Open Minds to Equality: A Sourcebook of Learning Activities to Affirm Diversity and Promote Equality

This is a practical book for teachers for building multi-cultural, gender-fair classrooms and for teaching students about both discrimination and approaches to equality. Most teachers want to make their classes multicultural and gender-fair, but are seldom supported in the attempt. This book provides a piece of that support. Grounded in theory but fully accessible to teachers, the book's first two chapter's explain the need for equitable classrooms, and the remaining chapters provide activities with full-size worksheets for use with children. This is a “teacher-friendly” book that opens both teachers' and students' eyes, hearts and minds to equality. Open Minds to Equality enables teachers to understand and see interconnections between a variety of forms of diversity. This book supplies teachers with background information about ways several forms of inequality — based on race, gender, class, age, language, sexual orientation, religion and physical/mental ability — are manifested in school and society. It offers questions to help teachers assess their classrooms as to how fair they are for diverse students. Then it provides a well-sequenced series of learning activities to use with students that help them recognize and change these various forms of inequality in their classroom, school and lives beyond school.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments. Introduction. 1.Recognizing Roadblocks to Equality. Racism. Sexism. Examining Your Classroom for Racism and Sexism. Types of Racism and Sexism. Classism. Ageism. Heterosexism. Linguicism. Anti-Semitism and Other Religious Oppression. Ableism. Competitive Individualism. 2.Teaching for Equality. A Humanistic, Social Justice Approach for Teaching about Equality. The Connections: Our Classrooms, Schools, and the Broader Society. 3.Building Trust and Communication. Getting Acquainted. Developing Listening Skills. Building Group Process Skills. Sharing Feelings and Giving Feedback. 4.Developing Skills for Creative Cooperation. Learning Cooperative Skills. Practicing Interviewing. Encouraging Creative Thinking and Problem-Solving. 5.Expanding Our Vistas: Our Lives to Others' Lives. New Perspectives to See the World. Sharing Who We Are. Others' Shoes: Others' Views. 6.New Words: New Perspectives. Prejudice and Stereotypes. The “Isms.” 7.Discrimination: Prices and Choices. Unequal Resources = Unequal Results. Connections to Others. The Complexities of Oppression. 8.Investigating Your Environment. Exploring Your Classroom and School. What About Your Home? 9.More Environmental Influences and Their Effect. Examine the Media. Look at Your Community. How Has This Affected Me? 10.Things Can Be Different. People Making Changes: From Then to Now. Creating Alternatives: Envisioning the Future. 11.  We Can Make Changes. Gaining Confidence and Skills for Change. Making Changes at School. Changing Our Texts and Books. Making an Impact on the Media. Reaching Out: Friends, Family and the Community. Resource Section. Integrating Open Minds to Equality Into Your Curriculum. Annotated Bibliography.