New York City Social Studies teacher Shellhaas Jean-François was having a conversation with a disengaged student about what they wanted to learn about. After an illuminating discussion, the student told Shellhaas that she wanted to know why China was interested in Africa. Shellhaas responded by clapping her hands and saying “Let’s see!”

“So we looked things up. What is China doing there? Okay, they’re investing. Let’s look for an article here, let’s look for an image there, let’s look for how African countries are responding to this…how do the Chinese feel about this? It just kept coming,” Shellhaas says. “If I had told her, ‘Here, this is what I want you to research…’ I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish nearly as much with that student. And it all started from ‘Miss…You know what I want to know about?’”

For more than a decade, Shellhaas has been teaching in most every New York City borough, primarily working with recently immigrated students from the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East. Currently, she teaches at the Jill Chaifetz Transfer High School, an alternative high school dedicated to serving over-age, under-credited students.

“A lot of my students weren’t able to engage with traditional schooling, and some just got lost,” Shellhaas said.

Jill Chaifetz offers a small, student-centered academic environment while providing social emotional support in partnership with a community-based organization to help with emotional health resources. Meanwhile, teachers like Shellhaas make sure that academic needs are being met.

“I will never forget this teacher I had back in high school,” Shellhaas recalls with a smile. “She always said, ‘Each One. Teach One. Reach One.’ I often think of her words as I help students to figure out what matters to them, how to show up and fight, and to understand themselves more deeply.”

Equity Starts with Ourselves

As an immigrant herself, Shellhaas has been motivated throughout her teaching career to prioritize culturally-relevant and identity-affirming practices in her classroom: acknowledging and validating the stories, experiences, and unique identities of her students. It’s an approach that eschews the deficit mindset of cultural assimilation for asset-based ways of thinking about, celebrating, and respecting diverse identities/perspectives. Shellhaas urges her students to fully embrace their many identities, so that when they “show up” for the world, they know who they are, and they can better meet the challenges awaiting them.

“Equality starts with ourselves,” Shellhaas says. “So I make the classroom a place where students feel like they belong. I make it joyful! And we’ll be learning, although it may not always be in the conventional way that they are used to.”

Shellhaas is constantly experimenting with projects, group work, and tools to increase student engagement. She typically provides a list of topics, and lets her students pick the ones that they are most curious about. Then, she builds an outcomes-based learning experience from there.

“I ask myself constantly: How do I maintain their interest? How do I make history different from what is normally known? Why should they care about a whole bunch of dates and dead people that they’ve never heard of?!” Shellhaas says. “Instead of, ‘Today, class, we’re learning about the Cold War,’ I start the lesson with a question. In this way, learning begins with something they’re interested in, and then we find the connection to make history more real. Now it’s not something that’s just in the past. We bring it to the now!”

Creating a Community on a Screen

The pandemic heaped more challenges upon Shellhaas and her Jill Chaifetz students. As educators navigated a new shared reality of social isolation and virtual learning, Shellhaas accepted the fact that teaching would not be “curriculum as usual,” and that she would have to pivot; guiding her teaching by the lodestar of “What do my kids want to learn?”

“With Zoom, we had to create a school community over a bunch of squares on a screen,” Shellhaas says. “One beautiful thing about it, though, was the feedback. I wanted to know what my students really thought. I could tell by the silence, I could tell by the cameras turned off… different little things were telling me ‘Okay, Shellhaas, stop: this is not going well. Let’s try something else!’ You can be flexible and still have high expectations while providing ways to make the experience a rewarding one.”

The instructional team at Jill Chaifetz spent a great deal of time during the pandemic concentrating on CRST (Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Teaching) practices. Part of this effort involved conducting multiple surveys to better gauge student engagement. The results reinforced the need to listen to students, and to adjust the content as necessary.

“Give options. Provide different ways to show learning. Go with what their interests are,” Shellhaas explains. “You can always find ways to turn those interests into teachable moments or learning experiences— something that is academically rooted. We know how to do that as educators.”

REIMagining the curriculum

Inspired by her pandemic teaching experiences, Shellhaas wanted to push her craft even further. That’s when reDesign’s K-12 Content Map Design Studio piqued her interest. To her, a week-long virtual gathering of disciplinary experts to reimagine the content that’s taught in K-12 education seemed like an enriching environment worth experiencing. Participants were being asked to focus on a multicultural, anti-racist approach to curriculum design and on cross-disciplinary skills and concepts.

Upon being accepted into the program, Shellhaas joined the Civics team composed of a dozen subject-matter experts who have worked as coaches, researchers, students, and social activists — among other professions. The intent was to have as many different minds looking at pertinent issues in Civics to create new, uplifting, and challenging curricula reflective of multicultural experiences.

“We showed up with our strengths and did what we do best,” Shellhas explains. “So it was inevitable that something great was going to come out of it! Anytime we didn’t push far enough, we simply went back to our original vision: to make the Civics curriculum something that students realize is deeply necessary and is connected to most everything else. We were constantly asking ourselves: Whose voice are we not hearing?”

An interdisciplinary approach

Midway through the K-12 Content Map Design Studio, each discipline team shared their work with another team. Shellhaas and her Civics team showcased their work to the Art team, and vice versa. This interdisciplinary approach to multicultural education allowed Shellhaas to see the curriculum with fresh eyes, and help identify areas where she could relevantly integrate art concepts into civics.

“As a teacher, I was soaking it in and thinking ‘this is how I can focus more on the concepts’, because even though I may not know how to do the art, I could understand their approach. Same with the Math team’s presentation. The thinking made sense: it was clear and concise. I got why it matters. I got why it’s important. And I understood how a teacher would be able to teach this.”

The structure of the K-12 Content Map Design Studio allowed for a rich and diverse collection of perspectives and opinions, while empowering participants to use their time as they saw fit. Shellhaas appreciated this freedom, realizing that it was the best way for participants to have full control over what they were tasked with creating. Facilitators were also on hand to gently guide the proceedings and to help keep discussions focused on the team’s overriding goal: to reimagine K-12 Civics. By the end of the Design Studio week, Shellhaas felt that she had what she needed to continue the transformation of her curriculum and carry her work forward.

mapping out the future

Currently, Shellhaas is preparing for a post-pandemic fall, and is committed to creating authentic learning experiences for students. And while the concepts and approaches presented in the Design Studio dovetailed with the work she and her core team of teachers were doing back at Jill Chaifetz, Shellhaas now knows that she and her peers have to think about the content map as a whole.

“I learned that these concepts can’t simply be “sprinkled” into the curriculum here and there; they need to be integrated into the foundation,” Shellhaas says. “So I was able to share my Design Studio experience with my school, and to advocate for some pretty radical change. And if that means starting over from scratch, so be it.”

the power of relevance

The instructional team at Jill Chaifetz did a lot of professional development work this year to ensure that the experiences students have in the classroom are culturally relevant. Shellhaas feels that having her K-12 Content Map Design Studio experience right after this work “sealed the deal” for her. This is where she and her school needed to go, and she believes she can continue her school’s transformation.

“I’ve changed…we’ve changed as a community, as a world—and it’s only fair that our approach to teaching changes also. After the K-12 Content Map Design Studio, I’m committed to shaking things up, reimagining my practice, being okay with being uncomfortable, and lifting up as many voices as possible.”