Thursday, July 29 at 2:00 PM-3:15 PM

In his origin story of white supremacy -Exterminate all the Brutes -filmmaker Raoul Peck states: "any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences, an exercise of power that makes some narratives possible and silences others". The P.R.I.D.E. Program Parent Village strategy, one of 5 strategies that make up P.R.I.D.E. -positive racial identity development in early education -aims to give voice to both the silencing of historical Black oppression and Black resilience.

In this session, the presenters will share details of the Parent Village curriculum, as well as describe the way the project has been implemented with parents and is currently being used with students. Presenters will also talk about their experiences creating the curriculum. Participants will gain awareness of why basic historical racial understandings are critical to building communities of knowledge and are foundational to disrupting oppressive systems. Attendees will also have a greater grasp of how difficult racial issues can be presented to and shared with children.

Presenters

Dr. Aisha White

Aisha White is a mother of 2 and grandmother of 4. She was born and raised in Pittsburgh where she grew up in the housing projects in the Hill District. She earned her bachelor's degree in media communications (minoring in Africana studies), master's in library science, and PhD in library and information science, all at the University of Pittsburgh. Her doctoral research explored the information needs of women in Muncy Prison, the largest women’s prison in Pennsylvania. She has held coordinator and director positions at early education organizations: Beginning with Books, The Heartwood Institute, and Family Communications, Inc., - now Fred Rogers Productions - where she currently serves as a consultant to the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood animated children’s television show. Since the late 1970s, she has been engaged in arts and social activism efforts including: the Pittsburgh by - district city council campaign, anti - apartheid and antiwar organizing, the Harambee II Black Arts Festival, and Africana human rights film efforts. She has also been involved in racial awareness work for more than 10 years and currently directs the P.R.I.D.E. Program (positive racial identity development in early education) at the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development.

Median Jackson

Medina Jackson Medina is a Black woman, “artivist,” blogger and mother of a 10 - year - old son whose experience reinforcing PRIDE at home fuels her work. She has over 10 years of community outreach, early childhood, parent engagement, and youth development programming and management experience. At Community Empowerment Association (CEA) she led youth programming, organized community forums on grief & loss, parent support, and violence prevention, and hosted and coordinated performances for large events including CEA’s Black Family Reunion, and citywide Kwanzaa events. She also coordinated Sankofa’s Creative Liberation, a Carnegie Mellon University Arts Greenhouse youth leadership/arts development program. She is currently a facilitator of the Shifting Power in Educational Research and Development project at the School of Education which aims to shift the traditional power dynamics that are inherent in many research and development (R&D) infrastructures.

Sister IAsia Thomas

IAsia Thomas Sister IAsia is a native of Cape Town, South Africa whose professional experiences have been realized in the context of education, multi - disciplinary cultural arts, high performance learning, and African centered arts education. Prior to joining the Equity team, she served Pittsburgh Public Schools as director for the Culturally Responsive Arts Education (CRAE) program of Pittsburgh Public Schools where she also taught African dance, artistic leadership, and creative writing to elementary, middle and high school learners. She currently serves the District as a project manager of Equity with an emphasis on cultural relevancies in pedagogy, student identity, and transformative practice. She is interested in unifying the continental African and African American learners of PPS and their families to uplift, strengthen, and nourish the spirit of resilience innate in people of color

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at diversity@pitt.edu by July 21