Creating joyful foundations: How celebrating Black History Month nurtures and inspires our school community

In our building, we have a commitment to honoring the experiences of all our students and families. We have students from all over the world with rich and diverse histories and cultures, and we want each and every child and the adults in their lives to feel like they belong. What’s more is that we want the feeling of belonging and the understanding that our world is full of brilliant differences to stay with all our students throughout their whole lives. 

Right now, when they’re little, we see how celebrating our differences and instilling a sense of their importance reduces teasing and bullying and improves the well-being of every child. In years to come, when our students are broadening their horizons, growing their communities and pursuing their dreams, we know that they’ll be well equipped to be full participants in our connected and multicultural world. 

That’s why it’s so important to us to invest fully in our students’ heritage celebrations all year long. We build on our successes year to year – and on our learnings from each celebration – to ensure that every child has a robust and inspiring experience when their cultures and their peers’ take center stage.

Let’s dive into how we make our Black History Month programs meaningful, and the way they’ve strengthened our relationships with our school community as a whole. Our hope is that, as you celebrate this month, you can draw fresh inspiration from your activities and strengthen the foundations for relevant, joyful and mutually affirming programs in your building. 

1. Tap into your team’s creativity and excitement 

When it comes to our programs, we want to tap into our educators’ hidden talents and skills, and we want them to have a real sense of both autonomy and connection. We can’t afford to forget that our educators are fully part of whole communities, and that opportunities to genuinely affirm those connections – and form new ones – can be especially energizing. When we provide those opportunities, the educators who are inspired and supported in sharing their gifts and perspectives can find that participation meaningful. One way that’s expressed in our building is through our voluntary multicultural committee. Having one multicultural committee is part of how we can build mutually affirming, respectful and joyful practices that carry our learnings forward to the next celebration while still investing fully in the present occasion.

2. Commit to collaboration and consensus 

Typically, the committee starts brainstorming for Black History Month in November to generate ideas on what the focus or theme of our program can be. In December, they finalize the theme in a consensus process and start identifying the materials and action items needed to make the program successful.

Having the shared interest – and shared sense of importance – around celebrating cultures in our community helps ground our committee in the process of generating, discussing and revising until we arrive at themes we can enthusiastically agree on. Then, we continue that process as we get to greater levels of details and plans we can put into action. The committee structure and the continued participation of our volunteers allow us to build those collaborative relationships and the stamina for collective decision-making. That means robust and well-developed ideas, and more authentic buy-in to energize our action phase. 

3. Resource the initiative 

Our educators’ passion and participation are invaluable – and we can affirm those efforts by advocating for the materials and support they need to bring their thoughtful initiatives to life. Now that we can anticipate finalizing our themes in December, we’re in a better position to advocate for those resources. 

Time is another resource we’re especially mindful of. That’s why, in addition to starting early, we work with our building schedule to reflect our commitment to these programs. In our building, we have LAMP blocks when students rotate through library, art, music, PE and STEM activities. LAMP blocks provide rehearsal and coaching time for our teachers to work with our student performers, and help them explore the information and skills they need to portray a role, perform a song or create another piece in the program. As we get closer to the event date, we’ll practice with some student performers in the gym while PE is in session. That way we can use the schedule already in place to help them work through any stage fright.

4. Center the students

We can have great ideas for our heritage celebrations, and those ideas still need to translate to meaningful experiences for our students. Since we have students from as young as 6 months to 6 years old in our building, we need to take special care so that the experience is engaging and joyful for a wide developmental range. 

Rather than put pressure on our team to distill down a lot of the complexity and richness of our cultures, we take an approach geared toward sharing joy in the moment and opening up paths for curiosity and growth in the future. That frees up our educators and community volunteers from the pressure to be exhaustive, and instead reinforces that there’s always more to learn, share and be curious about when it comes to history, culture and community.

5. Tap into the community 

Families are such an incredible asset to creating rich and vibrant programs. Parents, grandparents, guardians and extended family members of multiple generations are all culture bearers, storytellers and experts in their own right. What’s more, their participation in our programs – whether they’re speaking, performing or sharing personal artifacts – helps show all our students that their histories and cultures are happening here and now and not only in the distant past. 

We’re very intentional about getting to know our families, providing transparent communication and inviting families into the building on a regular basis. As we have ongoing conversations, we get to learn their interests, talents and ways they might want to bring those to our programs. In addition to those conversations, we make sure that there are multiple inroads for family members to learn about our programs and express their interests. One option we use is sending surveys through our online portal, so we can especially reach families who are newer to our community or who we haven’t built the same depth of relationship with just yet. We’ve found that our families are keen to participate, and that seeing their cultures handled with care and enthusiasm fuels our relationship-building efforts throughout the year.

6. Build from year to year, and celebration to celebration

No matter the scale of your program in February, you still have worthwhile opportunities to celebrate Black history and culture, and gather actionable feedback that can build your approach to celebrating all students year-round. 

Incorporating creative acknowledgments in your morning announcements, uplifting instructional materials across each content area or sharing links in your next e-blast about virtual programming available from local libraries or museums are just a few possibilities that you can use to amplify the celebrations in your building this month. From there, instead of holding these learnings in isolation until next year, gather your team and consider how they can lead to more joy and more participation in the next heritage celebration.

We’ll close with a glimpse of our Black History Month celebrations from the past two years. In 2023, our multicultural committee chose Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as our primary theme. Our staff and our families who have experience at HBCUs were thrilled to participate. People came in their HBCU attire, shared what a special experience it was for them to attend, showcased stepping and dancing and band activities and told stories about the deep bonds they fostered as part of Greek brotherhoods and sisterhoods. 

Finding a theme that energized our school community and provided rich opportunities for our families to share their experiences, and that could immerse our students in joyful participation, all poured into our foundation for 2024. We built on our relationships with families and grew our outreach, centered the program around the energizing and inspiring musical lineage of African Americans and achieved a framework to share rich stories and experiences that could spark curiosity in every child. We’ll be taking that energy into all our celebrations this year. What joyful foundations will your Black History Month celebrations help create for your school community? 

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