Hedreich Nichols

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(#TeacherTurnout) Tuesday

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#SmallBites e10 LIVE! Watch the latest episodes on my YouTube channel.

Small Bites Friday Five 08-14-20:

20-30m – Sort through resources at NEA’s Black Lives Matter at School site and choose activities for the coming school year.

15-20m – Watch episodes 3, 4 and 5 of Small Bites. Use the info to make an impact on Tuesdays (see below).

10-15m –Listen to the brilliant young voices of the Social Justice Poets on NEA’s Youtube channel.  

5-10m – Paste your latest 10 social media posts into WorditOut.com to get a snapshot of what’s important to you. Use the information for crafting your Tuesday message.

0-5m – Introducing #TeacherTurnout Tuesday. Make Tuesday your day to let elected officials know what they are doing well and what they can do better.

If there is one unifying theme in my blog and in #SmallBites, it’s social action. There can be no equity without action. There can be no inclusion without each one of us pushing for social justice. Maybe your pushing is marching with a sign. Maybe your pushing is ordering a novel by an author not on the “classics” list. Maybe your pushing for social justice is coming here to read and listen until you feel brave enough to step out.

Whatever your brand of pushing for equity is, it’s for sure easier when we do it together. The loud ones and the quiet ones. The ones who have been at the party forever and the ones who just arrived.

Tuesday is our chance. You’re on social media anyway, so whatever your platform of choice is, make Tuesday your day to tell elected officials how they are excelling or how they need to change to better meet the needs of the communities they serve. Educators wear so many hats, we have our fingers on the pulse of our communities in a way that no politician ever could, so here’s my ask:

Every Tuesday, send a post, tweet, email, letter or make a call to an elected official. It can be someone local, state or national. We may not all agree on what’s going right and what’s going wrong, but if nothing else, COVID has shown us that our voices are too often not taken into consideration even when things directly affect us.

Using the hashtag #TeacherTurnout, let’s make sure that our voices are heard and that the people we elect know that we are a creative, powerful, force to be reckoned with, unafraid to stand up for what we believe in.

(#TeacherTurnout) Tuesday Read More »

Different

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Diversity is NOT Equity. Watch Episodes 1-8 at Youtube/Hedreich

Small Bites Friday Five 08-7-20:

20-30m – Watch the rest of Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise on PBS.

15-20m – Check out Burbank High School’s curated Justice in June resources.

10-15m –Reflect on Kellie Bahri’s ITEA (Inquiry-Truth-Empathy-Action) learning framework and article.

5-10m – Watch Kenyona “Sunny” Matthews talk about how she hates diversity. Funny and poignant.

0-5m – Pick a Small Bites episode or blog you missed and catch up.

While talking to Chuck Poole on a recent episode of his Teacher Summit live series, we started talking about the HUGE difference between two words that are often used interchangeably, ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’.

When talking about education in the classroom or workplace, the Big Three, diversity, equity and inclusion or, ‘DEI’, are always a part of the conversation. So often do we use the three terms together, in fact, that they have come to mean the same thing in the hearts and minds of many.

Let’s be clear, those terms are not coequal. Diversity means we all have a seat at the table. But equity means that each person at the table is being served dinner. Further, the dinner meets the unique needs of each individual. Is it equitable to serve a Philly cheesesteak to someone who is gluten and lactose intolerant? Umm, no. Is it equitable to serve turkey and dressing to a vegan? Again, no. Well meaning offerings to diverse students without understanding and considering their unique needs will never lead to equity.

Some ways to better understand the needs of diverse students:

Until we start focusing on the needs of diverse students in all the ways they are diverse, we will be able to celebrate diversity but not reap the benefits of equity.

Small Bites Episode 10!

Next week, join me for a frank conversation on equity and social justice for the new school year. Bring your questions and I’ll see you on YouTube at 8PM Central–LIVE!

Different Read More »

Brothers in Arms

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Visit my YouTube channel for previous Small Bites episodes.

Small Bites Friday Five 07-31-20:

20-30m – Watch the next 30 minutes of Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise on PBS.

15-20m – Research the qualified immunity police laws in your city.

10-15m –Review Kahn Academy’s lesson on Richard Nixon employing the Southern Strategy in 1968 and explore the hyperlinked resources.

5-10m – Review the 5Ds of bystander intervention; Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, and Direct. You can even take a training and download an infrographic to share.

0-5m – Drop “late to the party” from your vocabulary. Shaming someone for arriving whenever they arrive is not cool. Take zero minutes and stop.

“Teaching, for me, has always been a vehicle. A vehicle for freedom…Teaching is great power” — Jamilah Pitts

If you never read Teaching as Activism, Teaching as Care, now is the time to read it. With so many of us feeling helpless in the face of tsunami sized waves of a politicized pandemic, protests and schools reopening, teaching can be the place where we can remember how powerful we really are.

Watching the footage of John Lewis on Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 and then similar violent footage of protests this year have caused me to think about my own role in creating change. Yes, there is Small Bites. Yes, I am raising a son to be respectful and also vocal in the face of injustice. But knowing that my son could be hurt or killed for using his voice, even respectfully, causes me to want to do more.

Am I intentional in my classroom? Am I using the opportunities presented in curriculum to teach my students to connect learning to the larger issues of health, welfare and social justice? Probably not as much as I could.

Whether online or face to face, we have the ability to help our students to think about the happenings around them. We have the ability to let them know that their voices are valuable now, that they can act now. Tilly Krishna is acting now with her antiracism calendar on Instagram. Gabby and Gigi are acting now, already releasing their third book. Global Youth Media is acting now modeling ethical journalism.

We can use our classrooms to help students think critically and disagree civilly. We can let them tell us what they want to do now to make a difference and let them learn 21st century competencies along the way.

There are many ways to make a difference, to be an activist. You can write letters or even send social media posts to the appropriate elected officials. Students who can’t yet vote already have this power. Teachers can teach through the lens of social justice.

You don’t have to march to protest. Learning about different perspectives on history and sharing those with your students is a way to say that silencing voices is not ok.

You don’t have to march to protest. Telling a colleague that you acknowledge his struggle is powerful. Telling a peer that her comments don’t leave room for other perspectives is critical.

You don’t have to march to protest. But like we tell our students, if you see something say something. Use the links above to do just that and click on the last 3 posts on the right to go back and delve into the resources and strategies that Small Bites offers.

You don’t have to march to protest, but you do have to use your voice for good. It’s activism, it’s care, it’s good teaching.

Brothers in Arms Read More »

If A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

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Visit my YouTube channel for previous Small Bites episodes.

Small Bites Friday Five 07-24-20:

20-30m – Watch 30 minutes of Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise.

15-20m – Visit Yaritza Villalba’s website with history, engagement and equity resources.

10-15m –Review Kahn Academy’s lesson on Richard Nixon employing the ‘Southern Strategy’ in 1968 and explore the hyperlinked resources.

5-10m – Buy a mask, support a cause. You’ll find several companies designing tons of styles to support various causes.

0-5m – Follow Antiracism Calendar on Instagram from 16 year old Tilly Krishna out of Vermont.

When John Lewis died last week, I realized that I, like most Americans, knew very little about the man, the civil rights icon who organized with Martin Luther King, won a Freedom Medal from President Obama and fought for human rights, from the marches on Washington to the congressional halls of Washington.

I knew we’d lost someone important but I didn’t realize the depth of his lived experience. If a picture paints a thousand words, then video footage speaks volumes. John Lewis’ life is a testament to tenacity and a deep well of hope; hope, not as a strategy, but hope that breathed life into decades of fighting and winning in a system stacked against people who looked like him.

Through reading John Lewis’ stories, I found raw footage of the civil rights protests. The brutality of the attacks against the marchers in Selma, the Little Rock Nine or even the threats against a 6 year old Ruby Bridges made my heart hurt. Looking at the ugliness just below the surface of our founding principles of freedom is difficult, painful.

When we look back on the protests of the 1960s now, we use words like powerful, world changing, heroic, but those were not the words being used then. They are often not the words used now, as protests against police brutality and systemic racism continue.

Much has changed since the 1960s but too much hasn’t. Now that we are beginning to understand that racism is about a system built on stacked inequities, I hope that we, as a nation, won’t look away.

My question to you is, what side of history will you be on? Will you turn away or start your own journey to help realize the dream of equality still deferred for so many?

Even if you have been a supporter of racially divisive rhetoric until now, it’s never too late to change. Big steps and baby steps, just keep moving forward. Our communities depend on it, our future as a great country depends on it. And whether you believe it or not, your children’s future depends on us owning our wrongs and righting them so we can move forward.

We are in the middle of a movement and everyone is welcome to the party, late or not.

If A Picture Paints a Thousand Words Read More »

I’m Not Your Super(wo)man

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Visit my YouTube channel for previous Small Bites episodes.

Small Bites Friday Five 07-17-20:

20-30m – Delve into Jorge Valenzuela’s SEL strategy article from Teacher2Teacher.

15-20m – Visit the National Child Traumatic Stress Network website and choose resources you can use to support students in the coming months.

10-15m – Have conversations with colleagues and admin to figure out about how you can best support each other.

5-10m – Read Why Are Blacks Dying at Higher Rates From Covid to get an idea of how lack of equity means more than just gaps in education and income.

0-5m – Wear a mask, wash your hands and refrain from gathering in crowds, especially if you are in an area where COVID cases are spiking.

Most teachers I know are not in education for the paycheck. They are not in it for the summers folks think they have off and they certainly don’t do it for the prestige. The teachers that I know are dedicated, capable and will leave it all on the field for their kids.

Sadly, these same dedicated professionals are being cast as not only unwilling to work, but they are also seen as unworthy of consideration as plans are being made to reopen schools.

In Texas and many other states, not only teachers, but also districts have been emasculated and left out of the decision making process.

The response from teachers across the country has been colossal. Teachers used to “doing it for the kids” recognize that this is not about the kids and no amount of guilt is making us believe that it is. We are not willing to watch even one of our students or colleagues die, and we are certainly not willing to sacrifice the health of our families to do it, not if we have any say in the matter.

What does this mean for us? It means that each of us has to decide if we risk lives or livelihood. Or it means we risk the health and welfare of our communities because losing our income or our educational funding is simply not an option. Maybe it means asking for a leave, taking a paycut and dealing with the personal economic consequences. Maybe, for some, it means not understanding what the fuss is all about and being at odds with teachers who are expressing fear for their safety and the safety of others around them. Whatever your stance right now, it is bound together with anxiety, stress and possibly fear.

Our students will also return full of anxiety and fear. Between COVID exposed inequities, loss, economic distress and the protests, we are experiencing trauma as a nation and that trauma will show up in our f2f or virtual classes in a few short weeks. Unlike loss, our trauma is ongoing and our most vulnerable students will need us even more. Students will need us to be aware of signals for help and even codes like posts about pasta on social media. SEL will have to be a priority and if your school isn’t yet equipped, Casel has excellent SEL resources for helping students during the COVID crisis.

What are you doing to prepare personally? Are you bingeing on news and COVID statistics or are you being mindful? Are you staying awake late mulling over possible scenarios or are you practicing wellness in in a way that brings you peace? Summer will be over soon and we will have to be prepared to meet our students where they are.

You can’t pour from an empty cup so I implore you, as you go through the resources to help your students learn while they manage grief, anxiety and traumatic experiences, make sure that you are practicing self-care. As much as we say teaching is our superpower, we can’t take it all on. The best way for you to take care of your students is for you to take care of yourself.

I’m Not Your Super(wo)man Read More »

New Rules

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Small Bites Friday Five 07-10-20:

20-30m – Listen to a conversation between Barbara Bray and I on embarking on the journey to create more equity in your classroom and community.

15-20m – Go to Openculture.com and sign up for free courses on “Black history” from Yale and Stanford.

10-15m – Buy a book, toy or doll that represents a culture other than your own.

5-10m – Read the doc that accompanies the reflection at Bbray.net for some hands-on try this, not that resources.

0-5m – Send whenweallvote.org to 5 people, tell them to check their registration status and remind them to vote in upcoming local elections.

If you are a white person born in the early 80s or before, I can only imagine that the world looks a little different today than the world you grew up in. And if you were born even earlier and were raised in a That 70s Show southern or heartland community, it must look downright crazy.

It must be difficult to understand that Mt. Rushmore and confederate flags aren’t just symbols of American pride or why “10 Little Indians” or “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” might be fine for history books but not university football fields or primary classrooms.

It must be hard to understand why there is protesting when the blacks have come so far and when there was even a black president. (Or, why you don’t say “the blacks”).

I can imagine that it hurts having your character impugned because your thoughts and opinions don’t line up with those on “the other side”. All of the new rules must be confusing and it can’t be easy to see the need for change when things have been chugging along just fine within your circle.

On the flip side, it must be difficult for people not satisfied with just drinking at the same fountains or going to the same schools. Maybe it’s exhausting pushing a train uphill all day, every day because job and economic opportunities are still too often just out of reach.

Perhaps it’s defeating for people to know that their sacred land was stolen under the harshest of conditions, but to still see how people flock to those lands, many unknowingly, to celebrate the American Heroes who perpetuated and sanctioned the violence.

If you are an American, it must be unthinkable to hear calls for shooting and tear gassing instead of calls for unity, especially when you grew up pledging allegiance to “one nation, under God, indivisible“.

Fact; if you are white, you may have a hard time “getting” what all the fuss is about and you may feel defensive when you hear words and phrases like Black lives matter, racism or white privilege.

Fact; if you are black, you likely can’t imagine why people don’t understand that you just want your life to matter as much as the next guy’s and that black communities are still playing catch up in every way. (FYI, Indigenous people, females and other minority groups, with the exception of some Asian males, likewise.)

Now that we know how hard it is for everybody these days, how about we talk about how we will handle those facts as teachers on one side or the other? If we are spending hours on Facebook ranting about “the other side” as portrayed by our favorite news outlet, we are all in for an even worse school re-opening than we fear.

Now that we know how hard it is for everybody, what will you do between now and August to make sure you can do your best for each and every one of your students?

New Rules Read More »

Guide Her Through the Night

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Small Bites Friday Five 07-03-20:

20-30m – Research at least one issue that directly affects your community and customize the template you set up last week to send an email to your elected officials.

15-20m – Watch a couple of mini episodes of the PBS series Traitors and Patriots.

10-15m – Listen to ‘White Fragility’ author Robin Diangelo on How To Start Anti-Racist Work in an 11+ minute interview with NPR. 

5-10m – Remember last week’s conversation you had with a young person on race? This week, reflect on the information you gathered. Do the people you talked to think like you? Is there room for expanding your opinions or your circle?

0-5m – Google #blackAtAndover or #BlackAt(enter institution name here), to find a rising number of social media accounts exposing racism at elite academic institutions.

If only, in honor of this 4th of July, we could end politically charged Covid and racial discrimination to rise from the ashes of this year and fly full staff in a glorious post-virus, post-racial time where we find America to be a land of liberty and justice for all.

It should be easy, at least the post racial part. Ending discrimination should be as easy as following the golden rule or loving thy neighbor as thyself (which, btw, includes wearing a mask). But somehow, something akin to self-preservation blocks us from delving into the possibility of complicity so that we have to work especially hard to face the fact that we’ve historically not treated others as we’d like to be treated. It seems too, that many are having great difficulty recognizing that this historical inhumanity is as American as apple pie.

A conversation with my friend Kellie made me see American self-preservation for the gaslighting it is. Why did it take a white educator to get me to even consider that the American practice of creating false historical narratives that selectively glorify some and diminish others as gaslighting? How could I have missed that? Because we in the Black community have also been fed the same narratives. We are taught to love our country in it’s whiteness which means we are taught disdain and disregard for our own culture by default; American history vs. Black history; Hulu’s movies vs. Hulu’s Black Stories; The Civil War vs. The Civil Rights Riots.

Every time our nation comes to a point of reckoning with race, white America is ripped apart, some taking stock but others digging in, refusing to see that the land grants and Jim Crow laws intentionally kept black families and communities from flourishing. Black Americans take stock as well, often grieving as we feel yet another seismic shift in the careful construct of the Black and American compartments of our psyche.

I have been taught to love and honor my country. I grew up a proud southerner and it hurts to think of my homeland as perpetuator of atrocities. But enslaving humans, Jim Crow laws and a for-profit prison system, well, there is nothing free or brave or even honorable about any of that.

As one nation under God, we are unwilling to reckon with the fact that we have not loved our neighbor as we love ourselves. We have not and do not treat others as we want to be treated, and as a nation, we have not embraced the Black community as the widows and fatherless we have made them to be, beginning with the middle passage and continuing through 401 years of systemic inequities that put the black community at a disadvantage.

The country that I love has the potential to become far greater than she has ever been, but only if we acknowledge the reality of our past. Beginning now, as we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence that did not include the independence of my forebears (well, most of my forebears, because, you know, #metoo was not a thing for enslaved girls and women), we have an opportunity. Instead of pretending that we should work to be as great as we once were in some imagined era of glory, let’s confront our past and make necessary changes within ourselves and our communities to make good on the promise of liberty and justice for all.

Happy 4th of July.

Guide Her Through the Night Read More »

A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action

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#SmallBites E3

Small Bites Friday Five 06-26-20:

20-30m – Set up a doc with contact info of https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials. Then create a basic “Dear Official” template. Use it often to quickly and efficiently let your voice be heard.

15-20m – Use Ballotpedia to find out when school board elections are and what’s at stake, then vote. Better yet, run for office or help support someone who will!

10-15m – Watch Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man from Emmanuel Acho.

5-10m – Remember last week’s conversation you had with a young person on race? This week talk with someone older than you. Again, don’t guide the conversation, just listen.

0-5m – Find an organization to support or donate to.

The recent protests and Covid19 have combined to spotlight inequities that have long plagued our country. People who don’t look like me are waking up to the reality that people who do look like me face daily. They are finding out that we are more likely to die early; in childbirth, of curable diseases, from violence. We make less money, hit glass ceilings before our less pigmented peers and are, as a community, experiencing the traumatic effects of the vestiges of enslavement, Jim Crow and systemic inequitable practices of the last 400 years.

People are beginning to have conversations about issues of racial inequities that are long overdue. I’m glad.

I’m also tired.

I am tired of big words and bigger concepts. How do I fight systemic racial discrimination and marginalization anyway? Do I use a sword? A pen? Expo Markers? A protest sign? How can I fight hate? With more trainings? With firings? With well-crafted laws? We’ve seen how well those work.

Yes, we need to talk, listen, have uncomfortable conversations. But if we are not taking some form of action while we are talking, listening and learning, we are getting smarter but not making an impact on students and communities. While you are reading the third chapter of White Fragility, a child is going hungry, a man is dying of preventable causes before he’s reached retirement and another top student is leaving an ivy league campus because the constant onslaught of microaggressions has started to affect her mental health (“Oh, you’re only here because of affirmative action, right?”).

Let me be clear, the talking, listening and learning are necessary. It’s just that they are not a precursor to action, not a phase that we complete before we go on to the action phase. The action phase has to happen now. If you’re not sure how to start, watch episode 3 of #Smallbites (and 1 and 2) to find out what you can do this week.

The world needs your voice, but it needs your hand to the plow too.

A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action Read More »

Keep On Keeping On

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Small Bites Friday Five 06-19-20:

20-30m – Google anti-racism or something simple like “how to be a more culturally responsive teacher”. Nothing beats finding your own rabbit hole to fall into.

15-20m – Google “HBCU”, pick one and then read about its rich history and even consider giving your support. Here’s one option.

10-15m – Read or watch a social justice story from your favorite news outlet then read or watch a story covering the same topic from your least trusted news source. Reflect on perspective vs. fact.

5-10m – Have a conversation with at least one child or teen about race in America. Don’t proselytize, just listen. Consider it a fact-finding mission.

0-5m – Read “Teaching as Activism, Teaching as Care” from tolerance.org.

Every January I start a new health and fitness routine. Like clockwork. And every March I start the slow slide into the next January when I have to start all over again. The excitement of a new chance to do something big is always a huge draw at the year’s beginning. So is the likelihood that it won’t stick. According to a University of Scranton study, only 19% of those resolutions are kept long term.

The current social awakening to systemic disenfranchisement of marginalized populations bears every hallmark of a January 1st new beginning. Outrage and the opportunity for sweeping change is fueling a movement around the world. But I wonder, what will change look like 2 months or even 2 years from now?

The truth is, as much as we want to say we’ll keep pushing for change, life happens. You will have to learn new tech to teach in a blended environment, figure out how to work out without your 5AM spin class, give your personal kids more learning support or find new childcare for a totally new routine.

It will get cold and you won’t want to stand outside at a rally. Christmas will come and you may face balancing taking the kids to see grandma with Covid 2nd wave health and safety concerns.

Life will happen and, unless racism is causing you personal pain or at least personal difficulty, you will re-prioritize. You won’t want to, you may not even mean to but you will—unless you have a plan.

Decide now what your priorities are. Are you a letter writer? Grant writer? Check writer? Are you a relationship builder, library collection builder, a content connection builder? Do you see yourself making a difference with one? With a few? With many? In your family? In your classroom? In politics and policy?

Where and how can you keep pushing change forward when life hits? Whatever you can see yourself doing, make a plan now to do it when it’s cold, uncomfortable, busy and 100th on a list of 150 things you need to have done yesterday. Put your supports in place and make a plan to do it even when your best laid plan has gone wrong or made you the object of constant “oh-here-she-comes” eye-rolls.

Make a plan because when the protests stop, the real work will just be starting. Small Bites can be your go to. But even if it’s not, find one thing you can do even in the busiest of times because we can’t afford to lose one voice. We can’t afford to lose your voice.

You can get tired, you can get it wrong but you can’t give up.

Keep On Keeping On Read More »

Times They Are A-Changin’

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Replay of tonight’s live edition of #SmallBites!

Small Bites Friday Five 06-12-20:

20-30m – Watch ABC’s Blackish or Mixed-ish for light fare through a social justice lens.

15-20m – Find the local city council and school board websites and inform yourself.

10-15m – Visit Tolerance.org’s magazine section and read one article.

5-10m– Check your voting status at whenweallvote.org and encourage one friend to do the same.

A Whole Zero Minutes– Don’t judge anyone else’s helping unless it’s doing harm.

– #SmallBites

With the launch of #SmallBites, I have set out to help those who want to create more equitable classrooms and communities. Many, in shock and outrage, are eagerly consuming resources and investing time and energy to learn about and stand against systemic inequities that have long plagued our society. I feel in that energy a world-wide awakening, even as some alte-Garde political and cultural regimes dig their heels in.

We decide if this will be a trend or a moment, if that “one day when the Glory comes” will be sooner rather than later. You can begin with strategies mentioned in #SmallBites. The weekly Friday Five will allow you to keep up the anti-racism marathon by allowing you to pace yourself and not get so overwhelmed that you give up. As you hit your stride, you can create some space to go deeper.

Unfortunately, every problem can’t be tackled only with strategies that take less than 30 minutes. Going to a protest takes a day, reading a book, a few days. Making lasting change for marginalized populations across the globe, a lifetime and more.

To that end, I have had inspiring conversations with white colleagues this week, in particular with Barbara Bray, author of Define Your Why. Those conversations have produced this work in progress that uses Helm’s framework of racial identity to help people identify where they are on the journey to becoming more culturally responsive.

If you find yourself wanting a heaping round of seconds after consuming #SmallBites, open the document, set a spell and sift through the links, book titles and social action sites. Cut on some Brad Paisley with LL (hey, I liked the song!) or Freedom Sounds while you do. Take what you need, leave the rest. This ain’t a clean your plate kind of party. Social responsibility is both necessary and personal.

For now, go fast–because it’s been too long in coming to go slow–but keep a sustainable pace, because we can’t afford to lose even one voice.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, so pop in to YouTube next week for a serving of #SmallBites and follow me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

Times They Are A-Changin’ Read More »