Table of Contents
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*Note, we have included a suggested amount of days in which to work through each topic, and have split them up within the workbook accordingly. You may complete this intensive at whatever pace works for you!
Click on a header or day to jump to that section
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| Glossary |
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The National Curriculum Council
The National Curriculum Council is a group of student organizers that are committed to working along side educators to create anti-racist and liberatory learning spaces throughout the country. We focus on creating resources for teachers so we can work towards racial justice through our classrooms. You can find more resources for educators here. We also invite you to join our community of teacher allies through our facebook group!
Diversify Our Narrative is a 100% grassroots organization composed of high school and college students throughout the U.S. pushing for equitable, long-lasting reform within our school districts. The centerpiece of this movement is around the concept to #DiversifyOurNarrative through the books, curriculum, and teaching practices we engage in. We believe that all students deserve an anti-racist, inclusive and empowering education! For any questions throughout this intensive, please email us at diversifyournarrative@gmail.com
What is Diversify Our Narrative?
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This workbook was designed and written by young organizers on our National Curriculum Council!
Ana De Almeida Amaral
Stanford 2023
Julia Wang
Yale 2024
Judy Zhang
University of Chicago 2024
Ariana Kretz
UC Berkeley 2024
Endiya Griffin
University of Southern California 2024
Carlene Sanchez
Stanford 2023
Keoni Rodriguez
Stanford 2022
Elizabeth Liu
Turpin High School 2021
Meet the Authors!
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Dear Educator,
The National Curriculum Council has been passionately creating this workbook for months but it is really the result of a lifetime of experiences and lived knowledge of what it means to be students of color in America. We have often found ourselves at intersections of oppression based on our race, gender identity, sexuality, and class in the classroom, realities that were painful and traumatic to endure.
But just as we have highlighted throughout this intensive, it would remiss to examine our stories as only ones of oppression. The fact that we are creating this work is, in and of itself, a story of resilience and liberation. This is the story that we hope to pass down, through you, to your students: the narratives of Black students, Indigenous students, and students of color will be met with experiences of oppression, but we have the power to write our own stories, to embrace radical love, and to create liberation. Anti-racist teaching is about being an active co-conspirator against the systems of oppression that exist inside and outside of the classroom. It is about creating learning spaces that honor every part of your students and gives them space to grow into powerful change-makers. Anti-racist teaching is how we show students of color that they matter. It is how we disrupt forces of harm in our schools and how we cultivate a generation of young people that are ready to take action against injustice.
This intensive contains 7 chapters that are divided into 13 days. We hope that our intensive supports your classroom and your campus in becoming a space that diversifies our narrative and fights for liberation!
In solidarity,
The National Curriculum Council
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Let’s start with a guided meditation
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Day 1
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Identity and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
LEARNING GOALS
Question One: How do you experience privilege and marginalization?
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Before delving into this question, it is important to define together what identity, privilege, and marginalization all mean. I would like you to take a moment to reflect on these words. What do they mean to you? Do they have positive or negative connotations? How do they make you feel? You may write this out, or simply think about it in your own mind.
For the purposes of this training, we will define identity, privilege, and marginalization in the following ways:
Question One:
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Identity: the unique, and intersecting components that make up one’s being. Identity can include categorical factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc, as well as other important facets of our experiences, such as our moral beliefs, our interests, our careers, etc. Everyone’s identity is unique and something they get to define for themselves.
***For this training, we will be looking more deeply into the categorical factors of our identity.
Privilege: when one benefits from an aspect of their identity, because that component of their identity has not been historically and is not currently oppressed, and rather has historically and currently has been accepted by society and granted power over others. Having privilege DOES NOT mean that you do not experience hardship. Having privilege for a certain aspect of your identity just means that you have not experienced hardship because of that aspect of your identity.
Marginalization: when one does not benefit from an aspect of their identity, and experiences oppression because of this aspect of their identity, because that aspect of their identity has not historically been nor is presently accepted by society and often is in a vulnerable position compared to others.
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When examining aspects of our identity, it is important to note that our identities are not only comprised of our experiences with privilege or marginalization, and aspects of our identities that may be marginalized still bring with them great gifts and community. We will be examining and celebrating the nuanced aspects of our identities later and throughout this intensive, but first, we want to hammer down what privilege and marginalization can look like in the real world.
In order to gain a better understanding of privilege and marginalization, let us examine our experience through this privilege inventory:
In a quiet and safe space, take some time to read through these questions, and write a checkmark in the box next to the statement if the statement applies to you, and leave it blank if it does not. As you go through the statements, identifying the areas in which you have privilege or find yourself at an intersection of oppression, be kind to yourself. The more we deepen our understanding of ways in which we can advocate for spaces free of violence, the more we learn about ourselves and this can result in some personal discomfort. We invite you to lean into this discomfort, allowing these feelings to provide a space for genuine understanding and empathy.
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Privilege Inventory
Let’s take some time to reflect on our Privilege Inventory
Note: Anytime you see reflection questions, they can also be used as discussion questions if you are doing it as a group~
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In any of these examples, did you find that your life was made easier or harder because of something you could not change? How so?
Did any of these examples surprise you and make you think of your experience in a different way?
What factors play into these real life examples that can create different outcomes based on certain aspects of someone’s identity?
Reflection Questions
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Question Two: Who Are You?
Now that we have a deeper understanding of privilege and oppression, let us take time to consider, in depth, our own identities.
Identity is a very nuanced, complicated experience, and it is okay if you do not know how to define yourself completely. Once again, each experience is valid and uniquely beautiful.
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IDENTITY WEB
In considering our identity, we are going to use the model of a web, as our identities are nuanced, complicated, and interconnected, just as a web is!
We would like you now to take the time to fill out this identity web.
First, fill out the center circle with your name, then the outer circles of the web with the words that best describe you. If you are unsure of what one of the circles means, please take a look at our glossary. Do not feel pressured to fill in all the circles if you are unsure about how to define yourself. If there is an aspect of your identity you feel does not fit into any of the circles but is important to your experience, feel free to write in one of the blank circles.
When you are done, take a moment to reflect and consider which parts of your identity grant you privilege, and which might experience oppression. For example, as a white woman, I receive privilege from my race (white), but not from my gender (woman). Journaling about this on the page itself might help.
When you are done with that, please take a moment to connect the circles that you feel like are connected in your experience, either as two parts of your identity that grant you privilege, two parts that interact together to create an experience of marginalization, or simply two parts that are connected to each other. For example, someone who identitfies as a bisexual woman might connect their sexuality (bisexual) with their gender identity (woman), because these two aspects of their identity interact: as a woman, she might experience hypersexualitation by men and in the media, and her sexuality also heightens this experience as many individuals assume bisexual people are inherently sexual or greedy. In this way, she might experience increased sexualization and misogyny both due to her gender and her sexuality.
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Name
Sex
Gender Identity
Gender Expression
Sexuality
Age
Political Beliefs
Immigration Status
Physical Ability
Spiritual belief
Class
Nationality
Race
Ethnicity
IDENTITY WEB
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IDENTITY WEB CONT.
The identities that you connected together are an on paper representation of intersectionality, a term coined by activist Kimberlé Crenshaw that is defined as the interconnected nature of social categories like race, class, and gender that either heighten one’s experience of privilege or marginalization.
Intersectionality is an important part to consider when speaking about identity because many movements for liberation have not been intersectional. For example, the movement for women’s suffrage in the United States did not include Black or Indeginous women, who would not receive the right to vote until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As we can see in our identity web, the concept of intersectionality is vital to our collective liberation. There is no freedom for ourselves if there is no freedom for all, because each component of our identities is connected to each other.
Finally, we would like you to take the time to consider how our identity shaped your own experience in the classroom, either as a teacher or a student. Using your identity web and privilege inventory for reference, take about fifteen minutes to answer the journal prompt on the next page. Do not feel like you need to answer every question! Consider as many as you think are important to you in your experience. If you are working through this journal with other teachers, utilize these questions as discussion questions:
Let’s take some time to reflect on our Identity Web
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As a student, what parts of your identity where safe to share in the classroom? As a teacher?
As a student, did you ever see people like you represented in curriculum? How? As a teacher?
As a student, what parts of your identity did you feel like you could not fully embrace in the classroom? What did that teach you?
Reflection Questions
As a student, did you have opportunities to learn more or connect with others who had similar identities, such as through groups like Gay Straight Alliance, Black Student Union, etc.? What was it like when you were or were not given that opportunity?
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Day 2
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Considering various aspects of our identity is a great first step towards understanding how to be anti-racist within the classroom. However, we must also consider how our own identities impact the way we teach, and how our identities compare to our students.
Question Three: How is my experience similar or different to my students?
Take about 15-20 minutes to answer the following journal prompt below. Do not feel like you need to answer every question! Consider as many as you think are important to you in your experience. If you are working through this journal with other teachers, utilize these questions as discussion questions.
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How is my identity similar and different to the identities of my students?
How can I use my identity to relate to my student’s experiences?
Reflection Questions
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When I teach, am I teaching about people who look like and have similar experiences to me? Do I teach about people who look like and have similar experiences to my students? Why or why not?
Do your students have the opportunity to share their identity in the classroom? As a teacher, how do you help students celebrate their identities?
Reflection Questions
Question Four: Who makes up the students and community I serve? What is their positionality?
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It is important to consider these questions in order to adapt our teachings to meet our students needs, and check for the spots we might have been blind towards including our students needs. Throughout this intensive, we will be examining how we can restructure classrooms through a culturally responsive framework.
Culturally Responsive teaching practices are rooted in considering the makeup of the community we teach, the strengths and needs of our communities, and how we can address those needs.
Question Four:
Please read “Culturally Responsive Teaching: What You Need to Know” (about fifteen minutes).
After reading this article, take out your journal one more time to consider the following questions:
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What aspects of CRP do you feel excited about? Nervous about?
What communities do your students come from? What are their strengths? What are their needs?
Reflection Questions
How can you address your students needs?
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Identity Web
Utilizing the identity web, discuss with your students the definitions of all the identifiers in the circle. What is race? Ethnicity? Sexuality? Etc. When you are sure your students are all on the same page, have them silently fill out the identity web on their own. Have them consider which parts of their identity may result in privilege, and what might lead to oppression. When they are done, reconvene to talk about the concept of intersectionality. Using your own identity web (if you are comfortable), explain how two or more aspects of your identity represent intersectionality. Have them go back to silently connecting the parts of their identity they think represent intersectionality. Make sure to continuously affirm all students’ identities as valid, and let them know if they are unsure of an aspect of their identity or aren’t comfortable sharing, they can leave it blank! Also let them know that they are the only people who will be looking at their identity web, and that you won’t be collecting them, this way students can feel more comfortable being truthful in their identity web.
Identity Caucus
When your students are finished, you can allow them time to discuss the following questions in small groups, then reconvene at the end for a large group discussion. Make sure they know they don’t have to answer all the questions, especially those they don’t feel comfortable answering in groups.
What descriptors do you identify most strongly with at this time in your life?
What descriptors of your identity do you least identify with?
What is a part of your identity that you love? How do you celebrate it?
Have you ever experienced privilege? Oppression?
Author’s identity
This practice can be utilized when analyzing a piece of literature, historical passage, scientific study, set of statistical data, and pretty much anything else that you are analyzing in the classroom that was created by a human being! Give students a copy of the identity web, and have them fill out what they can based on what they know about the author of the thing you are analyzing. Have them utilize the internet to help consider the things they might not know about the author. When they have filled out the identity web, have them read/analyze the passage, data, etc. Ask them, while they are reading, to consider how that author’s identity might have influenced their work. You can use the following questions
Are there any instances of bias you could see in the passage/data as a result of the author’s identity?
Does the author’s identity influence what they choose to include or emphasize?
Does the author’s identity make the piece more convincing? Less convincing?
PRACTICES TO TAKE INTO THE CLASSROOM
Understanding our identities and how they interact is vital to take into our classrooms: it allows us to take note of our own biases, towards our students and our curriculum. Furthermore, having a nuanced understanding of the communities we serve as teachers will enable us to create, alongside our students, welcoming classroom spaces that appropriately center our identities. But we must recognize, this is only the first step! Curriculum and structural changes must be made alongside our identity work to create truly liberatory educational experiences
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Key Takeaways
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Day 3
2
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Structural Racism
in the Classroom
LEARNING GOALS
Then and Now:
How is our education rooted in a history of racism and how do those systems of oppression manifest in our classrooms today?
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You can take space to write your response here.
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You can take space to write your response here.
You can take space to write your response here.
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You can take space to write your response here.
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Day 4
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You can take space to write your response here.
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Day 5
How have communities flipped the narrative?
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Weʻve discussed how classroom structures might embody and reproduce structural racism, but we also know that marginalized communities have a long history of resisting against these structures. Radical reimaginings of these racist structures need not be created from an outsider perspective solely. Instead, we can take a look at times where these counter-narratives came into play. Above all, itʻs important that we come from a perspective of listening to marginalized communities and understanding what their needs and wishes are.
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Examples of Anti-Racist Learning Spaces
To think about how we might come to practice anti-racist pedagogy, we must first think about how communities of color have done so already. These examples are some of many ways that BIPOC have forged spaces for themselves counter to white-centering spaces. These examples can provide some help in understanding how we can become anti-racist in our educational practice.
1. Historically Black Colleges and Universities
In the period after the Civil War, Black Americans were denied entry into most colleges and universities. Despite this, institutions like Atlanta University and Howard University were founded for the purpose of providing an education for freed Black people. Controversy remains about how much these institutions represented a liberated space for Black people due to many of them being founded by whites. Despite that, over the years the Black community has come to be the primary administrators and beneficiaries of these institutions, representing a space for Black students to receive an education for
and by them. These institutions were
finally recognized as being HBCUs
by the Higher Education Act of 1965.
Black students at HBCUs report
having more meaningful experiences
and higher levels of support than
their peers at PWIs.
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2. Tribal Colleges
Similar to HBCUs, tribal colleges offer a higher
education experience that is built to center the experiences of those that are affiliated with a tribe. These schools are distinct because they are fully operated by the tribes that they are associated with, allowing for a complete centering of Native students’ culture, history, and experiences.
There are 32 accredited TCUs in the United States with many of them offering dozens of programs. Enrollment numbers at these institutions continue to rise.
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3. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
Prevailing narratives about BIPOC oftens discounts the ways that these communities have cultivated knowledge and conducted research. These ways of knowing and being include what is now called traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), which is a broad term that encompasses certain ways that BIPOC have interacted with the environment for the purposes of understanding it better. Many existing narratives found in textbooks about Indigenous people often portray their relationship with nature as one of mysticism and otherworldly spirituality. While spirituality was often intertwined with Indigenous understandings of the world, this often fails to recognize the deep, introspective, and empirical systems of knowledge building that Native people had and continue to implement. Indigenous farmers were able to cultivate hundreds of cultivars of fruits and vegetables after intensive decades of selective breeding. Pacific Islander navigators used the sea currents and stars to navigate hundreds of miles of open ocean. California Natives used controlled burns to manage wildfire vulnerabilities. All of these are examples of TEK that show that Indigenous peoples were adept scientists with a calculated understanding of the world.
PICTURED: Milpa system, am indeginous method of farming that includes intercropping of squash, maize, and beans which leads to the greater facilitation of natural
ecosystem services.
Why is it important to learn these narratives?
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These three examples are only a few examples of ways that BIPOC communities have taken control of their own educational pathways. By recognizing that the history of education in the United States has been one of white supremacy, we must also recognize that BIPOC communities have sought to develop their own frameworks for education. These narratives are important because they depict BIPOC as agents of their own destiny. They were not merely passive recipients of discrimination in the education system: they have and continue to be self-advocates, creating liberatory spaces when the dominant spaces became insufficient for their needs.
Reflect on the last three examples, and consider how you can give student’s agency over their own educational narratives.
Gaining a deeper understanding of the United States education system allows us to critically analyze the impacts of historical structural racism on modern education. As we begin to see the patterns of marginalization that have been perpetuated throughout history, we can also reflect on our roles as educators in perpetuating structural racism within the classroom. In doing this work, we must go beyond understanding the pain of our past and present to imagine a future where educators and students have the power to work together in healing these historical wounds through education.
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Key Takeaways
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Day 6
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Restorative Justice
LEARNING GOALS
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While we often think of curriculum when we think of a classroom setting, it is equally important to consider the structural forces within those classrooms. Disciplinary measures are not simply rules, but are reflective of the values of a school community. They tell us what behavior is rewarded and what behavior is punished. Therefore, when it comes to building a community in our classrooms that are conducive to vulnerability, growth, and learning on the academic, social and personal level, we must consider the values our disciplinary practices center.
What current disciplinary measures are in place in your school? Who do they benefit? Who do they hurt?
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Before we dive into different disciplinary measures, we would like you to consider the following scenario:
A student in your class, Taylor, has been acting out lately. They have repeatedly arrived late to class and bring with them a negative energy. Throughout lessons, they often try to leave the classroom, either by asking to use the bathroom, get water, or visit the nurse. When they do participate in class, it is to derail the conversation with something that is often off topic or inappropriate for school.
Reflect on this scenario using the following guiding questions:
What actions would you take to discipline Taylor? What belief does your choice of discipline endorse? (For example, punishing someone for being late will make them stop being late) Does it work? Does it actually address the root cause of this behavior?
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Now, consider this:
One day, Taylor comes into class halfway through the period, and you notice they are in a particularly bad mood. They refuse to participate, spend time on their phone, and get out of the classroom as quickly as they can once the bell rings. During the lunch period, you hear that Taylor initiates a fight with another student. The conflict quickly gets out of hand, and Taylor and the other student are both physically and emotionally hurt.
Reflect on this scenario using the following guiding questions:
What actions would your administration take to reprimand Taylor and the other student for this physical confrontation? What beliefs do these disciplinary measures endorse? Who do these actions serve? In your experience, what impact do these disciplinary actions have on student behavior in your current disciplinary system?
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When considering how we approach harm that is caused, we want to always consider adapting a mindset of repairing harm with our students, not to or for them. We can understand this through the social discipline window.
Consider your “Taylor,” i.e., your “trouble kid.” What is your relationship with them like? When they act out, which approach do you take - Punitive, Restorative, Neglectful, or Permissive? Brainstorm examples of different disciplinary practices that fit within each box. What were the effects of those strategies? Did they help fix the problem?
Notes:
Please read the following article from the beginning to the end of the “Restorative” paragraph.
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Punitive disciplinary practices contribute to a cycle of inequity. Often, we punish “behavioral issues” because we believe that they are the personal fault of students when often they are products of a lack of support. We are punishing students for the products of inequity. Tia Cochran-Otis, RJ expert, writes “An anti-racist community works to understand the impact of racism, takes accountability for their role, and approaches solutions with compassion.” Using a restorative lens, we can start asking questions that position us to give students the support they need to move forward and be successful.
In most school communities, Taylor would likely be sent out of class for their behavior, given detention, and had points deducted from their assignments/participation grade. For fighting, Taylor would likely be suspended or expelled as a result of zero tolerance policies on campus. However, these experiences aren’t limited to one scenario. Common disciplinary practices such as suspensions, zero tolerance policies, and removing students from class do not exist in a vacuum, and and are deeply connected to systems of oppression in and outside of school.
According to the APA, “years of research on the effects of zero tolerance policies in middle and secondary schools…[found] that such policies not only fail to make schools safe or more effective in handling student behavior, they can actually increase the instances of problem behavior and dropout rates.”
Increased dropout rates due to zero tolerance policies lead students who are suspended or expelled to be “nearly three times more likely to be in contact with with juvenile justice system within the following year” and have a disproportionate effect on Black and Brown students. Black students are suspended and expelled three times more frequently than white students according to the ACLU.
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Ultimately, we need to consider what values our disciplinary practices uphold. Do we suspend and expel students because we really believe rehabilitation and growth will arise from this practice? What do extractive disciplinary practices tell our students about our values - rehabilitation and growth, or extraction and control?
How can we reimagine community as a tool to repair harm when it is caused and support students in getting back on track?
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Student Reflection
“I went to a charter school that boasted its “zero tolerance” policy while also claiming that it was an education community that was committed to equity. Having disciplinary policies that center punishment, extraction, and control over students cannot exist at a school that is supposed to center community, growth, and love. Zero tolerance policies are directly linked to models of punishment designed in the War on Drugs Era and we know that it is students of color and students with other marginalized identities that are harmed by these practices. These are systems of oppression manifesting in the walls of our schools.
Some years, we would have up to 10 students in our grade that would be expelled. This showed me that our administrators thought our school was better off without those students. It also felt like sometimes they were trying to scare the rest of us. It felt like they were trying to tell us that if we stepped out of line, we would be next.”
Journal:
Notes:
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Day 7
How can we restructure these systems to better cultivate and protect our community through restorative justice?
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Restorative justice is a framework for rehabilitation that emphasizes reconciling relationships between victims (who we will now refer to as those who have been harmed) and offenders (who we will call those who have caused harm). In restorative justice, the relationships between community members and community values are centered. When damage has been done within a relationship, or a community value has been violated, the goal is to find a way to restore the harm that was caused, bring the person who has caused harm back into the community, and make the person who was harmed feel safe within the community.
Harkening back to our social discipline window, restorative justice should be implemented with students. We can do this by inviting other people that are important in supporting that student like parents, siblings, coaches, etc. into circles and other community practices throughout the time the student is in your classroom or school.
Restorative Justice: An Overview
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Criminal Justice
Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice practices originated outside the classroom, within the criminal justice system
To gain a better understanding of RJ, let’s compare it with the traditional criminal justice system:
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Building Community with Restorative Justice
Restorative justice relies heavily on community relationships and values in order to be successful. It is vital to understand restorative justice works best when there is a strong community foundation in place. This is because the goal of restorative justice is to rebuild community when it is hurt - and students need to feel connected to their community and comfortable taking accountability in order to be invested in repairing harm.
The first step towards building community with your students is by framing the classroom as a collectively shared space. This can be accomplished by establishing norms with your students early within the semester. Norms are sets of community values that a group collectively decides to uphold together: they are created with, not for, and are reinforced by community members. Norms are NOT rules. To distinguish the difference between norms and rules, norms can be understood as coming from values. For example:
In our space, we value respect. To show respect, we will listen while others are speaking, keep our space neat, and try actively listening to each others needs.
When establishing norms with students, it is helpful to use these guiding questions:
As a teacher, you set the tone within your classroom. Therefore, it is important to model valuing your students and yourself as nuanced, complex individuals whose primary identity isn’t rooted in “teacher” or “student.” Throughout the semester, take the time to learn about your students interests, strengths, and struggles outside of the classroom, and share these facets of yourself. Building this relationship with students is especially important because, should harm arise within the classroom, it is trust that will lead to successful restoration of the community.
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Key Values to Model
In building our communities through a restorative lens, it is critical to center these values:
Accountability
Using the principle of accountability, we must ask, “How have our actions impacted the community?” We must take responsibility for the impact our actions have on our relationships and throughout the community. By establishing a culture of accountability, the first step of which is to model accountability ourselves, we create a safe space for understanding the impact of our mistakes. This is also critical to anti-racist teaching practices, as a culture of accountability helps students feel comfortable examining their own identity, positionality, and role in perpetuating or combatting racism.
Compassion
Compassion for ourselves and others is vital in establishing trust within communities. When others know they will be met with compassion, they are more likely to think critically about their behavior, feel safe asking for support, and make room for others to take accountability for their actions. Through compassion, we can give grace to each other for our own human fallibility, ultimately leading to a space conducive to growth.
Understanding
Through understanding, we strive to see each individual’s unique histories, strengths and struggles. As teachers, we can start by working to understand how these factors shape our students’ behavior, feelings, and choices on a deeper level. Understanding is critical to anti-racist teaching because it is through understanding that we can gain insight to how racial injustice impacts each individual within our classroom and how this might impact the actions and choices of community members.
When we model compassion, understanding, and accountability, we can help our students take responsibility for their actions in a space free of intense, unnecessary shame.
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Community Circles
Community Circles are essential to building and restoring communities. A community circle is a classroom practice that lets everyone in the community speak vulnerably, feel heard, and connect authentically with one another. In a circle, a speaking object is typically passed around and everyone has a chance to speak. At first, circles are commonly used to establish relationships and can become a very useful structure for celebrating community members, having tough conversations (on topics like oppression), and restoring communities when harm is done. Collectively setting the values of your community should be one of the first activities done in a circle when building a community.
Circles are a great structure for many conversations. Here are a few of my favorites:
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Community Circle
Below is an example of a circle that I held in a student led class. At the end of each period, we would give celebrations to the student that taught the lesson that day and to students that had participated in our discussions. This is something that became deeply ingrained in our class culture. We knew that we always gave celebrations and love to our peers before leaving the class. This ritual was part of how we uplifted each other and nourished our community.
This version of a circle is modified and shortened version of a full community circle but it is an example of how circles can be used to build the relationships between students. We are encouraging students that didn’t speak up as much by celebrating the great ideas they shared in small groups and we are appreciating the hard work of the presenter.
What to do When Harm is Caused
We will discuss two restorative practices that can be used once a meaningful community has been established. These practices can also work in tandem with each other, if the situation calls for it. It is important to remember that all restorative practices should be voluntary. Any person participating in restorative practices must be consenting in order for restorative justice to work. With all of these tools, teachers should approach these situations with understanding, accountability, and compassion.
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AFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND RESTORATIVE QUESTIONS
For those implementing restorative practices for the first time, your first goals can be utilizing affective statements and restorative questions when harm is caused. Affective statements focus on feelings of individuals. For example, “It makes me feel disrespected when you speak over me.” This allows the person who has caused harm understand how their actions have a direct impact on others.
To guide your conversations between students who find themselves in conflict with each other, we would encourage you to utilize restorative questions, linked here. Restorative questions are vital in guiding students towards repairing harm, and is the basis for most restorative conferences. Although it may seem like a very simple practice, when everyone is committed to caring for the community these questions help facilitate the accountability, understanding, and compassion we have agreed to. These questions should be used to guide the students to an increased understanding of each other and to come up with a way to repair the harm caused together.
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INFORMAL AND FORMAL CONFERENCE
Informal conferences can be utilized for more complex situations. In informal conferences, the individuals come to circle together in order to repair relationships through the lens of understanding and accountability, which leads the person harmed and the person who caused harm to an agreement on how to repair the harm. There are 5 parties that are involved in informal conferencing: the person directly harmed and their supporters, the people indirectly harmed, the person who caused harm and their supporters. In informal conferences, the same restorative questions can be used. If you feel it is appropriate and will not cause any student significant shame, you can hold these conferences with the entire classroom community. The goal of informal conferences should be to have the person harmed and the person who caused harm come into agreement with a set of things to do that will help repair the harm and restore their relationship. Eventually, students are often able to do this practice themselves, and may come to the teacher at the end of the circle for guidance or approval on their plan forward.
Formal conferencing involves the same people as in informal conferencing. However, formal conferencing is significantly more structured and might be used for complicated situations. In formal conferencing, a script might be used to guide the conversation (trained restorative justice practitioners might not use a script). One should not lead formal conferencing without formal training.
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Transitioning to Restorative Justice
Transforming the discipline practices throughout our education system takes time and often we find ourselves advocating for restorative practices on campuses that still have punitive discipline practices.
Restorative justice is grounded in love and growth. When punitive disciplinary action is taken, especially practices like suspension that remove students from the community, welcoming them back to the community with a re-entry support circle can help connect students with resources and a plan to move forward. Below is an incredible example of what this could look like.
Restorative Justice is a developing field with many exciting possibilities for reimagining community and classroom spaces. The three central values of restorative justice include centering compassion, understanding, and accountability. RJ focuses on community and relationship building to enhance learning, mitigate and respond to harm, and bring in communities outside of the classroom into the educational setting. In your next semester, we encourage you to use RJ to promote anti-racism by challenging the ways you would usually respond to conflict, and instead utilize restorative practices to guide you to a place of resolution. With so much new information out there on restorative justice, we encourage you to take a look at some of the resources we have linked below.
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Key Takeaways
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Day 8
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LEARNING GOALS
White Supremacy in the Classroom
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Throughout this topic, we will interrogate our current education system and how it further embeds white supremacy into our lives and our students’ lives. Most people think of white supremacy as a belief held that white people are superior to those of all other races. While this is true, we must shift our thinking from seeing white supremacy as just a belief to understanding it as a system of oppression that is pervasive in every part of our society.
White supremacy can be particularly detrimental in the classroom. As discussed in Topic 2, our current Western education system is fundamentally white supremacist; our classroom structures, disciplinary practices, and student-teacher relations are inherently built on white supremacist ideas. Thus, even when we are not actively participating in white supremacist actions and thought, white supremacy still exists in our classrooms and other modern institutions. Our ignorance or passiveness in the face of white supremacy makes us complicit in the harm of students.
Most educators endured the same Eurocentric education system that harms students now. Often, we teach what we know, becoming part of a cycle of racism and white supremacist education. This makes it so that teaching outside the scope of white supremacy is far out of what is considered standard. White supremacy is deeply ingrained in our school systems and it takes a critical lens and commitment to anti-racism to create justice within our classrooms.
Question One:
How do you see whiteness being centered in the classroom?
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We have a duty to walk in the opposite direction, to be actively anti-racist, for our students.
In order to better visualize the systematic nature of white supremacy, we can use Beverly Daniel Tatum’s metaphor of a moving walkway at the airport:
"I sometimes visualize the ongoing cycle of racism as a moving walkway at the airport. Active racist behavior is equivalent to walking fast on the conveyor belt… Passive racist behavior is equivalent to standing still on the walkway. No overt effort is being made, but the conveyor belt moves the bystanders along to the same destination as those who are actively walking.
Some of the bystanders may feel the motion of the conveyor belt, see the active racists ahead of them, and choose to turn around… But unless they are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyor belt – unless they are actively anti-racist – they will find themselves carried along with the others."
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“As a student of color, I know firsthand what it feels like to never learn about my ancestors or my history. Although I loved my teachers and did well in school, years of Eurocentric curriculum eventually caused me to internalize the idea that if the stories of my ancestors weren’t worth teaching about, then I wasn’t either. If their stories didn’t matter, then neither did mine. “
Centering white narratives is innherently white supremacist. It tells our students of color that they are unimportant; that their people do not matter; that they do not exist. This messaging is at the core of white supremacy. People of color are disempowered from taking control of their own narratives and often only included in curriculum for the things that have been done to them by white people. The result is a painfully incomplete picture of their own stories, and the perpetuation of the idea that only white people have stories worth telling.
The Effect of White Supremacy
on Students
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This pyramid is a tool we use to understand how more covert forms of white supremacy can support more violent and outward forms of white supremacy. Notice where Eurocentric Curriculum is on this pyramid.
We must understand that even when we are good-intentioned and want our students to succeed, what we decide to teach or not to teach them can harm them by perpetuating white supremacy in the classroom.
At the same time, we find hope and empowerment in the knowledge that by thinking more critically about our curriculum and changing the way we teach, we can effectively contribute to dismantling white supremacy at every level.
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The goal of anti-racism is to build a critical lens that allows you to see where echoes of white supremacy and injustice exist in every part of schooling. White supremacy does not only manifest in our curriculum. We must consider the way systems of oppression are connected to every part of our schools: curriculum, classroom structures, relationships with students, hiring practices, disciplinary practices, budgets, school policies, etc.
In a classroom setting, characteristics of white supremacy culture are often upheld without an understanding of how these characteristics are deeply connected to oppression.
Even in classrooms that have anti-racist and inclusive curriculum, there can be structures that enforce white supremacy culture. I’ve been in ethnic studies classes where the characteristic of power hoarding is very present. The teacher stands at the front of the classroom to lecture and only students that are called on can speak. When a student speaks out of turn they are reprimanded and, even when a student interrupts with an important perspective, they are asked to follow the rigid speaking structure that gives the teacher all of the power. White supremacy isn’t just about narratives. It is about control, subjugation, and fear.
White Supremacy
Beyond Curriculum
Elements of our curriculum, like the English portion of standardized tests, reiterate the idea that there is one “true” way of speaking, i.e. one that is defined by European english conventions, thus invalidating students of color who use dialects like AAVE or Spanglish. The dialects of English that are used within these different communities are deeply valuable; they are evolving artifacts of our histories and cultures.
In many classrooms, students of color only see themselves as victims of oppression. Black students, for example, often only see themselves twice in today’s curriculum: in slavery, and in the civil rights movemnt. This is deeply problematic, erasing our students’ full identities and overlooking the rich stories of power and resistance in our communities.
“If children do not see themselves, if they do not see their families reflected back to them in the world, in the school, the books, the movies, everything else, what you have done has been to erase a phenomenal part of who they are,” - Olsen Edwards, Anti-Bias Consultant for K-12 schools
In high school education, the only AP history courses offered by the College Board are AP U.S. History, AP European History, and AP World History, the last of which has been altered to skip over ancient civilizations and instead begin during the rise of European imperialism. Further, a majority of the AP English Literature suggested texts are by white male authors.
Examples of Whiteness Being Centered in the Classroom
Question 2
What does it feel like for students when their identities aren’t being properly represented in the classroom?
“As a college student of color
pursuing a degree in a STEM field, I still feel like an imposter among my white peers. I don’t feel like I have anyone to look up to, especially because the curriculum we’re offered now is so centered around white figures and accomplishments.”
“It’s difficult staying motivated
in school when it feels like my teacher doesn’t care about me or my identity. Nothing I’m learning feels related to who I am or the community I come from, so I find myself losing focus and interest really easily.”
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t
belong anywhere. I’m “not Asian enough” for my family back home, but “too Asian” to fit in with my peers at school. I feel so disconnected from my culture, but am lost in terms of how I can reconnect with my history
and my people.”
Growing up, I was fortunate enough to attend a small private Catholic elementary school right in the heart of my East Hollywood neighborhood. There, over 90% of my classmates were Filipino (like me) and nearly all of my educators were people of color. I never gave it much thought; I’d been surrounded by people who looked like me all my life, and consequently considered it the norm.
This changed in high school, when the realization that I was a minority in this space hit with full force. I attended an all-girls private school where a majority of the student body was white. Being surrounded by whiteness for the first time in my life, I subconsciously began to idolize my white peers. After all, these were the heroes I’d seen in movies, the historical figures I’d learned about in class (even at my Filipino elementary school), the faces that filled the books that I so loved. A product of the Eurocentric media I consumed and years of Eurocentric curriculum, I began to erase my own identity to fit in with and be accepted by my new white peers.
I told my friends that I was from Hollywood “near Griffith Park” instead of East LA, not wanting them to associate me with the poor, “ethnic” neighborhood that I actually came from. In the classroom, “Spain colonized the Philippines; Japan colonized the Philippines; the United States colonized the Philippines” were the only times I learned about my home country. Even then, my heart jumped for joy; I felt grateful that my “poor” country was even worth mentioning in such “rich” European history.
I realize now that in both settings, regardless of who I was surrounded by, the white supremacist systems that pervaded my everyday life and affected me in an incredibly deep and harmful way. I had to slowly unlearn my idealization of whiteness, and turned to my communities to mend my relationship with myself and rebuild my trust in education. Most of all, I had to forgive myself for rejecting such an essential part of my identity, understanding that it stemmed not from my own contempt for my culture but rather from the oppressive systems I’ve grown up in.
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Student Experience
This interview with Victoria, a board member of DON, walks through her experience being one of few Black people at her school. She reflects on what it felt like to be in classrooms where race was never discussed and in classrooms where her community was deeply misrepresented.
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Journal
Consider the following question: How do you think you are currently centering whiteness in your curriculum and practice? Reflect on one characteristic of white supremacy from this article that you see in your classroom or on your campus.
Notes:
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Reflection Activity
Think of your own teaching materials. Are they over-reliant on a single textbook? Do any materials explicitly address racism and/or bring in non-white perspectives? Is storytelling part of your curriculum?
Notes:
Think of your students now. Can you think of any specific examples of students who are not represented in your curriculum? Refer back to the identity web, your students have complex identities!
Notes:
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Now, imagine a classroom where all of your students’ identities are considered and represented in a holistic, robust way. Imagine a community where your students feel empowered by the structures and practices in your classroom. How has your classroom changed? How has your relationship with your students changed? How have their attitudes towards learning and towards their own stories changed?
In the next topic, we’ll analyze how to make this classroom a reality by discussing ways you can decenter whiteness in your curriculum.
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Day 9
5
LEARNING GOALS
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Decentering Whiteness in Curriculum
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You are welcome to take space here to write down or simply think about your answers.
Question One:
Reflect on your experiences as a student. What made you love learning? And further, did your experiences as a student inspire you to become an educator?
Meet the Authors: Julia and Judy
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Julia is a sophomore at Yale University studying Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and Education Studies. Check out the video to learn about her experience in the classroom.
Judy is a freshman at University of Chicago studying Political Science and Philosophy. Check out the video to learn about her experience in the classroom.
Julia’s Story
Judy’s Story
Question Two: How can we make curriculum more inclusive?
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For us, the goal of a more inclusive curriculum is to give all your students the tools to look at the world from a fuller lens.
Race, gender, sexuality, class, age, and other aspects of one’s identity cannot be separate from any curriculum. These identities are all intertwined in the classes that you teach. As educators, we have the power to uplift perspectives that have been previously erased by white supremacy and other systems of oppression.
The voices and perspectives of BIPOC have always existed and will always exist both outside and inside your classroom. When you add these voices to your curriculum, you do not erase white perspective altogether. But, you do make your students’ education more rigorous, more empowering, and more applicable to the real world. You train and challenge them to look at the world, its people, and the problems that plague them, from a fuller lens.
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We encourage you to internalize this idea of a fuller lens. You have the power to include—rather than exclude—voices, knowledge systems, and ideas that give your students a fuller understanding of the topic you teach. We have the opportunity to empower students through our classrooms.
This work is challenging and rigorous, but it is necessary.
“When we read a narrative from a Latina author about code-switching and identity, I felt seen for the first time. I felt appreciated. I felt like I finally belonged.”
— Nancy Garcia Villa
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For Humanities teachers:
Click HERE
You might be wondering, where do I even begin?
These next slides share a few strategies we suggest to help you get started and guide your lesson planning. We challenge you to take these strategies and ideas and run wild with them. If you have any questions or want feedback from us, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at Diversify yOur Narrative@gmail.com
For STEM teachers:
Click HERE
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The first step in incorporating anti-racist work is to think about the identities of the students in your classroom. For more information on identity, return to topic 1 by clicking here. Reflect upon the demographics of your students, and think about how your curriculum could reflect that.
ACTIVITY: Think about the science, math, proofs, and theorems you teach in your classroom. Write down their titles/topics. Then, think about the discoverer, namesake, or author, and what is their identity?
For STEM Teachers:
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5. | 5. |
STEM Topic/Title Discoverer’s Identity?
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You might have noticed that most, if not all, of the topics you are teaching were discovered or credited to a white male. We encourage you to actively acknowledge in your classroom that many schools of STEM learning are rooted in white supremacy.
We like to say that you should “separate the science from the scientist.” In other words, as educators, we should teach our students how to understand the value of important STEM theories while also acknowledging that the history of STEM and its discoveries are often symbols of white supremacy.
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Even though Social Darwinism doesn’t exist explicitly today, many of these attitudes still persist. In “Take Racism Out of Medical Algorithms,” the Scientific American reports on an August 2020 paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The paper, “Hidden in Plain Sight — Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms, details how 13 commonly used medical algorithms include a correction factor for race.
“In every case, the race adjustment results in potential harm to patients who identify as nonwhite… These ‘corrections’ are presumably based on the long-debunked premise that there are innate biological differences among races. This idea persists despite ample evidence that race—a social construct—is not a reliable proxy for genetics: Every racial group contains a lot of diversity in its genes. It is true that some populations are genetically predisposed to certain medical conditions… But such examples are rare and do not apply to broad racial categories such as ‘Black’ or ‘white’”
- The Scientific American, “Take Racism Out of Medical Algorithms”
For example, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is an important concept for studying biology. But, Darwin’s theory was used for decades to justify racism and inequality. This idea, called “Social Darwinism,” argued that people of color and “poor people” were biologically inferior and “less fit,” making them suited for slavery and servitude.
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When we interrogate medicine, mathematical algorithms, genetics, and biology from an anti-racist lens, we create a rigorous classroom dialogue that shows students how what they are learnining applies to the real world.
We can discuss how ethnicity is tied directly to our genes while race is a social construct designed to oppress certain groups of people. We can discuss genetics, inheritance, recessive disorders, statistical risk factors, and medical practice.
Conversation points might also include:
And this is just one example of how you can include an anti-racist perspective in your STEM classroom. The possibilities are just one google search away!
“Although biology has shown that there are no genetically distinct races, racial identity—how you and others perceive your race—is very real, as are its ramifications.”
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Another way to make your curriculum more inclusive is to share the histories and legacies of struggle, power, resistance and resilience of BIPOC in STEM. You can include the stories of scientists and mathematicians like Percy Julian, Gladys West, and Lue Gim Gong. You can talk about combustion and Chinese gunpowder, anatomy and Egyptian mummification, astronomy and the Mayans. These stories and perspectives allow your students to engage with your class content from a fuller lens.
When we don’t center BIPOC students in STEM classrooms, we remain complicit in perpetuating the white narrative. We make it seem as though BIPOC people have no space in these STEM spheres. It confirms student’s internalized racism: “I don’t see myself in this subject thus I do not belong in this subject.”
One of our favorite activities to decenter whiteness in STEM is “Who Did It First?”. Here are two examples and our commentary about them:
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The Pythagorean Theorem was “discovered” in 500 BCE by Greek mathematician Pythagoras. But, an ancient Babylonian tablet from 1900 BCE had what we now know as “Pythagorean Triples” on it. This is an example of whiteness centered in the classroom, literally in the language we use to identify a mathematical relationship. (Source)
Gregor Mendel is hailed as the “Father of Genetics” for his work on cross-breeding and documenting pea plants in the 1850s. But, indigenous people in southern Mexico domesticated and selectively bred corn as early as 8000 BCE. But because indigenous science isn’t “documented” in formal theory like “Western science” is, we dismiss indigenous science as a primitive knowledge system. Check out Knowing Home for more about the value of indigenous science and how to incorporate it into your classroom.
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From the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change to the supercomputers in our pockets, STEM is deeply connected to the world we live in. Our purpose as STEM educators is to give our students the tools to thrive in the world outside our classrooms.
By teaching STEM from a fuller lens, incorporating BIPOC voices and perspectives, and acknowledging STEM’s impact on broader societal norms, we empower our students to look at the world more critically.
“Ignoring science’s [and mathematics’] legacy of racism or a wider culture of white supremacy doesn’t make scientists [and mathematicians] ‘objective.’ It makes them complicit.”
Resources for STEM Teachers
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Don’t be complicit!
Click HERE to start taking action!
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The first step in incorporating anti-racist work is to think about the identities of the students in your classroom. For more information on identity, return to topic 1 by, clicking here. Reflect upon the demographics of your students, and think about how your curriculum could reflect that.
ACTIVITY: Think about the literature, academic/news articles, prose, poetry and other pieces of writing you teach in the classroom. Write down their titles/topics. Then, think about the author/storyteller, and what is their identity?
For Humanities Teachers:
Literature, Prose, Poetry What’s the Author’s Identity?
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2. | 2. |
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4. | 4. |
5. | 5. |
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The next step is to incorporate the experiences of BIPOC into what you are teaching. Whether that be through bringing more diverse, anti-racist books into your curriculum or utilizing the “fuller lens” practice that we described, it’s important to represent BIPOC voices in the humanities. When analyzing history and literature, we must ask ourselves these questions to truly understand the pervasiveness of white supremacy in the humanities curriculum.
Remember that history is not an objective truth, even though white perspectives are often taught as such. Take some time to reflect on these questions when it comes to teaching history:
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Remember that storytelling holds immense power. Take some time to reflect on these questions when it comes to teaching literature:
After reflection upon the nuances of history and literature themselves, it’s time to dive into classroom practices! In the next couple slides, we will be breaking down some classroom practices we often highlight when deconstructing the whiteness in history and English classes.
Activity 1: Comparing a Historical Event from Different Perspectives
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Take any historical event and have your students analyze about whose perspective that occurrence was taught by. Your students should critically think about why this narrative is being included in the textbook, and what other perspectives may exist that describe that same event.
Ex.) Conquest of Mexico by the Spanish
Perspective 1: The Broken Spears by Miguel Leon-Portilla. It provides an account of Hernan Cortes from the Aztec perspective, describes the Aztec practices from within the community, and legitimizes other forms of historiography
Perspective 2: The True History of Conquest of New Spain, the Spanish account of the conquest. This demonstrates the prevailing, white narrative of Hernan Cortes, portrays Tenochtitlan in a very mystical, otherworldly way, and describes the Aztecs as primitive and backwards, while the Spanish are propelled by God.
Activity 2: Analyzing Literature with an Anti-Racist Lens
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When you teach any book that discusses race, it’s important to analyze that book from an anti-racist lens.
Ex.) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Why is To Kill a Mockingbird problematic?
This story is told through the lens of a white family where Atticus Finch is written as the “white savior”* and considered as the moral father figure for upholding justice. This depiction is harming and insinuates that only the white man could save Black communities.
Tom Robinson’s character is one-dimensional and Harper Lee offers no complexity towards his actions or thoughts. Rather, his only purpose is to advance the white narrative forward. This creates a damage-centered narrative — one that fails to uplift the voices of Black people.
*“The white savior complex refers to the practices, processes, and institutions that reify historical inequities to ultimately validate white privilege.” — Journal of Critical Thought & Praxis
Analyzing Literature with an Anti-Racist Lens, continued.
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To teach this book from an anti-racist perspective, we must highlight the book’s flaws and teach it from a fuller lens. This strategy applies for other popularized pieces of literature, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Othello, etc.
TIP: Incorporate BIPOC poems, short stories, articles, or books into your curriculum! The works by BIPOC can be taught in tandem with white authors to provide a different perspective and a fuller lens.
If your class is doing a unit on poetry, instead of just focusing on Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, or Edgar Allen Poe, also discuss the works of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Acevedo, Ocean Vuong, Joy Harjo, or any BIPOC poet! If presented with the opportunity to include outside pieces of literature for classwork or homework assignments, highlight BIPOC voices!
Resources for Humanities Teachers
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*NOTE: It’s up to your discretion on how to teach these activities (group, seminar, project, etc.). Think about how you can best engage your students and what will help them learn the most. For more resources, check out:
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Day 10
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Transformation
In Topic 1, you explored the intersectionality of your identities. You explored where you experience privilege and marginalization. And hopefully, you have given (or are planning on giving) space for your students to explore their identities too.
In Topic 6, you explored how to make your curriculum inclusive. Now, we challenge you to dream big!
How could you transform your classroom so that your students can feel like all their identities belong? Was there a time when whiteness was centered in the classroom? How could you grow and learn from there? What do you hope to change?
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“Hispanic Heritage Month is a big one for me. Every heritage month there was a school parade celebrating their heritage with cultural food. I always sang Cielito Lindo and Querida for the audience and when they clapped, or when I saw Hispanic people crying as if they were back home, I felt as if I brought Mexico to the school. I felt as if I was their connection to the family they haven’t seen and to their land.”
— Anonymous
When have you felt like your identity was completely seen, loved and celebrated? What did it feel like?
Notes:
“The first time I ever read a book by an Asian American author, I was 18 years old and had gone my entire childhood having never seen myself represented in the books I was required to read. It made me feel seen more seen and less isolated in my experience as the daughter of immigrants than ever before. To me, this is the importance of diverse curriculum.”
— Catherine Huang
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Lesson Plan:
Learning Objectives:
How can you incorporate a fuller lens?
So, what will you do?
Take some time right now and look at a lesson you plan on teaching next semester. Can you edit the lesson so that it gives your students a fuller lens? We’ve provided space below for you to brainstorm.
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In order to truly decenter whiteness in curriculum, we must utilize a fuller lens. This will allow us to make our curriculum more inclusive and more representative of student identities. By recognizing your power in including BIPOC voices and experiences within the classroom, we will be able to positively contribute to the experiences of students. For STEM teachers, this requires an understanding of how white supremacy is pervasive in all subjects, STEM included. For Humanities teachers, this requires an in-depth analysis on how history and literature have been taught within the classroom. Because of this understanding and unlearning, we are able to change our curriculum to center the identities of students and practice anti-racist teaching methods.
Key Takeaways
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Day 11
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Celebrating BIPOC
LEARNING GOALS
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Question 1:
What does excluding BIPOC contributions say about our collective history?
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Excluding BIPOC contributions to culture and history plays a direct role in upholding the cultural hegemony* of whiteness. This can have an adverse effect when western European and white contributions to the arts, letters, and sciences are seen as the epitome of culture and framed through a lens of colorblindness.*
This lens would argue that whiteness is not centered in schools as a result of institutionalized white supremacy, but simply because white works happen to be most meritorious.
Cultural Hegemony &
Ethnocentrism
*Cultural hegemony & Ethnocentrism: The domination, preference, and maintained ruling of a certain culture over other cultures in a society.
*Colorblindness & Meritocracy: Assumes that anyone, regardless of race, who works hard enough, can advance in society, thus, dismissing differentiated social experiences associated with race.
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This notion of “colorblindness” in curriculum is similar to the concept of white people having no culture, which is an equally detrimental idea. When people say that white people don’t have culture, they mean white people don’t have little “c” culture. This establishes white culture as the dominant, capital “C” culture. According to Oxford Dictionary, culture is defined as:
Under these definitions, while baroque paintings and gothic literature may be classified as culture writ large, things such as box braids, Indigenous attire, or artifacts which are associated with non-white peoples are relegated to little “c” culture status. The first definition evokes the word “cultured”, indicating a sense of esteem/finery whereas the second definition is more closely linked to “cultural” denoting a sense of “otherness.”
Herein lies the power disparity caused by white supremacy: if the majority of the world population is non-white, then why are non-white people the “other”?
Cultural Hegemony &
Ethnocentrism (cont.)
White Hegemony in Education
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Big “C” culture is often the basis of western libereral arts pedagogy. Having extensive knowledge about western European cultures is largely a prerequisite to be considered intelligent or educated whereas little “c” cultures aren’t the core subjects, but the electives. According to this white centric “core curriculum,” the major drivers of world history are often portrayed as white and/or male. This is a false and destructive narrative that disempowers non-white people and ultimately, white supremacy harms everyone, not just non-white people.
In his essay on the importance of ethnic studies, Richard Long explains that “white inhabitants of the western world have largely been the cultural artibrers of planet Earth.” This means that our understandings of not only the humanities, but humanity itself are often shaped through a white lens. This framing is both a product and an invigorant of white supremacy.
“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."
— Chinua Achebe
Tokenism & Buzzword Diversity
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Even when BIPOC voices are included in the classroom, oftentimes, white people use them as tokens in the curriculum. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, tokenism is the “practice of doing something only to prevent criticism and give the appearance that people are treated fairly.”
An example of tokenism would be: having only one BIPOC author in an extensive list of all white authors, or briefly discussing the history of a non-white racial group in a class.
Diversity is not just about teaching a topic centered on BIPOC. It’s not just about including multiple BIPOC books. It’s about how we educate our students.
Tokenism is the act of incorporating diversity for the sake of seeming diverse. When in reality, it reinforces the whiteness that pervades curriculum and de-legitimizes BIPOC experiences. Ultimately, these intentions are disingenuous, and the consequences are fatal.
In fact, the word “diversity” itself is problematic, as it is often used as an empty promise by institutions of power. When we say that our curriculum is “diverse”, what does that actually mean? What does it mean to practice diversity? How are we being truly representative?
Reflection Question
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How does cultural hegemony and ethnocentrism appear in the classroom? Have you experienced or witnessed tokenism before? Take some time to reflect in the space provided.
What does this mean?
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True representation requires us to recognize the cultural hegemony and normative value of whiteness, and highlight the voices and perspectives of BIPOC folks. We must integrate BIPOC narratives into the classroom and broaden the lens in which we view the arts, literature, and sciences. We must recognize that people of color have always contributed to these fields, and they will continue to do so. But, because of cultural hegemony, we have been socialized to only focus on whiteness as the default.
For example, say that you’re teaching about the U.S. historical time period the “Roaring ‘20s” where intellectual, social, artistic, and cultural phenomenons all blossomed during this era. Often, students will learn about white authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway as prolific writers of that period. However, we should also teach about the contributions of Black intellectuals, poets, and artists, during the Harlem Renaissance with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington, and so many others.
True Representation
We can parallel such joy and liberation during the Harlem Renaissance to other occurrences such as the Chicano Movement in the 1960’s, and more cultural periods of literature and artistic excellence. We can integrate the works of BIPOC into the classroom and amplify their voices without only highlighting the racial oppression and trauma they’ve experienced.
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Day 12
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You are welcome to take space here to write down or simply think about your answers.
Question Two:
Why is it important to highlight BIPOC stories of resilience and joy?
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We must recognize that it is necessary to talk about oppression in the classroom. We have a duty to educate our students about these students. But, how can we talk about systems of oppression without placing harm on our BIPOC students?
“In my experience teaching Ethnic Studies, we want to talk about these systems of oppression in tandem with stories of empowerment and liberation. For example, we learn about the enslavement and the systemic racism of Black people and the cycles of poverty they experience. But, we should also learn about how groups such as the Black Panther Party addressed this wealth inequality by creating the people’s Free Food program where they gave free breakfast to young kids to help nourish them. This free breakfast program later was adopted nationally and is now a federally funded program that exists across the country in schools. This was created by the Black community, and in this way, they were able to create their own liberation. By teaching stories of empowerment, we are able to show people of color that their narratives are not just rooted in oppression and injustice, but rather resilience and strength. ”
— Ana De Almeida Amaral, co-chair of the National Curriculum Council and co-founder of an Ethnic Studies class at her high school.
Reflection Activity: Take inventory of where you did highlight BIPOC experiences of oppression AND resilience in your curriculum. What effect did that have on your students? If you weren’t able to include BIPOC experiences, what stories do you want to highlight in your class?
*Check out the next slides on profiles of BIPOC
artists, writers, and scientists to incorporate!
Question 3:
How can we celebrate and uplift BIPOC voices in our curriculum and classroom?
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BIPOC Spotlights: The Arts
Lauryn Hill
A pioneer in the hip hop, R&B music industry, she has inspired millions of artists, people, and paved the way for future Black, female rappers.
Bani Abidi
An evocative Pakistani artist, sculptor, and filmmaker, she incorporates critiques of nationalism and aspects of people’s identity in her artistry.
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BIPOC Spotlights: The Arts
Jacob Lawrence
As a Black painter known for his cubist expressionism, his renowned art series depicted the Great Migration of Black people in the U.S.
Frida Kahlo
One of Mexico’s most influential painters, her self portraits explored concepts such as identity, gender, class, and colonialism.
The Migration Series, Panel no. 1: During WWI there was a great migration north by
southern African Americans, 1940–1941.
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace
and Hummingbird (1940).
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BIPOC Spotlights: The Letters
James Baldwin
A Black essayist, novelist, and playwright, his work that discusses race, injustice, and sexuality was deeply influential in the Civil Rights Movement
Tomás Rivera
A Chicano poet, author, and educator, his experience as a migrant farm worker in the U.S. largely contributed to his literary pieces, with his most notable ones being: “This Migrant Earth” & “...and the Earth Did Not Devour Him.”
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BIPOC Spotlights: The Letters
Joy Harjo
The first Native woman to become the U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy utilizes oral history and aspects of her identity in her poetry. Her work is a key figure to the Native American Renaissance literary movement.
Celeste Ng
As a Chinese American writer, she incorporates her upbringing as the daughter of immigrants into her famous novel, “Everything I Never Told You,” which is also influenced by her own experiences of racism in the U.S.
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BIPOC Spotlights: The Sciences
Percy Lavon Julian
As a Black chemist who specialized in steroids, he discovered how to synthesize medicinal compounds from plant sources, making them more affordable and available to people.
Lue Gim Gong
Known as the “Citrus Wizard,” he was a Chinese American horticulturist who contributed greatly to the orange-growing industry
in Florida.
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BIPOC Spotlights: The Sciences
Gladys West
Born into a family of sharecroppers, her work as a mathematician led to the development of software for the GPS.
Fred Begay
With parents who were Indigenous healers, Fred saw the parallels between Navajo ideas of religion/science and modern scientific concepts, which greatly contributed to his work as a nuclear physicist.
The effects of cultural hegemony and ethnocentrism have largely contributed to the pervasiveness of whiteness as the default culture. And, even when people of color are incorporated into spaces, they are often tokenized as a means to uphold white supremacy. By using buzzwords such as “diversity,” institutions of power have profited off of BIPOC narratives. In order to have true representation, we must uplift BIPOC voices, and commit to fighting for justice alongside them. We mustn’t only teach about the oppression and systemic racism that BIPOC face, but also portray their resilience and strength. We must commit to being allies and co-conspirators in the struggle against systemic racism. In order to fully incorporate and celebrate BIPOC voices, we must engage in critical consciousness, which will be discussed in the next topic!
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Key Takeaways
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Day 13
7
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Critical Consciousness
LEARNING GOALS
How can my classroom empower students to be changemakers in their communities?
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Critical Consciousness
Critical consciousness is the critical lens to recognize and analyze systems of inequality in any context with a commitment to take action against these systems.
Paulo Freire, the main proponent of critical consciousness, proposed a cycle of learning that involves gaining knowledge about the systems and structures that create and sustain inequity, developing a sense of agency, and ultimately committing to taking critical action against oppressive systems.
Our students are already capable and powerful changemakers, but it is on us to create a space where this critical analysis, agency, and action can flourish. How do we give the students the tools to recognize systems of oppression? How do we help them understand their positionality and role in fighting against injustice? How can we use our classrooms to cultivate radical imagination and critical thinking?
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
is an incredible resource for learning more about critical consciousness
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Below is an excerpt from Boston University’s “Can Critical Consciousness Close the Opportunity Gap?” written by Sara Rimer. In the article, professor of education Scott Seider describes his research on the role of critical consciousness in challenging racism following.
“If you don’t have the awareness of societal forces, you’re going to see the obstacles you’re contending with as your fault,” Seider says. “But if you have the ability to critically analyze society—if you can say, ‘Wait a minute, there’s a long history of racial inequity embedded in what is happening here’—then you’ll be less likely to blame yourself and more likely to see yourself as engaged in a collective struggle for social justice.
One example of a student [engaged in critical consciousness] is Terrence, an African American junior who described to researchers his involvement through his school in creating a podcast about his majority-black city and its long history of struggle and activism: “I wanted opportunities to speak openly with my peers about the things that we see everyday. Crime rates, drug rates, riots. I had the chance to put the past in conversation with the future. I watched a documentary that showed how police brutality and issues like that have been going on for a long time….and that black children back in the day didn’t have the opportunity to come to a school like [mine]. Sometimes I want to leave so bad, but I know deep down in my heart why I’m here. So I buckle down and do my homework…I see the bigger picture.” (source)
Critical Consciousness gives students space to place themselves within the context of history and society. Learning feels empowering because it is directly connected to our lives and communities.
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How can we bring critical consciousness to life in our classrooms?
Consider how you as an educator are facilitating the process to help students analyze, navigate, and challenge injustice and systems of oppression.
While you are designing lessons, ask yourselves these questions:
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(There is space on the next slide for your reflections)
How can my classroom motivate students to be changemakers in their own communities?
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What did you see? What did you notice?
How can this part of your community be connected to the classroom to build critical consciousness about something in your community?
How can my classroom motivate students to be changemakers in their own communities?
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Reflection
Remember:
Your students walk into the classroom as experts on their communities and experiences. The process of building critical consciousness should be lead by students. Remember the process of building critical consciousness should be done with students, not to or for them.
How do you see critical consciousness fitting into your classroom already? What are topics that could be brought into the classroom from your students’ communities to build critical consciousness? Reach out to your students, what do they want to better understand?
Notes:
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Migration Tales
Humanities project by Alexia Enriquez, High Tech High Chula Vista
High Tech High Chula Vista is a project-based charter school located less than 6 miles from the US-Mexico border in San Diego. Over 80% of the students that attend HTHCV are Latino/a/x and most are children or grandchildren of immigrants from Mexico or the Philippines. Standing on the field of the school, Mexico is clearly visible only a few miles away.
On this campus, 9th-grade Humanities teacher, Alexia Enriquez, designed the project Migration Tales. This project aims to engage students with narratives of migration, from multiple perspectives, and to write their own family narrative of migration. From an anthropological and scientific perspectives, students analyzed histories of human migration patterns and researched the causes and effects of migration throughout history. Students also engaged in conversations around human migration that were deeply relevant to their community, such as the militarization of the border, documentation status, and the politicization of the border community they live in. Students explored their own family narratives of migration alongside the historical, scientific, and political context of their communities.
Examples of Critical Consciousness in the classroom
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This is an interview with Elena, who identifies as chicana and indigenous, on a student-led Ethnic Studies class that she was a part of. Elena was a 15 year old sophomore at the time of this interview. The Ethnic Studies class she mentions was centered on celebrating the identities of students, building critical consciousness, and creating a culturally responsive space for students of color. These are her reflections on critical consciousness and being
“a student for the people”:
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Key Takeaways
At its core, the purpose of critical consciousness is to give our students the critical lens to see their communities and understand its challenges and strengths at a deeper level. As educators, we must be cognizant of the communities our students come from in order to design curriculum that helps them thrive in a meaningful and authentic way.
When we allow our students the time and space to recognize inequality and injustice for themselves, we give them the agency to think freely and take their educations beyond the walls of the classroom.
Our students are activists, dreamers, allies, organizers, and changemakers for a world of love and liberation; it is our responsibility to give them the tools they need to turn their aspirations into reality.
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Throughout this intensive, we have considered Identity, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Structural Racism in the Classroom, Restorative Justice, White Supremacy in Curriculum, Decentering Whiteness in Curriculum, Celebrating BIPOC, and Critical Consciousness. We would like to you to take the time to reflect on how these topics are connected and the overarching themes they uphold.
Please write your reflections on this google form, linked here. Your answers to this reflection will be entirely confidential. This form is being collected so that we can assess how effective our intensive has been for you personally, and see where we can improve our workbook in the future. Thank you in advance for your response!
Final Reflections
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Closing Remarks
We would like to give a special thanks to those integral to the creation of the workbook: Co-founders of the DON campaign, Katelin Zhou & Jasmine Ngyuen, the team of teacher allies affiliated with Diversify Our Narrative, and Tia Cochran-Otis, a restorative justice advocate. Thank you for your tireless commitment to anti-racist teaching and the DON campaign.
And finally, we would like to thank you. It is teachers, administrators, and counselors like you that give us hope for a brighter future for students across the nation.
For our final remarks as the DON Curriculum Council, please see the video below!
Yours in Advocacy,
The Diversify Our Narrative Curriculum Team.
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GLOSSARY
*In order of appearance
the unique, and intersecting components that make up one’s being. Identity can include categorical factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc, as well as other important facets of our experiences, such as our moral beliefs, our interests, our careers, etc. Everyone’s identity is unique and something they get to define for themselves.
when one benefits from an aspect of their identity, because that component of their identity has not been historically and is not currently oppressed, and rather has historically and currently has been accepted by society and granted power over others. Having privilege DOES NOT mean that you do not experience hardship. Having privilege for a certain aspect of your identity just means that you have not experienced hardship because of that aspect of your identity.
when one does not benefit from an aspect of their identity, and experiences oppression because of this aspect of their identity, because that aspect of their identity has not historically been nor is presently accepted by society and often is in a vulnerable position compared to others.
intersectionality
The interconnected nature of social categories like race, class, and gender that either heighten one’s experience of privilege or marginalization (Kimberlé Crenshaw)
positionality
The social and political context that creates your identity in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability status. Can also describe how your identity influences and potentially biases your outlook on the world.
BIPOC
Black, Indigenous or Person of Color. This acronym is meant to be more inclusive of Black and Indigenous folks, and highlight their unique relationship to whiteness, which shapes the experiences of and relationship to white supremacy for all people of color within a US context (thebipocproject.org)
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GLOSSARY
*In order of appearance
gender
Gender is socially constructed, and describes how we personally feel about characteristics associated with men, women, and non-binary people. Gender, like sexuality and sex, exists on a spectrum. There are many gender identities, including men, women, non-binary, gender fluid, gender queer, bi gender people, etc. There are also people who do not feel like they have a gender. To learn more, visit this link.
pronouns
A word that can replace a noun or phrase, usually referring to an individual. Some examples of pronouns include she/her, they/them, and he/him. Some people use multiple sets of pronouns, for example, she/they. In this case, you should utilize she and they pronouns interchangably for that person. For example, “She went to the library to get a book. They checked out How to Be An Anti-Racist.” You should never assume pronouns, as pronouns might not correspond to a person’s perceived gender.
Gender expression
How we choose to present ourselves in terms of our clothing, behaviorisms, etc. For example, someone might have a feminine, masculine, or adrogynous gender expression. Gender expression, like all concepts related to gender, exists on a spectrum and can fluctuate
Spiritual Belief
The beliefs or rituals one prescribes to that often aim to explain concepts such as the meaning of life, physical Earth processes, theology, ideas outside the Earthly realm, etc.
Class
The economic bracket which one finds themselves in, primarily determined by annual income. Some examples of class include lower, lower middle, middle, and upper class.
Nationality
The nation one belongs to either by birth or naturalization (Oxford Languages); a group of people who have a shared history, culture, traditions, etc.
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GLOSSARY
*In order of appearance
Race
The concept of race is a socially constructed phenomenon that was originally intended to oppress non-white peoples through racist, false biological pseudo science. In the US, race typically refers to the phenotypic traits related to skin, and hair color/texture as they correspond to different geographical locations.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity describes a more comprehensive understanding of someone’s cultural identity as it relates to nationality, language, religion, and culture. Because it is so complex, many people take on multiple thnic labels, such as Asian-American.
Sexuality
Who one is physically and/or romantically attracted to. Sexuality exists on a spectrum, and one might have a different orientation for their romantic attraction versus their physical attraction. Sexuality can also be determined by a lack of physical or sexual attraction, such as sexualities on the asexual spectrum.
Physical ability
The characteristic of being able to perform a certain act or bodily function. Broadly, people can be physically abled or disabled in different ways, and some physical disabilities manifest themselves in ways we cannot see outwardly.
Immigration Status
This describes, in the eyes of the government, how someone arrived in a country. Some examples could include citizen, green card holder, DACA recipient, etc.
Political Beliefs
Describes our opinions on issues that involve the government. May or may not be defined by political party affiliation (like Democrat, Republican).
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GLOSSARY
*In order of appearance
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
A teaching practice that is rooted in the importance of honoring a students cultural background in all aspects of learning. The two major questions CRP asks includes, who makes up the community I serve? What are their strengths? What are their needs?
Ethnicity
Ethnicity describes a more comprehensive understanding of someone’s cultural identity as it relates to nationality, language, religion, and culture. Because it is so complex, many people take on multiple thnic labels, such as Asian-American.
African American Vernacular English
A dialect of the English language that is linguistically and grammatically complex, originating in the Black American community
Eurocentricity
The practice of centering white, European culture and thought in a manner that is demeaning to other cultures.
Bootstraps myth
Proposes that America is a country that allows a person of any social class to achieve success at will without structural barriers in their way
Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Indeginous cultivated knowledge of Earth’s systems that have deep rooted spiritual meaning and represent important discoveries in science
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GLOSSARY
*In order of appearance
Social Discipline Window
Describes the four basic approaches to discipline. On the bottom axis is “Support,” on the left being low support and the right being high support. On the vertical axis, control is describes, with high control being towards the top and low control being towards the bottom. The different combination of these factors lead to four different types of actions - punitive, neglectful, permissive, and restorative.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity describes a more comprehensive understanding of someone’s cultural identity as it relates to nationality, language, religion, and culture. Because it is so complex, many people take on multiple thnic labels, such as Asian-American.
Restorative Justice
A framework for re-imagining traditional discipline and justice practices that emphasizes community and relationship building, shared community values, and restorative questions to address harm.
Criminal Justice
The umbrella term that refers to the US legal procedures, institutions, and policies that happen before during and after a crime occurs. The current criminal justice system emphasizes punitive punishment.
Norms
I
interpersonal values created with, and upheld by, a community that define what success looks like in a space.
Community Circles
A restorative justice practice in which participants sit in a circle and speak vulnerably, feel heard, and connect authentically to each other. Looks different based on community it takes place in.
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GLOSSARY
*In order of appearance
Affective Communication
Statements that focus on feelings of individuals as a result of some type of behavior. For example, “It makes me feel disrespected when you talk over me.” It is helpful to frame communication in this way in order for the person who caused harm to understand how their actions have affected others.
white supremacy
the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the Black race, and should therefore dominate society
whiteness
A broad term encompassing the methods white supremacy utilizes to oppress people.
Power hoarding
When an individual structures a community in such a way that the practices of the community serve to grant that individual or group power over others
Fuller lens
Teaching topics in a way that represents all stakeholders within a historical moment, piece of data, literary novel, etc.
Critical consciousness
The ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality in any context with a commitment to take action against these systems.