My Place in This World
My Place in this World celebrates Black Heritage. Rather than starting and ending with the slavery narrative and oppression, this innovative curriculum provides a wealth of information, activities, assignments, and assessments that recognize the vast contributions of people from the mother continent. My Place in this World is for all students, but particularly for our Black students in Canada. It disrupts the negative effects of post-traumatic slavery syndrome plaguing Black youth and it fosters pride, a sense of belonging, and most importantly, hope.
The founder of My Place in this World, Mrs. Lorraine Harris, is an administrator at Waterloo Catholic District School Board.
My Place in this World:
- celebrates Black Heritage
- ends the slavery narrative and oppression
- disrupts the negative effects of post-traumatic slavery syndrome plaguing Black youth
- Is an innovative curriculum
- provides a wealth of information, activities, assignments, and assessments that recognizes the vast contributions of people from the mother continent Africa.
- fosters pride, a sense of belonging, and most importantly, hope
Why should we use a Black curriculum in schools?
- In Ontario, nearly one out of every 15 young Black men experienced jail time, compared to one out of 70 young White men; that is a disparity of more than four times
- 94% of Black youth aged 15 to 25 said that they would like to get a bachelor’s degree or higher; only 60% though that they could
- 53% of Black students were in academic programs as compared to 81% of White and 80% of other racialized students
- Getting inside the “root” of the achievement and opportunity gap is how we begin to achieve equity for all
What does the research say?
Williams, Lawrence, and Davis (2019) stated there is an emerging body of research which suggests that values-affirmation intervention and social-belonging intervention are self-affirmation strategies that can:
- Markedly improve academic performance of stigmatized racial groups
- Enhance each individual’s capacity to cope with stressful situations
- Lead to improved health behaviours and overall health
What does the curriculum look like?
The activities are:
- engaging and easy for teachers to follow
- cross-curricular ( math, language, science, history, drama skills, etc.)
- linked to the Ontario curriculum and learning outcomes.
- positive and supports Mental Health and Wellness for all students, particularly Black students
The students are:
- immediately hooked by the videos, art, poetry, songs, essays, and discussion questions that are grade-level appropriate.
- asked to make real world connections to current Black leaders and role-models as the curriculum progresses across grade levels
