Parent Book Club and Godly Play Focus through Lent

Author:
January 22, 2025
I wanted to share with you some information I (we) will be covering starting at Lent. First we will start with a book for parents to introduce them to the idea of what we will be covering in the undercroft. My hope is that parents will join me in reading "Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America." We will have a forum to discuss the book on February 23. The link to purchase is below. The Episcopal Church is committed to equity and justice, living in a nation that remains racially unjust and deeply segregated creates unique conundrums. In our forum and in reading the book we will have the dialogue of what can we do within our homes, communities and schools? Should we teach our children to be “colorblind”? Or, should we teach them to notice race? What roles do we want to equip them to play in addressing racism when they encounter it? What strategies will help our children learn to function well in a diverse nation? How do we talk about race honestly, then, without making our children feel bad about being white? Most importantly, how do we do any of this in age-appropriate ways? While this is a hard topic, it is an important one to have a dialogue with our kids.

Second, the 2nd-4th grades will be having lessons based on some of the topics covered in the book.  In Godly Play (2-3 grades) there will be lessons on Martin Luther King, Jr, John Lewis and others. While many schools touch on these stories in the setting of Godly Play we hope it will open up a wider conversation.  In our 3-4th grades will have six lessons based on everything from Columbus to Present history. I took the training on these stories last year. To say they are powerful is an understatement. While the kids know these stories from school, many are taught from the perspective of white historians, where the full story isn’t often covered. After these stories are presented there is time for them to discuss ways in which these stories don’t fulfill God’s dream of loving each other.

If you have any questions or just aren’t ready for your kids to have these discussions, please reach out to me. I’m excited for this and hope you are too!
Here is a link to one of the stories being presented: https://youtu.be/yHdLTAhtbQU
Book link: https://www.amazon.com/Raising-White-Kids-Bringing-Children/dp/1501856421

Sincerely,
Ashley Ozan - aozan@stpaulsokc.org 
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