead
If you had the chicken- you were sad because your baby died
If you had the ACHS janitor- you were upset, annoyed, and angry
If you had the Random ACHS teacher on the other side of the building- You did not care much because it did not effect you

I had them come to their own conclusions about how this perspective activity related to privilege. Many students made connections to how you feel when you get pulled over by a police officer. Depending on who you are and the body you live in, you are either scared, upset, angry, or unaffected. We also explored the controversy behind this issue and related it to privilege.

This activity went smoothly in most of my classes... Aside from one class... Before I was about to throw the egg I was caught up in the suspense and excitement and I MISSED the paper, splatting raw egg all over the wall... The accident was a shocking and laughable moment but we still managed to have an in depth discussion and reflection despite the mishap. They even helped me clean it up afterwords! (Peep our Today I Choose poster in the top left!)

EW!!! Oh well, in order for learning to be effective sometimes things have to get messy.

Here is an example of one of my student's reaction and reflection representing the lesson this activity provided us:

Some other take away's that the students wrote down statements that threw shade at my throwing ability (or lack there of) so that was interesting, but I'm so happy the point was driven home in a meaningful and memorable way.


Until next week,
Ms. Castro