My students need books to read and tablets to share to study the injustices against Japanese Americans in the US during WWII so they can work to make sure nothing like that ever happens.
My 6th grade class is part of a neighborhood program in a school that has a demographic divide between the neighborhood kids and a magnet program. In the microcosm of our school site, I see an opportunity to bridge gaps that have occurred by both happenstance and choice. I put a great emphasis on social-emotional learning and the students under my care rise to the challenge of being the best human beings they can be, mindful and focused on caring for each other while raising their awareness of the world outside our town.
I constantly strive to provide an equitable educational experience for my kids, especially since they are more likely to be from families with fewer options.
My students come from a variety of backgrounds, speak a number of different languages, and are being raised in families with a wide range of situations and financial means. The neighborhood program in which I teach is Title I, many children receive free- and reduced-price lunch, and we have a high number of students who are learning English as a second language.
My Project
I want the students in my class to learn from history, to understand that there are many things from the past that should never be repeated, especially times when citizens and immigrant residents of the US were denied civil liberties and rights. The focus of my project is to teach my class about the dark chapter in US history when Japanese Americans and people with Japanese ancestry were unjustly incarcerated. Through their study, they will learn it was undeniably wrong and should not be seen as a precedent for similar harm against other groups of people.
It is imperative that our children, our future, work to ensure injustices like the incarceration of Japanese Americans never happen again.
My main focus with this project is to receive funding for a class set of novels and a variety of other books. Along with the books, I am requesting six Kindle Fire tablets so groups of students can go on the Internet to find and research images and other primary source materials. I will also teach using curriculum and resources from Densho, an organization that documents first-hand accounts of the incarceration of Japanese Americans. With this knowledge, my students will be more informed as they strive for social justice and work to fight intolerance and try to right the wrongdoings of the past.
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