When we are at 果冻传媒, we are in the city of Seattle, which is the ancestral land and home of the Duwamish Tribe. The Duwamish people lived here for 10,000 years and still live here today. We at 果冻传媒 honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish People.

This is the Land Acknowledgment that we have up in our classroom. A Land Acknowledgement is a formal statement that recognizes and respects Indigenous Peoples as traditional stewards of this land. They have become more and more common around the country, but it is important to note that Land acknowledgment is a traditional custom dating back centuries for many Native communities and nations. For non-Indigenous communities, it’s a powerful way to show respect and to honor the Indigenous Peoples of the land in which we live. From the Duwamish Tribe’s website;? “Acknowledgement is a simple way of resisting the erasure of Indigenous histories and working towards honoring and inviting the truth.”

Land Acknowledgements are so important but are simply not enough in terms of supporting our indigenous communities. It is an essential starting point and should be done in the hopes to inspire others to take action to support Indigenous communities. If you’re delivering a land acknowledgment out of guilt or because everyone else is doing it, it may be valuable for you to participate in some self-reflection.?

So, What are some ways that you can take the important next step of taking action after your land acknowledgment? Here are two important next steps:

Amplify Indigenous Voices
Recently, following a land acknowledgment to kick off our Faculty & Staff meeting, a Faculty member shared an that centered on visual artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, creator of the 1992 piece I See Red: Target. Back in July 2020, the National Gallery of Art in DC bought a painting by an Indigenous artist for the first time. When asked about why it took so long for the National Gallery of Art to acquire a work from an Indigenous artist, Smith stated; “…Because of popular myth-making, Native Americans are seen as vanished. It helps assuage the government’s guilt about an undocumented genocide, as well as stealing the whole country.” We must not let the erasure of Indigenous voices continue. Supporting Indigenous artists is a great way of resisting that.?

Pay Real Rent/donate to Indigenous Organizations
If you are someone who lives or works in Seattle, then you are living and working on Duwamish land. The Duwamish tribe is one of 245 Indigenous tribes that are not federally recognized by the US Government, meaning that the US Government does not have just access to the resources of their homelands. Redistribution of resources is one concrete step towards justice. Real Rent Duwamish is an organization that calls on folks living and working on Duwamish land to stand in solidarity with the Indigenous peoples of this land by making monthly payments to the organization. All funds go directly to Duwamish Tribal Services (DTS) to support the revival of Duwamish culture and the vitality of the Duwamish Tribe. You can find out more about the program

Learn more from these resources:
Land Acknowledgement – What is it and Why is it Important?

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果冻传媒 is a diverse community that celebrates many different cultures. One of them is our Chinese community. In previous years, around the time of the Chinese Lunar New Year, we brought in performers from a local lion dance team that performed for the community. Two dancers wore an elaborate lion costume, and several musicians played large wooden drums and assorted cymbals. This year, due to COVID-19, we will not be able to have the performers come to celebrate this joyous time for us, but let me explain a little about what Chinese do in Lunar New Year.

2021, in the Chinese Zodiac, is the year of Ox. Chinese New Year 2021 falls on Friday, February 12th, 2021. Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, is China’s most important festival. It is time for families to be together, just like how we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the United States. How long is the Chinese New Year? Celebrations last up to sixteen days, but only the first seven days are considered a public holiday. Traditionally, Chinese New Year activities start as early as three weeks before Chinese New Year’s Eve, but a week before is more typical. One of the traditional activities is cleaning homes. Chinese believe if we clean our home before a new year begins, it will bring us good luck and get rid of all the bad things that happened the previous year.

The main Chinese New Year activities include 1) putting up decorations, 2) eating reunion dinner with family on New Year’s Eve, 3) firecrackers and fireworks, 4) giving red envelopes and other gifts. Red is the main color for the festival, as red is believed to be an auspicious color. Red Chinese lanterns and red couplets are the most popular decorations. Chinese people greet one another with lucky sayings and phrases to wish health, wealth, and good fortune when they meet during Chinese New Year. Then, red envelopes, called “hong bao” in Chinese, filled with money are typically only given to children or unmarried adults.

The Luckiest Things to Do at Chinese New Year

• Giving money/gifts in lucky numbers and lucky red packaging with lucky greetings.
• Eating lucky food like fish on New Year’s Eve, especially carp or catfish with some left over for New Year’s Day.
• Lighting lots of red firecrackers and fireworks to scare away evil and bring good luck.

The Unlucky Things to Do at Chinese New Year

• Having an accident, especially if it means hospital visits, crying, and breakages: all bad omens.
• Giving gifts with unlucky meanings, colors, words, or numbers, or even saying something inauspicious.
• Sweeping up on New Year’s Day: don’t “sweep all your luck away”.

When someone greets you with “新年快乐 (Xīn nián kuài lè, Happy New Year)”, the best and simple reply is: “新年快乐 (Xīn nián kuài lè)”.

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year! 新年快乐!

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The following is from a New York Times article from March 2020: “罢housands of nursing homes and assisted-living centers across the United States are becoming islands of isolation as health care administrators take unprecedented steps to lock them down, hoping to protect some of the nation’s most vulnerable residents from the threat posed by the coronavirus.” This pandemic has been hard on all of us. We have narrowed down our physical social circles to stay safe and healthy. The isolation has taken its toll on our world. Our elders face a period of not knowing when they will physically be able to see their loved ones again.

We should all try to reach out and make sure that our elders know that they are loved and they are on our minds. My daughter’s grandparents live in Minnesota and New Hampshire. We made sure to let them know that they can video chat with us anytime. We have all benefited from connecting this way.

Another way that we have reached out is snail mail. I don’t know about you, but my mother loves receiving mail. The incredibly adorable squeal as she tells me that she has received our postcard is worth the effort. This is a great way to connect. The one thing to remember is the purpose of this task: connecting with our elders. Focus on your child’s strengths and help them fill in the rest. If your child is able to come up with many ideas verbally and expresses that it is hard for them to write it all on paper, help them out with dictation. If they prefer to spend more of their time creating a work of art, follow that passion. The number of words on the page will vary depending on their writing ability and age. For example, our latest postcard to grandma featured dot marker art from my one-year-old. I handwrote, “Dear grandma, I miss eating lunch with you. I can’t wait to see you on Zoom. Love, Beth.”

Sometimes I use a photo postcard app called Ink Cards. Through this app, I can select photos on the front side and type a note on the back. You pay the app to print and send your postcard. You can snap a picture of your child doing something they want to show off or include a picture of their art. This allows for 3D art such as a Lego tower to be appreciated.

In addition to reaching out to family members, consider writing to the nursing homes and assisted-living centers as well. Many have publicly made a request asking for letters and pen-pals.

Check out this nifty guide from the Girl Scouts called,? ?

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Environmental activism is a topic that’s easy to love in the classroom and one I personally feel strongly about. Last fall, the 1st and 2nd grade students drafted postcards expressing their love for the earth, to send to Governor Jay Inslee, as a show of support for the Youth Climate Strike. Students are invested and often passionate about the health of beloved places and animals, but how inclusive are our lessons on environmental health? Liz Kleinrock, an anti-bias anti-racist educator, writes in her essay “How Inclusive is your Teaching About the Environment?”

“罢eaching students to respect the environment and participate in sustainable practices is just one part of tackling the issue. We must also help them understand that climate change and institutional racism go hand in hand.”

In conversations with students, it is important to include that climate change disproportionately affects Black and Brown people in America and across the world. The environmental movement often ignores that fact, as well as the fact that BIPOC activists historically played, and continue to play, enormous roles in environmental activism worldwide. My role as a white educator is to actively work to decenter whiteness and colonial narratives when teaching about climate change and environmental activism. When talking about history in the classroom, we ask “Who gets to tell this story? Whose perspective is missing?”.Those questions can also act as a springboard to inclusive teaching of environmental issues Kleinrock writes, “When we include multiple cultural and historical perspectives in our teaching about environmentalism, our students learn that intent and impact do not always align.” That lesson is equally as important as learning environmental stewardship as we strive to foster an inclusive and deep understanding of environmental issues.?

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Adults in our frantically busy, overworked, stretched-too-thin world were suddenly given the gift of time with their children. Some parents were simply awed by their kids. They got to see the brilliance that I did every day – these kids who could create anything from a box, write fifty books, piece together hundreds of tiny beads into a masterpiece, and write their own songs. They found out that their child had an affinity for cooking, for storytelling, or for communing with nature. They realized an eight-mile ride was possible and started asking, What next? They read books together, and before they knew it, their child was reading books right back to them.?

So when we do finally get back to normal, back to school, back to busy, we need to keep this zoom-in approach because that’s how we really see kids for who they are. All their amazing talents, interests, and inclinations. One of the things I love about our small class sizes and low teacher-student ratio is that it makes zooming in possible. I’m looking forward to meeting my class next year to start that journey with them!

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When we are at 果冻传媒, we are in the city of Seattle, which is the ancestral land and home of the Duwamish Tribe. The Duwamish people lived here for 10,000 years and still live here today. We at 果冻传媒 honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish People.?

This is a land acknowledgment. Land acknowledgment in public spaces has become more and more common around the region and the country—you might have encountered it at meetings, events, or noticed words of acknowledgement posted in visible areas. It is not a new practice—as stated on the Duwamish Tribe website, “Land acknowledgment is a traditional custom dating back centuries for many Native communities and nations. For non-Indigenous communities, land acknowledgment is a powerful way of showing respect and honoring the Indigenous Peoples of the land on which we work and live. Acknowledgment is a simple way of resisting the erasure of Indigenous histories and working towards honoring and inviting the truth.”

Why is it important to know whose land we live on? Indigenous history is American history, and by learning the cultures and histories of Indigenous Peoples we honor those histories and counter the narratives of discovery and colonial power.? “Acknowledgement by itself is a small gesture. It becomes meaningful when coupled with authentic relationship and informed action” ()

Last October in the 1st and 2nd grades, we celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day. We read about the Duwamish Tribe, created land acknowledgement signs to post in visible places, and listened to stories told by Duwamish and Coast Salish peoples. Together, we sought to learn the history of the land we call home—who lived here first, what happened, and how Indigenous voices can be amplified, acknowledged, and acted upon today. We aim to continue. Through regular and thoughtful acknowledgement that our school is on Indigenous land, we create a practice of the ongoing and intentional pursuit of truth, awareness, and inspiration to action.?

Learn more about Land Acknowledgement here:

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“罢he challenge is not how to ‘teach creativity’ to children, but rather how to create a fertile environment in which their creativity will take root, grow, and flourish.”

At 果冻传媒, we value innovation and aim to cultivate creative thinking in our students. As an educator with a background in Visual Art, I find the topic of fostering creativity to be absolutely fascinating. As I watch my Early Elementary students engage in open-ended projects–from building with Duplos to painting with watercolors and using recycled items in “Creation Station”—I find myself marveling at their innate approaches to creative tasks. I was captivated by this post from Mitchel Resnik, MIT Media Lab’s Professor of Learning Research. Resnik outlines his , which are helpful and implementable by teachers and parents alike.

Resnik introduces the “Creative Learning Spiral,” a process that he claims is the “engine of creative thinking.” He outlines two detailed tips that educators and parents alike can implement while guiding their “creative thinking apprentices,” or children/students. He guides grown ups to help their children move from engaging with an “aimless activity” to an “extended project”–and he gives us concrete tips for how to do it! He promotes helping kids to “tinker”: using their hands as well as their heads during the “imagination” or idea generation phase. His poignant advice includes ideas for guiding questions to ask kids that emphasize interest in the creative process over simply the end product. He also guides grown ups with ways to help their child(ren) reflect on–and learn from–their creative process, helping them build vocabulary and problem-solving strategies that will inform their future creative endeavors.

The timing of this article couldn’t be better for the countless families finding themselves with increased time at home with their child(ren), faced with the task of managing their child(ren)’s at-home learning. The opportunity many parents and guardians have now—multiple hours a day at home with their children—allows the elongated time periods Resnik claims are so essential for creative projects. Hopefully his advice can offer some helpful steps to try at home! I sure can’t wait to get back into the classroom to try some of these tips with my students.

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It is undeniable—all of our students and children, along with all of us grown ups—are adapting to a dramatically different way of life, due to the global coronavirus pandemic, and social distancing and shelter-in-place protocols. While doing our part to promote public health and prevent the spread of COVID-19, adults and children alike are inevitably experiencing disruption to our schedules and the emotional and physical changes that accompany this disruption.?

, a self-described “healer and trickster organizer disguised as an artist”? recently addressed this concept in a new series called “What to Do in a Pandemic.” These beautiful woodblock prints feature animals and pieces of wisdom from animals, such as a fox paired with the phrase “Stay aware,” and a bee paired with “Organize for a better future”. Morales’s timely–and beautiful–artwork is popping up around the web, and was recently featured in an ADL blog post called .

This simple article pairs each of Morales’s prints with accompanying “罢able Topics” questions aimed to foster family conversations about how our lives have shifted in the recent weeks. The post includes with three related guiding questions each, designed so your family can color and converse simultaneously. The discussion prompts provide a developmentally appropriate platform to engage in a conversation about Current Events, asking families to work together to define vocabulary like “vulnerable” and “exposure,” and think about how we are–and others in our communities might be–impacted by public health policies.?

If you decide to try this activity with your family, try letting your child(ren) be the guide(s) of the conversation. You know your child(ren) best–validate their emotions, answer their questions, and feel free to push pause if you notice your child becoming overwhelmed or resistant.?

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Every child loves having snow days. Who wouldn’t?! You get to sleep in, watch your favorite shows and play in the snow. It’s like an extra weekend or small vacation. I love seeing my kids having fun in the snow, but I also have some responsibilities that require my attention even though school is out due to the weather.?

Being part of the facilities team at 果冻传媒 I need to make sure that the school grounds and the buildings are holding up against the weather. Last month we closed school for two days due to the snow. I felt comfortable driving in the snow plus I have AWD so I made a trip to the school. The reason I went to the campus was to make sure that the facilities are holding up in the weather. I don’t want to come back to school to find out a bunch of surprises that could potentially cause school to be closed such as the heat not holding or the roof collapsing. I did my walk around campus and found no issues which was great because I got to go home and play a little in the snow with my kids as if it was my weekend now!

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