October 14, 2024
By Jenna Fournel, Director of Teaching and Learning
Prefer audio? Listen to Aleta and Jenna discuss this week’s issue on the Hooray For Monday podcast.
At Inspired Teaching we are lucky to have staff who live all up and down the Eastern part of the United States. When I was discussing content for this issue with two of my colleagues, we realized that today’s holiday doesn’t share the same name for all of us.
I live in Virginia, and our school district lists October 14 as Indigenous People’s Day. Michelle lives in New York City where the school district calls it Italian Heritage/Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Meag lives in New Orleans where many schools have avoided a label entirely and simply call October 14 “Fall Break.” But when all of us were children, the second Monday in October was Columbus Day.
Why? What is the federal holiday in honor of? Why has the name changed over time? How does a date become a federal holiday? Why do we have federal holidays to begin with?
Most students won’t care about these questions as much as they’ll care about a day off from school. But the name of this holiday is just one of many surprisingly polarizing issues that directly and indirectly impact our students and what and how we teach in schools.
Last week’s Hooray For Monday introduced the questions that drive learning at Inspired Teaching. These questions stem from our 4 I’s: Intellect, Inquiry, Imagination, and Integrity.
This week, I’m exploring our question around the first I, Intellect: What do I need to know in order to understand all sides of an issue?
I’m sharing several resources below to pique your curiosity about the past and present of today’s federal holiday. Collection and review of resources is an important first step in supporting our students when they find an issue they are curious about. Here are concrete strategies for stoking your students’ curiosity:
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Spend time discussing what makes a reliable resource. (Check out the CRAAP test!)
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Send students on a scavenger hunt for resources on the topic.
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Invite students to share their findings with classmates, as a way to develop their expertise.
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Keep asking questions that probe students’ intellect: “What more don’t we know?” “Where can we go to find out more?” “Who can we talk to to learn from different perspectives?”
When you return to school this week, it might be interesting to explore the who, what, where, when, why, and how of this vacation day — but there will also be other topics pulled from the headlines that students may be even more curious to understand.
What can you do to embolden them to question everything? The more practice they get with doing that, the stronger they’ll become as problem solvers, changemakers, and empathetic contributors to the communities they call home.
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