WEBVTT

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[Music]

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[Audience clapping]

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Jen Holladay:
So um it's important for me to say

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that I
am here as a parent guardian from the

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Denver Public Schools and I just wanna

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thank the organizers for inviting

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uh parent voice into this venue I really

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appreciate the opportunity um I also just

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accepted a job with the Adams 14 School

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District so I got to do a little shout
out for Adams 14 um you know most TED

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Talks
talk about a new idea or a big idea I'm

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talking about uh really old idea it's

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been around for decades I'm talking

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about multiculturalism we were talking

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about it in 1978 and we're still talking

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about it today because it's been around

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for such a long time it can mean

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different things to different people so

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I wanna talk about some multicultural

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practices that I'm not talking about
today

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I am not talking about food and

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festivals or heroes and holidays

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kay these sorts of things can be really

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fun they're very easy to do and if

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they're authentic to the cultures that

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are represented in our school they can
be really fun community builders but

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they also come with some risks one of

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the things that I've see a lot out here

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is I see I see things on the school menu

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we'll have tacos and celebration of

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sin Cinco de Mayo
we'll have uh fried chicken for Martin

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Luther King Day we'll have soul food on

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the menu during Black History Month 
um and again

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these sorts of things can be fun
but they also run the risk of sort of

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reinforcing stereotypes and they also
run the risk of trivializing things that

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are really really uh
quite important so um how

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many people here think most of your

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students have heard of Cinco de Mayo?

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Right and so if ya all had taught I use

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ya all as a gender-neutral pronoun if

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ya all had tacos um on your menu as your

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students are biting into that taco are

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they thinking about Mexican resistance

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to French occupation is
that what they're

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thinking about? No.
so it runs the risk of sort of

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trivializing something that is actually

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quite important

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oops can you go back one I'm also not

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talking about something we do a lot in
early childhood classrooms which is when

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we bring in stories from all over the

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world right kind of that folklore and

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sort of fables approach again this is

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something that's really easy to do it's

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also a way to kind of ensure that our

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children our diverse children in a

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classroom see somebody who looks like
them

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and and what they're reading in the
classroom it's a really easy thing to do

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but I wanna remind everybody that the

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value of multicultural content is not

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just about where a story comes from it's

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also about the messages um 
that the story

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relays to the reader

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last year in her second grade literacy

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class my daughter was reading a

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multicultural anthology one of the

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stories that was included in that

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anthology was a story called the Selkie

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Girl which is a traditional Celtic tale

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and if I were to summarize this story

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it's basically about a man who gets

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obsessed with a magical seal woman so

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I'm gonna read one paragraph from

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this story he went to look in wonder and

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delight he saw three beautiful girls

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sitting on the rocks

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naked combing their hair one of the

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girls had fair hair one red and one

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black the fair haired girl was singing

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she was the most beautiful of the three

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and he could not take his eyes from her

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he gazed and gazed at her gleaming white

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body okay this was my daughter's

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response to that story um I would say it

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was my response as well so when you are

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using sort of the stories from around
the world approach remember that the

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messages matter the messages of the

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story matter as much as where the
stories come from um to be fair to my

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child uh this is what Zoey
looks like happy

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okay

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so if I'm not talking about food and

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festivals or heroes or holidays or

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folklore and fables um
what am I talking

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about? I am talking about the kind of

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social the the
kind of multiculturalism

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that's characterized by three basic

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things it is rigorous in terms of

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content and instruction very rigorous it

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supports all that skill building we're
so concerned about um it also is designed

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particularly with instruction to

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advance students pro-social capacities

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and that's a big phrase that just means

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our students can look at issues from

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multiple points of view and they can

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um work collaboratively in diverse groups

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that's what pro-social proficiencies are

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um and the third thing that the kind of

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multiculturalism that I'm talking about

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does is that it advances social justice

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let's talk about that term for a 
second um last

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fall in the Denver Public Schools we had
a little kerfuffle um DPS rolled out the

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new a draft of the new teacher

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evaluation protocol and it included some

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elements that related to this term

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social justice and so it brought out
some pretty significant responses in our

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community to some people in our

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community if we focus on social justice

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that means we're going to turn all of
our children into socialists who hate

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white people okay this of course this

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kind of response then brought out people

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from the other end of the spectrum who

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said if we don't have an emphasis on

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social justice in our schools that just

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means our schools will serve to

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reinforce the white supremacist

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heterosexist oligarchy and by the way

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so [chuckles] right

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so if you get hung up on the

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social justice term if it's not a term
that works well for you um I'm gonna

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take a cue from our school
superintendent Tom Bose Berg when we

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were having this kerfuffle in DPS

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who just came back and said we want our

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kids to be critical thinkers

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multiculturalists are interested in our
children being able to look at at at issues

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from multiple points of view work

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collaboratively with each other

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and really kind of solve problems so the

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kind of multiculturalism that I'm

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talking about is the kind that is

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rigorous academically content and

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instruction it advances pro-social

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proficiency particularly through
instruction and it advances social

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justice or critical thinking whatever

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term you're most comfortable with

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so one of the schools that I have the

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privilege of being involved in in uh 
Denver

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and Denver Public Schools is Highline
Academy Charter School

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I'm the board president there that's a
volunteer position where I work

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full-time um
and yeah and um Highline Academy

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is a K-8 public charter school

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authorized by Alyssa
authorized by the

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Denver Public Schools we are a

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purposefully integrated school and we

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mean that like in the old school way we

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are 50 percent
of color and 50 percent white that's on

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purpose and the demographics of South

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East Denver allow us to do that we're

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also what we call a court what we call

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literally we made this up we are a core

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knowledge plus school um
those of you who

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know core knowledge if you don't know
core knowledge what it basically is it's

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uh it's uh sequence and a scaffolded set

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of content that spirals up through the

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grade levels and it's a really useful

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tool because it allows us to make sure

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that you know our kids aren't reading

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that I have a dream speech every year

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when they when they do Martin Luther
King Day right it just allows us to

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create shared knowledge and second grade

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that is then built upon in the fifth

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grade so when Zoey my daughter was in 2nd

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grade last year um this was when they had

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their first introduction to westward
expansion

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um

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and it was now High Line High

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Line has were a core knowledge plus

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school because
we supplement our content a lot to make

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sure it meets the needs of our diverse
learners and when Zoey got into this

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westward expansion unit it was uh whole

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bunch of old pioneer wagon trains river

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boats trains um and that and and
varied that

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based sort of in this manifest destiny

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mentality and that is a perfectly valid

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way to teach westward expansion it

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really is because westward expansion was

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really really good for a lot of people

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and we probably would not be here today

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had it not unfolded the way that it did

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but westward expansion was not good for
everybody

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um

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and I was really worried that Zoey was
only getting sort of half of the story

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and so I sat down and I thought to

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myself okay what is it I really want her

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to know by the end of this unit what do

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I want to be able to answer and I
wanted her to be able to think about how

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can progress be both positive and

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negative that's really what I wanted her

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to be able to reflect on with this unit

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and so we supplemented a lot

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we supplemented a lot we brought in the

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core knowledge sequence for example

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includes a short story that's uh that's

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told from the perspective of a pioneer
girl who's going out on the road right

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and so we Venn diagram early grades

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teachers best friend we did a Venn

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diagram activity using a story about a

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bitterroots Salish 
girl who was being

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forcibly removed from her home that was

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one way we brought in um
we brought in

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fiction nonfiction we brought in poetry

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from the Choctaw we brought in um an
important thing that we brought in were

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resistance narratives because when you

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teach history particularly this episode
of history it's almost like it's a

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foregone conclusion but there was

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massive resistance to policies of Indian

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Removal we certainly taught some of the

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resistance narratives from Native

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America but we also made a point to do

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resistance re-resistance narratives from

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white folks the the ladies of 
Steubenville Ohio

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a group of Quaker women

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um who wrote to Congress asking them to be

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more equitable um
a U.S. senator who gave a

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six-hour long speech

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on the floor of Congress um 
asking folks to

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reject the Indian Removal Act uh
we brought

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in lots and lots of different things and

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by the end of the unit um
my child and many

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others could answer or at least reflect

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on write about um that essential question

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in what ways can progress be both

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positive and negative they used all of

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their skills their reading skills their
writing skills we had mapping activities

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for geography we had graphing activities

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for math it was a whole sort of skill

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based it was very rigorous um
for my child

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she was really transformed I would say

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by this unit it really sparked a passion

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for her I took at least three trips to

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the bookies which is our little
independent teacher bookstore in

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southeast Denver to get her nonfiction

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books about Native America that kind of

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thing and then she did the most

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incredible thing she asked us to do

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something over spring break she didn't

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want to go to camp she didn't want to
lay around and play video games this is

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what she wanted to do

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she wanted to go
see the site of the Sand Creek Massacre

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because she had read about it in some of
her books

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so she was really really motivated by

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this content you know that you're
getting it right when the kids are doing

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it on their own time you know you're
getting it right so between second and

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third grade umm
Zoey changed schools she is

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now at the Denver Green School which is

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uh when it's fully enrolled it'll be a

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K-8 um be K 8 and 
it's an innovation school

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which means it's uh
it's a traditional DPS

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school but it's got its own kind of

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thing going on it does have an
environmental if I could get some water

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that would be helpful

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um it does have an environmental focus

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um but it's really built around these

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prin around
principles of sustainability and it's a

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little different than environmentalism
so for example they are really

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interested in teaching children about
the healthy commons how do we protect

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the healthy commons thank you

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hmm much better so the idea of the

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healthy commons is there are things that
we share in common right we share the

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earth we share the land we share the
water how do we work collectively to

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protect those things so Zoey goes to

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the Denver Green School and wouldn't you
know at there teaching westward

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expansion in the third grade right I'm

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like uh really because we just we just did
this and we just did it really well and

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it was it was awesome and now she's

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going to sit in class and do it all over
again

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well Cartel uh Cartel Jacquet her teacher

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um definitely did lay down some background
knowledge about what happened for Native

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America and the pioneers of that sort
of thing and then Mr. Jacquet did

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something that rocked my daughter's
world and it rocked my world and it's

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very Denver Green School he taught the

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unit from the perspective of Buffalo

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right and if you think about

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multiculturalism being about inviting

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multiple perspectives think about the

00:13:36.255 --> 00:13:41.125
power of children looking at westward
expansion from these three frameworks it

00:13:41.125 --> 00:13:44.637
was really quite uh beautiful um
it was a

00:13:44.637 --> 00:13:46.807
really beautiful and exciting thing 
uh for

00:13:46.807 --> 00:13:48.977
my daughter and for me and hopefully for

00:13:48.977 --> 00:13:52.497
all the kids so I just wanna ask all

00:13:52.497 --> 00:13:55.027
of the educators in the room that when

00:13:55.027 --> 00:13:57.767
you think about doing multiculturalism

00:13:58.024 --> 00:14:01.274
please don't stop with heroes and

00:14:01.274 --> 00:14:04.244
holidays food and festivals folklore and

00:14:04.244 --> 00:14:08.934
fables please don't stop there and maybe
don't even start there um because there is

00:14:08.934 --> 00:14:12.164
a wonderful way um
to do a kind of teaching

00:14:12.164 --> 00:14:14.314
and learning that is going to build

00:14:14.314 --> 00:14:16.374
those academic skills you care about

00:14:16.374 --> 00:14:18.314
that's gonna allow children to really

00:14:18.314 --> 00:14:21.204
look at issues from multiple
perspectives um and that is

00:14:21.204 --> 00:14:24.574
gonna enable
them to sort of think uh very critically

00:14:24.574 --> 00:14:27.151
um 
and and doing multicultural education

00:14:27.681 --> 00:14:29.761
really at the end of the day is about

00:14:29.761 --> 00:14:32.431
empowering our children uh
to be really

00:14:32.431 --> 00:14:34.701
prepared to participate in our diverse

00:14:34.701 --> 00:14:37.391
democracy thank you very much

00:14:37.391 --> 00:14:38.271
[Audience clapping]

00:14:38.271 --> 00:14:50.000
[Music]