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Celebrating Asian American Experiences in the Classroom
“As an adult who has gone through the American school system, you might feel stuck because you also realize how little you know about Asian American history and people. It is a huge challenge to teach about what we don’t know. If this is the case, I hope you’ll consider turning your research into a joint learning opportunity that you can share with your students.” -- Elizabeth Kleinrock, Learning for Justice, 2021.
This collection offers educators resources, texts, and curricular materials to inform classroom practice. As you review this collection, reflect on what you already know, what is unfamiliar and new, and how might these texts and resources inform your classroom practice.
Additionally, consider using these resources alongside those in the Honoring Asian American Identities collection, the Learning Asian American Histories collection, and the Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogies collection.
[A note that the majority of resources in this collection link outside WeTeachNYC and cannot be downloaded. A downloadable map of resource links and descriptions can be accessed by clicking the 'Download All' button on the top left corner of this page.]
Consider this resource to support professional learning on racism and civic education.
Included Resources
The curriculum for PBS’s Asian Americans aims to continue sharing the untold stories of those who arrived from abroad and paved the way for Asian Americans in the U.S. today. This site contains lesson plans, teachers' guides, and student activities designed for grades K-12. These relevant and engaging lesson plans and activities from The Asian American Education Project seek to inspire a deeper understanding of the history, current experience, and future trajectory of our nation's fastest-growing demographic group. Important content and themes explored in the series will be used to teach concepts while meeting national content standards. Educators are encouraged to select multiple lessons that can be integrated into their regular classroom instruction to enhance their student’s historical knowledge.
This resource raises the stories of more than 20 Asian Americans and notable events that highlight Asian American participation in civil rights movements and BIPOC solidarity. Consider these stories as starting points for you and your students to do further research.
Scroll down this webpage from Social Justice Books to find early childhood, upper elementary, young adult, and adult titles on Asian Americans and Asia. The Asian Lit for Kids website offers additional books focused on South Asian, Southeast Asian, and West Asian cultures. Check out this New York Public Library booklist for additional titles of Asian American literature that challenge the literary canon.
As educators, everyone is striving to be anti-racist, yet we all inherently have bias and experience privilege and oppression differently. We must examine and confront conditional, behavioral, and systemic threats that detract from the greatness of our ML/ ELL students and limits their postsecondary options. The NYCDOE has over 142,000 ML/ELL students, with almost 23% of them identifying as Asian. When advising students on the courses they should take, colleges they should apply for, and careers they should pursue, we must uphold high expectations and introduce our Multilingual Learners to a wide range of possibilities.
This series by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center explores and challenges the idea of a monolithic Asian American identity and centers the diversity of Asian American experiences and cultures. Start out by viewing: The Model Minority Myth and Making the Invisible, Visible: Southeast Asian American Experience in the United States. What are the factual inaccuracies of the model minority and perpetual foreigner stereotypes? How do they cause harm to Asian American students? How might you (non-Asian and Asian educators) have upheld these stereotypes and how can you disrupt and counter them?
Continue your reflection as you complete the self-guided professional learning activity Recognizing and honoring community cultural wealth during remote learning in service of shifting toward practices that recognize and honor the community cultural wealth of families and communities they serve.
How white supremacy tries to divide Black and Asian Americans — and how communities work to find common ground. As you read this text, respond to the following questions:
- What do I notice? How do my identities (i.e. race, social class, gender, language, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or ability) impact what I notice and the assumptions I have? How am I positioned (relative to privilege and oppression)?
- What are the issues and causes surfaced in this text - systemic, historical, superficial, etc.?
- What do I want to learn more about?
This interactive slideshow includes all of the links and reflections for this Exploration Guide by the Seattle Public Library, which can be used to support educators in building out discussion prompts for their classroom.
The first 24 minutes of this webinar presented by the Immigrant History Initiative includes a brief history of Asian America as well as an overview of Asian American racial identity and issues around anti-Asian racism.
As COVID-19 infections increase, so too does racism and xenophobia. Use Learning for Justice’s “Speak Up” strategies to let people know you’re not OK with racist or xenophobic comments about coronavirus or anything else.
Learning and teaching a complete history of Asian Americans experiences is a crucial tool for disrupting and dismantling structures and beliefs that lead to marginalization, oppression, erasure, and violence against Asian Americans. This article by Wayne Au and Moe Yonamine offers additional texts and resources about Asian Americans to help inform classroom practice.
This document contains a map of all resource links included in the Celebrating Asian American Experiences in the Classroom collection to facilitate navigation of these resources. The majority of resources in this collection link outside WeTeachNYC and cannot be downloaded.
Celebrating Asian American Experiences in the Classroom: “As an adult who has gone through the American school system, you might feel stuck because you also realize how little you know about Asian American history and people. It is a huge challenge to teach about what we don’t know. If this is the case, I hope you’ll consider turning your research into a joint learning opportunity that you can share with your students.” -- Elizabeth Kleinrock, Learning for Justice, 2021.
This collection offers educators with resources, texts, and curricular materials to inform classroom practice. As you review this collection, reflect on what you already know, what is unfamiliar and new, and how might these texts and resources inform your classroom practice.
This collection is also included in these collections: