Ep 35 Teaching Diversity through Language Arts

This episode of the Making Afterschool Cool Podcast focuses on strategies for creating effective dialogue with youth regarding race relations and social injustice? My guest today is Andrew Simmons, who is a high school teacher who shares strategies for using literature to guide discussions about race with students who would rather avoid the topic.

 

Guest

Andrew Simmons is a high school English teacher, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Beli, San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, and other publications. His forthcoming book for educators, Love Hurts, Lit Helps (Rowman & Littlefield publishing), addresses how English class literature can help improve the relationships of high school students.

 

During this podcast you will learn:

1. An educator’s opinion regarding returning to school during Covid19
2. His motivation for writing the article entitled “Engaging White Students in Conversations About Race” published in Edutopia
3. Why it is important to introduce students to curriculum which present racism, discrimination and social injustice of oppressed people
4. How can youth serving organizations facilitate conversations regarding race with youth
5. works of literature would you recommend youth read to better understand how significant race is in this country’s history
6. Beyond just having students read books dealing with social inequalities what other types of activities can out of school practitioners involve students with to learn about these issues

 

Resources

Andrew Simmons

http://www.adlsimmons.com/

 

Engaging White Students in Conversations About Race

https://www.edutopia.org/article/engaging-white-students-conversations-about-race

 

Harris County Department of Education

https://hcde-texas.org

 

CASE for Kids

https://hcde-texas.org/afterschool-zone