After one semester s discussion about inclusive curriculum and my experience is that it doesn t take a day s in-service, it takes at least a semester about 30 to 45 contact hours of teaching some seventh grade teachers decide to keep the focus on the Constitution but to teach it differently. Half of the class does pretend that they re going off to shape the new government. The other, however, after a full class discussion of varieties of roles and lives stays home. Everybody now discusses the central issues. Teachers and students need to talk about the relative power, the validity and audibility of the voices of all those parties to the discussion.
Teachers try to change that.
Still, painful incidents will occur. A white child explains that she was touching her classmate s hair because she wanted to feel what a black person s hair was like. Two teachers, one black, the other white, one a classroom teacher, the other the guidance counselor, start a group to bring children of color together, to talk about themselves, share experience and gather strength. The main seventh grade history book in a middle school does include women and men of color, white women and disabled folks, but they tend to be mentioned in sidebars or in optional end of chapter activities. Teachers at the school have not noticed the hidden messages.