Year 9: Week 28 – Race & Sex in 5th Grade

“Tang Lives Matter.”

The 5th grader said it jokingly as they were settling down in the beginning of 5th grade music class. I looked at this boy’s face and he smiled eagerly waiting for a positive response for me what he perceived as the kind of joke that I would laugh along with him.

“No,” I said quietly, which somehow all of the students to quiet down. I don’t think all of them heard me, but they caught my mood and the fact that I wasn’t laughing.

There’s a time with children that you don’t bring the heat immediately. If a 6-year-old makes a racially offensive comment you have a serious but not overly harsh response. You want to encourage them to talk about what they said and have a constructive conversation. Cutting them down harshly might simply get them scared to say that phrase again, which might keep them from saying it, but it will likely cause more issue later. Whatever corrections and conversations we have with children around topics related to social justice must lead to that feeling that the student to ask questions and conversations. Being too angry can close children off to engaging in these important interactions.

With older students, they may need to sees a reaction of offense, anger and hurt to understand the serious nature of an offense. 5th graders are kind of on the edge and depending on what they say you may want to have a harsher or lighter tone or have the conversations individually or with the whole class.

This student is not one who usually says things that are offensive. The fact that other students didn’t show that they realized that there was something very wrong with that he just said led me to have a calmer group conversation.

I explained the Black Lives Matter movement, how we live in a country with great injustice and how that phrase and the movement was an act of inclusion. I proudly told the class about a Parker student who helped organize a successful student Black Lives Matter protests in Chicago. I talked about how some people responded to that movement and the phrase with “all lives matter,” missing the point of the phrase. I also talked about how bringing forward injustice, and issues related to race make people feel uncomfortable and sometimes people react to this discomfort by saying things that try to undermine or cut down important ideas that benefit all of us. And I dropped a little hint of the idea of privileged in there for good measure.

The student was clearly affected by what I said and he apologized quietly.

Later in the class a student then asked me if the idea that the song we were learning, “Greensleeves,” was in reference to having “sex in the class.” I responded by delving into how difficult it is to understand the concepts of love, romance, and sexuality. I made sure to tell the students that I wasn’t mad that he asked an honest question, which I could clearly sense, but that I needed to clear this up to help us focus on our study of the song.

Black Lives Matter, and Sex...all in one 40-minute class.