Teaching about Race and Racism Across the Disciplines

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 20.02.09

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Content
  3. Rationale
  4. Demographics
  5. The Unit
  6. Strategies
  7. Appendix Implementing District Standards/Suggested Instructional Sequence
  8. Bibliography of Academic and Video Resources
  9. Bibliography of Children’s Books
  10. Notes

No Lye, Nappy or Straight, People Still Gon’ Hate: Getting to the Root of the Issue; Colorblindness and Neutrality within Hairstyles and Hair Types

Debra Denise Jenkins

Published September 2020

Tools for this Unit:

The Unit

This curriculum unit is slated to take approximately 12 weeks to cover from start to finish. Due to the uncertainties of the how the district will be returning, I am leaving some room for flexibility. Due to the activities, virtual field trips, and research that will go into the unit it is important that I give enough time to explore all these areas with fidelity and not just simply rush through them for the sake of completing the unit.

Many children’s picture books have been set to accompany this unit to lend expertise in other areas of cross curricula domains of learning. There are books of exploration for students that deal with but are not limited to hair, music, art, and history. At the end of the unit, students will have been through a multitude of subjects and media that until this curriculum unit, they may have never been exposed to.

This unit will teach students how to shift their own way of thinking or viewing their world, their self, and their peers from a colorblind standpoint and instead embrace beauty in all forms. To not dismiss the obvious or be harsh in their judgment about their own hairstyles or the hairstyles of others. Students will complete compare and contrast activities where they look through a metaphorical lens when viewing art, listening to music, reading books, or noticing in themselves or others the many intricacies that some purposefully take a stance of neutrality on and instead purposefully choose to do the opposite. I want to shift their ideologies now, with the hopes of creating nonracist citizens in the future.

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