11 Ways to Go Back to School with Anti-Bias Education

The back to school time of year can bring a sense of excitement about fresh beginnings and new ideas. Below are 11 ways to bring anti-bias practices into schools and classrooms.

1. Consider how to use anti-bias teaching tools and strategies including Just Joking: How to How to Respond When Students' "Jokes" are Biased or Offensive, Race Talk: Engaging Young People in Conversations about Race and Racism, Centering Youth Voices: Addressing Identity-Based Bullying and more.   
2. Teach about current events using our recent lesson plans such as Tweens, Digital Spaces and Cyberbullying, Antisemitism and Sports, Judy Heumann and Disability Rights Activism, and The N-Word: Its History, Use and Impact. We have many other timely lessons.
3. Schedule Anti-Bias Workshops and Programs, including anti-bias training for educators and peer training for students.
4. Share with parents and family members one of our Table Talk discussion guides about current events. Recent topics include: How Tweens Experience Cyberbullying, Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills that are Impacting Children, Families and Schools, People with Disabilities and the Accommodations They Need and more. 
5. Visit our Early Childhood Question Corner to explore the roots of bias, how to address bullying among young children and ideas to initiate discussions about differences.
6. Use our Monthly Featured Book discussion guides to explore bias, bullying and social justice through literature. Find other excellent books on Books Matter and read 7 Awesome Back to School Picture Books for Elementary Students.  
7. Learn about No Place for Hate and register your school for the upcoming school year. 
8. Find ways to talk with young people about gun violence, extremism and other acts of hate with Empowering Young People in the Aftermath of Hate.
9. Watch our short, self-guided learning modules to help familiarize yourself with our anti-bias framework, themes and topics or use one of our student mini-lessons to introduce students to new concepts.  
10. Explore our resource, A Guide for Responding to School-Based Bias Incidents, to help strengthen your response to school-based incidents.
11. Learn about ADL’s education programs and training including A World of Difference Institute, Bullying/Cyberbullying, Echoes & Reflections, Hate Uncycled, No Place for Hate® and Words to Action.