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Beyond Heroes and Holidays
Editor Bios
Enid Lee
Director
Enidlee Consultants Inc.
Enid Lee began her career as a classroom teacher 35 years ago. Today she is an accomplished "front line teacher," teacher educator, researcher, writer, consultant, facilitator and speaker. She has taught in the Caribbean, Canada and the USA and has been involved in the professional development of teachers for two decades. She consults internationally on anti-racist, inclusionary and equitable education.
Through her consulting firm, Enid assists urban schools districts and individual schools to continuously restructure themselves for equitable outcomes for all students. She has pioneered the equity-centered initiative, Putting Race On The Table, which is designed to help teachers and administrators develop the skills, knowledge and will to create and maintain equity-centered classrooms. She facilitates an international network of schools enabling educators to share strategies for addressing questions of language, race, culture and class in education and for ensuring that teaching and learning are characterized by academic rigor and readiness for social justice action.
Enid Lee is the author of over 30 publications. They include "Letters to Marcia: A teacher's guide to Anti-racist education," the docudramas, "Quick to Judge" and "Food for Thought" from the television series, "Many Voices," and "Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guides to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development." Her current area of research is professional development and anti-racist school leadership.
She has served on numerous boards and commissions concerned with education, immigration and employment and has been an advisor to leaders in education, social services and cultural and arts organizations on equity issues. She is currently a Visiting Scholar with Teaching For Change in Washington, D.C. and formerly held the same position at The New Teacher Center, University of California at Santa Cruz.
Enid Lee has been the recipient of several awards for her ground-breaking work in anti-racist education and community-building among Black communities and immigrant parents. She recently received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from one of Canada's oldest Universities for her contribution to the development of anti-racist education in that country.
The question which continues to guide her work is this: "What do we do now, in concrete, everyday terms to change this situation and move us to greater social justice and human possibility?" The clarity, confidence and courage embedded in this question shape the collaborative relationships she enjoys with educators in a wide variety of contexts.
Deborah Menkart
Executive Director
Teaching for Change
Deborah Menkart is the executive director of Teaching for Change, an organization dedicated to spreading social and economic justice by promoting equity focused teaching materials, providing professional development to teachers, and increasing parent engagement in schools through groundbreaking DC area programs. In her 15 years as executive director, Menkart has developed a catalog that over 40,000 educators from across the country rely on for progressive teaching materials and has helped launch the school reform collaborative, DC VOICE. She is also the coeditor of Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K–12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development, which has sold over 30,000 copies to date.
Menkart’s activism began in junior high school when she joined protests of D.C.’s “taxation without representation” and the “dresses-only” dress code for girls. During the 1970s she lived in San Diego, California, where she worked as a shipyard electrician and was involved in the antiwar, women’s, international solidarity, and labor movements.
Menkart received a B.A. in Human Services and a master’s in curriculum and instruction from George Washington University, but attributes most of her learning to colleagues at Teaching for Change, Rethinking Schools, DC VOICE, and the National Coalition of Education Activists.
Margo Okazawa-Rey
Director
Women’s Leadership Institute
Margo Okazawa-Rey is Director of the Women’s Leadership Institute and Visiting Professor of Women’s Studies at Mills College in Oakland, California. She works in university, public school and community settings, addressing the issues of racism and other forms of oppression through activist scholarship, education and political organizing. She is particularly interested in the problems affecting peoples of color, especially women of color. Margo’s current research/ activist project is examining the effects of organizing against violence against women and children by the U.S. military in East Asia, which also includes documenting the experiences of mixed-race children, the offspring of GIs and Asian women. Margo has served on various editorial boards of academic journals and boards of directors of community organizations and has worked with grassroots organizing groups in Boston and the San Francisco Bay area. Among her most recent publication is Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, 2nd edition.
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