Catching Up with the Racial Awareness Seminar: "The Kids Are Woke!"

The Racial Awareness Seminar has been working toward the goal of understanding the complexities of race in the 21st century. Recently, our focus has been on students' own

	Malcolm Cawthorne and Kate Leslie

racial identities.
To think more deeply about this, we have been examining groups historically and currently viewed as "races" within the United States.

 

We have used the past to focus on the present. Students grappled with the idea that the only Asian identity box that could be filled in on the US Census was "Chinese" until the 1900s. We saw how the growth of Chinatowns in American cities created a "one-size-fits-all" approach to immigrants from Eastern Asia, and we discussed the complexity ignored by this approach. We recognized, for example, that the Middle East is also in Asia, and that racial identities are sometimes connected to religious faith. These observations fueled exhilarating discussions.

 
Click here to read the full report from Malcolm and Kate, which includes information on what some students are doing outside of class.

Congratulations to Our Mini-Grant Winners

We applaud your efforts to innovate at BHS!

Wow! Four seniors and their faculty advisor have been awarded a grant to design and build a fully automated, hydroponic greenhouse, with the goal of supplying fresh produce to the Brookline Food Pantry.

The ACE Program (Alternative Choices in Education), which offers BHS students a way to take more ownership of their learning and move at their own pace, has received a grant to explore the development of online courses.

 

The BHS Active Minds Club will use their grant to combat the stigma surrounding mental health and create a safe platform for students to share their experiences anonymously.