Rethinking Holidays: Inclusive Approaches for the Classroom
Elementary and Secondary Working Group Meeting
November 19, 2022
The elementary and secondary working groups held a joint meeting at Bruce-Monroe at Parkview ES on the topic of holidays in the classroom. The central inquiry was whether December should be considered the holiday season.
They kicked off the meeting with people’s history trivia about holidays. From there, they did a circle share on how they experienced holidays in their classrooms growing up, and how they’ve navigated them as teachers themselves. Group members then spent time exploring texts from Social Justice Books’ Holidays list to serve as fodder for the resources they’d be creating to help students explore religious and/or cultural and national holidays that happen *year round on the Gregorian calendar and decide if December is the “holiday season.” Activities for this lesson included activism for adding holidays and observances to the school or district calendar. Educators also raised how important it is to be sensitive to students around things like food for anyone that might be fasting, or asking about how students and their families spent days off from school for those who might not be able to afford or have been able to travel.
*group members took into consideration that holidays and other observances–such as Ramadan– often shift because of calendar differences
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