Morningside Center
NEWSLETTER
Dear Morningside Center friends,

In this issue, we share with you a new activity on our throwaway culture and what people are doing to change it. Plus, our colleague Doris Lo reflects on how her well-meaning teachers weren't able to address the microaggressions she faced, and offers a lesson that might have helped.

But first: Thank you so much for contributing to our matching grant campaign! Your gift brings concrete support that teachers and students need, especially now. If you haven't yet given, now is your chance to double the value of your gift, thanks to a matching grant from the Brooklyn Community Foundation. Join our #BrooklynGives, #GivingTuesday campaign here.

And: We have a job opening! We are looking for a Senior Director of Operations and Finance. See the details here. Morningside is a great place to work, so please share!
New Lessons & Stories
What is "throwaway culture" — and how do we participate in it? Students explore 'planned obsolescence' and the growing movement to counter it called "right-to-repair."
Elementary students consider how the assumptions that we make about other people can be hurtful, and practice curiosity to help them understand another person’s experience.
"I wish I could have told my teachers about the microaggressions I was experiencing, but children don’t have the words to talk about racism until they’re taught them," writes our longtime colleague Doris Lo.
Plus, as the COP26 conference concludes, see our recent lesson on Climate Emergency: COP26 & Youth Activism.

And: November is Native American Heritage Month. Here are our Resources for Teaching on Indigenous History and Culture.
What We're Reading and Listening To
"The grief, anxiety and depression children have experienced during the pandemic is welling over into classrooms and hallways, resulting in crying and disruptive behavior in many younger kids and increased violence and bullying among adolescents." By Christine Vestal at Pew.

Communicating the 'Learning' in Social & Emotional Learning. "We should not frame SEL and academics as an either/or choice... We need to help parents understand the inextricable connection between the two." Sheldon Berman and Linda Darling-Hammond at the Learning Policy Institute.

The 1619 Project for Educators. The New York Times and the Pulitzer Center have created a new online collection of "reading guides, activities, and other resources to bring The 1619 Project into your classroom."

Why education was a top voter priority this election. "According to our polling, 74% of American families actually support having culturally relevant and factually correct information provided during the U.S. history curriculum," the president of the National Parents Union tells NPR reporter Anya Kamenetz.
Action is the antidote to despair.” ― Joan Baez
Morningside Center
for Teaching Social Responsibility