MADISON, Wis. (SPECTRUM NEWS) — UW Madison's Director of Youth Protection and Compliance is using her free time to create a virtual diversity curriculum for kids across Wisconsin and beyond.

Prenicia Clifton’s plan, Seein' is Believin' draws from a wide-range of successful professionals of color. The Madison Metropolitan School District is already looking into the novel plan that helps teachers offer engaging lesson plans with inspiring talent.

"Say for instance if they're doing an English class, what does it mean to bring in an actor and talk about their love for the english language and how it translates into a career, and how do they memorize and how do they perform in English," Clifton said.  "Or the other vision that I had is, what does it look like to bring in a Black scientist and to pair them along with the Biology or Chemistry class where they're actually doing experiments and learning about the careers of science, with the Black scientists, every single week," Clifton said. 

Clifton says the pandemic provides the perfect opportunity to offer this service to students in grades K-12.

"I believe that there are no more excuses. So if you say, ‘Oh, we can't get teachers of color,’ we can increase representation in the classroom with this program there are no excuses,” Clifton said. “You can bring them in, they can work directly with the children, and you can break down barriers and break down stereotypes in your classroom. If you say that you're truly committed to diversity and inclusion. If you're committed to teaching anti-racist curriculum, if you're committed to including all of your children, then this is an opportunity for you to do this in the classroom.”

The founder said the idea and the inspiration all comes from her late father, a long-time educator.

"[...] About 30 years ago, my school district where I went to middle school and high school was having the same conversation that we can't get enough teachers of color into the schools, and during that time my dad was one of two African American teachers, and I went to a fairly large school I think we had like 1000 kids in my graduating class,” she said. “And as I was sitting there thinking about it I'm like, ‘Wow, we are still having this conversation, almost 30 years later,’ and I said, ‘This is a much needed conversation, but what can we do in the interim what can we do to infuse multicultural excellence into the classrooms, until we hit get more teachers.’” 

“And that's how Seein' is Believin' came about,” Clifton continued. “Because I wanted to make sure that children could see themselves represented in a variety of fields and physically in their classrooms.”

Some of the classes to be offered this fall include:

• The Power of No and Audacious Asking (a guide to using no's to building towards a yes)
• The Great Outdoors is for Everyone (breaking down cultural stereotypes around outdoor exploration)
• Our Food or History (a four-week virtual culturally immersive cooking class that teaches children math, science, literacy and history through food)
• The Culturally Competent Comic Book Experience (a four-week writing and animation workshop that stimulates literacy skills through multicultural comic book creations)
• My Voice Matters (an advocacy and self esteem workshop that teaches youth the power of their voices in any situation)

Learn more about Seein is Believin' here or by emailing info@seein-is-believin.com.