In alignment with SAIC’s current focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Continuing Studies administration would like to encourage our faculty to include anti-racist and other equity-based approaches in your course planning.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion can come into play in the development of your curriculum and the content that you use to shape learning, and in the classroom culture that you work to create. Your role is to:
(1) Write a curriculum that is culturally sustaining/responsive and
(2) Work with your students to create guidelines for a culture that is respectful, open, caring, and equitable (community building is a huge part of this).
When incidents occur around diversity, equity, and inclusion (microaggressions, racist, or otherwise biased/hateful statements or actions, artwork that causes tensions or anger, etc) that feel too challenging to navigate at the moment:
Acknowledge that it happened and promise to address it once you’ve had a moment to consider your next steps.
The CS admin team (with support from SAIC’s Anti-Racism Committee) is here to support you in coming up with an action plan.
If you have additional resources to add please email our team at saic-ace@saic.edu or saic-youth@saic.edu.
This resource list is a great starting point for finding articles, books, podcasts, videos, etc that both provide an overview and a deep dive into racism and white supremacy in the U.S. context.
NAEA Letter to Art Educators: Black Lives Matter (approx 15-minute read)
Dr. James Haywood Rolling, Jr., President-Elect of the National Art Education Association and Chair of the NAEA Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Commission provides a beautiful expression of what an anti-racist arts classroom looks like and the role that anti-racism plays in art education generally.
A database of artists of color. This was created for K-12 educators, but can certainly be used for all ages.
What is Culturally Sustaining Teaching? (approx 5-minute read)
This brief article describes the concept and gives a picture of what it looks like in action.
“Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy promotes equality across racial and ethnic communities and seeks to ensure access and opportunity. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy also supports students to critique and question dominant power structures in societies.”
What is Culturally Responsive Teaching? (approx 10-minute read. Geared towards teaching youth, but is relevant for all ages)
“Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) helps create environments, curricula, and instructional methods that validate and reflect the diversity, identities, and experiences of all students. When we do that, we raise the level of academic rigor for all learners. It also sends the message that educators value all students and that multiculturalism is an asset.”
Antiracism Educator Conference: Art and Antiracism (1 hour 20-minute Video)
A discussion of what antiracism looks like in an art classroom with Joni Acuff.
This resource guide brings together a number of articles from academic journals that explore issues of race, racism, and white supremacy in the field of art education.
Responding to Microaggressions in the Classroom (approx 3-minute read)
A very quick, practical look at how to handle microaggressions in your classroom.
Antidotes To White Supremacy Culture In The Art Classroom (approx 15-minute read)
Anti-Racist Art Education Resource List from CS Faculty: A working document (approx 3-minute read)
The Arts as White Property (pages 1-18) (approx 45-minute read)
“The authors mobilize the conceptual tools of Critical Race Theory to examine how whiteness and white supremacy manifest and are legitimated through discourses, visual representations, and practices of the arts in education.”
Can art amend history? - Titus Kaphar (13-minute TED Talk)
Artist Titus Kaphar makes paintings and sculptures that wrestle with the struggles of the past while speaking to the diversity and advances of the present. In an unforgettable live workshop, Kaphar takes a brush full of white paint to a replica of a 17th-century Frans Hals painting, obscuring parts of the composition and bringing its hidden story into view. There's a narrative coded in art like this, Kaphar says. What happens when we shift our focus and confront unspoken truths?
An incredible resource full of frameworks, articles, videos, databases and more!
Guide to Racial Justice and Social-Emotional Learning (approx 15-minute read)
The Abolitionist Teaching Network provides a framework for how to approach classroom management and social-emotional learning from a racial justice perspective.
How We Address Race in the Art Room - Art Ed Radio (30-minute Podcast)
What does it look like to have difficult conversations in our art rooms? How do we work with our students as they take on the topic of race in their artwork? This episode is part 1 of a conversation about how we address race in the art room with guests Lena Rodriguez, Jenn Russell, and Dr. Wynita Harmon.
The Invisible Politics of Race in Adult Education (approx 30-minute read)
This article, published in an academic journal, explores the history of race dynamics in adult education in the United States. It provides an analysis of how educators can navigate these dynamics in classrooms today.
6 Quick Ways to Be More Inclusive in a Virtual Classroom (approx 5-minute read)