High School Ethnic Studies: A Resource Book

High School Ethnic Studies invites school districts and teacher education programs to facilitate spaces of both critical self-reflection and the development of ethnic studies pedagogical knowledge. This book is not designed as a how-to set of lesson plans that a new (or seasoned) ethnic studies teacher can implement. Rather, this resource book invites teachers to listen and learn alongside other educators (the authors) who have been polishing the craft of ethnic studies pedagogies over the years. Furthermore, this book is not just for those teachers assigned to teach an ethnic studies course. It is also a book for high school content area, i.e. English, History, Social Sciences, the Arts, teachers seeking to ground their pedagogy and curriculum in foundational ethnic studies principles. The values and practices of critical historical analysis, culturally responsive teaching, students as intellectuals, and reclaiming cultural identities are at the core of this text.

High School Ethnic Studies is divided into five major sections, with practitioners and experts contributing to each: 1) Foundations, 2) Addressing the Major Disciplines of Ethnic Studies, 3) Pedagogies, 4) Transformation, and 5) Resources. Collectively, the authors of this volume provide stories of coming to design ethnic studies units, stories of their own identity development, and stories of their commitment to the heart-work of ethnic studies. While some chapters provide personal stories of coming to design, others offer pedagogical and curricular gifts (in the tradition of eldership knowing) for other teachers/readers seeking to improve their teaching and enrich (or radically transform) what they already do in classrooms. The emphasis on teachers' stories is intended to demystify teachers' own design thinking: teachers do not craft their pedagogy through osmosis or some kind of unguided intuitive process. By emphasizing stories of design, we are challenging instrumentalist logics that remove teacher agency and thinking. How we come to think about teaching units, how we connect our own lived experiences to teaching as educators, and how we envision better worlds, are all practices that we need to polish and refine as educators. And this work is never done in isolation but in co-learning experiences that constitute a constellation of people: teachers, their colleagues, school leaders, teacher educators, students and their families, and elders.