The civil unrest stemming from the deaths of George Floyd and far too many other Black lives has educators contemplating how to start conversations about racial injustice in America. With support from the Highlander Institute, The Learning Accelerator (TLA) has pulled together resources and tools from other experts to address a big question facing teachers and leaders today: How do we as educators begin to make sense of recent events and foster dialogue so our students can do the same?
Educators hold powerful positions of influence – we have the ongoing opportunity to confront and address racism and systemic injustice in our schools and our communities. The considerations listed below, along with the resources from expert organizations we’ve curated, are possible starting points for educators and their school teams to engage with the complex – and necessary – work of learning about issues of race.
- First, reflect and look inward. Educators can start with deep introspection around their own identities, privilege, and power based on broader systems and history. Concurrently examining histories and perspectives about systemic racism, its effects in schools, and its manifestations in broader societal issues allows educators to gain important insights.
- Next, create safe spaces for dialogue. Educators can create time and space for students to learn about and discuss issues of racial injustice in society.
- Learn about the history of anti-Blackness and racism. Educators can engage students in learning about systems of racial injustice in order to help them become engaged, anti-racist citizens.
Reflection
One starting point for educators is the examination of their own identities and belief systems through exploration, reflection, and critical self-analysis. Beginning with a solid understanding of your identity can further your comprehension of your own beliefs and foster greater acceptance of those who are different from you. By doing this deep, introspective work, we are better able to make sense of our backgrounds and our privileged positions relative to society, which helps us engage students and families in new, authentic ways. Using a journal to explore your own thoughts and feelings on the following resources can help you work toward clarity around your views and the expression of your beliefs.
Resources to explore:
- The Danger of Silence: In his TED Talk, Clint Smith (teacher, poet, spoken-word artist), speaks about the passive silence that perpetuates injustice.
- Brené Brown and Ibram X. Kendi’s podcast How to Be an Antiracist is a discussion about Kendi’s groundbreaking reframing of racism, social inequity, and identity.
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack outlines a list of daily effects of white privilege, which can help students and teachers better understand the subtle effects of a culture built upon racist systems.
- What Is White Privilege, Really? and Confronting implicit bias for students and teachers: From Teaching Tolerance, these resources provide a primer on white privilege and tools to help build critical awareness of cultural differences.
- Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Black Educators and the Struggle for Justice in Schools is a forum featuring education leaders discussing identity and racial justice in our schools.
- Leadership for Equitable Outcomes explores how race and identity affects the ways in which educators show up in schools.
- Teaching Tolerance’s Self-Guided Teacher Leadership Resources is a compilation of resources that support educators in the journey for greater consciousness of race and class.
Creating Safe Spaces and Starting a Dialogue
Conversations about racial inequality and injustice should be happening in every school in America. They should take place often – not just when traumatic events escalate these discussions to the forefront. It is important to remember that in many communities, racial injustice is front-and-center on a daily basis. The Role of Critical Consciousness in Helping Students Dismantle Systems of Oppression can help teachers and school leaders to expand their awareness around talking with students about these issues.
Resources to explore:
Malika Ali from The Highlander Institute has developed a five-step approach to begin addressing recent events with students, starting with the condemnation of racist police brutality and ending with a plan for the future. There is no perfect way to kick off these conversations, but it is important to have them. Here are some additional supports, ideas, and resources to leverage when helping students process events of police brutality and systemic racism:
- Facing History and Ourselves’ guide to approaching conversations with students about George Floyd’s death and the events that surround it is a step-by-step guide that maps out another approach to starting the conversation while highlighting key resources for each step.
- Responding to Trauma in Your Classroom shares resources around identifying and supporting students facing trauma.
- How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom supports educators in preparing for conversations about race with students.
- Affirming Black Lives in Schools is a curated list of resources organized specifically for educational stakeholders (e.g., teachers, administrators, students, families) interested in learning more about racial justice.
Learn About the History of Anti-Blackness and Racism
After educators have created space for students to have these discussions, it’s important to understand the history to contextualize recent events. Where teachers and school leaders can influence curriculum adoption, they should advocate for instructional materials that incorporate more voices, perspectives, and backgrounds. Where they cannot impact these decisions, teachers and school leaders can work together to supplement standard instructional materials with Open Educational Resources (OER) that help our students learn about the history of anti-blackness and police violence in America. These resources are openly licensed and support classroom educators and school leaders with materials that they can implement in their own practice.
Resources to explore:
- Teaching About Race, Racism, and Police Violence is a bank of resources that can be used to support conversations in the classroom and beyond.
- Teaching the ongoing murders of black men offers an example lesson/approach to starting conversations.
- The Pulitzer Center's Resources for 1619 Project challenges us to reframe what we believe about America’s history of slavery, and the companion curriculum provides teachers and leaders with tools and resources for use in the classroom.
The work of dismantling systems and structures of racial injustice is difficult and trying work. It can be uncomfortable and exhausting – but it is also necessary and ongoing. This work should not be isolated to specific times of year, or viewed as something to check off of a to-do list or a one-time initiative to complete. Instead, as educators, we have the responsibility, opportunity, privilege to lead our students in conversations about racial injustice and to model the kinds of honesty and vulnerability required to effect change. Our students are looking to us for guidance and support, and our communities are watching how we respond to incidents of injustice. We are empowered to use our positions of influence to ensure our classrooms and schools are anti-racist places.
These additional resources can support you on your path to become an anti-racist, multicultural educator:
- A Call to Action for White Educators Who Seek to Be Anti-Racist provides insight into how a white educator came to understand that reading the works of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X with her students every year wasn’t enough. Confronting Anti-Black Racism is an additional resource from PBS that gives teachers a place to start.
- These classroom resources and tools from Teaching Tolerance help teachers and school leaders build a more responsive curriculum and help educators continue the dialogue about racial equity.
- These social justice resources from Cult of Pedagogy provide a summary of tools for teachers and school leaders that support dialogue, classroom and school culture systems, and other ways that schools can confront racial inequities.
- Vanderbilt's Teaching Race gives teachers and school leaders a guide to developing a scope and sequence for teaching students about race in America.
We hope Today’s One Thing has been a helpful resource, and we are here for continued support. Please reach out to jeremy.jones@learningaccelerator.org with your thoughts and questions.
We would like to thank Malika Ali, Director of Pedagogy at the Highlander Institute for lending her insights, expertise, resources, and support to this piece. This installment of Today’s One Thing was also supported by Stephen Pham, TLA’s Director of Organizational Learning and DEI team lead.