Anti-racism, equity education & youth voice tools you can use right now—virtually or in-person

"I can't breathe" artwork, created by 17 year old James Rhee, VOX ATL.

Across the nation, young people are standing up, speaking out, and organizing for racial justice. Today we are sharing a few free, easily accessible tools, activity guides, and learning plans that youth workers, educators, and families can use in virtual or in-person programs to give youth opportunities to share their views, develop an understanding of antiracism and social justice, and reflect on current events and the murder of George Floyd.

VOX ATL Educator’s Guide can be used for in –person or virtual programming and uses teens’ content as a jumping off point for exploring critical issues of the day; it is designed to help develop skills aligned with Georgia’s English Language Arts Standards of Excellence  and Afterschool & Youth Development Quality Standards. VOX ATL, an afterschool program that elevates teen voices in Atlanta through writing, music, podcasts, and videos, writes, “we have paired up with students in the MACIE* program at Georgia State University to publish an interdisciplinary resource guide merging both mental health and social action that can be implemented into digital classroom instruction. Our goal is to create a technologically accessible series of empowering, relevant, and standard-based lesson plans for educators and students… This guide contains lessons focusing on the process and practice of important literacy, critical thinking and social skills. Each lesson is designed to facilitate important conversations about what is going on in teens’ lives while supporting their mental and creative health.”

Anti-Defamation League’s Thinking about Social Justice Through Crafts and Conversation includes a series of projects that provide fun activities and opportunities to talk with children (ages 3–12) about respect, inclusion, diversity, bias and social justice. Each activity is followed by discussion prompts for talking with children about what they learned, their feelings and any questions they might have.

Colorful Pages, a website that provides free resources to help educators, families, and librarians use multicultural literature/diverse books effectively, has created #BlackLivesMatter: K-8 Distance Learning Activities for Justice for George Floyd. Through the activities, “students and you will learn about and process: Black Lives Matter, racial injustice, and the murder of George Floyd. To do this, you will use discussions and videos or read alouds. Then, students will get the chance to take action and stand up for Black Lives Matter and George Floyd by picking a Black Lives Matter Project to do. There are four choices for them to pick from including: art, writing, and letter writing.”

Teaching Tolerance provides free learning resources to those who work with children from kindergarten through high school with a focus on social justice and anti-bias. The site provides a wealth of pre-packaged plans and activities, but also offers a Learning Plan Builder that allows you to tailor your own plan, select meaningful student texts, choose how you'll teach them, and how you'll assess student learning.  Learning plans are based on the four domains of the Social Justice Standards (Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action), starting with an essential question that ties into the core social justice domains.

The 50 state afterschool networks have complied a joint list of resources for anti-racism and equity education for youth development providers. The list includes: Resources for Providers Engaging with Children and Youth; Lesson Plans; Tips for Talking about Race with Children and Youth; and Book & Film Lists.

Know of more resources we should share?  Let us know at info@afterschoolalliance.org.