A whole month, though the shortest one. And cold too. I'm hard pressed to name five black people (famous or personal to me) that enjoy being outdoors in the cold - I'm just sayin' why couldn't we get May or August?

Anyway, I've never given a lot of energy and time to celebrating black history during this month because I've often felt a bit smug about the idea of giving people a month to focus on their year-round, lifelong culture; especially a group of people who've been separated and alienated for a lot of this country's history.  

So, I have to be honest and admit that having gone to a predominately white middle and high school here in Wisconsin, I've never really spoken up about my interest in learning more about black culture and actually got even more quiet attempting to blend in during the month of February. Now, I work at a school where our student population is comprised of 99.9% African-American students and after hosting one of our parent advisory meetings, it was clear that this positive history exposure and instruction is important to our families, which has made it more important to me. I've gulped and swallowed and have decided to delve into a school wide Black History Month curriculum. I am working with a very talented teaching assistant and we are keeping it simple, but we're doing it. Friday during lunch, we showed a few videos to our students. It got me excited to think and blog. Check out the video below. Powerful.

As I post throughout the month, I will share more of my thoughts about black heroes and black history, things I learn and things I decide to question. Thank you for joining me on the journey.







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