And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.
Audre Lorde (American poet, writer, feminist, librarian, and civil rights activist)
Happy Women’s History Month! Happy Belated International Women’s Day!
The Audre Lorde quote above helps to center me on why these days of recognition matter. As we know, women’s stories have been disproportionately omitted from history books leaving much of women’s history underrepresented, inaccurate, or neglected. There still remains countless untold women’s stories, especially the stories of marginalized and oppressed women, to be shared, honored, or heard. Therefore, I encourage us to use our platform as educators to incorporate more truth, inclusion, and empowerment in the narratives about the women in our lives.
Instead of reinventing the wheel for how we can celebrate and honor Women’s History Month, I am pulling from a worthy resource I found online that outlines 31 Ways to Celebrate Women’s History Month and includes tangible things one might do to center and illuminate the vital histories, accomplishments, and experiences of women this month. The article from http://www.girlswithideas.com/ is packed with resources and ideas for each suggestion. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you take a peek at the full article, but I will include some of the best classroom ideas below:
- Get a mini history lesson on Women’s History Month
- Listen to a Girl Power Playlist
- Frame your Favorite Empowering Quote
- Do a random act of kindness specifically for girls!
- Watch these videos on amazing Idea Girls!
- Watch this Documentary [Girl Rising]
- Donate your time, talent or treasure to organizations that support girls
- Write Your Representative
- Subscribe to a magazine for girls like Kazoo or Sesi
- Make Women’s History Month more Colorful with Relevant Coloring Pages!
What I love about these suggestions is that they can easily be applied to a classroom or personalized for your daily life beyond the classroom. One of the most meaningful things we can do to celebrate Women’s Month is to actually celebrate women with intention and specificity – not to just vaguely mention how important the month is. Let’s put faces and names to histories and please have some fun while doing it!
“Here’s to strong women, may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.”~ Unknown
Love and Solidarity,
Beina
P.S. Here’s my evidence of starting somewhere on that list of suggestions (#3) in hopes that sharing will become contagious 😉 Looking forward to hearing what each of you are doing, will do, and have done to lift up women’s stories even more this month and every month!
