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For white families who want to know what actions can be taken right now to interrupt the systematic violence and racism that has been traumatizing and devastating our black and brown friends, families, and communities. It is good to take time to stay in our own grief, to let the weight of this grief take us deeper into what so many have carried for so long while watching us incredulously - hoping we will come together to systematically use our power and do our part and speak up - legislatively, publicly, and in and with all of our circles.
One collective action involves our children - yes, even so so little, making regular conversation about the way the world has been designed and how and what needs to change. Below is a really great read with practical steps for conversations about racism with little ones. Our little ones take in everything we take in in how our social environments are designed (buildings, resources, people, status, labels) and they come to a range of conclusions. They have tons of questions. Whatever they are taking in and whatever conclusions they are forming, starting these conversations young, helping them process what they are thinking and why, who or what environmental factors are planting what ideas is essential. Owning and sharing our own learning and unlearning processes is important as well. For example, when and how did our eyes start to open that we were painted in the light of pure, good, expert, right, above, the ones who should have, etc? When did we start to realize black and brown people were painted in the light of criminal even as their right to laws, home ownership, transportation, medical care, food, banking, protection, entrepreneurship and other social and economic resources was being taken from them and handed to white people? The more we can process with our circles and our little ones - how narratives have become the systems we all together recreate, live by, and enforce and the power we have to come together and change those narratives and to write a different narrative for ourselves, the more the systems will change. We are all family. All children of God. If we could trace every family line, we would see how interconnected we are. It is good to grieve the steady enforced separation of our family, to feel the weight of collective generations of uncoordinated action (acting for some, not for all), inaction, silence, and benefit. And the weight of a generational racism and classism pandemic that has ensured our black and brown families stay in a state of trauma and communal systematic devastation. We too have been traumatized in ways we also need to unpack. Separation from our families is separation from ourselves. I know so many conversations are happening in all of our homes. Let's talk with our circles and our children, map the big picture narratives that are holding racist and classist systems in place and list all the little steps we can daily and systematically take to do our part to change these narratives and to rewrite our family, region, state, national and world stories. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/health/parents-raising-white-children-racism-wellness/index.html
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I know this is a time of tremendous transition into teaching virtually. Here is a starter list of virtual teaching resources I curated from some great teachers and on-line platforms. The list includes a few power-packed platforms, demos, and my notes from demos on how to use these different platforms. The virtual demos come from on-line companies and teachers who use these resources.
In my next set of blogs, I will use webinars and video demos to show some of the ways I and others have set up on-line platforms and have used other virtual resources to foster student learning. I will also speak to flipped classroom systems that help teachers continue the teaching they would want to be doing through videos that students watch on their own. In these flipped classrooms, on-line classroom meetings become a place for discussion and answering questions. For now, enjoy browsing through this list and know, more resources are coming to help you continue walking with students and supporting them virtually. Please email me anytime with feedback on these resources and please feel free to share what other resources or supports you are seeking that would help you specifically at this time. Thank you! sarah.hobson@communityalliesconsulting.com Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ela/cc-2nd-reading-vocab/xfb4fc0bf01437792:cc-2nd-vocabulary-acquisition-and-use
Edmodo – On-line teaching platform with demos to walk you through how to use the platform https://go.edmodo.com/distancelearning/?utm_source=main&utm_medium=visitor-site&utm_campaign=2020-q1-teacher-distance-learning&utm_content=banner
Edmodo Demo Pointers - From Edmodo for Distance Learning & Distance Learning Schedules and Assignment Workflow Schedule for Communication & Learning
Behavioral expectations
Group Norms and Digital citizenship
Other Edmodo Features
Edmodo Live Video Conferencing Suggestions
Digital Platforms for Live Video Conferencing (these can be recorded and shared later)
Edmodo Recorded Screencast Suggestions
Edmodo Suggestions for Digital Platforms for Screencasts
Video Hosting Sites – where you can upload videos
Filming tips from Edmodo
Preparing to Create Videos – from Edmodo
Edmodo Other Helpful Video Recording Platforms – where teacher videos can be paused, students can insert questions; teachers can do voice-overs in a different language, etc.
Creating a Facebook Group https://www.postplanner.com/how-to-create-a-facebook-group/ https://zoom.us/pricing
Zoom Tutorials https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206618765-Zoom-Video-Tutorials?_ga=2.234296925.2130490398.1585013428-2093359200.1582859850
Cool Cat Teacher with Alice Keeler – Google Classroom Bootcamp Short Version https://www.coolcatteacher.com/google-classroom-bootcamp-duo-demo-student-and-teacher-views/
Cool Cat Livestream Facebook – Google Classroom Bootcamp Long Version https://www.facebook.com/coolcatteacher/videos/716103472258370/
Alice Keeler – More Google Classroom Resources https://alicekeeler.com/google-classroom/ NCTE Articles Google Drive: Facilitating Collaboration and Authentic Community Beyond the Classroom Jennifer S. Dail & Anete Vasquez https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/VM/0254-may2018/VM0254Google.pdf?_ga=2.245264582.273439060.1585248120-169287751.1585248120 Reconsidering Student Inquiry through Digital Narrative Nonfiction, Fawn Canady and Troy Hicks https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/EJ/1086-jul2019/EJ1086Jul19reconsidering.pdf?_ga=2.210787414.273439060.1585248120-169287751.1585248120 Redesigning Peer Response as Conversation James Strickland https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/ELQ/42-3/76F513DF-A926-41AD-B43F-DE000246C6FB.pdf?_ga=2.47076580.273439060.1585248120-169287751.1585248120 Uninterrupted and On Their Own: Audio Reflections in the Writing Classroom Marissa E. King and Karen Sheriff LeVan https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/LA/0953-mar2018/LA0954Perspectives.pdf?_ga=2.223131992.273439060.1585248120-169287751.1585248120 Thank you to everyone who came out in the middle of snow and cold to Venture Cafe's Sustainable Development of Cities week to learn about 3 NSTL organizations who are the village around our youth and families. These organizations are paving the path forward for St. Louis - investing in building people and our environment as the keys to local and regional economic development.
Thank you Andre Maurice Alexander (The Tabernacle Community Development Corporation), Charles Barnes (Fathers, Families Support Center), and Bobby Bonner (BM3 Technology/Afterschool Labs) for all you are doing for our city. We covered a lot of ground - defining sustainable development and the work of building communities as integral to sustainable and thriving neighborhoods. Each of the 3 organizations - The Tabernacle Community Development Corporation, Fathers & Families Support Center, and BM3 Technology/Afterschool Labs explained what life was like in NSTL from the 60's to today and the history of disinvestment that led to the deterioration of the tax base, public services, including street care, environmental protections, funding for education, grocery stores, transportation, employment opportunities, housing, and more. They explained how that disinvestment affects how people feel about themselves - and the tremendous array of coping skills needed to navigate this much loss. They explained how mid-century in the midst of people, businesses, and jobs relocating to the county, and in the midst of decreasing housing options for black and brown people who could not access mortgages, welfare was used to remove fathers from their homes, which meant fathers had to choose between employment and living separated from their families and unemployment. They explained how despite these obstacles, black and brown families and communities were making the most of every resource they could find, were building their own businesses, hospitals and entertainment districts and were a village around every child. Furthermore, Bobby explained how Busch stadium brought black and white communities together in the 60's and brought a slew of resources that provided enough for everyone and helped strengthen relationships among white and black families. When the stadium moved to downtown, these resources moved with it. And competition set in. White families who experienced the loss of resources that came with the stadium began shutting down black-owned businesses by cutting off distribution so they could build their own stores. There is so much more to the story of how resources moved away from North St. Louis and to the story of each of these organizations and how they are rebuilding people and opportunities and hope through partnerships with every sector of society and through the development of affordable and green housing, one step at a time. They are employing NSTL residents in rehabbing homes. They are providing sustainable trainings that equip families with the knowledge and communication skills needed to navigate every area of their life and every sector of society. They are using and disposing of materials in ways that do not harm construction workers or the environment. They are building every resource needed for NSTL and placing it in one central location where communities can access everything in one stop. They have youth leadership programs and are forming partnerships to build in cutting-edge resources to our public schools. They are promoting the development of people and environments as crucial to the development of our local and our regional economies. They are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There is so much more to share. Please share the story of North St. Louis with your friends and families as we continue to fill in more dots. Please share the work these organizations are doing. Please help educate people in your communities about what took place in our region and in North St. Louis and about what community-centered development that sustains communities entails -
We can support the organizations who are rebuilding these resources one step at a time. They are non-profits. Please share them with your companies and start conversations about how to honor every person and increase diversity, access to employment, and respecting our differences as integral to learning how to serve all communities. Please consider donations. Please help start and sustain the conversations that lead to change in our region. https://www.tabdev.org https://fatherssupportcenter.org https://bm3technologyllc.com https://www.afterschoollabsstl.org Stay posted as we continue to share and unpack the path forward for St. Louis and how we build ourselves as a region rooted in our regional history and in the organizations who have supported the resilience of NSTL residents over time and today. Learn more about the work of Community Allies here https://www.communityalliesconsulting.com - to provide the ethnodramatic approach Honoring Stories and Integrating Curriculum™ as a means to building connected change-making communities in our schools, businesses, and communities and to coordinate regional partnerships to ensure as a region we are investing in all of our schools, youth and families - NSTL and East St. Louis especially and undoing years of disinvestment. December 13, 2019 While working on a timeline for the Academy of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Washington University that situated Wash U history in the context of St. Louis, I stumbled upon a powerful story in Keona Ervin’s (2017) Gateway to Equality. Black Women and The Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis. She documents the ways that African American and immigrant women, most likely from Germany, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Russia, the Balkans, and Southern and Eastern Europe (Wayman, 1978; The State Historical Society of Missouri), came together to change the course of history. While unevenly privileged by industries and society according to their races and ethnicities, the women in this story identified their common class struggle and united. Ervin explains that St. Louis had an industrial employment sector that catered to women. In 1933, due to a host of discriminatory practices, 40% of African American workers were jobless. 92% of employed black women - even when well-educated and equipped for higher paying fields - served in manual labor or domestic and personal service. 80% served in the domestic sector. 13% were confined to exploitative sectors of manufacturing in food processing, laundries, cigar, and tobacco factories. The R. E. Funsten Nut Company hired African American and immigrant women to deshell and weigh nuts in poorly ventilated factories, without health standards, and under harvest seasons that fluctuated. Black women were assigned the most arduous labor, earning 3-4 cents per pound of deshelled nuts or approximately $4.60 a week. Immigrant women sorted and weighed the shells, earning 4-6 cents per pound. In the early 20th century, Funsten sales and factories expanded, “but nut shellers’ wages were so low they decreased statewide median wages” (Ervin, 2017, p. 28). After years of wage cuts, black female workers created their own union, demanded fair wages, and when not heard, inspired 1,000 black and immigrant women to walk out on the job. They organized one central arbitration committee over all the nut shops. Carrie Smith was nominated to be the strike leader, and she educated Mayor Dickmann on the irony of $2.00 - $4.60 per week. The women were breadwinners in their families who were cultivating food through hard manual labor, and yet they could not afford to feed their families. They emphasized that their own children had to fend for themselves to find food. They implored the state to step in as their protector when industries exploited them and did not follow state mandates. In the absence of black middle-class organizational support, they drew on community-based organizing practices, establishing governing rules, creating cross-trade unions, setting up post-strike chapters for each shop and a centralizing board with representatives from every shop. They won on many fronts. An abusive foreman left. The mayor and local black politicians ensured their pay was doubled. They set cross-race and cross-trade organizing in motion. Female membership to the Food Workers Industrial Union grew. St. Louis silk, cotton, and garment industry workers borrowed from their negotiating practices and struck as well. Nut workers facing similar conditions and wage cuts drew on Funsten worker strategies and launched the largest Mexican and Mexican American strike in San Antonio. Needle trade strikes occurred in Chicago. St. Louis domestic workers, who carved out an advocacy space for themselves at the Urban League were most likely influenced by the nut strikers as well. Electric and automobile workers also followed suit. And previous legacies of African American female organizing and regional leadership deepened and expanded with each new decade moving forward. In taking a stand for their right to equal employment and to safe working conditions, amongst other areas of equality they were also pursuing, they helped grow the Labor Movement and model the collaboration of cross-trade and cross-race unions. They came together and made visible the ways that they were similarly, although certainly not evenly exploited. And they called out injustice through strategic coordinated educational campaigns that other races, classes and cultures could build on. They kept the momentum of race and class civil struggle from prior generations moving forward and they continued to grow their impact in St. Louis and beyond. No doubt, a common awareness of class similarities helped the women unite. And the larger the privilege gap among people, the steeper the learning curve can be on how to unite. Yet, the women created a platform for St. Louis that we as the greater Metropolitan St. Louis area have the opportunity to celebrate – that provides us a way forward – through the race, class, gender, ethnicity, religious, sexual orientation, ability, and cultural inequalities we have inherited. We are in a time where division is popular and scarcity mentalities are the temptation. What would it look like though if we operated as one united family? One united region? Nation? World? Committed to a belief that everything we all need lies in the gifts we have been given for one another. This Community Allies article series is dedicated to providing a framework for cross-cultural communication to help us chart that path forward. Because division and competition are our capitalist norms, to get to abundance mentalities, there is much personal and relational work to be done. As the women in this story demonstrate, capitalism is a system that when left unchecked, builds wealth for some on the backs of others. And that is how our St. Louis communities have been designed. For years, federal and local housing policies have been centered in mortgages for white people – often in suburbs and public housing for brown and black people - often in cities (Gordon, 2008). In the past, these policies incentivized realtors to use restrictive covenants to perpetuate segregation. The policies contributed to landlords not keeping up black and brown rented properties. The policies incentivized realtors to encourage white people to move to white neighborhoods and brown and black people to move to brown and black neighborhoods. Housing policies have created room for developers to use urban renewal practices for their own gain, further destabilizing vulnerable populations – who time and again live in communities labeled “blighted” and who are subject to continual movement and displacement. Under the flight of businesses and people, our St. Louis city tax base has depleted, limiting the dollars going into schools, transportation, and more. On top of race, class, and gender discrimination in employment, jobs that used to be closer to vulnerable neighborhoods, have moved further away (Cambria et al., 2018). Under urban renewal practices, our most vulnerable populations have had a much harder time securing stable housing. When the only affordable housing is public housing or housing in areas at risk of being blighted, communities are at risk for being displaced, evicted, and homeless. When families are fighting to tread water, unable to afford transportation to employment, consistent phones and homes where employers can reach them, youth have a harder time making it to school and through school (Cambria et al., 2018). The result of this perpetuation of sustainable communities for some at the expense of others is layers and layers of trauma for our most vulnerable populations. Those who live in well-funded communities often don’t witness the layers of this trauma firsthand, and they don’t understand how they are connected to it. Thus, there is righteous anger. Not only is it common for people to feel exploited and left behind. Their lives and their pain are invisible to others. They can feel abandoned, criminalized and blamed as the problem. There can also be deep resentment because people with access to consistent security in housing, income, family wealth, education, etc. – I include myself here - cannot see all the ways the world has created our advantages at the expense of many. That means the more comforts and access to security in life we have, the more we often have to learn how to open our eyes – how to listen. Hard. Deep. From our hearts. It means when cross-cultural confusion arises, we need to communicate through our body language, our actions, help me understand what life is like for you. What do you see in the world, in me that I can’t see? What are you hearing in my words that I don’t understand? No matter where we find ourselves on the continuum of inequalities, we have personal and relational work to do. These divides didn’t happen overnight, and they have deeply impacted all of us. We all have different degrees of awareness about this segregation and its impact – on each of us. It takes tremendous humility, a forgiving and a believing spirit in our own humanity and in the humanity of every single person in our world, to place our eyes on the prize - the bigger picture of what we will do together for our region the moment we commit to understanding we are all people – flawed and beauty-filled. We are all on a journey – we are teachers to every person we meet and every person we meet is our teacher. And we are here to walk alongside one another – and as my good friend Mark Robinson would say – to walk each other home. We need one another to build a better, stronger region. We need one another to experience the cross-cultural joys that are meant to transform us. Our children are depending on us – all of us – to put down our pride, to push through our confusion, to really look at ourselves and others – from our hearts – and to lock arms. Wrap our arms around all of our youth and families. Be that village for one another. So many people from every cultural background in cities across our country are losing access to affordable housing and are facing skyrocketing costs of living. I believe St. Louis is poised as a city to do something very different. There are so many people in this region who are doing exceptional work around creating access to affordable housing, quality food, medical care, transportation, education, and to everything that is needed for sustainable communities. What would it look like to coordinate our efforts and build the kind of model that transforms this region, our nation, and the world – a model everyone can build on? We are just the region to do that. And as we reach out from our hearts to one another and build on the path that African American and immigrant female leaders created, in good company with other St. Louis community leaders, we will win – for everyone. Works Cited Cambria N, Fehler P, Purnell JQ, Schmidt B. Segregation in St. Louis: Dismantling the Divide. St Louis, MO: Washington University in St. Louis. 2018. https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.wustl.edu/dist/3/1454/files/2018/06/Segregation-in-St.-Louis-Dismantling-the-Divide-22ih4vw.pdf Ervin, Keona. (2017). Gateway to Equality. Black Women and The Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. Gordon, C. (2008). Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City. University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7zw7k2 The State Historical Society of Missouri. Immigrant experience research guide. https://shsmo.org/research/guides/immigrant Wayman, N. (1978). Neighborhood Histories. STLOUIS-MO.Gov. https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/planning/cultural-resources/neighborhood-histories.cfm |
AuthorSarah Hobson, Ph.D. specializes in supporting teams, departments and schools, businesses, and government agencies in building inclusive innovative change-making communities who understand how to connect well with and join diverse populations in providing needed sustainable resources for all youth and families. Archives
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