By Leah Danville
Dr. Tiffany Mitchell Patterson is an Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Studies in West Virginia University’s College of Education & Human Services Department of Curriculum & Instruction (CILS). On Tuesday, February 2, she hopped on her two-hour Zoom class with 12 pre-service secondary social studies teachers for the first monthly lesson on how to implement a Black Lives Matters (BLM) curriculum into their future classrooms. The class, comprised of people in their 20s and 30s who are almost all white, quickly identified similarities between the BLM movement and guiding principles in their own lives.

DC Public Schools has endorsed the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action and sent the following notice and video to all its staff: DCPS is proud to support DC Black Lives Matter at Schools Week of Action, taking place from February 1-5, 2021. This week is a national movement of educators organizing for racial justice in education. The goal is to collectively affirm the lives and uplift the voices of Black students.

Your donation will help us work with D.C. area teachers to overcome the challenges of remote instruction to make the fourth annual D.C. Area Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action a success.

Ms. Corliss, a special education teacher at Jefferson Middle School Academy (DCPS), led a Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action lesson aligned to the guiding principle, “Black Women.”

In Spanish 1 at Thurgood Marshall Academy, students learned about several Afrolatinos during the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

We want to hear your stories! Please tell us about what lesson(s) you used during the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

On February 19, go-go became the official music of Washington, D.C.! This important legislation requires the mayor’s office to produce, fund, and implement programs that support the preservation and creation of go-go music — and the culture and history it represents. At Teaching for Change, we are honored to partner with D.C. area schools, musicians, and authors on our Teach the Beat project, which provides lessons and facilitates classroom visits.

After exploring their connection to the Black Lives Matter movement in previous activities, my 11th and 12th grade students at Thurgood Marshall Academy worked through the #LastWords lesson.

Go-go artist “Sweet” Cherie Mitchell visited Langdon Elementary School in connection with Teaching for Change’s Teach the Beat program. This is the second year that the program has been able to visit Langdon, a partner in Teaching for Change’s Tellin Stories parent engagement project. At the January parent-principal meeting, parents participated in an icebreaker where they were asked to consider: what does go-go music mean to you?

Watkins Elementary School 4th grade teacher Monique Sullivan used Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence as a way to explore who is centered in history and what stories are left out.

Second graders in Katie Soffer and Kina Gee’s classroom at Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS learned about activism as part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

In “crews” of four to five, students each picked up an instrument from Ju Ju’s percussion section of cowbells and several types of drums. Then as a whole class, with drumsticks in each hand, Ju Ju taught the students to tap out a go-go “pocket beat” and a “bounce beat” that is popular among younger go-go performers and listeners.

Go-go musician Sweet Cherie, keyboardist and singer for the all-female Bela Dona Band, joined the music class at Anacostia HS as part of the 2020 Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. A highlight of the visit was when Sweet Cherie led the room in Junkyard Band’s go-go classic, “Sardines.” One of the drummers joined her in the circle and midway through the song added a bounce beat to the rhythm.

On Friday, February 7, at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., audience members gathered for a post-play discussion of Dominique Morisseau’s play Pipeline, a drama following a family navigating through systems of racism in public and private school.

I led students in a “See, Think, Wonder” routine of a photo of a Black man drinking out of a water fountain labeled “whites only” and then asked them why do they thought I was wearing this on a day where we would be talking about the Black Lives Matter Movement. Then students broke out into groups to discuss one of the 13 guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement.

William “Ju Ju” House led a class on the go-go pocket with second graders at Beers Elementary as part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action and the and the Teach the Beat project to bring go-go to D.C. classrooms.

Teacher artist Alex Huttinger led the 2nd annual Social Justice Printmaking Workshop, hosted by D.C. Area Educators for Social Jusitce at Halcyon Arts Lab for the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

Teacher Yolanda Whitted led her eighth grade English students at DC International School through a visual rhetoric exercise where they analyzed Childish Gambino's "This is America" music video. This was a lesson during the DC Area Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action in February, 2020. 

On Monday, February 3, Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS 1st through 5th graders participated in a community meeting to kick off the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

As part of the 2020 Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, Teaching for Change was able to donate children’s books to the school libraries at several schools in Wards 7 and 8 as part of a generous grant from the Horning Family Fund in coordination with the DCPS Partnerships team.