A growing number of educators and parents have realized they must teach kids about racism. I’m so glad to witness this! However, there are some crucial first steps you should take before you start teaching about racism in the classroom or home.
To make sure that your lessons and conversations with children are effective and avoid causing harm, it’s important to build a race conscious foundation first.
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One thing to note: I’m not suggesting you ignore children’s questions or comments about racism until you’ve thoroughly completed each step below! Instead, I hope teachers and caregivers will provide kids with the larger context they need in order to understand and resist racism.
Before you teach kids about racism, talk with them regularly about skin tone, race, and identity
As I often remind parents in my workshop on talking to white kids about race, not all conversation about race is about racism.
Children need support noticing race and ethnicity from adults, and celebrating positive identities for themselves and others. This foundation of antiracism education can’t be skipped! (Also, it matters for both students of color and white students.)
The activity book Hues of You: An activity book for learning about the skin you are in is a great resource for preschool and early elementary age children.
I also highly recommend these books for 3 – 7 year olds:
- Our Skin: A first conversation about race by Megan Madison, Jessica Rali, and Isabel Roxas.
- All the Colors We Are: The story of how we get our skin color by Katie Kissinger
The racial labels society uses can be confusing for children because they don’t match people’s actual shades of skin. It’s a good idea to acknowledge this!
I often use pieces of construction paper to talk to kids about this. I say something like “race is confusing. People who call themselves Black have skin that’s many shades of brown, not the color black of this construction paper. And people who call themselves white have shades of peach or tan skin. It doesn’t look like this white piece of construction paper.”
You can find my simple explanation of race for kids in this 1 minute video.
Also, keep in mind that kids need to explore all aspects of our identities, including – but not limited to – race. These activity ideas can help.
Discuss personal prejudice and microaggressions before you teach about systemic racism
Author Jennifer Harvey once described racism to her child as “all beliefs, behaviors, and laws in society that harm African American people, Latino people, and all people of color.”
Educator Tiffany Jewell defines racism as “personal prejudice AND the systemic misuse and abuse of power by institutions.”
As you can see in both definitions, it’s crucial to teach children about the systemic aspects of racism. First, though, they need to understand what personal prejudice is and how it hurts people.
Related post: A kid-friendly glossary of race and racism
Why? First, because it’s easier for children to grasp and identify than institutional racism. Second, because children can and do express racial bias. We can’t create antiracist classrooms without addressing this.
In my antiracism trainings, I remind adults that it’s important to set boundaries for kids. (Those boundaries also need to be set in a loving way that doesn’t shame children.) We can tell kids things like “it’s never okay to tease someone or leave them out because of their skin color, what language they speak, or where their families are from.”
In the classroom, it’s important to address microaggressions through roleplays, children’s books, and talking about how these comments make people feel.
Related Post: How parents & educators can model apologizing for racial mistakes to kids
Use an assets-based lens to teach children about the histories and cultures of people of color
One of the biggest mistakes educators can make, especially those of us who are white, is to focus primarily on people of color’s trauma and oppression. Even when we are discussing painful topics like enslavement and racist immigration laws, we can uplift the brave ways people of color have resisted racism.
Focusing primarily on oppression often makes students of color feel embarrassed. It also implies to white students that being Black is mostly about experiencing trauma.
Before implementing lesson plans about racism, educators should step back and take a wider view of their curriculum and classroom.
How many books starring children of color are in your classroom, and how many of these were written by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) authors? Do lots of these books focus on everyday experiences, like spending time with grandparents, the first day of school, or having a new sibling?
How are BIPOC leaders and communities of color centered in all your subject areas, year round? If you have a unit on important scientists, are all or most of them white? Does your ancient civilization curriculum study the wonders of sub-Saharan Africa?
Related Post: How to uplift resistance to injustice when we teach kids about hard history
Adults should reflect personally on racism before teaching about it
It’s hard for teachers and parents to see our own biases, but taking regular time and space for personal reflection makes a big difference. That’s one reason that the very first lesson in my Nurturing Antiracist White Kids course is on doing our own work as adults.
What are some of your earliest memories of being aware of race, or witnessing racism? How are those experiences still impacting you today?
What were you taught in school about race in U.S. history (or was the topic avoided completely)? Whose perspective was used in the curriculum? What myths do you need to unpack? What accurate information do you need to learn so that you can teach kids about racism?
Once you’ve take these steps, how do you teach kids about racism?
Here are some resources to help you get started:
Exploring systemic racism with elementary age children workshop
If you teach elementary age children (as a classroom teacher, a religious educator, or community worker), I’ve designed a workshop for you.
Find out more about my 90 minute training titled exploring systemic racism with elementary age children.
You’ll learn kid-friendly definitions and examples of systemic racism, discover antiracist books and music to use in lessons and activities, explore how to introduce kids to young antiracism activists, and get a copy of my detailed guide to antiracism projects for kids.
Learning for Justice lesson plans and articles
Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) has a plethora of lesson plans, teaching ideas, and trainings for educators. I find their work particularly helpful for history, although they cover many different subject areas.
Start Here, Start Now: A guide to antibias and antiracist work in your school community
This practical guide by educator Liz Kleinrock is a must-have for 2nd through 8th grade teachers. Not only does she share some of the best activities I’ve found for antiracist learning, she also gives advice on working with parents and administrators.