Education
Dawnavyn James Candidate, Ph.D., Empowers Educators with Beyond February – A Guide to Teaching Black History –
Meet Dawnavyn James, an educator who advocates for yr-round Black history education.
Dawnavyn James is the writer AND A 160-page instructional guide that assists teachers wishing to teach Black History students in kindergarten through third grade.
According to the book’s description, teaches educators how to put black history in your classrooms.
“Drawing on her experiences as a classroom teacher and researcher of Black history, James illustrates the large and small ways we can center Black history in our everyday teaching and learning practices across the curriculum, using read alouds, music, historical documents, art and much more,” we read in the outline.
The book comes from a blog post through which James shared her experiences teaching Black history in schools. The post caught the eye of an editor, who motivated the educator to write a book.
incorporates five sections: Beyond people, beyond books, beyond the curriculum, beyond the month and the work doesn’t end there. Includes picture book recommendations and lesson plans to help teachers provide a more holistic approach to teaching Black history.
James is is pursuing a PhD on the University at Buffalo Center for Black K-12 Education and Race Literacy. The doctoral student is researching how elementary school teachers use picture books to teach Black history.
“I’m really looking at how teachers analyze picture books and teach Black history based on what they know about Black history.” she said UB now latestS
James, grew up with limited exposure to Black history, centered primarily around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I didn’t want my students to share my experiences without Black history, so I made it a point to highlight them in my classroom year-round, rather than once a year during Black History Month,” James said.
The self-proclaimed “Black history enthusiast” uses her Instagram page to discuss her research and share books and academic tools about Black history with her audience.
Book might be purchased here or on Amazon.com.