Black History Month! Black and Afro-Latinx Excellence

To be clear Black History Month should be Black History 365. To isolate Black excellence to 30 days in a year is choosing to ignore the contributions of these pioneers to our society.

I’m hoping to share some names with you in this post that you may not be familiar with. 

There is a short overview of each person. That was purposeful because my goal is to get you started.

Do the work and dig into their contributions. Then share that with your students. 

Black History Month is not meant for classroom lessons for you to check off a list. 

Black History Month is meant to expand our knowledge and appreciation for the Black Community.

Black history month-STEM pioneers title
Euphemia Lofton Haynes
Valerie Thomas
Alice Ball
Mark Jackson
Susan McKinney-Steward
Patricia Bath
Kimberly Bryant
Raye Montague
Lonnie Johnson
David Blackwell
George Carruthers
Guion Bluford
Herman Branson
Margaret Collins
afro-latinx pioneers
arturo alfonso schomburg
miriam jimenez roman
elizabeth acevedo
jose celso barbosa
maritza correla mcclendon
arnaldo tamayo mendez
Celia Cruz

On September 30, 2022, I was scheduled to present at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics annual conference in Los Angeles, California. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend. But my co-presenter Robert Kaplinsky took on the presentation for us: 5 Struggles Your Foster Students Wished You Knew. This was a passion project for us because we both came through the foster care system.

We had originally intended to present together in September 2020, but the pandemic had other plans. So we recorded my part as well as added in Jessica Jones’ perspective. We recorded and are sharing this presentation with the hope that it could live on and continue to benefit foster youth. We appreciate you making time to watch and share your learnings.

Click on the image to be taken to the video. 

Robert also provided a handout you can download. It’s a one-page PDF version of the takeaways to share with your colleagues here.