CHOOSE Champions: Educator Fellowship
Ever since our own educators inspired us to launch CHOOSE during sophomore year of high school (5 years ago!), we’ve cared deeply about students working with educators to have meaningful and effective conversations about race at school.
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When we created Tell Me Who You Are, we hoped that it would positively impact young people like us, across the United States, starting in the classroom. The book’s model was built on our own experiences as students, the guidance of our largely- educator advisory board, the racial literacy textbook we published in high school, and the hundreds of educator surveys we’ve collected.
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TMWYA already contains many of the elements of a racial literacy education, but in order for the book to be useful for educators, we hope to pair it with impact data, lesson plans, and other resources. We’ve already created an online “Educator’s Companion Guide” with our authors’ tips for using TMWYA in the classroom, as well as our insights from the student’s perspective in the book itself, but we hope educators have the opportunity to learn from other educators taking the lead on these conversations.
This past summer, we launched the CHOOSE Champions: Educator Fellowship, a passionate team of U.S. educators committed to leading conversations about race in their school this upcoming year and developing lesson plans using TMWYA as a key resource.
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TMWYA is the book we wish we had when we were younger. So, we're thrilled that our fellows will be brainstorming on how to integrate conversations about race into their classrooms with it—equipping other educators to do the same nationwide.
Fellowship Goals
A team of educators working with students to champion racial literacy in classrooms across the United States starting in the 2019-2020 school year.
Collaborate with like-minded educators
We’re here to learn from and support each other. Throughout the school year, we’ll discuss ideas, peer edit, and even celebrate together, in-person, at the year’s end. We hope this community continues beyond this year too!
Create (and Teach) Racial Literacy Lessons
Though we’ll be collaborating in teams, every educator will take the lead on writing and implementing racial literacy curriculum for their own specific classroom, incorporating Tell Me Who You Are and other resources.
Test the book: Tell Me Who You Are
This five-years-in-the-making racial literacy toolkit brings over a hundred voices to one classroom. Via pre-/post- surveys and conversations over phone, we want to know how teachers and students are responding.
Share with other educators
We’ll publish the final draft of our Fellows' racial literacy lesson plans online: an easy-to-follow model for other educators to replicate across the U.S. They'll also share their work in-person at our summer conference!
