BOAM as a Curriculum
Culturally relevant education is a conceptual framework that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural backgrounds, interests, and lived experiences in all aspects of teaching and learning within the classroom and across the school. It uses the content of U.S. history courses to help students critically examine the past, understand historical inequity and connect it to the present day, while developing a complex understanding of their own and other people’s cultural pasts within a larger historical context.
Using BOAM as a starting point, the Boston Public Schools curriculum explores questions about racial stereotyping, the media’s control of the image, and Hollywood’s power to use films as propaganda to distort history or defame the image of a group of people. How does the media shape how we interpret history and what are the consequences of that interpretation in America today? We will look at difficult topics like Black Lives Matter, the Oscars so White, the removal of confederate statues, through the lens of history provided by this film, to give a deeper understanding of the historic path that led to these contemporary challenges opening up constructive solutions to recognize and counter harmful propaganda. The humanities themes will be presented through high school curriculum designed for culturally relevant 10th grade high school social studies classes, and through community screenings and guided discussions in universities, libraries and communities throughout first Boston followed by the United States, in collaboration with our local and national partners.
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BOAM Curriculum Team
Colin Rose
As the Assistant Superintendent at the Office of Opportunity Gaps in Boston MA, Colin Rose is leading an effort to include culturally relevant curriculum in the Boston Public Schools. With a doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts Boston, Rose drew upon his experience as an educator both in k-8 levels and as an Adjunct Professor at UMass Boston, developing culturally and linguistically sustaining practices for educators in the Boston area. Drawing upon this experience, Rose lead the way in developing the curriculum strategy for Birth of A Movement. He is also a teaching fellow at Harvard University, a track and field coach for Roxbury Public High Schools, and an organizer for MEOC (Male Educators of Color), and a Co-founder and board member of Right Step Forward Boston.
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/education/2019/03/19/colin-rose-boston-public-schools/
“…Rose, a former BPS middle school teacher, said so long to teaching kids in favor of leading a districtwide mind-shift on race —and training a fully “woke” cadre of educators and administrators in the process. If all goes according to plan, Rose hopes to eliminate inequities in performance, in discipline meted out, and in access to exam schools and advanced programs. He
has already begun training staff at every level, including the highest-ranking central office administrators, to confront their own unconscious biases on race and ethnicity…..”
Josue Sakata
Josue Sakata helped lead the curriculum development for The Birth of a Movement. He is the Assistant Director for History & Social Studies for the Boston Public Schools and is currently in his 5th year in that role. Josue is currently working with eight teachers in developing a district-wide Ethnic Studies curriculum for the district. He has also helped drive professional development in the district and supported schools in a larger capacity as Network Liaison for two district network at the high-school leve. At BPS, he created a Middle School Unit plan on Boston’s Busing and Desegregation Crisis for the 40th Anniversary of Judge Arthur Garrity’s decision to integrate the Boston Public Schools through busing, and he worked with two Boston Public School teachers to develop a primary source set on Puerto Rican Identity for the Library of Congress.
Brigetta Johnson
Brigetta Johnson has been an educator for 24 years. She holds both professional teaching license in Moderate Disabilities and English. Originally, from Illinois, she obtained her Bachelors in Special Education which she accedits to giving her the flexibility of having the ability to work with all grade levels from kindergarten to high school as it was common to be bounced around from school to school. Originally, she was attracted to the prospect of teaching young students. She pursued a Masters in Early Childhood Education at Concordia. She thought she may want to run her own preschool caused her to change her mind. Eventually, she landed a position teaching high school at New Trier.
Samuel Texeira
Sam began his education career in 2012-2013 as a City Year corps member working full time in a 6th and 7th grade ELA classroom at the Tobin School in Mission Hill. The following year Sam was accepted to graduate school at Boston College through the Donovan Urban Teaching Scholars program. During this year, in addition to student teaching, Sam worked as a paraprofessional at Dorchester Academy. Sam credits his experience at Boston College and Dorchester Academy with not only preparing him for having his own classroom, but with understanding the critical need for a strong social justice lens in his role as an educator.
Garcia Dalzon
Garcia Dalzon has been an educator in Boston Public Schools for the past 6 years. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Finance at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Upon graduation, Garcia spent seven years working at various financial firms in the city of Boston before deciding to transition into the field of Education. He was accepted into the Teach Next Year program and earned his Master’s in Education with a focus on secondary education from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Currently, Garcia works as a 9th grade history teacher at East Boston High School.
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