5 Tips for Talking About Race With Children

Posted by Sachi Feris on June 23, 2015

When my daughter was a baby, we would walk through the basketball court near our apartment building on the way home from the playground. Quite often, we would find a group of young boys shooting hoops. Usually, though not always, the boys were black. 

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Topics: Identity, Race and Membership, Raising Ethical Children, Diversity

Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap

Posted by Carrie James on June 9, 2015

How do youth think about their own privacy and that of others as they post photos and comments on social media? To what extent do they think about the ethical dimensions of the digital content (music, text, video) that they share? How do they respond to routine displays of disrespect and incivility that characterize dialogue in many online spaces?

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Topics: Raising Ethical Children, Facing Technology

Putting the Baltimore Riots in Context

Posted by Marc Skvirsky on April 30, 2015

Violent riots and protests erupted in Baltimore, Maryland, this week, following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray after his arrest by police. As has happened much too often in the past year, current events are having an impact on the hearts and minds of our students

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Topics: Classrooms, Safe Schools, Race and Membership, Teaching Resources, Raising Ethical Children, Civil Rights

Three Tips to Inspire Students to Turn the Tide

Posted by Richard Weissbourd on April 21, 2015

Adults often ask students to be upstanders, to speak out against bullying and other social problems, and to go against the tide. But we should also help students change the tide.This means changing social norms so that young people feel respected not when they degrade other students, but when they include others.

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Topics: Bullying and Ostracism, Choosing to Participate, Students, Safe Schools, Teaching, Schools, Teaching Resources, Raising Ethical Children

Raising Ethical Children: Discussing the Film "Selma" with Young People

Posted by Dr. Steven Becton on February 6, 2015

It can be so very difficult to discuss race with our children.

The conversation is particularly complex when it's about some of our nation's not-so-proud moments.Rather than face such moments head-on, sometimes we instead seek to protect our children (and even ourselves) from the pain and shame of the past, and so we often gloss over physical, emotional, and psychological suffering in history to get to a more palatable, less troubling version of those events. Moments like 1965 in Selma, Alabama, too quickly become "the victory of voting rights" rather than the painful history of a tired, yet determined, African American community that stood toe-to-toe against those who used terror, intimidation, and unjust laws to deny them opportunity to freely exercise the right to vote.

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Topics: Civil Rights Movement, Film, Democracy, Voting Rights, Choosing to Participate, Selma, Raising Ethical Children, Civil Rights, History

At Facing History and Ourselves, we value conversation—in classrooms, in our professional development for educators, and online. When you comment on Facing Today, you're engaging with our worldwide community of learners, so please take care that your contributions are constructive, civil, and advance the conversation.

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Welcome to Facing Today, a Facing History blog. Facing History and Ourselves combats racism and antisemitism by using history to teach tolerance in classrooms around the globe.

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