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From ABC News: New York City is implementing a new Black Studies curriculum in its public schools from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 as students return this week.
“This is not a curriculum about a particular racial group, necessarily, but about the history of inequality and stratification hierarchy in the United States,” Sonya Douglass, a professor of Education Leadership at Columbia University’s Teachers College who helped craft the syllabus, told ABC News.
“When young people, as well as teachers, who may have not even had access to this content in their own training and education are grounded in that history and grounded in perspectives that may be different than their own, I think it helps us to better understand the challenges that we’re facing currently as a society.”
New York City Public Schools is the largest school district in the United States, with more than a million students. Douglass sees this as an opportunity for New York City schools to be an example for the rest of the country when it comes to education.
A website for the K-12 Black studies program states:
As part of a landmark three-year project funded by the New York City Council known as the Education Equity Action Plan (EEAP), the Black Studies as the Study of the World curriculum and professional learning guide were developed for NYCPS through a collaboration of five organizations: United Way of New York City, Eagle Academy Foundation, Association of Black Educators of New York (ABENY), Black Edfluencers United (BE-U), and the Black Education Research Center (BERC) at Teachers College in partnership with NYCPS. Its primary aim is to provide a critical, interdisciplinary, curricular framework through which learners of all ages can study, understand, and appreciate an African-centered perspective that predates slavery and values unity, wholeness, cooperation, liberation, and education as the practice of human freedom.
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The PK-12 lesson plans are bundled together by the following grade bands: PK-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Lesson plans for each grade are aligned with the NYCPC Social Studies Scope and Sequence, and the Next Gen ELA and History & Social Studies Standards. Each grade level contains an Integrated Learning Plan (ILP) that includes a narrative overview of the Black Studies Curriculum content; a summary of framing questions, objectives, learning activities and projects; teacher notes; “Curriculum Connections” to Passport to Social Studies, Creative Curriculum, and Hidden Voices: Global African Diaspora resources; and the “Bridge to Literacy” curated list of book recommendations related to the themes of each grade level in support of NYC Reads.
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