If you walk down the hallway of the fourth floor, you’ll find Spanish teacher 莎拉·伊利最后的公告栏. The bulletin’s purple block letters read “My Hair a Mi Modo” or “My Hair, My Way” presenting colorful rows of “peek-a-boo” portraits of Grade 4 students unlike any other you’ve seen. 受到这本书的启发 克里斯蒂娜·克里斯托弗罗的《博彩网站排名》, the faces of students’ portraits are completely blank with a minimal black outline. The negative spaces of each portrait are contrasted by the decorated canvas of limitless possibilities beyond the outline, 充满个人细节.  Children expressed their own hairstyles artistically. Among the portraits are multicolor beads that dangle musically at the end of braids, 深色的头发在发梢处变白了, tightly coiled pipe cleaners colored chestnut brown or midnight black and cut to fit the ears. You can imagine students’ excitement as they were invited to think about their hair. 在一张张纸下面, the second “peek-a-boo” layer reveals the smiling faces of each Grade 4 artist.

“Our Lower school students talk about identity from Nursery through Grade 4, and they’re taught to be proud of their identity to honor and respect other people’s identities.”

莎拉·伊利

拥抱自己的伟大

“I think one of the most wonderful things about working in the 较低的学校 is its strong commitment to student identity, 学生代理和公平, 包容, 以及社会公正,伊利想道。. “Our Lower school students talk about identity from Nursery through Grade 4, and they’re taught to be proud of their identity, to honor and respect other people’s identities.”

Ely’s Spanish classroom is a space where students are learning through language. They’re not learning language in the same way she learned it in school which was a repetitive pattern of “sit down, 共轭动词, 翻译.” Students are given goals or tasks to accomplish with language as a tool and they’re taught language to achieve that goal. Ely knows that language doesn’t exist in isolation and that the best language learning is immersive and hands-on. 它包含了艺术, 连接, 和谈话, all of which align seamlessly with the 较低的学校’s emphasis on teaching students to become confident self-advocates and compassionate friends to others.

A Snapshot of What Inspired “My Hair a Mi Modo”

整个单位“quizain Soy Yo”?或者“我是谁??最初的灵感来自哥伦比亚流行二人组 Bomba Estereo的歌曲“Soy yo” encompasses a variety of lessons, including the “My Hair a Mi Modo” project. The unit begins and includes a brief discussion in Spanish of the differences between “ser y estar,这两个词的意思都是“存在”.” Students use the verb ser, to begin identifying themselves in Spanish. 晚些时候, 他们看音乐录影带, 这显示了一个年轻的, confident girl walking through different areas in New York City, comfortable in her authenticity in each new spaces, without caring about what other people think of her. The message of the 2015 music video starring Sarai Gonzalez is to not worry about what other people think of you, 做真实的自己, 你值得庆祝. 看完视频后, 学生们为这首歌改写自己的歌词, 使用动词, 西班牙语中的形容词和标识符. 

庆祝多样性和积极的自我形象

Years later, Ely found her inspiration for a new project within the “¿Quién Soy Yo?” unit when she spots Sarai Gonzalez as a now young adult while watching an ad on YouTube. The familiar tune to “Soy Yo” started to play except this time, she noticed new lyrics that had been changed to celebrate ones’ hair. 这是多芬的广告. The inspiration of the campaign is to inspire women, 尤其是拉丁裔女性, to be proud of their different hair textures and “to help drive conversations surrounding the limiting societal expectations associated with Latinas’ hair and celebrate the beautiful diversity of hair within the community.“有了这个, Ely knew she had a larger project to develop for students and sought out her colleagues in the art department, 海蒂Zarou 86 P 22 22和 帕蒂·史密斯 P’20 for support in developing the artistic aspects of the project.

Ely showed her students the new Dove-directed video and they responded so positively, many of them pointing out other people in the music video. Once students learned how to describe their hair textures in Spanish, 长度是否, 在辫子, 卷曲的, 直的还是它的颜色, 他们准备展示他们的艺术技巧. 在项目中, 学生们表现出不可思议的创造力, 用纱线编辫子, 把材料染色并整理好. 他们的阴影, spent time to figure out how to best convey texture and style and through the process of making, found a pride in their work that reflected a pride in their hair, 还有他们同学独特的发型. 来完成他们的项目, students were tasked with writing a short sentence that required they give three self-identifying clues about their hair. 

Before hanging each students’ “peek-a-boo” project on the bulletin board, they had one final interactive moment of joy with their projects: they played a guessing game in Spanish to read the sentences and find out who each portrait belonged to. 现在公告已经发布了, everyone from Kindergarten to Grade 4 still loves to climb the stairs and engage playfully with the interactive board. They point and smile, exclaiming “I know who that is!”“我知道那是谁!” This is part of what Ely loves about Lower school: it is a place where identities are celebrated and always acknowledged; the whole school is a space for students to be their fullest, 最真实的自己.