Stop and think about the students in your classroom. 🤔 Do any of them look like the person on this cover? At the beginning of every school year, thousands of teachers discuss the importance of respecting and valuing others’ as an expectation for their classroom. We hope that students automatically apply this expected norm to their classmates, but stating it out loud and slapping it on a poster does not make it happen. Students need repeated opportunities to internalize this norm and execute it in their lives. Enter picture books. Picture books have the power to highlight a real-life issue and engage children in conversations that expand their worldview. Reading books like My Hair is a Garden gives students a chance to explore potentially vulnerable topics through the guise of another person’s story. My Hair is a Garden is a glorious read aloud because it challenges “standard” notions of beauty and embraces the fact that Black IS Beautiful. Think about what a book like this will do for students who look like the person on the cover AND those who don’t...who may think of beauty only though the lens of who mainstream media tells is worthy of respect and value. That type of empowerment is what moves the needle from respect and value on a poster, to respect and value in the ❤️. #teachingliteracy #readingspecialist #thatbooklife #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #weneeddiversebooks #diversereads #blackisbeautiful #picturebooks #readaloud #backtoschool #classroomexpectations #challengingnorms #poc #myhairisagarden #cozbiacabrera https://www.instagram.com/p/B0BQNHHhn8w/?igshid=pkxukx2aow3o