At JC Harmon High School in Kansas City, Kansas, educator Crystal Yakel-Kuntz builds community and critical consciousness with their 9th–12th grade students through lessons rooted in Black history, joy, and resistance. Yakel-Kuntz said,
As part of our background work before reading Kindred by Octavia Butler and Beloved by Toni Morrison, we engage in Black History & Future stations centered on Black joy. The Teaching for Black Lives study groups cadre has helped me reimagine not only the content I bring into my classroom but how I collaborate with my students to shape our learning environment.
Drawing on resources from Rethinking Schools, Yakel-Kuntz integrated elements of Adam Sanchez’ lesson “Simulating Redlining: When ‘Race Was the Real Currency’” and plans to use the mixer in the future. While students were engaged, many wrestled with the historical and ongoing realities of systemic racism. “Their [The students’] biggest question is always ‘why?’” she said. “Why would the government redline neighborhoods? Why would anyone intentionally create ghettos?” These questions prompted her to scaffold lessons to include more overt examples of racism and injustice to help students connect the dots.
Though the district is piloting a new curriculum that may limit text choices, Yakel-Kuntz remains committed to teaching truth and nurturing radical thinking. “The cadre has been a space of solidarity and strategy. It’s helped me reframe challenges not just as obstacles, but as part of the ongoing work of justice.”