In mid-February and early March, I had the pleasure of presenting at two very specialized education conferences.
The first was the Beyond School Hours conference in Burlingame, CA. This conference is designed for out-of-school time educators, and I presented on our K-6 World Olympics curriculum, which has been very successful in after-school settings. The participants in those sessions came from as far as Alaska to the Bahamas and it seemed the only complaint they had was that I didn’t have enough copies of the curricula to sell!
A specific idea that resonated with the group was normalizing difference in contrast to celebrating similarities. While both are important, a greater emphasis seems to be put on the latter in diversity work. In doing a few activities from the curriculum, participants were able to experience subtle ways in which difference can be normalized in everyday lessons.
– Anshu Wahi, Senior Program Associate