by Anna Diamond | September 2019
Students who learn anything about Native Americans are often only offered the barest minimum: re-enacting the first Thanksgiving, building a California Spanish mission out of sugar cubes or memorizing a flashcard about the Trail of Tears just ahead of the AP U.S. History Test.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Indigenous] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Teachers] [Myths] [Silencing POC] [Immigration]
Resource Links Tagged with "Teachers"
Teaching the Hard History of Indigenous Slavery; TT’s newest film, ‘The Forgotten Slavery of Our Ancestors,’ offers a classroom-ready introduction to the history of Indigenous enslavement in What is Now the United States.
by Teaching Tolerance Staff | October 2020
Recognizing the ways that American enslavement and dispossession continue to shape our lives is a critical first step in working to address oppressive systems still in place. And students deserve an accurate reckoning of that legacy. As Hasan Kwame Jeffries, chair of our Teaching Hard History Advisory Board, wrote in his preface to that project, “Some say that slavery was our country’s original sin, but it is much more than that. Slavery is our country’s origin.”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Indigenous] [Slavery] [Anti-Racism] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism]
How Red Lines Built White Wealth: A Lesson on Housing Segregation in the 20th Century Teaching Activity. Rethinking Schools; A Teaching Activity
by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca | Date Unknown
An 11th-grade student leaned back in his chair at Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon, and said, “Absurd. That is the only way to describe those numbers. They are absurd.” He and his classmates had just read statistics about the racial wealth gap in their Political Economy class: White households are worth at least 10 times as much as Black households; only 15 percent of whites have zero or negative wealth while a third of Blacks do; Black families making $100,000 typically live in the kinds of neighborhoods inhabited by white families making $30,000. These numbers are absurd, and they are not accidental. The mixer role play is based on Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, which shows in exacting detail how government policies segregated every major city in the United States with dire consequences for African Americans.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Teachers] [Economics] [History] [Politics] [Housing] [Racial Covenants] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Reparations]
11 Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers
by Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D. | Updated January 2020
Black scientists, engineers, and inventors have made important contributions to the science of chemistry. Learn about black chemists and chemical engineers and their projects in the 19th and 21st centuries.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Teachers] [History]
If You Really Want to Make a Difference in Black Lives, Change How You Teach White Kids
by Nahliah Webber | June 2020
There’s a George Floyd in every school where Black children learn. Black children are screamed at, berated, surveilled and searched in schools. Black children are slammed and dragged, kicked and prodded in classrooms. Black children are denied an education and disrespected because of their culture. Black children are groomed for containment. We’ve got children walking on tape with hands over their mouths like prisoners in training. Black children are suspended, detained, “demerited” and isolated in schools for trivial things every day. And there’s a killer cop sitting in every school where White children learn. They hear the litany of bad statistics and stereotypes about “scary” Black people in their classes and on the news. They gleefully soak in their White-washed history that downplays the holocaust of Indigenous, Native peoples and Africans in the Americas. They happily believe their all-White spaces exist as a matter of personal effort and willingly use violence against Black bodies to keep those spaces white.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Defensiveness] [Black Lives Matter] [Policing]
Teaching First-Graders about Microaggressions: The Small Moments Add Up
by Bret Turner | March 2019
For young children, learning the power of words, personal boundaries and social dynamics is a crucial part of their development. In my first-grade classroom, students are in the thick of learning to read and write. And just as actively, they’re learning how to communicate with others. They experiment with tone, diction, intent and body language with one another and with the adults around them. It’s an expected, developmentally appropriate part of learning how to coexist with others. Sometimes, as in the common cases of name-calling, teasing and excluding, that experimentation can be painful. Addressing unkindness is part and parcel of working with young students. But not all unkindness is the same. It can be particularly detrimental when the hurtful language relates to race, gender, religion or other aspects of a child’s identity. These are microaggressions: small, subtle, sometimes-unintended acts of discrimination.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Microaggressions] [Teachers] [Implicit Bias] [Implicit Racism] [White Privilege] [Anti-Racism]
Taking From the World Tree: Mythology and Cultural Appropriation
Cultural Appropriation is just that, when one culture appropriates elements of another culture. Mythology and folklore certainly count. … One of the threats of cultural appropriation comes with modifying the original source, often a simplification of the ideas present in the original culture.
10 things every white teacher should know when talking about race
by Angela Watson | Janurary 2017
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room–why I am talking only to white people? Isn’t that racist? (Hold that question in your mind, because I want you to ask yourself that same question again after you’ve read my words here, and see if your thought process has changed.) I’m specifically addressing white people in this episode because around 83% of teachers in the U.S. are white. Most of you reading my blog are in fact, white. Conversations about race are super prevalent right now and for many white people, it feels like stepping into a minefield. They have literally no idea what to say, or feel like they don’t understand the history of people of color enough to contribute much to the conversation. Or, they say something they think is totally valid but inadvertently offend people of color in the discussion. Or get their own feelings hurt because they feel “attacked,” vowing to never, ever enter another conversation about race again. This can’t happen, teacher friends. It really hurts my heart to see so many misunderstandings in our country around race right now, particular when it’s among white teachers who are shaping the next generation of minds. Teachers are smart, thoughtful people tasked with raising up young people to be leaders. We cannot be ignorant about race or avoid talking about it. Includes PODCAST.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Accountability] [Podcast] [Anti-Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [“Reverse Racism”] [White Privilege] [White Defensiveness]
75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
by Corinne Shutack | August 2017
Note that the author is a white woman and what seemed in 2017 to be “good ideas” such as requiring on-duty officers to wear body-worn-cameras, in practice, at least by itself, have led to worsening injustices. Other ideas may have better withstood the test of time TAGS: [Collective Action] [Teachers] [Policing] [2010’s]
We Can’t Train Our Way to Racial Equity
by Heidi Schillinger |November 2016
Change, reflection, and applied learning are values I strive to model in my own journey towards racial justice. This is one of my “show what you’re learning, not what you already know” moments of living the Color Brave Space norms. I now realize many mainstream organizations are approaching “training” as the destination for their racial equity work. This realization and discomfort are affirmed through employee surveys, where overwhelmingly the most common response to what their organization is doing to advance racial equity is training. Believing we can train our way to racial equity is fakequity.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]
White Teachers, Here’s How to Handle Being Called Racist
by Tad Rademacher | July 2017
So, you may get called racist. In a way, I get it. It hurts to be called racist, especially when you feel like you’re trying super hard not to be racist. Get over it. Being called racist is not the worst thing that can happen to someone. Being the constant victim of systemic and personal racism is way, way worse than being called racist, so get over it.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Individual Change]
More Resources
Introduction
Definitions
Facts
Maps
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Public Displays
Performance Art
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Activist Resources
Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Public Displays
Performance Art
Workshops
Activist Resources
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts
Maps
Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Public Displays
Performance Art
Workshops
Activist Resources
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts