UPDATE: It has come to our attention that a leading candidate for president’s press secretary has Tweeted out a resource that was published under our name. The content was edited and removed 8 years ago. Why or how it is recirculating now is unclear. When I was still a classroom teacher 10 years ago, I was concurrently teaching Algebra 1 and a class on Human Trafficking at the new International High School. Ohio is hub of human trafficking and 1 in 5 girls are victims of sexual assault prior to the age of 18. In collaboration, with local human trafficking organizations they sought to destigmatize sexual abuse, create awareness, and deromanticize words like “pimp”. Additionally, the International school hoped we could infuse more international content throughout their curriculum. Generally, this meant I as the math teacher created deep dives with international data or international issues, but I also created Person Puzzles and Adventure activities to help do this. This Maya Angelou worksheet is an example of a quick surface level infusion, and I wrote 300 “Person Puzzles” about different people as a quick practice activity. In this particular case it was paired with Systems of Equations which is a topic encountered by 14-16 year old students — students that are the prime age to be victims (or perpetrators) of sexual violence. As a teen, I helped my police officer father spend nights in chatrooms pretending to be a 13 year girl catching sex predators -- I was unusually keyed into the importance of such a topic. I do appreciate how unique my teaching situation was at this time. This should underscore that context matters in all facets of education.
As you might appreciate, today things are weird. I wrote this in a time, when not everything was political. Given the successful use in my own classroom, I did share it online with a mature content disclaimer and a short description of how I would use it along with a link to the Polaris Project for more resources. This was in no way ever mandated to be used by anyone — and quite honestly that’s not how schools work. 8 years ago I decided that it would be difficult for teachers to effectively use that particular resource without the additional context I had, so I removed that content. All of my teaching resources were purchased by VC backed Edtech company in California that loved our real world math projects. 4 years ago, I had a chance to reacquire some brands and assets and formed my own company. My wife and I have also had 4 more kids. A lot has happened in 8 years. Today, we’ve grown as a business because our innovative activities and resources engage students like few other companies -- and we are getting better at it. My team’s experiences in and around education helps ensure that not only do all of our resources hit the mark, but teachers are empowered to use them effectively. Unlike many large curriculum publishers, our team does not avoid difficult topics, but we approach them with exceeding care. Quite honestly, our approach to writing social studies content at multiple reading levels allows us not only to match ability levels, but also deliver to appropriate maturity levels without whitewashing history -- and we have written more content like this than any company in the world (over 50,000 pages). A twist of irony is that a couple Florida schools have reached out about our Financial Literacy projects to meet their new state standard because they think they are some of the “best in they’ve found” — because they are.
In any event, it’s unclear to me how this is an example of the buzzy new term “Critical Race Theory”. Yes, Maya Angelou is Black. In that case, we will admit to having written Person Puzzles of many Black people. We do include other references to the existence of Black people in our 100,000 pages of teaching resources. This also includes former Republican Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson who 25 years ago was gracious enough with his time to give an opinion on my future wife’s pediatric brain tumor. I hope Governor DeSantis's office can extend our thanks Dr. Carson, and let him know Dr. Kosnik (RIP) did a great job. Though she was only given a 1% chance to live, and likely would never be able to have kids — she’s now had 6.
As someone who read and heard the personal accounts of dozens of human trafficking victims, part of you would be willing to do anything to help. The math teacher side of me wanted to do something even if it was little. I wanted to inform all of my students of some of the basic information and stats even if they weren't in my human trafficking class. If this meant spending a couple minutes broaching the topic through the life of a historical figure in a math class, it was worth it. If I shared it out and others did the same, it would be worth it. If this worksheet or conversations in class around it has even made one young student more aware in a dangerous situation, it was worth it. I used the first question to share the definitions of sexual abuse and stats about abusers (generally someone that you know). I used the second question to define pimps, recruiters, and grooming as well as a few of the most common lures. Though it has been gone from the internet for 8 years, people are still talking about it. I hope these conversations also help the issue come to the forefront, because it's my understand it is still pervasive and it's often now the case that parents are trafficking their own children to support their habits. I know that the human trafficking course greatly impacted not only the lives of those students who participated, but their families and friends. Particularly those who visited the shelters, raised money for the cause, and interfaced with victims. In all of my years of teaching, I never felt more supported by parents than when I taught this course. I was nominated for the Ohio International Education Project of the Year for this work in 2014 by the Columbus Council of World Affairs.
Today is a good reminder — if you would like to join me in making a contribution to the local human trafficking organization in Columbus please visit: https://www.gracehaven.me/ -- They've reach out to my team and we will soon be collaborating with them to create human trafficking focused teaching resources. Additionally, please consider reviewing the videos and content at the page TraffickFree with your student to help raise awareness. Theresa was gracious enough to come speak to our entire school after our class read her book.
Most importantly, I really don’t think Maya Angelou herself would have an issue with this. She shared it openly to help others. She hoped people could learn from it. Hopefully kids who have been sexually abused will be able to use her as an example and be inspired to find the greatness inside them. Though that particular Maya Angelou resource no longer exists, you can download other Maya Angelou K-12 teaching resources at this link if you would like: Maya Angelou ZIP Folder
