Crayon activism

Somehow, I still have a box of crayons from my childhood. When I was at school, I didn’t think twice about referring to one colour in the box as the ‘skin-colour’ crayon. This is just one example of my white privilege which I was unaware of then. I made this short video thinking you may like to show it to your young students. Hopefully they might ask, ‘But didn’t she think there is more than one skin colour?’ Yes, I did know, but I was so immersed in white-dominant language (and thinking) that I repeated, without question, the language I heard around me. I was unaware of how I was contributing to the suppression or undervaluing of diverse cultural identities.

Forty years later......

Perhaps, unbelievably, pale orange or peach is still used by many to represent ‘skin-coloured’ crayons. In 2019, when she was only eight years old, Bellen Woodard founded the “More Than Peach” project to address the lack of representation in art supplies. She had noticed how children often referred to the peach crayon as ‘skin colour’. Widely recognized as the world’s first ‘crayon activist’, her initiative promotes inclusivity by creating skin-tone crayon sets that reflect a wide range of complexions. Bellen’s work has inspired educational efforts worldwide, encouraging people to celebrate and respect diversity from an early age. Bellen’s picture book, More Than Peach (2022) is widely available. Hear her story, in her own words, in the short video below.

Postscript

I located Crayola’s, Colours of the World crayons in 2021. For some time I had been looking in retail shops in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast when I finally found them in a Target store in Sydney. The very next day I was travelling out Bathurst way with a Together for Humanity colleague to run a full day PD with a group of primary school teachers. (Hello to the amazing teachers from Trunkey State School and surrounding schools.). Because I was excited to find the crayons, I bought a bag full and handed them out at the workshop.

Happily, the crayons, pencils and pens are now widely available at major retailers. If you don’t have them at your school yet, start a crayon activism project with your students and get them into every classroom.

Additional Resources

Student Activities

Scholastic.com has resources you can use.

If your school library subscribes to the student magazine, “Scholastic News”, find Bellen and her project in the August 31, 2020 issue.
If you don’t have access to the print magazine, download an easy-to-read version of the article. For a read-aloud version go to this page. It’s also available in Spanish. Students will need to read these online.
You can also download a student worksheet linked to the article.

Professional Learning

In our free online professional development course, Cohesion in Diversity: Transforming Curriculum, there is a module entitled, ‘How can we facilitate student participation in activities that build cohesion?’ Register for our online learning platform free here.

Further Exploration

Visit Bellen Woodard’s More Than Peach Project here and read more about her here.
Bellen’s parents recorded a tips for parents video and a tips for teachers video on this page. You’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the page.

About the author

Kathleen (she/her) is a former primary school teacher. Her family came to Australia from Scotland and Ireland in the late 1800s. She was born on Mandandanji country in Roma and now lives and works on Kabi Kabi country on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

Copyright
Metadata © Together for Humanity (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Together for Humanity (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Together for Humanity (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Together for Humanity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Stage: All
Curriculum: The Arts
Topics: Cultural diversity