For thirty to forty minutes every morning, I am required to teach "vocabulary" to a group of 26 8th grade students. Challenging? Yes. Particularly because we are supposed to stay on the same ten words for at least 7 or 8 days. Early on, I decided that this was no longer just going to be a vocabulary class but this was going to be a "thinking space." It was going to be a 30-minute period where some way, some how, I talked about this vocabulary using the context of the world. This month is black history month and so I have been creating a series of culturally relevant lessons that deal wtih issues in America. One of my words this week was "hypocrisy." I made this statement: 

We have freedom of speech in America and yet we judge people based on how they speak. 

We explored this quote by discussing what it means to talk using standard English vs. Black Vernacular English. We watched a Ted Talk video where Jamila Lyiscott discusses the three English languages she speaks. We talked about race and why one language appears to be inferior to another language. We talked about this idea of what it means to have a Eurocentric language. 

I have always dreamed about pursuing a lesson such as this one. Today, I felt like I had conquered the world. My students were engaged, they were active listeners, they shared their opinions with me and they began to see why vocabulary is more than a word but it is an action. I encourage all teachers who are working with students of a diverse background to begin to talk about some of these critical issues. Our students want to talk. However, they need a safe space to do so.