BURBANK, Calif. — The year 2020 has been a time of people rising and speaking out against racism and inequalities.
When one teacher in the Burbank Unified School District realized how the education system experiences racism, she committed to educating the next generation on diversity and inclusion.
As a little girl, Ericca Dent found very few books with people who looked like her, with brown skin and curly hair.
She was raised in a small town in Virginia, often the only Black child in her classes.
Very rarely did she learn about her own history.
"It wasn't until I got much older and started doing research on my own, that I learned so much more about Black history, and that's definitely something I wanted to teach my students," Dent said.
In Ms. Dent's second grade class, her library reflects the diversity she sees in her classroom and the world.
She walks in every day with a purpose to make sure all students feel seen, heard, and represented.
The Joaquin Miller Elementary School teacher is Burbank's Teacher of the Year. The state also selected her superintendent as a California Teacher of the Year finalist.
BUSD attributes her inclusive and anti-discrimination educating and curriculum for the praise.
Dent teaches her students about many different cultures. For example, ahead of Thanksgiving, she's teaching her students the cultural importance of Indigenous people.
She said she challenges them to recognize if a cultural story is a window or mirror. A mirror if they see themselves in the character or culture, and a window if they're learning something new.
The majority of her students are Armenian, Latinx, and Black, so she said it's important to integrate a curriculum that de-centers white excellence and explores historical truths of people who look like them.
"I want them to see [anti-racist and diverse education] at a young age, so it's not completely new when they're older working adults," Dent said.
It's not always easy to have these conversations with 7 and 8 years olds, she said. It requires Ms. Dent to do a lot of self-reflecting.
"I'm hopeful that as they grow, they will remember these lessons, remember to have a respect for different people and their cultures," she said.