Session 3
Curriculum and Pedagogy
As we move into the second day of the conference, we want to ensure educators have the opportunity to gain new knowledge and think practically about their classrooms and content areas, all through the lens of anti-racism and culturally relevant pedagogy. These sessions will focus on elementary education, art, history, ELA, science, math, and even advisory.
Presenters At A Glance
Anti Bias Education is a core component of the education of the young child. Using the learning standards from the National Association of the Young Child (NAEYC), we will explore the possibilities of exploring identity, culture, justice, and activism with our youngest learners. Participants will learn about how to build an Anti Bias classroom library and strategies for using children's books to engage in meaningful work with elementary aged children. We will have time for participants to brainstorm ways to connect to their classrooms and curriculum.
Anti-Bias Education For The Elementary Learner
Presenter Bios:
Julia Webb (she/her)
Julia Webb has been the principal of Elm City Montessori for the last six years. After attending New Haven Public schools herself, Julia spent over a decade teaching in public schools in New York City and New Haven. She is committed to schooling that provides opportunity for self discovery, reflective practices, challenging work, and project based learning that leads to mastery. At ECMS, she worked in collaboration to integrate Anti Bias and and Anti Racist practices into her own work and into the learning experiences for adults and children.
Alejandra Corona Ortega (she/her)
Alejandra Corona migrated to New Haven in 2009 and has lived here ever since. She has always been interested in the power of education to empower and liberate children. She is currently finishing her Montessori Training at the University of Hartford and hopes to apply every piece of learning into her work with children. She teaches an Upper Elementary class in Elm City Montessori School.
Conscious of Power: How Art Can Teach Us to Practice Solidarity
Art is a door that brings us to consider a new perspective, story, or message. And in that same breath, uncovers what comes up within ourselves. In this session, participants will practice tools in how to look at, utilize, digest, and consider art in the classroom, how it may stitch us together in solidarity, and it’s impacts– while maintaining conscious use of our own power as facilitators.
Presenter Bio:
Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez (she/her/ella)
Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez (she/her) is an Indigenous Zapotec artist, educator, curator, and community activator born on Quinnipiac land (New Haven, Connecticut). As a lens-based artist, she uses photography as a tool in printmaking, woodworking, and other media to investigate and create language for herself in many themes; religious exploitation, redemption, forgiveness, institutional oppression, and more. She is passionate about work that serves the New Haven arts community, grassroots arts ecology, and currently facilitates a community of practice where artists can meet and support each other, outside of the gaze of arts institutions, called Fair-Side. In her curatorial practice, she organizes exhibitions concerning themes and ideas surrounding community solidarity. Ruby's work has been supported and recognized by the National Basketball Association, Facing History and Ourselves, United Way, the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, The National Endowment for the Arts, and more.
In this session, we will address math instruction through an inclusive and culturally relevant lens. We will begin to answer questions such as: How can we create a community of math learners that feel comfortable taking risks in the classroom? How can we create an environment that celebrates, values, and affirms existing student knowledge and creative problem solving? How does a culturally relevant class make learning math relevant to students? We will share best practices and frameworks, and participants will have space to reflect and assess their current practices to identify opportunities to shift and develop their own classroom culture.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Math
Presenter Bio:
Hillary Clayton (she/her)
Hillary Clayton (she/her) has been working in education for over a decade teaching middle and high school math and science. She has worked in Baltimore, MD and in the Seattle-Tacoma, WA metro area, and her primary passion as an educator is to help students find relevance in the things that they learn. Hillary is passionate about rooting her instruction and learning opportunities in the communities that she teaches in, and has done extensive community and family partnership work to integrate her curriculum into her students' lived experience. Hillary is thrilled to share her experience and ideas with this year’s participants, and is looking forward to the collaboration with participants during her session.
Follow the Drinking Gourd: How Every STEM Lesson is an Opportunity to Cultivate Freedom
Curriculum and pedagogy are words used by many but understood by few. For this reason concepts of antiracist curriculum or antiracist pedagogy can be quite intimidating to the masses. In this session, we will move beyond mere definitions, and work together to create lessons and activities that are rooted in resistance and freedom. This session will mirror the strategies necessary for successfully creating a culture of freedom in the classroom, cover how to draft course documents and create activities that are anti racist but have fidelity to STEM content, and explore the non-traditional instruction methods. Participants will leave this session confident in their ability to tackle difficult content, develop course syllabi, create and carry out lessons and activities, and employ instructional methods form other cultural backgrounds. If you are excited about community, STEM, and antiracism; this is the session for you.
Presenter Bio:
Dr. Veronica Wylie (she/her)
Dr. Veronica Wylie, is a passionate lifelong learner. She has worked in education since the fall of 2008 in every position from classroom assistant to classroom teacher. Her professional and educational endeavors have always been rooted in the belief that all young people are innately gifted and need guidance in honing in on those gifts. Currently Dr. Wylie is a high school science teacher in Hazlehurst, MS. There she helped to initiate an AP program, robotics team, carries out the curriculum and professional development duties for the science department, and is currently working in tandem with her principal and superintendent to develop leadership opportunities for educators district wide.
Konscious Educators: An Interactive Experience of Embodiment, Transformation, and Awakening
We are witnessing a mental health crisis within students and teachers across education. Now, more than ever, it is crucial to equip educators with the tools and knowledge to navigate these challenges and create an inclusive and supportive learning environment.
"Konscious Educators: an Interactive Experience of Embodiment, Transformation, and Awakening," addresses this pressing issue head-on. Through a series of engaging activities and discussions, we will guide participants on a transformative journey to becoming super educators.
During this workshop, you’ll learn practical techniques to enhance your emotional intelligence, cultivate resilience, and promote self-care. We will explore the power of embodiment, emphasizing the connection between body, mind and heart providing strategies to create a mindful and compassionate classroom environment. With our roadmap to awakening the super educator in you, you will be empowered to make a profound impact on the lives of your students and foster a positive educational experience for all.
Presenter Bio:
Mychal Mills (he/him) & Rodney Salomon
KYDS is a nonprofit organization based in New Jersey, dedicated to transforming youth, schools, and communities through holistic practices. Our vision is to create a consciously awakened world, founded on love, connection, authenticity, vulnerability, and transformation. We uphold values of high integrity, gratitude, holistic self-awareness, knowledge and education, and a commitment to culture and diversity.
Since 2014, KYDS has positively impacted over 20,000 students and ,9000 educators across 130 schools in New Jersey. Founded by Mychal Mills and Rodney Salomon, who witnessed various challenges in their community such as trauma, suicide and self-harm, violence, substance abuse, low self-esteem among youth. With a focus on empowering young individuals through inner growth, KYDS is the leading organization in New Jersey transforming education from within.
Leveraging Language & Culture in the Classroom
Throughout the history of schools and education, linguistic and cultural differences have been viewed and treated with a deficit mindset and approach impacting student experience and their ability to learn, grow, and develop along with their peers. How can we create an environment that celebrates, affirms, and values language as a culture add, enhancement, and necessary to how we engage in teaching and learning? In this multi-modal session, we will examine language through an inclusive lens using culturally responsive and relevant frameworks to reflect, assess, and inform our practices. Participants will have ample opportunity to shift and develop their own multicultural classroom and will leave with tangible tools to implement immediately.
Presenter Bio:
Rebecca Flores Harper (she/her/ella)
Rebecca Flores Harper (she/her/ella) identifies as a bicultural multilingual Mexican-American adoptee. With over a decade of experience in education, Rebecca has worked with students ages 3-18, families, educators, alums, and community members always with the goal of uplifting children. For the past eight years, Rebecca has worked specifically as a DEIJ leader and is currently the Director of Equity and Community at Hopkins School in New Haven, CT. In 2021, she founded AuthenTEACHCity in order to better support educators, organizations, and community members alike with their DEIJ efforts. Raised in New Haven and a product of NHPS, it is an honor to have been asked to join this beloved community once again.
When Black Lives Mattered: Teaching Reconstruction
Too often teachers move straight from slavery to Jim Crow — reinforcing the narrative of steady racial progress and ignoring the incredible struggles of Black people, demanding a country that actually provided “liberty and justice for all.” Reconstruction was one of those rare moments where poor people — many formerly enslaved — grasped the levers of power. While this period is paralleled by the Civil Right Movement of the 1960s and 70s in the sheer numbers and boldness of Black people fighting racist practices and contesting for power, there are far fewer resources that give students — especially K-12 students — a sense of the revolutionary upheaval that swept through the country during the late 1860s and 1870s. To remedy this, this session will introduce participants to a series of lessons and strategies that try to help students understand, imagine, and celebrate this moment as the first era of Black power in the United States.
Presenter Bio:
Adam Sanchez (he/him)
Adam Sanchez (he/him) is the managing editor of Rethinking Schools and a teacher leader with the Zinn Education Project. He taught high school history for over a decade in Philadelphia, New York City, and Portland, Oregon. He is the editor of Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War (Rethinking Schools, 2019) and is currently working on a book about teaching Reconstruction. In addition to Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project his articles and curriculum have appeared in Teen Vogue, Newsela, The Nation, The Progressive, History News Network, Common Dreams, Huffington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Word is Bond: Utilizing Rap as Culturally Responsive Text
This session will help participants develop an understanding of utilizing Hip-hop as a strategy to engage students and foster academic achievement. Participants will be given a demonstration on how to utilize rap lyrics as literature and informational text. The overarching objective of this workshop is to promote the implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy and curriculum that is centering and affirming for some historically marginalized students.
Presenter Bios:
Brian Knowles (he/him)
Brian Knowles is a dynamic speaker, writer, researcher, and educator with the distinction of being twice named by Legacy Magazine as one of South Florida’s Top Black Educators (2018 and 2022).
Brian is the founder of Power Builders Curriculum and Pedagogies, LLC - an educational consulting company that supports schools, community organizations, and education-focused nonprofits in creating culturally affirming spaces. This includes, but is not limited to, policy, curriculum, research, professional development, and professional speaking engagements.
In his home state of Florida, Brian has been instrumental in supporting schools to create environments conducive to all students' academic success. He has designed policies to eliminate systemic barriers and interrupt discriminatory practices that create predictable outcomes for some groups of students. He has also designed a series of state-wide, secondary-level courses that highlight African Diasporic people's historical contributions and experiences.