97
Volume:
2020
,
November

Listening to Understanding

Submitted By:
Jonathan Gold, Moses Brown School, Providence, RI

Hearing Their Voices: Teaching History to Students of Color by Kay Traille
Rowman and Littlefield, September 1, 2020

Kay Traille's Hearing Their Voices: Teaching History to Students of Color is an important, timely read for all educators, not just history teachers. Traille's methodical, research-supported treatise is an invitation for teachers to more deliberately acknowledge, appreciate, and account for students' pre-conceived understanding of their subject areas. Noting that "history as a discipline lags behind subjects like mathematics" in reframing textbooks and approaches around students' misconceptions, Traille's research attempts to fill in that gap while zooming out to articulate a pedagogical approach that will prove useful to history teachers, DEI practitioners, and curriculum designers. Educators looking for guidance on how to approach controversial issues and insight into incorporating social-emotional learning into their curriculum will find many helpful tips and suggestions in this book. Ultimately, this insightful text is a handbook for teachers who want "to understand both how our students think and how our students feel." For educators, there might not be anything more important on which to focus.

Categories
DEIJ
Curriculum
Teaching Practice