Why TEAACH Nuclear History?
This content remains of paramount importance as anti-racist teaching and learning continues to be critical in this country. The brutal murders of BIPOC and AAPI heritage people at the hands of the police and white vigilantes brought recent national attention to the vital need to actively combat hate. According to the 2017 “Hate at School'' study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 35% of students reported being concerned about hate and bias at school. A subsequent 2018 SPLC study that surveyed 2,776 educators nationally determined that over 60% had witnessed a hate or bias incident in their schools. Racism is the driving motivation behind the majority of hate and bias incidents reported in school, accounting for 63 percent of incidents reported in the news and 33 percent of incidents reported by teachers.
Furthermore, after the past year of global pandemic and shuttered schools, it is even more important than ever that educators, school leaderships, and districts such as Chicago Public Schools teach inclusive and complex history through a culturally responsive lens to rebuild classroom environments that will welcome students’ different identities, center their needs within their learning, and address trauma experienced during these extended school closures.
In response to recognition of this need, the TEAACH Act was officially passed in 2021. The TEAACH Act was written to amend the Illinois School Code to include an Asian American History Curriculum in every public school in Illinois, ensuring that crucial stories, diverse perspectives, and powerful legacies are elevated and explored by students across the state. This Act was passed as a response to non-existant or limited AAPI history taught in American schools, as current teachers struggle with how to more effectively embed new, more inclusive instruction into their practices and pedagogies. Additionally, the new Illinois Culturally Responsive Teaching standards, which take effect in 2025, define a culturally responsive educator as practitioners who will “critically think about the institutions in which they find themselves, working to reform these institutions whenever and wherever necessary,” as well as one who will “assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.)” Through this curriculum we seek to provide a catalyst for educators to deepen their anti-racist and culturally responsive teaching practices, to grow their own understanding of AAPI history and better understand the complex intersections between science and ethics, including nuclear technology; ultimately, to build rich, powerful, and transformative learning alongside our students.
Objectives:
Students will engage in interdisciplinary, inquiry-based learning to promote racial justice, challenge bias, and lead discussions through an inclusive, anti-racist anti-bias lens;
Students will be able to synthesize learning to develop an intersectional framework for critiquing systems of oppression and empower themselves to take lifelong actions against hate and racism.
Students will be able to engage in meaningful discourse about ethics and social justice in science and STEM as they interrogate the traditional understanding of what it means to be a STEM practitioner. Students will learn about the science of nuclear energy as well as the social and environmental impact of nuclear technology.
Intended Outcomes:
Through exposure to diverse and complex texts and learning materials, students will be able to deepen critical and creative thinking through inquiry-to-action projects and present their learning to a larger audience through their medium of choice.
This curriculum can be used throughout Chicago Public Schools and Illinois. In order to support teacher learning, our goal is to create professional learning opportunities for local educators to extend the scope and reach of the curriculum.