In a time of fear and uncertainty, Justis Lopez has found a way to become an ambassador for happiness.
Mr. Lopez and his partner in creativity, Ryan Parker, have built on the elements of hip hop to write a song to brighten children’s spirits while conveying a powerful message.
“Our song – ‘Happyvism’ – is centered on Black and Brown boy joy and the power and significance of self-love as a form of activism and radical resistance,” Mr. Lopez said.
Justis Lopez
Watch the music video performed by Lopez and Parker here.
Mr. Lopez received an Alma Exley Memorial Scholarship in 2015 when he was a student in the Neag School of Education at UConn.
Also a Happyvism Book
Lopez and Parker also have produced a children’s book on Happyvism. As Mr. Lopez said, “This book communicates the significance, necessity and power of embracing joy in the face of a world riddled with trauma and oppression specifically as it relates to Black and Brown bodies.
“Additionally, this book embraces the beauty and need for Black and Brown boy joy and emphasizes the fact that maintaining happiness about who you are and what you think, say and do in a world that consistently goes against the grain of your identity is a form of activism in itself. Hence: Happyvism.
“We expect to release the book in December,” he said. “The target audience is K-6 educators. We wanted to create a project for the little ones. It’s all new to us, but we are really excited to be working with Ivy (Horan) on this project.”
Music Video Goes to School
Ivy Horan, honored with an Alma Exley scholarship in 2018, used the music video in her second-grade class at Mayberry School in East Hartford.
“I had been thinking about ways to incorporate more music into my classroom,” she said. “The class was doing an activity about emotions when I remembered Justis’s Happyvism music video. I played it for the students once, and they were hooked. They loved the song. We played it three more times that day.
“After school, I reached out to Justis on Instagram to let him know that we loved his song and were excited for his book.
Ivy Horan
“I also wanted to thank him for just being such a positive force,” she added. “Justis said he’d like to send us some of their Happyvism books when they’re ready. I know my students are going to be super excited since they loved his song (and think he’s really cool for making a music video). I am excited to see how Justis’s project progresses, and I am looking for more ways to keep my students involved.”
When the books arrive, Ms. Horan can add them to her classroom library of multicultural books, which are helping her second-graders to affirm their diverse identities.
Congratulations to Ivy Horan and Justis Lopez on their creative collaboration.
When Ivy Horan was an elementary school student in Duxbury, Mass., she never saw books about people who looked like her.
Ivy Horan
Last summer, as she began to prepare for her first teaching position, she decided to provide a different experience for her second graders at Mayberry School in East Hartford.
She posted an appeal on Facebook and other social media for donations of books on multicultural topics featuring diverse people.
“I got the idea for this multicultural book project from reflecting upon my own K-12 schooling experience,” she said. “I realized that I never was exposed to diverse or multicultural books. This has been my motivation throughout my entire project: to ensure that my students are given more representative books than I was as a child.”
UConn Graduate
Ms. Horan received an Alma Exley Memorial Scholarship in 2019 as a student at UConn. She received her master’s degree in May 2020 and began her teaching career in September.
Ivy Horan with some selections from her multicultural library
“I have collected more than 60 books that have characters from different backgrounds, races, cultures, religions, and with varying familial compositions,” she said. “I am working on finding as many different representative and diverse books as I can for my classroom library.”
Inspiring Diverse Students
This is relevant because all of Ms. Horan’s second graders are students of color. Her class includes students who are Black, Latino and mixed-race. A number are English-language learners, who speak Spanish as well as African languages.
Click here to visit the Amazon site to contribute one or more books to Ms. Horan’s classroom library.
“I am extremely thankful for the donations,” she said. “I received books from family members, friends, professors, and various people whom I worked with throughout my time at UConn.
“What was most surprising was that I also received books from a handful of old friends from middle school and high school whom I haven’t talked to in years. It was amazing to see how everyone, whether I have remained close to them or not, came out to support my project and me. I am forever grateful. Every book that I received is now in my classroom library.”
She began by posting a wish-list of books from Amazon. Down the road, she hopes to expand her outreach to find more programs or websites that could help her find more diverse books for her classroom.
Right now, because of Covid-19 guidelines, Ms. Horan is the only one who can touch the books. Because of this, she is using the books as “mentor texts” and reading aloud to her students.
Supporting the Curriculum
“I also use these diverse books in teaching some of my curriculum,” she added. “For example, last week we were doing a lesson on ‘taking notes’ with informational or nonfiction texts. We had been reading a book about sharks, but instead of continuing with that book, I used the book ‘Turning Pages: My Life Story’ by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Not only is this story about the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, it also aligned perfectly with our celebration and recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month.
“So not only can I use the books as read-aloud, I can also use them within the curriculum. In the future, I hope to turn my classroom into a lending library where students can keep the books at their seats for a designated amount of time and do independent reading. But for the time being with Covid-19, this is my safest approach.
“My students love the books,” she said. “It has been really wonderful to see students making connections from their own lives to the books.
“For example, I have a handful of students who speak Spanish. When we read the book, ‘Mango, Abuela, and Me’ by Meg Medina, those students were really excited to hear some of the Spanish words they know. This engaged the entire class in a conversation about language and what other Spanish words they know, who in their family speaks Spanish, and how they learned Spanish.
Encouraging Conversations
“These multicultural texts have been a foundation to help my students and me have more conversations about diversity and connect the ideas from the books to our own lives.”
Ms. Horan takes seriously her responsibility to serve as a positive role model for her students. “I have a class that is all students of color, and I know I am making an impact by just being their teacher since I am a teacher of color,” she said.
“I create a safe, welcoming, and loving community for all students and foster a community of care within my room every day. And that, books aside, is what our students of color so often need with everything going on in our world today.”
Hearty congratulations to Ivy for taking the initiative in her first year on the job to create a welcoming classroom environment for her diverse students.
Woody Exley
Ms. Horan’s Culturally Diverse and Representative Class Library
*Updated 10/22/20
Book Title
Author
Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins
Carole Boston Weatherford
The Color of Us
Karen Katz
Little Fish
Sanne te Loo
Kali and the Rat Snake
Zai Whitaker
Yagua Days
Cruz Martel
Sosu’s Call
Meshack Asare
New Clothes for New Year’s Day
Hyun-Joo Bae
Where Are You From?
Yamile Saied Méndez
Jabari Jumps
Gaia Cornwall
Ada Twist, Scientist
Andrea Beaty
Uncle Jed’s Barbershop
Margaree King Mitchell
Abuela
Arthur Dorros
Mae Among the Stars
Roda Ahmed
Too Many Tamales
Gary Soto
The Jolly Mon
Jimmy Buffet & Savannah Jane Buffet
Priscilla and the Hollyhocks
Anne Broyles
Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti
Gerald McDermott
Hush!
Mingfong Ho
Whoever You Are
Mem Fox
Tiger in My Soup
Kashmira Sheth
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti PLain
Verma Aardema
Round is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes
Roseanne Greenfield Thong
City Shapes
Diana Murray
Bein’ with You This Way
W. Nikola-Lisa
Love
Matt de la Peña
City Green
DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan
Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice
Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, Ann Hazzard
Almost to Freedom
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Suki’s Kimono
Chieri Uegaki
Freedom Soup
Tami Charles
Mama Miti
Donna Jo Napoli
Carmela Full of Wishes
Matt de la Peña
Cool Cuts
Mechal Renee Roe
Chocolate Me!
Taye Diggs
Happy Hair
Michal Renee Roe
Hair Love
Matthew A. Cherry
Don’t Touch My Hair!
Sharee Miller
I Like Myself!
Karen Beaumont
Just LIke Me
Vanessa Brantley-Newton
My Hair is a Garden
Cozbi A. Cabrera
Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao
Kat Zhang
Dear Juno
Soyung Pak
Sumo Joe
Mia Wenjen
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story
Kevin Noble Maillard
Windows
Julia Denos
Dreamers
Yuyi Morales
Grace for President
Kelly DiPucchio
The Word Collector
Peter H. Reynolds
A Day’s Work
Eve Bunting
Sitti’s Secrets
Naomi Shihab Nye
Ma’ii and the Cousin Horned Toad
Shonto Begay
Lailah’s Lunchbox
Reem Faruqi
Keeprs
Jeri Hanel Watts & Felicia Marshall
Thirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back
Joseph Bruchac & Jonathan London
Aunt Flossie’s Hats (and Crab Cakes Later)
Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard
Fatuma’s New Cloth
Leslie Bulion
Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns: A Muslim Book of Colors
Hena Khan
Islandborn
Junot Díaz
The Name Jar
Yangsook Choi
Mango, Abuela, and Me
Meg Medina
You Matter
Christian Robinson
I Promise
Lebron James
I Am Enough
Grace Byers
Under My Hijab
Hena Khan
Thunder Boy Jr.
Sherman Alexie
Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest
Gerald McDermott
Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears: A West African Tale
Verna Aardema
Ohana Means Family
Ilima Loomis
This Is the Rope
Jacqueline Woodson
Be the Difference: 40+ Ideas for Kids to Create Positive Change Using Empathy, Kindness, Equality, and Environmental Awareness
Jayneen Sanders
V is for Voting
Kate Farrell
Speak Up
Miranda Paul
What If We Were All the Same!
C.M. Harris
Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa
Andrew Davis Pinkney
A Computer Called Katherine
Suzanne Slade
Counting on Katherine
Helaine Becker
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History
Vashti Harrison
Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story
Ruby Bridges
Turning Pages
Sonia Sotomayor
The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payme
Lesa Cline-Ransome
Fight for the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai’s Story
Rebecca Langston-George
Malala’s Magic Pencil
Malala Yousafzai
Martin’s Big Words
Doreen Rappaport
Child of the Civil Rights Movement
Paula Young Shelton & Raul Colón
Equality’s Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America
Sandy Fraioli is taking an ambitious, long-term approach to increasing diversity in the teacher corps. She is starting in high school.
In a pre-Covid-19 photo, Sandy Fraioli, front left, with Colleen Moffett-Mals, who is teaching the Rising Educators course, and their students, front row from left, Shaza Oufi, Lizmarie Maldonado, Deseriah Castillo and Romona Hall, and back row from left, Evan Vinas, Ethan Roy and Maram Aljahmi.
For seven years Ms. Fraioli has led a program to encourage students at New Britain High School – particularly students of color — to pursue careers in teaching. Since then, students from NBHS have enrolled in teacher-preparation programs at Central, Eastern, Southern Connecticut State Universities, University of Saint Joseph, University of Hartford, UConn and Arizona State. And some have graduated and have become teachers.
Sandy Fraioli is Lead Teacher, Family and Consumer Sciences, at NBHS and Teacher Leader in Residence at the Connecticut State Department of Education.
Expanding Into Eight More Districts
Three years ago Ms. Fraioli established a partnership with Educators Rising, a national organization that provides a curriculum of courses to motivate high school students and help them to prepare for careers in education.
This semester, the Connecticut State Department of Education is launching EdRising initiatives in eight additional school districts, Danbury, Hamden, Hartford, Meriden, New Haven, New London, Stamford, Waterbury and Windsor. Ms. Fraioli hopes to have the same success in these districts that she has achieved in New Britain.
Ramona Hall, who took the course at NBHS, has been admitted to UConn, where she plans to enroll in the Neag School of Education.
“The Educators Rising course definitely helped me to decide what I want to do,” she said. “I had so many good experiences.” As part of the class, she volunteered at elementary and pre-school programs in New Britain. She also did a lot of reading and viewed TED talks about multicultural education.
Ramona Hall, a graduate of New Britain High School, has begun at UConn.
“We learned about the need to be aware of different kids’ situations and how to adapt to teaching in different environments,” she said. “We learned so much about teaching in a diverse community.
“Definitely take the class,” is her advice to other high school students. “It’s so worth it. I’m so happy I took it. The focus on actual teaching was really valuable.”
Dr. Shuana Tucker
Dr. Shuana Tucker, Chief Talent Officer, at the Connecticut State Department of Education, introduced Ms. Fraioli to Educators Rising three years ago when she learned about her efforts to interest students in teaching careers.
“We are pleased to partner with the National EdRising/Phi Delta Kappa organization and the Buck Foundation to implement a proven grow-your-own model to diversify our educator pipeline here in Connecticut,” she said.
Dr. Violet Jiménez Sims
Kudos From New Britain Board Member
Dr. Violet Jiménez Sims, an Alma Exley Scholar who serves on the New Britain Board of Education, is excited by the way the program has grown from the seed she planted a decade ago.
Dr. Sims initiated and taught the Teacher Cadet course from 2010 to 2012 when she was a teacher at New Britain High School. Sandy Fraioli took over the program in 2013 and nurtured its growth over the pasts seven years. This year Dr. Sims joined the UConn faculty as associate director of teacher preparation at the Neag School.
“I am excited to see the program’s growth and evolution, and the continued support it has received,” said Dr. Sims. “My priorities as a member of the New Britain Board of Education (BOE) remain what they were when I was a teacher in the district — ensuring equity and access for all of our students.
“The EdRising program not only provides the scaffolding for diverse students to become interested in and be able to access teacher education programs, but it also provides a pipeline for bringing graduates back into our community and school system.
Graduate Teaching in New Britain
“In fact, those results are already evident,” she said. “I still keep in touch with several alumni of the first cohort I taught nearly 10 years ago. One is now an elementary school teacher in the district! I look forward to seeing more graduates who participate in this program noted on our BOE personnel reports as new hires.”
At a time when only eight percent of Connecticut public school teachers are persons of color, educators have tried a variety of efforts to achieve greater diversity at the front of the classroom. Many have recognized that efforts to recruit more teachers of color must start early. Waiting until students are in college may be too late.
Moving Into Middle School
“We also had a club at the middle school this year,” Ms. Fraioli said. “Those students are starting high school knowing they want to be teachers. The younger we start the better.
“Our students need teachers who are reflective of the population they’re working with,” she said. “Diversifying our pool of teachers is essential for all ethnicities.
“The earlier we begin planting the seeds in our students that they have the knowledge, confidence and skills to become a teacher, the more apt that they will be to pursue a career in teaching. This has to start now!”
