[...] her blog she writes, “While I maneuvered through cyber space, I came across quite a few links dedicated to [...]

Hello Amreeta,

Thank you for your interest. More resources will be available for Vaisakhi in the New Year. Have you used any of the activities in my handout? I’d love to hear from you again.

Kind regards – Navjot

I’m seeing the need for culturally responsive education more and more. Last year, my son’s patka or small turban was pulled off his head without any consequence for the “bully”. On Friday, his educational assistant grabbed him by his joora (hair knot) and decided to wiggle it in lieu of saying “good job”. Today she told me she didn’t know that was wrong. (She’s teaching in a district in which the highest demographic are Panjabis and the Sikh community is prominent). I’m wondering how many more times I have to hear excuses from people who have access to education but choose to wait for someone else to come along and fill in their gaps. What happened to being proactive and informing the instruction of a diverse population?

My son’s Itinerant Teacher of the Deaf and H/H is a prime example of how culturally responsive education can be carried out really well. Last week, we met for an IEP meeting in which she took the lead to educate the team on the purpose of using an FM system. She shared several simulations of what a Deaf or H/H child “hears” with and without the equipment. The results were powerful and the penny seemed to have finally dropped. Her strategy was both meaningful to the current situation and responsive to the special needs of our son. It was all about learning something new and she was fabulous at delivering the information.

Here are a couple of the videos she shared with us:

When it comes to talking about Faith identity, it becomes uncomfortable for some educators. I was recently asked to write an article about the Sikh identity for CREATE Wisconsin. It captures the need for culturally responsive education and gives educators a springboard to begin a conversation about the turban.

You can learn more about why the Sikh identity still largely remains invisible in the classroom by reading the article here. I’d love to hear your thoughts on why culturally responsive education matters to you!

I know – summer has barely started and I am offering you some back-to-school resources – we must be teachers!

If you follow my posts, you already know that Literacy is a subject close to my heart. Given current conversations around culturally responsive education, it becomes even more essential to include a diverse variety of literature and activities that encourage meaningful talk in the classroom and at home. At the end of my last book, there is a special keepsake page which looks like a bed and the pillow lifts up so that you can save your dreams of hope underneath. Well, after one of my Skype author visits, a teacher in Texas shared how her class write friendly wishes to each other during the week. I thought it was a wonderful idea to encourage compassion and understanding. Here is a freebie to use during either Writer’s or Reading Workshop – printable Dreams of Hope postcards – and some ideas on how to include this in your regular day:

1. Students use the prompt: “My Dreams of Hope for…” and write each other 1-2 sentences to tell a peer about a strength to be celebrated. (They could do a Think-Pair-Share with an assigned partner before beginning the writing to ask some questions about their dreams and hopes. At my son’s recent Kindergarten graduation, the students shared dreams ranging from “I wish for 1000 puppies” to wishing for a rainbow.) Each dream is precious. You could put all student names into a brown paper bag so they pick each other randomly or you could hand out clothes pegs with a student name on it at the door upon entry. This would be a great way to encourage hesitant writers too!

2. Set up a mail system in your classroom so that students each receive mail once a week. (Here’s a fabulous tutorial – get your parent volunteers to work:) You could have them paint some large cereal boxes and decorate them as mailboxes. The postcards are “mailed” into the box and then a special helper can deliver them. Students LOVE receiving traditional hand-written notes and it truly encourages them to write. The mailbox could also become one of your Literacy Centres. You can find more ideas for creating DIY mailboxes here and here).

3. After reading a book (if you need ideas, please check out diverse books for children on my Pinterest Boards), students can choose to write some Dreams of Hope to a character from their book. The dreams of hope may be directed to a favourite character or a character they feel could have acted differently in the story. The Dream of Hope could also be directed to the author or illustrator which would really encourage critical literacy. This would make a meaningful reading response during Reading Workshop.

4. For older students, they could think about a fact around global illiteracy and write Dreams of Hope to a young girl/boy around the world. Here is one fact I u

[...] and from where I’ve been standing, they are being taught well. Children are impressionable, as I shared in a previous post, and so no matter what their individual cultural heritage, exposure to the global world matters, [...]

When a friend, and advocate for equity in the arts and education, challenged me last Fall to reflect on an experience when my son’s patka (small Sikh turban) was pulled off his head at school, I did begin to wonder whether I’d really done the right thing. I was hoping that the experience might have informed his teachers at the time to become more culturally responsive in the future. And as much as I wanted to believe that to be true, I was sadly proved wrong.

For months now, I had been advocating for my son’s needs in the classroom. His bi-lateral hearing aids and his very visible Sikh identity combine to define his whole self. Had I not been a teacher myself, I may never have noticed the regular exclusionary behaviour of his classroom teacher (also VP of the school), or his once self-determined and happy personality shrink to silence, but I am, and I did.

Culturally responsive education matters because the lack of it affects the way our children belong in a classroom community. By affirming a child’s individual identity in the classroom through socially constructed knowledge, the child sees that he/she is a valued member of the classroom community and larger society.

It was not just this teacher that I had concerns with. What we encountered at the District level was mystifying. Our District assumed that only fair-skinned people suffer from hearing loss. We were presented with beige coloured “doors” (to be attached to chocolate brown coloured hearing aids) insisting to distinguish our son as being different. When we questioned this colour choice, we were told that the District had only purchased beige. The Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the province had no idea about this decision and agreed that Disability does not discriminate based on race. We soon received a call informing us that the District had already reviewed this policy and a change was in the pipeline – two choices would be offered in the future – beige and silver.

I am not saying that it is easy to create a shift in mindset. Our own cultural conditioning often supports the decisions we make but when these decisions create ideas of what “normal” and “acceptable” look like, we need to act responsively. When we recognize how our hidden biases reflect the way we teach, set up our instruction, read, review, publish books, only then can we learn how to deliver these ideas more responsively.

My friend’s honesty rang in my ears and challenged me to rethink my course of action – why weren’t the District taking steps to train their staff? What are Teaching Colleges and Universities doing to create culturally competent educators? Are they even including diverse and authentic voices in their courses? Does Cultural Competency matter in the 21st century when Canada’s population is rapidly changing? The lack of statistics from the Canadian book publishing industry for books written by culturally diverse authors, or for diverse character representation, and the silence from Universities I’ve approached, tell me it hasn’t been a conversation worth having before. (More in my next post about this issue).

Thinking about cultural competency raises fears of the unknown. Believe me, I’ve been there. Talking about race makes us challenge our own insecurities. Questioning the lack of diversity in books for children has some people wondering what all the fuss is about. After all, multicultural folktales and legends are pulled out every once in a while aren’t they? Festivals that roll around each year are celebrated with cultural food and dress, aren’t they? What more is needed and why? Well, throw a visible faith identity and different ability into that equation, and suddenly, the attention and body language completely shift to “a more comfortable conversation”. These are the conversations that need to be challenged. Critical Literacy is one way to create tha

[...] a friend, and advocate for equity in the arts and education, challenged me last Fall to reflect on an experience when my son’s patka (small Sikh turban) was pulled off his head at school, I did begin to wonder [...]

Last night, as I walked up the stairs to get my just-turned-six little monkey ready for bed, my footsteps quietened and then stood still as I heard him reading aloud to his puppets. He had chosen a wonderful book (and quite aptly titled) from his bookshelf – Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett.

He has often turned his puppets into the “audience” as he has tried to read aloud to them or have a jam session with his (some hand-made) instruments, but tonight was special. Lately, he has been asking me many more questions. He stops me mid-sentence because the most important thing in that tiny moment is to ask where the word is that I just read aloud. Tonight, he was mimicking my voice and intonation; most importantly, he was chunking and thinking aloud as he tried to get to the end of the book. His perseverance and genuine excitement was adorable and warmed my heart. These early years of reading aloud are already making a real and lasting difference.

My son is Deaf.

One of the most common stereotypes associated with people who are Deaf is that they must also not be able to speak. Whether a person chooses Sign-Language or an Oral world is often a much debated issue in the Deaf community. There are many diverse opportunities available to Deaf and Hard-of-hearing people today, just as there are to those with other exceptionalities. Our son wears bi-lateral hearing aids and we chose to expose our son to Auditory-Verbal Therapy and a Teacher of the Deaf soon after he was diagnosed. Although I did use sign language for the first little while, he soon transitioned to speech himself. Books (and puppets) have been our bonding tools from the very beginning. Books and their stories have healed our journey from uncertainty to possibility. I cherish every glimmer of hope and smile inspired by these shared companions amidst a silent world.

Lately, The Snowy Day has been his favourite pick and so, I thought I would share this video showing it being read “aloud” using sign language. Another version can be found here.

A child born to a mother who can read is 50 percent more likely to survive past the age of 5 than a child born to an illiterate woman. (UNESCO)

A staggering 793 million people remain illiterate worldwide. Now is the time to join the global literacy movement with World Read Aloud Day, which takes place this Wednesday, March 7th, 2012.

“World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.
By raising our voices together on this day we show the world’s children that we support their future: that they have the right to read, to write, and to share their words to change the world.”


Together, we can imagine a world where everyone can read. I know reading aloud has helped to create that world for my son. Now, I want to be part of that change for the global movement. I hope you will join me.

Download activities for your classroom and learn more here. You can also read books online

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If you are interested in picking up a free copy of A Lion’s Mane, Brown Paper is offering a giveaway until March 21st. You can also read some very kind words about the book here.

I want to thank all of you for the amazing support you have shown. So many of you have shared personal stories and anecdotes of how A Lion’s Mane and Dreams of Hope have changed the way your children feel represented in the books they read – thank you!

Please feel free to print and share some special dreams of hope for little ones over the holidays using Dreams of Hope Postcards. You can also use these postcards as a “wish list” or somewhere to write your hopes for the New Year. Do let me know how you used them.

I will be adding more media literacy resources for my books in 2012, so do visit again soon.

All books are shipping free and gift-wrapped until the end of the month!

May your dreams of hope take flight in 2012 – Happy Holidays dear friends!

“When we learn something new, it makes each of us stronger.” ~ A Lion’s Mane

Well, here it is! Helping to shed any misconceptions about the patka or small dastaar, this “How to tie a patka” Claymation is an authentic resource for anyone wondering about how to tie the patka or even for those just wanting to learn something new.

Please take a look and do let me know what you think!

Wow! Quite a few challenges you face. You are obviously very thoughtful…good luck with these challenges, stay strong.

[...] the full story on her blog, wherein she also describes how she pivoted her son’s traumatic experience into an [...]

You know the saying: “when it rains, it pours”? Well, that’s how our recent move to the west coast feels like. But I’m not just talking about the regular bumps of maneuvering through mazes of boxes or narrowly missing the falling cabinet door; I’m talking about experiencing the hidden, indirect racism we tell ourselves does not exist in the Great White North (I won’t even go there!). Perhaps we’ve just been fortunate to have such great friends from diverse backgrounds. Let me make it known though, it is happening in Canada.

For years, I didn’t think much of the fact that my teachers at school in the UK could never pronounce my name and dubbed my sister with the name “Fred” to make it easier for them. Her name is pretty well pronounced phonetically, so I’m sure the issue was not the pronunciation.

When we first moved to Ontario, we had been shopping in a local store when a woman wouldn’t stop staring at my husband. We thought nothing of it, at first. My husband wears a turban so it’s almost second nature to ignore the stares. But it just didn’t stop. Finally, my husband approached her and asked, “Is there a problem?” Her response was “Why are you wearing that thing on your head?” I can still remember that flabbergast feeling in the pit of my stomach as those words came out of her mouth but the passive observation of the bystanders left me sickened. When my husband continued the dialogue with calm and diplomacy, informing this lady that we are Sikhs and the turban is “Who I am”, the lady remained uninterested. Instead she reinforced her ignorance by repeating phrases we’d often heard in the UK, like “when you move to our country, you need to follow our ways.” I wonder what the First Nations people would have to say about her reference to our country when they were welcomed the first settlers without prejudice. By the end of the conversation (yes, we were not about to walk away from a teachable moment), quite a crowd of dipped-head shoppers had gathered within earshot of the aisle. The lady apologized but the sad truth was evident – not a single bystander stepped forward, not even the store manager who had realized by that point that there was a “situation”. We left our basket and walked out of the store.

bookplate image copyright Saffron Press

After 9/11, we again experienced the kind of indirect backlash that may have come as a surprise to some. If we were driving along the highway, passing drivers rolled down their windows shouting slurs and we were often exposed to profane gestures. “Raghead” pushed its way into our mind’s dictionary and yet the definition did not identify with who we are. The Sikh identity had been so misrepresented in the media that hidden biases were (and still are) running rampant.

These and more could all have been defined as isolated incidents and life went on, but we did recognize the need for change and worked harder to achieve that end goal.

When we were blessed with our son almost five years ago, and realized a few months into our parenting journey that he was Deaf, that change would find an accelerated charge. We could have drowned in those fears at the time but thankfully, we grabbed any and all available resources to become informed about a community we knew little, if anything about. Our son would wear bi-lateral hearing aids and a small Sikh turban – the patka or dastaar, but would people understand who he is? I feared not.

During the frequent visits to clinics and hospitals, I began creating A Lion’s Mane to ensure that there would be an authentic resource availa

If you would like to create a diverse and inclusive learning environment from Day 1, you may like to consider this great resource list of read-alouds with global and multicultural perspectives:

Read-alouds with Global and Multicultural Perspectives

Please take a moment to share your favourite books that encourage global citizenship and help this learning circle grow!

Last night, CBC was showcasing Back-to-School experiences and touched upon the opinion that anxiety and depression are increasing at an alarming rate in children. When we think of Back-to-School, all we tend to notice are the sales for new clothes, backpacks and so forth but we do not often recognize the emotional aspect of this sometimes, traumatic event. These invisible disabilities can overwhelm a child, just as they would an adult and we, as teachers, need to be prepared to understand these students’ fears.

Schools invite the whole child. This translates as the whole self, regardless of ethnicity, financial stability, gender, (un)declared identity or invisible ability. If the home environment feels inaccessible, children may grow up frightened to be “wrong”. This fear may lead to anxiety and depression when the emotions are left hidden or ignored, making the school environment just as hostile and intimidating.

If you suspect someone is suffering, don’t leave the symptoms unrecognized but take action. Use this checklist to get more information and to find ways to support your students. Depending on your individual classroom environment and grade level, you could launch Media Literacy with a conversation around these stigmatized issues. Books are great mentor texts to encourage dialogue. Remember, serious illness in the family can trigger anxieties in the child too, so Little Parachutes aim to support those children with their booklist. Taking these initial steps could ensure a safe and secure space for one child to share his own story and for others to learn about compassion.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
— Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)

That first week of school is usually both daunting and exciting. It lays the foundation for a constructive year ahead. But where do you begin?

For me, Literacy is at the core of all subjects and that’s one of the reasons why I always use an integrated and inclusive approach to my long term planning goals.

In Ontario, the dreaded CASI assessments come out soon after the new school year gets underway. CASI is used to assess reading comprehension skills and is often met with a less than enthusiastic audience. This negative bias then trickles down to other reading activities making it a challenging, rather than an enjoyable experience.

What is important to understand about these tests is that they are like a doctor’s prescription to share with the teacher. The results from CASI should inform a teacher’s goals for the needs of the students and then helps form the remedies for student success.

Through relevant mini-lessons connected to the different reading strategies, reading skills can improve, especially for marginalized students. If, for example, the question related to summarizing an article, leads the student to literally retell the entire article, that student does not understand how to find the main idea in a text. Your mini-lesson would then focus on this specific skill. Picture books are great mentor texts to integrate with these sometimes overwhelming lessons.

To make your time as efficient as possible and for those with even the weakest stomachs when it comes to tackling something away from the traditional, BEHOLD one of the latest literacy gems to advance your goals – Literacyhead.com!

Do you remember that candy that used to fizzle and pop in your mouth? Well, when I first came across this site, I was like a child in a candy store – mesmerized by the content and diversity of titles; my mind was literally popping. The more I read, the more I know. The more I learn, the more places I go on this site.

When you think of BLOOMS and higher order thinking skills, think Literacyhead.com. The site offers an abundance of tools and direction to include a wide variety of reading comprehension strategies. You could probably find an idea for every mini-lesson you need. The best thing is that the ideas are visually engaging and so they will appeal to a differentiated group. Believe me, you will LOVE this site and it’s well worth the investment in an annual membership (think the price of just one or two resource books from the Teacher’s store except everything will be right at your fingertips including graphic organizers and, you can never lose it).

I am in awe of this site and of the talented people within the pages of this never-ending literacy resource. Get prepared for Back-to-School with this free Visual Literacy lesson featuring the story “In My Dreams I Can Fly”.

Here are Five Happy Ideas

A Sick Day for Amos McGee helps children learn about caring for others

Could the start of school

Planning your Literacy Block for the new school year

It’s mid August and I’m getting those jitter bugs thinking, I need to start planning for the new school year. I lie in bed considering new ideas and strategies that would push students to think deeply about the world around them. There are so many great resources to pull from today, just never enough time. All you teachers know that feeling, right?

Given our recent move to BC, and the fact that my son starts Kindergarten this September, I won’t be going back into the classroom this year but that doesn’t stop me from sharing my resources with you. So in the next few days I am going to begin sharing the best resources I have found and some first week activities which will help set the foundation for a great year of Literacy teaching.

Today, teaching is not just about covering the expectations from the curriculum document but instead, it is about giving students the tools and skills to succeed in the real world. That is where an inclusive classroom environment with culturally-sensitive teaching materials and an open mind becomes essential. There will be much more to share such as a ready-to-go project assignment I created last year for my Grade 6′s so keep checking back.

For now, enjoy the trailer from my new children’s book and get into the zone thinking about your dreams of hope for the new school year:)

Dreams of Hope book trailer

One of my students gave me a magnet with the words “Don’t believe everything you think” last year and told me she thought of me as soon as she saw it. It was perfect. Not only because the message resonates so strongly with me but more importantly, that it resonated with the learning absorbed from our critical literacy dialogues. I felt like mindsets were being stretched, triggered by the ability to think about everything they saw and heard about in the real world; by detecting prejudice and biases.

Then we hear about what can be triggered by hate and closed mindsets. The massacre in Norway cannot be easily absorbed or understood. It is the grim reality of what hate looks and feels like.

Media outlets created an immediate profile once again as soon as the news broadcast. The horror was labeled as terrorism associated to a specific faith group. In a recent post about the Vancouver riots, I talk about this perception of human profiles being read by certain preconceived definitions. This Norwegian perpetrator’s profile went unread, resulting in the devastating loss of human lives.

Two recent articles elaborate on the association of preconceived images and ideas related to this event. Valarie Kaur’s critically acclaimed documentary film, Divided We Fall, inspired a national grassroots dialogue on hate crimes after 9/11. In Why Oslo is Our Call to Change, she challenges the quick conclusions made after the tragedy and reminds us that Oslo is everywhere.

“The connection shows us what Sikh and Muslim Americans have known for a long time: anti-Muslim speech fuels anti-Muslim violence.”

Gary Younge, in his article Europe’s Homegrown Terrorists shares a similar sentiment:

“Then came the fact that the terrorist was actually a white, Christian extremist and a neo-Nazi, Anders Breivik, raging against Islam and multiculturalism. Unlike Muslims in the wake of Islamist attacks, Christians weren’t called upon to insist upon their moderation. No one argued that white people had to get with the Enlightenment project. But the bombings—and the presumptions about who was responsible—suggest that the true threat to European democracy is not Islam or Muslims but, once again, fascism and racists.”

In Canada, The Calgary Herald urges Muslims to be vigilant in the wake of the Norwegian massacre. I am concerned for all people who fit the profiles that media create through biased journalism, those that have visible and invisible differences. There are too many individuals who DO believe everything they think as we have seen with the massacre in Norway. Evil, unfortunately, lurks everywhere.

Our vigilance as a society needs to focus on our collective strengths, in participating in conversation that celebrates diversity of thought and directing our energies towards social change and justice for all. Human-made disasters, like natural disasters, are not always predictable. Life is not predictable. Preconceived ideas, racial profiling and narrow perspectives directed towards anyone who looks or sounds different to us blurs our vision as global citizens. Don’t believe everything you think.

May the healing for the families begin.

Given that I just posted about the topic of culturally relevant reading materials, I thought this article was a great addition to the discussion.

“Fast Company points out that out of 175 Native American languages still being spoken, only about 20 are taught to children. The rest “are classified as deteriorating or nearing extinction.” But if this model works, it could potentially be extended to the more than 3,000 languages across the world that are projected to disappear in the next century.”

What an interesting concept.  What are your thoughts?

We have often heard about research that shows children having a better chance of becoming fully literate adults if reading is encouraged from an early age.   But what happens when the parent cannot read English?  Are these statistics based on English-literate families only?

I recently heard a comment from a parent who would love to read more with her child but feels her english language acquisition is not strong enough to support her child’s literacy.  She raised frustration over the lack of diverse reading materials in her native Spanish language.

Another member of a book group commented on his realization that India was raising highly-educated illiterate kids.  I had to re-read this statement just to make sense of what he was trying to say.  He felt that because all reading materials provided in private schools in India were in English, children were losing their native language comprehension and thus becoming illiterate Indians.  I thought this was an interesting sentiment because I suppose, when we discuss literacy, it always seems to be in the “literate-in-English” guise.

This member may also have been referring to critical literacy.   He goes on to say that although newspapers written in English cost less than a Big Mac in India, nobody reads them because they don’t understand the language.  Entertainment is viewed in the native language and casual conversations with families and friends still take place in the native language and so, critical understanding of English is based solely on academic learning.  A valid concern then for including more diverse reading material in the curriculum, especially at the grassroots level.

The value of bilingualism is merited.  Research shows that native language acquisition can transfer to a second language with ease.  With my own son, we started with Panjabi until we discovered that our son was hard-of-hearing and then we switched to American sign language.  We found his language acquisition developed naturally with the right tools and are forever grateful to the Signing Time DVD’s that helped us as much as him.  Now, a few years later, I am attempting to introduce Panjabi to him once again and am not finding it as easy.  A lot has to do with the literature and resources available.  I have bought some bilingual books for him but I find that the language does not translate well when the stories are not authentic to the culture.

Including global words has become a sort of trademark of my own titles now.  Both A Lion’s Mane and Dreams of Hope include Panjabi words within the stories.  It is another way for children of this community to feel represented and engaged with reading.

So, although summer is upon us and many Summer reading Lists have already been prepared and distributed, I wonder now of the validity and accessibility of these suggestions.  What are the parents who want to read to and with their children but have no access to relevant and culturally-authentic resources to do?  Diversity in publishing is evolving, albeit slowly, but conversations such as these highlight how far we still have to go.

Before talking about family (il)literacy, consider some of the following factors:

• Primary Language spoken in the home
• Adult literacy levels in the home
• Accessibility to culturally-relevant resources and organizations (I found one called HIPPY Canada that are doing a great job to support the needs of new immigrants and low-income families)
• Hidden biases – if children are only exposed to certain genres/styles, are they displaying low literacy rates or low engagement in text rates?

Another site I would love to highlight in a post of its own is Literacy Head.  As a teacher, this is a site I could spend countless hour

Media Monday:  Don’t Believe Everything you Think

Media Literacy encourages people, especially children to think critically about the world around them.  Although a tool for information, mass media can also conjure much misinformation which fosters negative stereotypes.  When educational establishments decide to set rules, these stereotypes need to be addressed before decision-enforcing policies are put into place.

A recent article in The Telegraph from the UK associates a school’s haircut policy with indirect racial discrimination.  An African-Caribbean teenager’s cornrows were apparently seen as an indication of gang culture and  so he was refused entry into his north London school gates back in September 2009.  He was 11 then.

The “short back and sides” policy that I read about in this article made me reflect on many media images we see.  The judge in this case ruled in favour of the family and cultural identity of the African-Caribbean family but also agreed that the school’s hair policy was perfectly permissible and lawful.  The head teacher felt they had a justified policy given the prevalent gang culture in the area.  I can understand their fears but what about the negative stereotypes and unconscious biases associated with such thinking?

When I think back to the recent riots in Vancouver after the hockey game, I recall the numerous images flashed across the screen.  Many perpetrators and bystanders are seen with “short back and sides”.  None of them were labeled “gang members” or associated to any particular religious group.  If they had shown any signs of a cultural or religious identity, they probably would have been labeled as such first.  One of the men was identified as the son of Doctors and even his address was posted publicly.  The family fled their home in fear of retaliation. He had “short back and sides”.  But then again, these riots and looters caught everyone by surprise.  There was no haircut policy that could have prepared anyone of what was to happen.  The city would have had to have been informed to react to that.

Every year, as Vaisakhi approaches, I find myself reflecting on how I could make the occasion more meaningful for my son. Hug Day or Valentine’s Day has been a favourite for a while and then, last year was the first time he got really excited about Christmas. We had the pleasure of listening to him sing Happy Hannukah to us for most of the season too thanks to Special Agent Oso! And now, Vaisakhi is near.

This {soch} over the last few years is what has encouraged me to begin writing my third book – a children’s story about what Vaisakhi means to me and what I’d like my son to think about when celebrating this day. It is not the 300 year-old version of the historical event but instead a very personal interpretation that brings meaning to our contemporary vision of citizenship and human dignity. The occasion of Vaisakhi in 1699 was liberating as it negated the ruling caste system and put a visible and human identity in its place. The Sikh identity was born that day.

Having our son become a global citizenship is intrinsic to his identity but he has to be informed to enjoy and respect that liberty. Today, as I walked through the Gastown district of our new hometown, I watched my son drawn to the vibration of street musicians. He had no fear as he approached the homeless and each of these musicians with a contagious excitement that also prompted passers-by to stop and enjoy the music. Within that vibration a young soul recognized beauty and humanity and encouraged us adults to do the same, if only for just a moment.

While I maneuvered through cyber space, I came across quite a few links dedicated to Vaisakhi (or Baisakhi) but I was discouraged that educators were still using the 300 year-old version of the Vaisakhi story to inform all ages about the key Sikh calendar event. The original story holds great value but the historical form does not necessarily resonate with young children. As an idea for a school-wide assembly, one forum comment read – “Oh, just have a few swords dripping with blood and plant five kids in the audience to come up on stage. Should be fun.” Huh? What? Did I just read that on an education forum? How does that demonstrate the true meaning behind Vaisakhi? This idea might work for some of you but it certainly does not work for me.

I knew that as an educator, if I wanted change, then I needed to do something about it. And so I did. I learned that kite-flying is not just a leisure activity during the season of Vaisakh but that every kite tells a story. Some kites are used like little love notes – a new spin on Hug Day for my son and others are named for their design. What would your kite say?

Here is a handout created as a Countdown to Vaisakhi filled with ideas and resources to make the inclusion of the Vaisakhi celebration a seamless part of your teaching or parenting. There are ideas for different age groups and some that can be adapted to all ages. The main idea is that all students can be meaningfully engaged while being informed about an often misunderstood identity. I have included FREE templates (we teachers love those!) and links to other useful resources so you are ready to go. Have fun, take pictures of your global citizens and make a ROAR about Vaisakhi this year!