Unlearning the Hush (102)

*** ISBE Microcredential, 40 PDH ***

This is an Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) approved microcredential designed for K–12 educators. The Unlearning the Hush Learning Series is an asynchronous professional learning experience for classroom teachers, administrators, and educational leaders who want to examine how history, advocacy, and storytelling shape contemporary classrooms and leadership spaces.

Course Details

Across four required modules and one optional extension, you'll uncover silences in education, study oral histories as tools for teaching and leadership, analyze historical and systemic barriers, and use the un/HUSH Student Framework to design an action that centers student voice and co-creation.

The series blends historical study, oral storytelling, reflection, and practical application, with Unlearning the Hush serving as the anchoring text. The course builds on The Magnitude of Us Learning Series, but completion of that series is not required. The anchoring text may be ordered from the University of Illinois Press.

Program Information

Instructors: Marlee Bunch, Rod Wyatt, Chrissy Kim, Yoon Pak

Department and College: Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, College of Education, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Delivery Format: Online

Learning Management System: All coursework is completed asynchronously through Canvas, where you engage with readings, videos, reflections, discussions, and applied assignments that receive instructor feedback.

Enrollment & Duration: Enrollment is rolling, with up to 12 months to complete the work at your own pace.

Credential: Upon successful completion of course requirements, Illinois educators receive 40 Professional Development Hours and the microcredential will be attached to the Professional Educator License (PEL). Participants outside Illinois receive a certificate of completion.

Specific Course Topics

1. Examine Silence, Voice, and Historical Memory
   Examine how silences shape education by considering whose stories are told or untold, whose histories are remembered or erased, and whose voices are amplified or muted. Through readings, video, audio, and reflective activities, you'll explore listening as a scholarly and ethical practice and consider how silence appears in curriculum, instruction, policy, leadership, systems, and school culture. You'll use The Magnitude of Us and Unlearning the Hush as grounding texts for reflection and application.
2. Use Oral Histories as Tools for Learning and Leadership
   Explore oral histories as instructional tools and leadership resources that bring lived experiences, overlooked stories, and intergenerational voices into learning spaces. You'll select oral histories to study, reflect on how they inform your teaching or leadership practice, and identify concrete ways to incorporate stories into classrooms, professional learning, or organizational settings. You'll consider how oral histories can serve as both mirrors that reflect lived experiences and windows that offer insight into the histories, perspectives, and lives of others.
3. Connect Systemic Inequities to Contemporary Practice
   Examine historical and systemic barriers that continue to shape education, including inequities in policy, school funding, curriculum design, disciplinary practices, and whose voices are heard or silenced. Using a documentary of your choice as the module's primary learning resource, you'll connect historical patterns to contemporary practice, reflect on how inequities affect students, families, and colleagues, and identify ways to begin addressing them through your teaching or leadership.
4. Center Student Voice Through the un/HUSH Student Framework
   Apply the un/HUSH Student Framework, a student-facing tool aligned with key Illinois State Board of Education Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards, including recognizing students as individuals, engaging them as co-creators, and leveraging student advocacy. Building on your earlier work with silence, oral histories, and systemic barriers, you'll design and implement a concrete action that centers student voice, strengthens co-creation, and advances culturally responsive practice in your classroom, school, or leadership setting.

All course content is copyrighted and based on the work of Dr. Marlee S. Bunch. Artwork by Kevin Hopkins.

Questions: onlineprograms@education.illinois.edu

Enroll today to earn your microcredential!