Teaching Our Children About Their Cultures

My family celebrates Saint Patrick’s Day because we are primarily Irish. We wear green, enjoy a corned beef and cabbage dinner, and decorate the house with shamrocks, Leprechauns, and pots of god. We may listen to some Irish music and read Irish folklore. We also talk about what we value most about our family heritage.

Culturally Sensitive School Celebrations

During the winter months our students celebrate a variety of culturally sensitive holidays at school. These include Martin Luther King Junior Day, presidents’ holidays, and the Cesar Chavez holiday. Several also celebrate Chinese New Year, the Tet Festival, or Saint Patrick’s Day with their families. We write stories about favorite holidays and share details about how our families celebrate a specific holiday. Most students describe a special meal that was part of the celebration with culturally relevant foods and traditions. Many families typically invite relatives to these special meals and celebrations.

At the end of this cultural unit, students will write their version of their family’s bill of rights with a mission statement or the values of their family. When considering the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights protects the basic rights of community members. These include the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and worship. Here is an example of a family’s mission statement with some rights within a family:

Creating a Family Bill of Rights

Our family’s mission statement is to protect, respect, and support each other in our healthy development of individual family members. Our family’s bill of rights includes these 10 freedoms:

The right to be respected and supported by each family member
The right to have individual needs expressed and supported by family members
The right to express individual feelings and beliefs about a situation without threats of being ridiculed or punished for those beliefs
The right to attend school and participate in extra-curricular activities and team sports
The right to participate in age-appropriate social and physical fitness activities with friends
The right to participate in service learning, community services, community leadership activities
The right to go to church and participate in age-appropriate church sponsored social activities
The right to explore and plan for a career path and college preparation
The right to work in a job with school-supportive hours while also attending high school
The right to help family members with project-based learning activities

A Family’s Bill of Rights Impacts a Family’s Values

Whenever, we complete this project with parents and their children, families are able to focus on what their values, mission, and bill of rights are for their family. These provide guidance with goals of what they would like their family to achieve. Many families frame or post their family’s mission statement and bill of rights in a prominent place in their home. These become a motto for family harmony and a guide for family growth.

Much success as you celebrate your family heritage and identify your family’s values with a mission statement to support the development of your family’s bill of rights.

Mary Ann

Friends, Silence Makes Us Complicit

Friends, Silence Makes Us Complicit

In May 2020, George Floyd was killed while in police custody. And while this senseless, callous act was committed between a police officer against a human being, to my great horror, another equally ugly and grievous act was being committed – an Asian police officer stood by and did nothing to stop George Floyd’s death. In response to this act, my cousin rightly pointed out that “it is not ok to stand silently by in quiet solidarity. Friends, silence makes us complicit.” Boy, oh boy, did that last statement hit me like a ton of bricks! It made me realize that for far too long, I had been silent. But as an Asian American, where do I start finding my voice as an ally? How should I start leaning into anti-racism?

Acknowledgement

First, I had to acknowledge and confess some truths about myself. As I reflected on my experience concerning racism, I discovered that I am sometimes both victim and offender. As an Asian American, I experienced my fair share of racism – sometimes subtle, sometimes overt – but nothing like the recent aggressive attacks on elderly Asians across the country (a topic for another blog post!). However, the expectation to fit into the “model minority” role also enabled me to assimilate and be a recipient of privilege. This dichotomy made me feel uneasy and regretful, and perhaps it now continues to serve as the driving force for learning how to speak up against racial injustice.

Awareness

Realizing that I do not know enough about the Black American experience, I started reading books and watching videos so that I could gain an awareness of racism in America, but also how I could celebrate diversity and promote reconciliation. Here are a few of the resources that have made a big impact on how I am becoming more aware of racism in America:

How to Be an Antiracist, book by Ibram X. Kendi

I Am Not Your Negro, documentary by Raoul Peck

Just Mercy, movie directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, book written by Bryan Stevenson

Multiethnic Conversations, book by Mark DeMaz and Oneya Fennel Okuwobi

Roadmap to Reconciliation, book by Brenda Salter McNeil

Selma, movie directed by Ava DuVernay, book written by Paul Webb

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, book by Jason Reynolds

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, book by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Action

One of the vignettes described in Roadmap to Reconciliation was about a white woman who visited a museum documenting brutal and horrific lynchings. Her response to this experience resonated with me. She said, “I don’t know what to do with what I just saw. I can’t fix your pain, and I can’t take it away, but I can see it. And I will work the rest of my life to fight for you and for your children so they won’t experience it.”

Like this woman, I too, feel the pain of what has happened in the past, including present day racial injustices. I want to contribute to and promote a more anti-racist society. My first step of action was to seek accountability in my personal journey to keep learning about racism in America, so I joined a discussion group. We have been meeting each week to share what we have been learning. At first, we reported different sources of information but eventually the format of our meetings morphed into a book club where we all read and discussed the same book. Our last project together was to organize a community viewing and panel discussion of “’54,” a documentary about Sunnyhills, the first planned integrated community in America. On a professional level, I helped organize parent workshops and found presenters to speak about how to raise anti-racist kids.

Change

These are just small steps in the larger anti-racism movement, but I am no longer silent.

Friends, what books or resources would you recommend as we continue leaning into anti-racism? What actions would you suggest so we can stand in solidarity against racial injustice?

My very best,

Jaime

How We Help Our K-12 Children Manage Money

It is a new year with opportunities for growth and understanding for all. Many families redefine chore responsibilities with the start of each new year. Families also discuss the relevance of an allowance to help their children learn how to save for treasured purchases. Some families provide a weekly allowance for being a family member while others tie the allowance to a list of household chores. Many families also encourage their children to take on significant household responsibilities that may include weekly grocery shopping, yard work, painting, and housecleaning to earn extra money for specific needs they may include hobbies, sports camps, sporting equipment, school sponsored club trips, and clothing purchases. For example, some students start making crafts for crafts fairs or sell their products on online websites.

Middle School Student Money Management

Middle school students can expand their financial literacy by:

Managing an annual clothes allowance with agreed budgetary items or requirements
Learning to manage a cell phone plan and allowance
Managing a savings account for college that may include learning about various savings investments (e.g. certificates of deposit, U.S. Savings Bonds, and mutual fund investments)
Supporting neighbors and friends by babysitting, dog walking, selling baked goods, and providing computer support services

High School Student Money Management

High school students can also support the family by:

Supporting the use of a family car by paying for gas, car maintenance expenses, and the increased premium for auto insurance
Getting a summer or after school job to save for college and pay for added clothing, entertainment, hobbies, and sporting activities
Research the cost for various college and career preparation programs and contribute to their college and career savings plan when earning money
Managing the family’s weekly food budget
Planning and budgeting for various family outings and trips
Learning how to write a grant and apply for funding for a school or community service need
Explore various investment options to contribute to the college and career fund
Working with their parents to understand the family daily, weekly, and monthly household budget to prepare for an independent college and career life after high school with clear expectations of what is costs to go to various colleges and live away from home

Self-Reliant Children

As we partner with our children to manage money and guide them in the process, they will become self-reliant and resilient when overcoming various financial setbacks and challenges. Our goal as parents can be to help our children become capable money managers by the time they are 18 years old. This means they have reasonable expectations of what daily life costs are and how they can manage and support their family with these costs when they start an independent college and career life away from home.

Much success teaching your kids about money management!

Mary Ann

Understanding Our Children’s Preferred Learning Styles for Academic Success

When I tutor students in the Goggle classroom, I listen and watch them carefully as they describe how they prefer to learn when reading and writing. For example, one student may describe how she gains lots of information about a story by looking at the pictures in the story first. Another student may want to write down his answer about what he just read before summarizing the story in two sentences. A third student may prefer drawing pictures or acting out the story before discussing or writing a story.

Most teachers consider students’ various learning styles when working with individual students. Below are five primary learning styles described in Data Driven Differentiation in the Standards-Based Classroom by Gayle H. Gregory and Lin Kuzmich:

Linguistic learners like to write, play word games, learn vocabulary, debate, and create jokes.
Musical learners love to sing, create tunes and rhymes, and make a song as part of a solution.
Logical/mathematical learners problem solve through abstract reasoning with numbers, formulas, patterns, puzzles, and data.
Visual/spatial learners draw pictures, solutions, and models with color and media.
Body/kinesthetic learners use gestures, actions, and act out to demonstrate learning.

Help for Students and Parents

When students and their teacher understand how they like to learn, they can work together to determine how the students can best show what they have learned during a given assignment. During parent-teacher conferences, the teacher can help parents reinforce their children’s learning at home by discussing a student’s preferred learning style.

Reinforcing Learning at Home

As we reinforce our children’s preferred learning styles at home, we validate each child as a successful learner. We can then help each child expand his or her ability to learn first by using a preferred learning style to demonstrate learning. Then we can encourage our child to use other learning styles for problem solving. Many teachers also encourage students to show their work when using several different learning styles. For example, teachers may have students demonstrate their writing skills by illustrating their stories (visual leaners), writing their stories (linguistic learners), peer editing stories (logical and linguistic learners) and then discussing the stories with the class (linguistic learners).

Much success as you reinforce your children’s learning styles at home and encourage them to expand their use of other learning styles to strengthen their learning abilities.

Mary Ann

Book Recommendations for Middle Schoolers

Every now and then, people would ask me for book recommendations for their middle school aged student. “Are there any good books out there that my kid will like?” they ask. Acknowledging that there are books not all teens will like, let’s define what is meant by a “good” book for the purpose of these recommendations. For teenagers, good books provide IQ (intelligence quotient) and EQ (emotional quotient) perspective. In terms of IQ, books that give adolescents a point of view other than their own so they can expand their horizons would make great books. Teens will read plenty of sources bolstering their IQ through school, so this list offers only a couple suggestions in this area. In terms of EQ, teens will really benefit and grow from reading first-person narratives so they can learn to empathize and identify with the main character. In the case of auto-biographical writing, we benefit from the author’s perspective and voice. In an age where we need to develop more student leadership, compassion, and solidarity, I recommend the following:

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

In a collection of poems, award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson offers her readers insight into what it was like growing up African American in South Carolina and New York in the 1960s and 1970s. She gives a child’s perspective of increasing awareness during the Civil Rights movement, as well as her personal coming-of-age experiences as a young writer.

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

When the pandemic put a halt to all sports (professional and amateur sports) in March 2020, this graphic novel about Bishop O’Dowd High School’s basketball team trying to win the California State Championship was published at just the right time! With no televised games, my family and I all read Gene Yang’s inspiring story of how individual and collective transformation begins with taking a small step of faith towards overcoming obstacles.

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly

A third-generation Japanese American, a shy Filipino boy, and a third generation neighborhood bully makes a girl who is hard of hearing, and up the diverse cast of characters in this book. They all just finished 6^th grade at the same school and through a mean prank, their lives intersect. This Newberry award-winning novel brings attention to the theme that despite what we may appear to be on the outside, we all face the same insecurities and challenges on the inside.

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

The pain of the Vietnam War, separation from homeland and family, and experiencing a new life as an outsider in a different county are all intimately and vividly portrayed in Thanhha Lai’s poems. For teenagers who may not understand or may not have encountered trauma, the words expressed in Inside Out and Back Again will give youth a medium to connect with unfamiliar experiences.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey

Teenagers are full of potential, but how do they hone in on practices that will yield a beneficial, successful outcome for their future? The seven habits outlined in this book will help teens align all their energy so they know how to make their goals become a reality.

Stamped, Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds

In light of the Black Lives Matter movement that gained momentum in 2020, I really wanted to understand the historical perspective of racism in America. This book by Jason Reynolds is a remix of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. Using a voice that is relatable to youth, Reynolds “connects-the-dots” in the big picture of racism in our nation. It has opened my eyes to historical and current laws have kept Black people from a life of freedom and liberty.

Happy Reading!

Jaime