The news. Social media. Conversations with friends and family. George Floyd’s death has changed our country this past week. The good/the beauty that has emerged is young people fighting against injustices with peaceful protests. The bad/the ugly that has emerged is police brutality against these peaceful protesters. We can argue about the looting and destruction: personally, I get it. After four hundred years of oppression, wouldn’t you want to set fire this time!
I can tell you what I think and what I feel, but, truly, it doesn’t matter. This is not my time to speak. However, I am an educator, and I do need to know how to do better. So, I asked the experts: my students. The following are their words accompanied by book titles, articles, and other instructional support.
Teaching History
Fina (class of 2021) “believes a lot of people at this point see us as thugs and criminals.” Her words are deliberate. She’s quoting the president, but I’ve seen Fina lead conversations about race in my classroom. She isn’t solely referring to the president; she’s also talking about her peers. I asked Fina what needs to change in her classes. She immediately mentioned her history class: “I’d like to talk more about black history and its connection to modern day. In history, we’ve had packets on the Boston tea party but half a page about slavery and black related history. Especially when it comes to Lincoln ‘abolishing slavery.’ They put him on a pedestal but forget that he only abolished slavery as a political move.” Fina’s perception is that black history is glossed over, and this isn’t any one teacher’s fault. It’s the curriculum. It’s the system.
Resource: Teaching for Black Lives edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, Wayne Au
Aidan (class of 2019) reflected on his high school education in the following way: “Racism is always discussed in large terms. We would look at pictures of cross burnings or police beating protesters or enslaved people being whipped. But we never talked about how those big moments didn’t just appear out of thin air; they were perpetuated by subtle racism. We were taught that the KKK was bad, but we were never taught that the KKK wouldn’t exist without white boys who say racial slurs or tell racist jokes. It’s like there’s a certain level of racism that’s acceptable in modern society, but the unacceptable racism wouldn’t be able to exist if we stopped accepting ALL racism. Racism and white supremacy have to start somewhere, but, in school, we were never actually shown where it starts.”
Resource: Microaggressions and Social Work Research, Practice and Education by Michael S. Spencer
Representation
Tichara (class of 2020) spent this entire school year writing a dissertation about comfort levels and representation of students of color in advanced classes. She said, “I think classrooms need more diversity. It’s hard to have discussions on race when there’s a smaller amount of students of color because it can become awkward, and someone is going to feel targeted.”
Christian (class of 2020) echoed Tichara: “The classroom can reduce racism by integrating the classes. It’s really important to have every color in a class so that you don’t inadvertently have tunnel vision. Everyone has a plethora of different perspectives and experiences that can challenge other students. When people are exposed to people from different places, they learn that many of the preconceptions they had were wrong. Our school doesn’t have a lot of that classroom mixing yet, especially in the advanced classes.”
Resource: “The Race Gap in High School Honors Classes” by Sophie Quinton https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/the-race-gap-in-high-school-honors-classes/431751/
Fina also reminds us that representation is not limited to student body: “Being the only black student walking into a classroom where everything on the walls is mono-racial is overwhelming and frustrating. They have George Washington and Trump on the wall but not Obama.” She’s right. We need to ensure that our classroom decorations reflect our diverse students as well as our diverse curriculum.
Resource: Classroom Culture https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/publications/critical-practices-for-antibias-education/classroom-culture
Empathy
Providing students with the chance to hear and understand someone else’s perspective is so powerful. Alex (class of 2020) agreed: “There needs to be an actual conversation so those victim to the system can be given a platform to speak up and inform. This could help reduce racism because it would give kids in the classroom a way to share their experiences and help them feel like they’re contributing to a solution.”
Tichara expanded upon Alex’s perspective. “Teachers need to be more compassionate. Not everything has to be so academic. These are kids who will soon enter adulthood. You can’t tiptoe around the important issues. Make students feel something through discussion. The compassion and emotion around it is lacking. Teachers detach themselves and so do students, and this only furthers ignorance on the subject of race.”
Resource: “Nine Competencies for Teaching Empathy” by Michelle Borba http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct18/vol76/num02/Nine-Competencies-for-Teaching-Empathy.aspx
Resource: Socratic Seminars https://ncte.org/blog/2017/12/crafting-conducting-successful-socratic-seminar/
Battle Cry
Reesey (class of 2021) pleads with us – not just young people but all people: “When individuals of any age, position, race, belief system decide they would rather avoid honest conversations about race because they’re seen as ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘not school appropriate,’ they are avoiding the very change we seek. Teachers, administrators, counselors, and students need to do better. We need to break down our own beliefs and learn from one another; we need to challenge one another both inside and outside of the classroom. Learning about our nation’s history is not enough. We can no longer rely on certain courses or teachers to facilitate these conversations. We must find it within ourselves to confront these issues head-on, as silence is a breeding ground for complacency and ignorance.”
And she’s right. We all need to do better. Our future students are depending on us.
