Each and every day throughout the school year is an opportunity to honor, celebrate, and incorporate Black history into school lessons. But during February, Black History Month is a dedicated time to teach and showcase the accomplishments, struggles, and impact of past and present Black communities, figures, and leaders.
As educators who help shape the minds of young students across the country, honoring and celebrating Black history is something that you not only have the opportunity to do, but the responsibility to do as well, in order to ensure that your students feel seen and heard in the materials they’re learning. Because Black history is history, and it plays an integral part in American history as well as world history. And it also has a history of being overlooked — something the “father of Black history,” scholar Carter G. Woodson, recognized when he laid the foundation for Black History Month in 1926.
To help you start planning lessons for Black History Month in schools, explore these resources and articles from Black Teacher-Authors in the TPT community. These articles are not only filled with Black history resources across a variety of grades and subjects, but are also full of strategies for supporting students and developing an equitable classroom.
Resources and Strategies for Teaching Black History
Black history is vast, and so there are many ways to teach about it. In these articles, discover activities and lessons that you can use with your students, as well as teaching strategies from Black educators to help you reflect on and develop your lesson plans.
Supporting Black Educators
While history is often thought of as the past, the present is a living history that also requires attention and support. Honor the living history of Black History Month by supporting Black educators in your community. Through these pieces, you can learn about the ways school communities can support Black educators, and you can support Black Teacher-Authors’ businesses yourself with a resource purchase!
Building Equity, Inclusion, and Student Supports
Creating an equitable and inclusive classroom not only helps students from marginalized backgrounds, but your entire class. Every student benefits from fair treatment and learning about diverse cultures and histories. This Black History Month, learn from Black teachers who have been at the forefront of this work in their classrooms and school communities, such as these Teacher-Authors.
This Black History Month resource guide is ultimately a starting point. There is much that can be done in and beyond your community each and every month, and we hope these articles showed you that. Some ways you can offer continued support to the Black Teacher-Author community whose work informed this post are:
- Follow and purchase from Black Teacher-Authors’ TPT stores.
- Leave positive reviews on resources you enjoyed or found useful.
- Subscribe to their blogs, social media, and newsletters.
- Tell your fellow teachers about your favorite resources from Black Teacher-Authors.
To learn more about Black History Month and its 2023 theme, Black Resistance, check out the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s site, and to find more Black History Month teaching resources, browse TPT.
