Affirming Diversity
through Culturally Relevant Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning
Week 12
Assignment Due December 8 at 4:00 PM
Learning Activity 1
Dr. Katherine Johnson - Astrophysicist, Space Scientist, Mathematician
Steve Breen, national political cartoonist, expressed his respect and regard for Katherine Johnson, an irreplaceable thinker, visionary and mathematician whose equations are directing NASA space launches STILL after her death.
To his surprise, the cartoon appeared on an Illinois middle school wall for everyone to see and he tweeted his delight.
Katherine Johnson, no longer at NASA, continues to inform space exploration knowledge.
VIEW video and READ the article.
Katherine Johnson's equations are our steps to space.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/katherine-johnson-the-girl-who-loved-to-count
1. Using the article and video as references, list 4 achievements that Dr. Johnson led or participated in at NASA that you did not know about.
2. If you were designing a U.S. currency coin in her honor, which of her achievements would you highlight on the coin and why?
3. What surprised you about how she learned from a very young age?
Learning Activity 2
Housing Discrimination Creates School Segregation
60 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, America's schools remain segregated.
Reported NPR 0517/2014.
Listen to the podcast while reading the transcript. Focus on the students reading the 6-word sentences they each wrote.
4. Did you know any of the information from the podcast about resegregation by school districts and courts?
Explain three events or actions learned while listening to this history.
Listen to the podcast while reading the transcript. Three generations of the Dent family explain history as they lived it.
Reported NPR 04/18/14. Interview Transcript
5a. What is bright flight? What is white flight?
5b. When white flight and bright flight happens, who REMAINS in the community?
6. In the interview, Six Words: 'Segregation Should Not Determine Our Future', what did you hear D'Leisha Dent say about how she DEMONSTRATES her growth mindset in school?
7. To compose a six word sentence for the Race Card Project, what six words would you write? Why?
8. Of the students interviewed for Six Words: 'Segregation Should Not Determine Our Future' whose words made the most profound impression on you? Explain why you chose this sentence.
Learning Activity 3
Laws and Government Policies Determine Housing
View short video What is REDLINING?
Maps are gone, but the problem hasn't disappeared.
Resources for Additional Learning Not Part of the Assignment
Who are the students in America's Schools?
RECALLING YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE in high school with diversity of students/teachers/staff:
11. Were students speaking many different languages or mostly English?
12. Were bilingual or tri-lingual teachers and staff speaking those other languages to students in hallways or the cafeteria?
13. Were students in the school(s) from a wide range of socioeconomic levels-wealthy to poor?
14. Did the school(s) have free breakfast and lunch programs?
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