February is Black History Month and a selection of OISE Library resources are on display in the lobby of the OISE building. This display features useful resources for classroom lessons about Black history, with an emphasis on Black Canadian history.

A Forgotten Sisterhood: Pioneering Black Women Educators and Activists in the Jim Crow South, by Audrey Thomas McCluskey

This books profiles the Black women who were school founders in the American South during the Jim Crow era. The period between the late-1800s and the mid-1900s was one where the number of Black children entering schools grew exponentially, and many southern Black women in the field of education responded to this demand. The lives of four women are examined in depth, with an emphasis on their work in education and social activism: Lucy Craft Laney (1854-1933), Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961), and Charlotte Hawkins Brown (1883-1961).

All Aboard! Elijah McCoy’s Steam Engine, by Monica Kulling

Elijah McCoy is a Canadian engineer and a prolific inventor. This picture book shares the story of his first invention: an oil cup that oiled the steam engine while the train was moving. This revolutionized train travel, making train travel faster for the passengers and safer for the workers. Elijah McCoy would go on to file a total of 57 patents for his inventions, including a portable ironing board and a lawn sprinkler.

Moving Beyond Borders: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora, by Karen Flynn

Drawing on interviews, oral histories, and archival sources, this book profiles the lives of 35 Black nurses who were either born in Canada or who immigrated to Canada from the Caribbean. Many of these women were pioneers in the health care field, as nursing as a profession was closed to Black women before the late-1940s; the 1940s and 1950s in Canada were a period of integration both in nursing schools and in hospitals more generally. This book examines how these women’s personal lives shaped their professional lives as nurses and vice-versa, and explores oft-overlooked aspects of intersectionality such as religion, education, family, and migration.

I Came as a Stranger: The Underground Railroad, by Bryan Prince

Replete with pictures and suitable for use as a classroom textbook, this book functions as a detailed guide to the Underground Railroad. Emphasis is placed on those instances where Canada was the final destination, and looks at the lives of men and women who escaped slavery after they arrived in Canada. This book profiles the lives of real individuals and provides a realistic look at what life was like for Black Canadians in the 1800s.

Season of Rage: Hugh Burnett and the Struggle for Civil Rights, by John Cooper

Well after laws were passed banning segregation elsewhere, discrimination in one restaurant in Dresden, Ontario finally prompted the development of civil rights laws here as well. In 1954, the Ontario Legislature passed the Fair Accommodation Practices Act, and when some businesses refused to abide by the new law, civil rights activists took them to court. Written for use by children, this book contains short chapters, clear language, and plenty of background information including timelines and profiles of prominent people involved in the fight for equal rights.

For these and other titles on Black History Month, visit the OISE Lobby Display on the ground floor of the OISE building. To borrow these books, please stop by the OISE Library Service Desk and we’ll retrieve it for you.

This February the OISE Library is featuring its materials on inclusive education. Inclusive education involves ensuring that all students are welcomed into the classroom with supports in place that allow them to learn and participate in all aspects of the school environment, no matter their needs, abilities, or background. This month’s Lobby Display features items from OISE’s stacks, curriculum resources, and children’s literature collections. The following books represent some of the many titles on inclusive education that are on display and in OISE’s broader collections.

A Long Walk to School: Global Perspectives on Inclusive Education, edited by Vianne Timmons and Patricia Noonan Walsh, is a compilation of articles that provides readers with information about inclusive education experiences for children and adults with intellectual disabilities from a variety of cultures and countries. Countries included in this compilation of articles about building the capacity for inclusive education are Kenya, Peru, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong. When discussing changing education systems for inclusion, countries like the United States, Canada, Italy, and Ireland are featured. This book highlights inclusive education practices that have been successful, and also describes the continuing challenges to inclusive education around the world by providing readers with an overview of inclusive education research.

Technology for Transformation Perspectives of Hope in the Digital Age, edited by Libbi R. Miller, Daniel Becker, and Katherine Becker, is a compilation of articles that discuss the potential for education technology to be used as a tool for social justice and inclusive education. Aimed at K-12 teachers, teacher educators, educational technology and social justice scholars, and policymakers, this book is intended to be an overview of research on social justice educational technology. It is also meant to be a source of ideas that teachers can implement in the classroom to promote the use of technology for social justice. The book provides readers with examples of individuals and groups using technology for social justice, such as Indigenous peoples, and provides suggestions for ways to use technology for social justice in the classroom.

41 Active Learning Strategies for the Inclusive Classroom Grades 6-12, by Diane Casale-Giannola and Linda Schwartz Green, is a curriculum resource book that provides teachers with a variety of “Active Learning” strategies meant to keep students engaged in the classroom regardless of their learning abilities and language difference. Furthermore, these activities are meant to provide students with positive learning outcomes within an inclusive environment. Before explaining their active learning strategies the authors provide readers with background information about research on inclusive education. Each strategy they describe afterward includes materials, directions, and samples of techniques for implementation. Teachers can use these strategies as starting points to visualize how active learning strategies can be incorporated into their own unique classroom.

Deepening Inclusive and Community-Engaged Education In Three Schools: A Teachers’ Resource, is an OISE curriculum resource publication edited by OISE faculty Leslie Stewart Rose and Mark Evans. The resource guide provides teachers with ways to integrate effective inclusive curriculum practices into the classroom. Furthermore, it includes reports “on school-based inquiries into effective inclusive curriculum practice,” which came out of the Toronto District School Board’s Inclusive Schools three-year pilot project. The project was intended to investigate and develop effective inclusive curriculum and instructional practices. This resource book was the result of a professional learning process that involved the collaboration of teachers, principals, and OISE faculty. It suggests that ongoing teacher education is important for making teachers responsive to supporting all student learning.

The Cutest Face: Celebrating Diversity & Equity in the Classroom, by Rebecca Zak is a children’s book that retells the story of a teacher’s class on picture day. Each page of the book depicts a unique student within the class, describing positive attributes of that student. Through its descriptions of different students, the book represents children of different backgrounds and abilities. The last page of the book shows the final class picture, effectively celebrating the differences that each of these students brings to the classroom, “All of my students are so cute in their own way…but what’s best is how cute everyone looks all together.” This book is a useful resource that promotes inclusive education to students and provides students characters in which they can identify with in a positive manner.

For these and more books on inclusive education, please visit the OISE Lobby Display on the ground floor of the OISE building. All resources in the display case can be checked out – please ask a staff member at the circulation desk for assistance.