How to Teach Kids About Black Lives Matter

Most of the challenging topics we’ve been through so far, such as “How To Teach Dark Periods Of History” or “Teaching Kids About the Holocaust”, are considered historical pieces as they deal with topics of our distant past, at least for kids. However, teaching kids about current events is a bit more challenging. 

It’s easy to say “people back then…” and distance oneself from the society’s mentality, but when we’re part of the society, it’s a different situation and educators need to be extra sensitive. In addition, we’ve seen how biased our history is through articles such as “Teach Kids About Historical Bias With Columbus Day” and “How to Teach Kids About Australia Day and Its Counter Holiday, Invasion Day, Respectfully,” which should make us aware about the challenges of avoiding bias when teaching current events like Black Lives Matter for kids. 

In this article, we’ll try to address these issues and provide some useful tips and guidelines on how to approach this topic. More specifically, we’ll share a kid-friendly explanation of what “Black Lives Matter” really is; how to use this movement to teach kids about anti-racism, tolerance, and celebrating diversity. After all, it’s up to us to give future generations the tools to transform the world we live in and make these events a thing of the past. 

A Child’s Perception

The most important thing teachers and parents need to be aware of is that children don’t live in an isolated bubble, which means they already have a rudimentary perception of Black Lives Matter based on the things they see, hear, or read. Some parents have even taken their children to the protests. So, it becomes imperative to look at things from a child’s perspective before deciding what and how to teach them about Black Lives Matter. 

First, when children see the Floyd video or hear what happens, they identify with him. This doesn’t mean that children think “This could’ve been me,” but they might think “What if this happens to my father?” These thoughts can make children afraid and anxious, which is why it’s important for the educator to address these feelings and reassure kids that they’re safe. 

Second, children are curious and they’ll try to make sense of the limited information they have even if you try to protect them by isolating them from these events. While some parents bring their children to the protests, others might go to the opposite extreme and don’t speak about the topic. However, kids sense the atmosphere and they’ll no doubt see or hear something, which is why avoiding the subject might do more harm than good. You know how when you worry, you assume the worst? Well, children reason the same way – “If my parents don’t want to think or speak about it, it must be something very scary!”

The conclusions that follow from this are, first, you need to make children feel safe, and second, you need to share all the facts and be open for discussion – never dismissive. 

Starting The Conversation 

So, now that we’ve covered the two most important aspects that should be part of any conversation on this topic, let’s see how educators can start the conversation. 

The most straightforward way to start the lecture is to directly address the current events and ask kids what they know, and what questions and opinions they might have on the subject. This is a great way to start a general discussion, obtain feedback, and use that as a guide to what might need to be further explained or highlighted, focusing on exercises about empathy, compassion, tolerance, and inclusion. It’s a flexible method that works best on middle school and high school students who’ve already had lectures on racial discrimination, prejudice, harassment, and other difficult and abstract concepts. 

Preschoolers and to some point elementary school students will benefit more from a well-structured lecture that explains things in a very simplistic, yet effective way. A good example might be starting by explaining the difference in skin color (racial differences) and how education can make people be better. 

“The reason why we all have different skin color is that we have something in our skin that’s called melanin. We all have it, but some of us have it more than others. The more melanin we have, the darker our skin is going to be. Do you know why we have melanin? Melanin protects us from the sun, which means having a lot of melanin is a good thing! If we have darker skin with a lot of melanin, we won’t become red when playing on the beach for a long time!

But, people in the past didn’t know this. Their knowledge was very limited, which is why they believed there’s something mysterious or special in people’s skin color that makes us different. This false assumption made people do very bad things and we still feel the consequences today. Imagine, there are some people who still don’t know this and who still believe that our skin color makes us different – which is not true!”

From here, you can easily make an association between the consequences of racial discrimination, police brutality, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Explaining Black Lives Matter to Kids 

Coming to the heart of the matter, to explain the concept of Black Lives Matter to kids, educators need to address the motivations (police brutality), immediate cause (George Floyd’s death), the response (protests), and future considerations (“How to make our world a better place?”).

Police Brutality

Policemen are people whose job is to keep us safe from bad people, which means they have to be strong and powerful. They chase criminals and put them in jail.  But, before they do that, they have to decide who’s bad and who needs to be punished. They do this by controlling who follows or breaks the law. 

But what happens when policemen make mistakes? What happens when policemen don’t know better and falsely believe that people are different solely based on their skin color? What happens when they believe some people are better than others? 

Unfortunately, these things happen very often. Some policemen can be unfair and treat particular people very badly even if they don’t deserve it (use too much force). Unfortunately, this happens more often to Black people as some policemen are racially biased (they have negative false beliefs toward people with different skin color).  

George Floyd 

One of the latest and most serious incidents where the police used too much force when chasing suspecting criminals resulted in the death of George Floyd – an African American man who allegedly passed a fake $20 bill in a store in Minneapolis. 

Regardless of whether George was guilty or not, the policemen should’ve taken him into the police station and investigated the matter better, before deciding whether he should be charged. However, in George’s case, when the police arrived at the scene, they acted very aggressively and one of the policemen knelt on Floyd’s neck for around 8 minutes and 46 seconds. During this time, George was struggling to breathe and he died.  

Note: Before you change the conversation, make sure to reassure kids that not everyone is unfair and that even policemen can be and should be punished if they discriminate or use too much force against some people.

Black Lives Matter Protests

The news of George Floyd’s death spread quickly among people. Everyone was shocked and angry because those who were supposed to defend us and keep us safe ended up hurting us. Moreover, people were furious because they knew this kind of police violence happens very frequently to Black people – a lot more than it happens to White people. 

To express their disappointment and demand a change, citizens in the US and many other countries around the world organized protests which popularized the social movement, called “Black Lives Matter” (BLM). The movement was founded in 2013 when the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter started circulating on social media in relation to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin.

From 2013 to Floyd’s death, participants in the movement have demonstrated a number of times against inadequate police actions and brutality. However, it was in 2020 during the global protests for George Floyd’s death that the movement received international recognition. The main purpose of the movement is to stop similar incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people.

Thanks to Black Lives Matter, the policemen who were directly involved in George Floyd’s death were fired and charged. Additionally, the protests raised awareness on the pressing issues in our society and the reforms that should follow in order for all of us to have a safer community. 

Black Lives Matter for Kids: Take Home Messages

An excellent way to summarize everything that we’ve said so far is to share the key take-home messages for teaching Black Lives Matter to kids.   

• Take the children’s perception into consideration before you teach this topic. Reassure kids through the whole lecture that they’re safe because we all work together to make the world a better place. 
• Take the children’s age into consideration before you decide on how to organize the lecture and whether you need a strict plan or a more flexible, discussion-based approach. 
• Start the conversation with either a general discussion or a simplistic explanation of more general concepts like race, racial discrimination, bias.
• Associate these general concepts (and the consequences of them) with the Black Lives Matter movement. Talk about the motivations, immediate cause, people’s response, and Black Lives Matter’s impact. 
• Finally, talk about the ways in which kids could contribute so you can have a respectful, diverse, and inclusive school environment. 

Teaching Resources on Black Lives Matter for Kids

The following resources can help you start the conversation about race, discuss sensitive issues, and promote tolerance and compassion among students. 

• Black Lives Matter At School – coalition organizing for racial justice in education. 
• Teaching For Black Lives – book by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, and Wayne Au.  
• Creating the Space to Talk about Race in Your School – a pamphlet by the National Education Association. 
• Black Lives Matter at School – Washington DC Black Lives Matter (teaching resources). 
• A is for Activist (Board book) by Innosanto Nagara.

Before You Leave

As we’ve seen so far, teaching kids about Black Lives Matter is a sensitive but crucial topic that shouldn’t be avoided. There are many valuable lessons for kids to learn which will ultimately build their character and transform them into more compassionate persons.

Hopefully, our guide was clear and specific enough to help you build a meaningful lesson plan, but if you need more resources, follow the link to our website where you’ll find a lot of relevant worksheets, lesson plans, and curriculums in our Black History section. 

Moreover, don’t forget to check out our blog as we regularly update it with new insightful articles on many topics in the field of children’s education and homeschooling.