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The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Kids (and Ourselves!) Embrace Our Differences
Learn the language of diversity and raise kids who respect differences and honor similarities. The ABCs of Diversity equips parents, teachers, and community leaders to have intergenerational and intercultural conversations about the differences between us. In addition to discussions of race, intercultural dialogue involves understanding our differences related to political affiliation, gender, class, religion, ability, nationality, and sexual orientation. This book helps parents and teachers of children, youth, and young adults navigate conversations about differences so they can raise up individuals committed to respectful civic engagement. Such intercultural dialogues can support communities as they work for the mutual well-being of all. This book includes specific resources and activities for persons of various ages that parents and community leaders can employ to encourage compassion and empathy. An ideal resource for teachers, parents, ministry personnel, non-profit leaders, human resources directors, and librarians.
- GenresParentingNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
Published June 19, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 22, 2020
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into this book, since non-fiction directed at educating and working with children is 100% out of my wheelhouse, but even from an adult perspective the book gave me a lot to think about and reaffirmed the work that I am already doing in terms of diversity. Obviously the book is aimed at a relatively unaware audience, who maybe needs some gentle encouragement towards some of the harder questions, and the authors do an excellent job of softly ushering them into the various topics. They cover gender, race, identity, religion, and sexuality in easy to understand language, using examples from their own lives and more anonymous examples to bring home the underlying message of the whole book: that we must be more aware, we must be willing to listen, and we must open our minds and hearts to the people around us, no matter how “different” they seem from our own experience. Grounding the whole was their simple monicker that hearkens back to the title, and makes it easy to reframe our thought patterns as we delve deeper into thinking in new ways and interacting with the world around us: rather than being Afraid, Backing Away, and Controlling the situation, they urge us to Acknowledge, Be Present, and Come Closer to learn more, and ultimately to provide Access, Build, and Cultivate a more positive and accepting world. Such a simple idea, when it’s presented so clearly, and one which becomes easy to bring into the everyday practise as we become more mindful.
December 11, 2020
Disjointed. Pedantic without even really breaking new ground. And yet, it was recommended by our local school district's new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee, so I read it.
This book preaches to the choir but offers very few serious pieces of helpful advice for helping kids embrace our differences, as the title promises.
The book has two authors, and the voice jumps back and forth between the two writers. Sometimes jarringly so. It often feels like a poorly edited series of bloggy correspondence between the two authors who live in different places, have different backgrounds, and write in different ways but share the same worldview. This book needed a strong editor to either reconcile the differences into one coherent tone. And speaking of editing, the ideas are what are important, of course, but some of the formatting choices in the book give it an air of amateurishness. As if you're reading a draft booklet that hasn't been fully vetted, rather than an actual book that was truly ready for publication.
So, let's get into the book itself. The "ABCs" thing is gimmicky. The authors seem to have started from the premise that ABCs are catchy. It makes the book sound more approachable and less arcane or academic. And since we're talking about kids, it makes sense. It's billing itself as the Kindergarten-level booklet of this topic, I suppose. Great for elementary school parent-teacher association training sessions, library book clubs, Unitarian church study groups, and the like. The authors wedged terms into A, B, and C, mostly because they started with A, B, and C.
An unenlightened rube is Afraid, Backs away, and seeks Control. See? ABC. How clever!
A person on the way to salvation (but not yet there) Acknowledges, Be(s) present, and Comes Closer. See? Better ABC words! You're almost there! Keep trying.
A person who has achieved true enlightenment will Access, Build, and Cultivate. An inclusion term! A creation term! A gardening term! How wonderful.
Surely, I am not the only person who can plainly see that these terms were chosen because they began with A, B, and C, not because they are actually necessarily useful for helping kids and ourselves embrace our differences. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. I found them to be contrived. You probably will, too.
In the book, there are suggested activities one is supposed to perform with a group, identifying different types of cultural diversity, for example. You're supposed to find a term matching each letter in the alphabet. A is for agonizingly formulaic. B is for boring. C is for contrived. D is for dull. E is for enough already.
The book summarizes a particular perspective of academic and quasi-academic literature on various topics, only briefly mentioning alternative perspectives to suggest they are just wrong and antiquated but can be fixed with your help. Then it interjects these meandering personal anecdotes that are simply not very interesting. A story of some random conversation an author had with some random people on a train, for example, that is supposed to highlight some point or other. Yawn. Where is this even going? It reminds me of the eye-roll inducing trope that overrated columnists overuse, regarding their conversations with taxi drivers to prove that yes, they are indeed connected to real people in the real world.
This book, again, is hardly a book. It's an overly wordy pamphlet. It offers very little to the reader that common sense doesn't already cover. And if you are reading this particular book to discover how to sense commonly, you'll never, ever succeed.
One star.
This book preaches to the choir but offers very few serious pieces of helpful advice for helping kids embrace our differences, as the title promises.
The book has two authors, and the voice jumps back and forth between the two writers. Sometimes jarringly so. It often feels like a poorly edited series of bloggy correspondence between the two authors who live in different places, have different backgrounds, and write in different ways but share the same worldview. This book needed a strong editor to either reconcile the differences into one coherent tone. And speaking of editing, the ideas are what are important, of course, but some of the formatting choices in the book give it an air of amateurishness. As if you're reading a draft booklet that hasn't been fully vetted, rather than an actual book that was truly ready for publication.
So, let's get into the book itself. The "ABCs" thing is gimmicky. The authors seem to have started from the premise that ABCs are catchy. It makes the book sound more approachable and less arcane or academic. And since we're talking about kids, it makes sense. It's billing itself as the Kindergarten-level booklet of this topic, I suppose. Great for elementary school parent-teacher association training sessions, library book clubs, Unitarian church study groups, and the like. The authors wedged terms into A, B, and C, mostly because they started with A, B, and C.
An unenlightened rube is Afraid, Backs away, and seeks Control. See? ABC. How clever!
A person on the way to salvation (but not yet there) Acknowledges, Be(s) present, and Comes Closer. See? Better ABC words! You're almost there! Keep trying.
A person who has achieved true enlightenment will Access, Build, and Cultivate. An inclusion term! A creation term! A gardening term! How wonderful.
Surely, I am not the only person who can plainly see that these terms were chosen because they began with A, B, and C, not because they are actually necessarily useful for helping kids and ourselves embrace our differences. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. I found them to be contrived. You probably will, too.
In the book, there are suggested activities one is supposed to perform with a group, identifying different types of cultural diversity, for example. You're supposed to find a term matching each letter in the alphabet. A is for agonizingly formulaic. B is for boring. C is for contrived. D is for dull. E is for enough already.
The book summarizes a particular perspective of academic and quasi-academic literature on various topics, only briefly mentioning alternative perspectives to suggest they are just wrong and antiquated but can be fixed with your help. Then it interjects these meandering personal anecdotes that are simply not very interesting. A story of some random conversation an author had with some random people on a train, for example, that is supposed to highlight some point or other. Yawn. Where is this even going? It reminds me of the eye-roll inducing trope that overrated columnists overuse, regarding their conversations with taxi drivers to prove that yes, they are indeed connected to real people in the real world.
This book, again, is hardly a book. It's an overly wordy pamphlet. It offers very little to the reader that common sense doesn't already cover. And if you are reading this particular book to discover how to sense commonly, you'll never, ever succeed.
One star.
September 18, 2020
Being different isn't a bad thing. In fact, being different is part of being human. We come in different colors, genders, sexual orientations, religions, ethnicities. While once upon a time there was a "melting pot" theory that suggested that we all assimilate into one national identity, with all our distinctives melting away. Though some still hold on to that idea, and actively resist diversity education out of the fear that a Euro-American centric identity will be lost, a more beneficial path is to affirm and celebrate our distinctives. so that we out of the many we are one people. The question is, how do we help our children understand the value of these distinctives?
Carolyn Helsel and Joy Harris Smith have written just the book for the moment. It's titled "The ABCs of Diversity." It's the kind of book that parents, educators, and churches will find valuable as we ponder the impact of our differences in an increasingly globalized world. Although the book is published by a religious publisher and authored by seminary professors, this is a book that transcends religious communities. Yes, religion is addressed, but not in a way that will hinder its use in non-religious settings.
Helsel is the author two books that address issues of racism and white privilege -- Preaching about Racism: A Guide for Faith Leaders and Anxious to Talk about It: Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully about Racism. She teaches preaching at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Joy Harris-Smith teaches speech communication at Princeton Seminary and is a former New York City public school teacher. Helsel is white and Harris-Smith is black. They bring their distinctive backgrounds to this important conversation.
The reference to ABCs seems appropriate when talking about children and education. But it's not just a witty way of titling a book. They have outlined three sets of ABCs that guide the conversation about diversity. The first level, speaks of our automatic ABCs when it comes to differences: Afraid, Back away, and control." That is how we often start, but it's not where they want us to end up. Thus there are two other sets. The next step is: Acknowledge, Be Present, and Come Closer. This is an expression of intentional engagement. From there they would have us move to the third level: Access, Build, and Cultivate. These are the ABCs that lead to a more just society.
The book is composed of eight chapters, which lead us through the conversation about differences. The first chapter outlines the ABCs noted above. Then the discuss how identities are assigned at birth, especially gender identity (ch. 2). There is a chapter on identity and diversity in action, in which the authors tell stories of experiencing the growing pains of discovering diversity (ch. 3).
From there we move toward the ways in which we experience our differences. There is a chapter on gender and sexuality (ch. 4), one on race (ch. 5), then religious differences (ch. 6), and social medial (ch. 7). In other words, how is our use of social media impacting our understandings of identity? Chapter 8 is titled "Old Enough to Kow Better." This is a chapter on microaggressions, and the way adults relate to each other, which so often influences children. As I write this review, we're living at a time when a certain segment of the population believes their right to say and do as they please even if it hurts others all in the name of freedom. The authors suggest we should know better. In fact, it starts with the concept of common courtesy.
The conclusion of the book is titled "Choosing Our Place in History." Do we want to be on the right side of history? That is the question that diversity education asks of us. Do we wish to live in a polarized world, or find ways of building bridges to the future? That is the core of the book, laying out the foundations for helping our children and ourselves make sense of our differences and positively experience them.
The book then offers three appendices. The first provides the opportunity for the two authors to share their experiences of coming to terms with their identities. In other words, these brief autobiographies. The second appendix offers bibliographies, some annotated, of books that can lead to greater empathy, ranging from picture books to books for older teens and young adults, as well as a book list for parents. The final appendix provides curriculum activities for teachers and parents. Here there are two sets of activities. One for younger children and another for older children and youth.
I believe this is a wonderful resource for parents and teachers, religious and otherwise. It's filled with wisdom that emerges from the experiences of the authors, both of whom are parents, and both of whom are educators. They offer a true gift to parents and teachers that speaks to our times, especially as forces push back in resistance against diversity education.
.
Carolyn Helsel and Joy Harris Smith have written just the book for the moment. It's titled "The ABCs of Diversity." It's the kind of book that parents, educators, and churches will find valuable as we ponder the impact of our differences in an increasingly globalized world. Although the book is published by a religious publisher and authored by seminary professors, this is a book that transcends religious communities. Yes, religion is addressed, but not in a way that will hinder its use in non-religious settings.
Helsel is the author two books that address issues of racism and white privilege -- Preaching about Racism: A Guide for Faith Leaders and Anxious to Talk about It: Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully about Racism. She teaches preaching at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Joy Harris-Smith teaches speech communication at Princeton Seminary and is a former New York City public school teacher. Helsel is white and Harris-Smith is black. They bring their distinctive backgrounds to this important conversation.
The reference to ABCs seems appropriate when talking about children and education. But it's not just a witty way of titling a book. They have outlined three sets of ABCs that guide the conversation about diversity. The first level, speaks of our automatic ABCs when it comes to differences: Afraid, Back away, and control." That is how we often start, but it's not where they want us to end up. Thus there are two other sets. The next step is: Acknowledge, Be Present, and Come Closer. This is an expression of intentional engagement. From there they would have us move to the third level: Access, Build, and Cultivate. These are the ABCs that lead to a more just society.
The book is composed of eight chapters, which lead us through the conversation about differences. The first chapter outlines the ABCs noted above. Then the discuss how identities are assigned at birth, especially gender identity (ch. 2). There is a chapter on identity and diversity in action, in which the authors tell stories of experiencing the growing pains of discovering diversity (ch. 3).
From there we move toward the ways in which we experience our differences. There is a chapter on gender and sexuality (ch. 4), one on race (ch. 5), then religious differences (ch. 6), and social medial (ch. 7). In other words, how is our use of social media impacting our understandings of identity? Chapter 8 is titled "Old Enough to Kow Better." This is a chapter on microaggressions, and the way adults relate to each other, which so often influences children. As I write this review, we're living at a time when a certain segment of the population believes their right to say and do as they please even if it hurts others all in the name of freedom. The authors suggest we should know better. In fact, it starts with the concept of common courtesy.
The conclusion of the book is titled "Choosing Our Place in History." Do we want to be on the right side of history? That is the question that diversity education asks of us. Do we wish to live in a polarized world, or find ways of building bridges to the future? That is the core of the book, laying out the foundations for helping our children and ourselves make sense of our differences and positively experience them.
The book then offers three appendices. The first provides the opportunity for the two authors to share their experiences of coming to terms with their identities. In other words, these brief autobiographies. The second appendix offers bibliographies, some annotated, of books that can lead to greater empathy, ranging from picture books to books for older teens and young adults, as well as a book list for parents. The final appendix provides curriculum activities for teachers and parents. Here there are two sets of activities. One for younger children and another for older children and youth.
I believe this is a wonderful resource for parents and teachers, religious and otherwise. It's filled with wisdom that emerges from the experiences of the authors, both of whom are parents, and both of whom are educators. They offer a true gift to parents and teachers that speaks to our times, especially as forces push back in resistance against diversity education.
.
June 9, 2024
Some reviewers complain there isn't a lot of new ground broken here, but it is a book aimed at helping kids understand diversity, and it is, after all, only claiming to be the ABCs of that important discussion. A readable, thoughtful book by two authors who have dealt firstha d with many of the themes involved.
January 5, 2021
Has some good points but they are often hidden. Many of the references seem like they will become irrelevant with time, and the biases of the authors are evident in places. I was hoping for more practical advice than the book offered. A quick read, and seems overpriced for the amount of content.
January 12, 2021
This book was not what I was expecting. We live in a very diverse area and I'm well aware of diversity in different ways (religious, sexual, racial etc). It took me a day to read- I was not awakened to any new big ideas/learning
November 3, 2021
A pretty straight-forward, positive-thinking book that has some helpful advice for how to talk about DEIJ with our kids. It has some really helpful stuff at the end for teachers and parents and a great list of books for kids and young adults.
Want to Read
June 6, 2020Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews