In this section we highlight lesson plans that might be used in conjunction with the video clips that appear on this website. They are organized in accordance with the different lenses of the voices that have been captured in our research project. Thus, there are four sections to the lesson plans: students’ perspectives, teachers’ perspectives, school administrators’ perspectives, and community members’ perspectives.
The lesson plans might stimulate reflective dialogue and reflexive action among educators regarding issues of equity and social justice pertaining to school desegregation. The lesson plans included on this website may also be used in teacher education courses for preservice and in-service students. They might also be useful for other students engaged in work on social justice and equity across a broad variety of disciplines. Workshops aimed at diversity and equity might also employ these lesson plans in business and other professional environments.
The lesson plans can be used in isolation, or they can be used together as a set in order to support conversations and professional development. It is possible to attend to all of the lesson plans within each section before moving on to the lesson plans in other sections. However, these lesson plans might be adapted to a variety of learning and development situations. For this reason, it might prove to be more relevant to select one or two lesson plans from each section.
Although we envision much adaptability among the provided lesson plans, we have designed them with an overall consideration of the context of the dialogues of all of our participants. For this reason, we suggest beginning with the lesson plans included in the Community Members’ Perspectives section. “Lesson plan: Identifying experiences of and potential difference(s) between desegregation and integration in the public school system” can be used first to build a foundation of knowledge about the historical and social stages of school desegregation. “Lesson plan: Understanding teachers’ interactions within school desegregation as personal, communal, and societal experiences” will support an understanding of teachers as community members working in schools during the period of school desegregation. Next, “Lesson plan: The silenced dialogue of school desegregation: Voicing curriculum stakeholders and the needs of curriculum beneficiaries” raises significant issues of voicing and power among the African American community during the period of school desegregation.
The Teachers’ Perspectives folder offers a next step for analyzing curricular interactions and tensions in schools during the period of school desegregation. “Lesson plan: Top-down and bottom-up approaches to curriculum reform” unpacks the systemic influences on shaping the curriculum. In “Lesson plan: Impact of teachers’ experiences and perspectives on their practices” delves into deliberation over the impact of African American teachers in schools and classroom during efforts at school desegregation. Following this, “Lesson plan: Addressing teacher-student cultural and communication gaps” highlights possible experiences of tensions underpinning curricular and social contexts of learning during school desegregation efforts.
Following this, the School Administrators’ Perspectives folder sheds light on how school administrators served to forge new relationships within school communities during the period of school desegregation……
Our hope is that you find these lesson plans to be useful curriculum materials. We encourage you to extend discussions and activities in relation to your specific contexts. We also invite you to submit narratives about your experiences utilizing these materials in the Community Yearbook section of this website.