For the past few years, I take this important day to share Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech with J. For me, it’s important to leverage this opportunity to chat about Dr. King’s work, his life and how his actions and words continue to elevate generations today and tomorrow.
I trust that his teacher does an adequate job introducing Dr. King’s monumental influence but, does she have a conversation that only a parent might be able to engage? As a biracial child, my six year old doesn’t fully comprehend ethnicity yet, though he understands that multiculturalism and different skin tones exist in our world.
I may not have a History degree, but candor and honesty in this case are valuable—nay, imperative—teaching tools. Even further, for reinforcement mini lessons, YouTube and Pinterest are invaluable resources. For this convo, I turn to the tv and computer to help teach the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s wise words. This is when Apple TV and YouTube become teaching tools. After reading an excerpt of the speech on our own, I loaded some videos online and we watched Dr. King’s speech together, pausing in between to ensure J understands language.
Here’s a great mini-bio that we watched this morning from the Bio Channel. At just under five minutes, we had a great discussion about Dr. King and his children. However you choose to engage in a conversation about Dr. King, I hope it’s meaningful and thought-provoking.
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