The research published by the American Sociological Association examines how a sociology college course practiced antiracism and how others could do the same. The students and the professor first discussed what it meant to be antiracist and agreed on the definition that ‘“antiracist intellectuals are committed to detaching themselves from ambivalence or satisfaction with traditional values that take for granted the institutionalization of white supremacy, imperialism, sexism, classism and racism that have distorted our consciousness”’ (Batur-VanderLippe). Following this definition, the students discussed ways that they themselves and other students could be antiracist. Students started by inviting diverse speakers into the class to share their experiences and help the students themselves reflect on their experiences with racism. They also completed a group project where students looked for activist organizations aiming to confront White Supremacy and racism. Students learned about the missions of the organizations, their plans of action, and discussed bringing those organizations onto their campus. These students and their professor understood the importance of hearing diverse voices and the significance of bringing those speakers and organizations to their campus.

I really like this approach of bringing in antiracist organizations to discuss their work and experiences with racism. Who better to talk about these important topics than those directly working with organizations to combat these issues? If I were to teach a U.S. history class where we cover many topics involving race relations, it would be very beneficial to have students in my class research organizations that would be willing to come speak with students at our high school and go further into detail about how slavery and the institutions established hundreds of years ago that still plague minority communities today. By allowing students to research these organizations with the purpose of bringing them to speak to other students, they will be more engaged and interested in understanding the history of racism and how they can contribute to antiracist practices. 

Batur-VanderLippe, Pinar. “On the Necessity of Antiracist Praxis: An Experience in Teaching and Learning.” Teaching Sociology, vol. 27, no. 3, 1999, pp. 274–85, https://doi.org/10.2307/1319328. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022.

In the article by Dena Simmons, she examines the process of becoming an antiracist educator, which includes, self-awareness, acknowledging and discussing racism with students, and encouraging students to be upstanders when they see racism. The other two steps can only be executed effectively if the educator understands how their identity provides them access to resources or affects their daily lives. To fulfill the self-reflection aspect, educators need to look at the resources they are giving their students and more importantly look at what resources they are not giving to their students. Next, educators need to have the knowledge and ability to facilitate meaningful discussions and activities about race in a way that allows students to think critically about their own experiences with race. Some examples of lesson plans could be the Zinn Education project’s lesson plans for historical role-playing or having students act as social scientists and look at the world through a racial-justice lens. The final part is dependent on the success of the other two. To point out racial injustice effectively, students need to have practiced looking at institutions critically. Only then will students be able to complete the last step and critique their own school. Students should feel empowered to question who benefits from what systems and policies.

These strategies are ones I plan on integrating throughout my teaching career, but that all starts with self-reflection. EFN 299 has made me question almost everything about the town I grew up in and how my education system has failed nonwhite students. I understand my own privilege of being a white male much better than I did prior to this class. This is only the beginning of my self-reflection and I would love to go back to my high school with this new social-justice lens. The teaching strategies to promote antiracism in the classroom are very intriguing. I like the idea of using historical role-playing especially. This can be a great idea, but I would have to ensure I can facilitate it correctly; otherwise, it could make nonwhite students feel uncomfortable. This activity would be a great way for students to analyze the history of power and privilege while examining their own experiences with race. The last aspect of being an antiracist educator involves encouraging students to point out racism and feeling comfortable confronting it. By giving them the tools to understand racism and its roots through activities and difficult discussions, I hope that I can empower students to call out injustice and take action against it.

Simmons, Dena. "How to Be an Antiracist Educator." ASCD, Oct. 2019,

     eastsideforall.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/

     How-to-Be-an-Antiracist-Educator.pdf. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022. 

The research conducted by Gregory and Fergus centers around disciplinary injustice and how Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) can be an antiracist strategy to combat this injustice. They argue that federal and state policies call to reduce suspensions and expulsions without addressing SEL opportunities for students. The first part of SEL allows educators and administrators to focus on the positive aspects and strengths of a student. Those who need more intervention will get more help through restorative intervention, not more discipline. Restorative intervention consists of qualified individuals who can help students “correct their own behaviors, solve their own problems, and learn new behaviors” (Gregory and Fergus 123). These methods are effective, as long as educators lose the notion of Colorblindness and understand implicit bias. Being able to recognize instances of these issues and their prominence in discipline for nonwhite students allows educators to look at the inequality of discipline through the eyes of their nonwhite students. 

As a future educator, I do not know how much of my job will be working with students through SEL intervention, but what I can do is understand implicit bias and colorblindness and confront it when I see it. I want to do this by making myself knowledgeable about those issues and sharing that information with students so they can notice it as well. When a student is being disciplined they may not feel comfortable calling out the injustice, but by showing students what that injustice looks like I hope to convey to students that I am somebody that they can come to and talk about the problem. I may be able to suggest courses of action or talk to somebody about ways the school could include more SEL strategies instead of disciplinary actions that affect nonwhite students disproportionately. In the walls of my classroom, however; I can certainly share what injustice in the disciplinary setting looks like and create a space where students feel comfortable coming to me if they see injustice occurring anywhere within the school.

Gregory, Anne, and Edward Fergus. “Social and Emotional Learning and Equity in School Discipline.” The Future of Children, vol. 27, no. 1, 2017, pp. 117– 36, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44219024. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022. 

Grace Mathieson is a fifth-grade teacher; however, her methods of creating an antiracist classroom include principles that could easily be implemented into a secondary education setting. She read the work of bell hooks to gain an understanding of what antiracism looks like and then applied that to her classroom. She first acknowledges that we have to reframe the view of antiracist education from focusing on racist intent to studying the effects of a white-dominated school system. She proposes using a multicultural approach to the educational curriculum by including the work from a diverse array of authors. In her own classroom, she has students read literature from authors such as a black woman named Lynette Roy. Not only does she include work from nonwhite authors but when reading literature told from the white Eurocentric view, she has students look at perspectives beyond those that the author intended. She has her students look at who the “good guys” are in the story and how that could change depending on whose perspective they look at it from. She then relates this to civil disobedience and the work of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks to teach about black history and resistance to white supremacy.

These are two great antiracist practices I want to include when I am teaching someday. First, the idea of including sources from diverse authors is simple and is a great way to teach in a way that is representative of all minority groups. I think one of the best ways I can implement this is by providing information on current events through the work of nonwhite authors. These current events could be about organizations and the actions they are taking to combat racism, or news articles about legislation passed, but the point is that they should come from authors that span wider than white males. Her second strategy of having students look at literature from different points of view is not a new concept, but redesigning it to focus on how white supremacy distorts perspective is a great way to be an antiracist educator and start to analyze the institutions of white supremacy. When looking at figures like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and so many more, I will certainly have my students look at those figures from both the perspective of the white leaders who made the rise of those figures necessary and, of course, the perspective of being black and facing so much racial injustice. By teaching about all perspectives, students will be exposed to and understand how institutional racism has plagued minority communities throughout history and empower each student to stand up against it when they see it.

Mathieson, Grace. “Reconceptualizing Our Classroom Practice: Notes from an Antiracist Educator.” Counterpoints, vol. 273, 2004, pp. 235–56, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42978611. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022. 

The research described in “It’s Pretty Much White” analyzes an English teacher and the various lessons and strategies the teacher uses to talk about racism in the context of To Kill a Mockingbird. The author, Carlin Borsheim-Black, completes this analysis by categorizing the discussions and lesson plans about racism into individual, institutional, societal, and epistemological. At the individual level, the teacher shared her own stories of when she understood her Whiteness and invited her students to do the same; by sharing her own experience, she created an environment for students to have an open discussion where she could facilitate the conversation toward interrupting Whiteness. At the institutional level, the teacher and her students questioned the book’s place in the English curriculum at all. By discussing the symbolism of the mockingbird and perpetuating the belief in a white person saving a black person, the teacher allowed her students to use a critical lens and look at the book from an institutional perspective. From the societal perspective, students often chimed into the discussion with Colorblindness plaguing their responses. The teacher challenged these responses to demonstrate why those thoughts only help grow racist ideology. The epistemological approach challenged how racism should be viewed in the first place. By framing racism as something to be “learned and assessed rather than a belief to be changed” (Bosheim-Black 426), students will be able to think more critically about antiracist pedagogy.

Being a future history teacher, my curriculum will not consist of works like To Kill a Mockingbird; however, it does allow me to analyze periods where racism was extremely prominent in the world. When covering those periods, I will keep these approaches in mind by facilitating conversations that confront my and my students' Whiteness. Through Socratic Seminars and projects that connect what happened in the past to the institutions and effects of those institutions we still see today, my students will be able to navigate racism in a way that makes them challenge their own experience with Whiteness. Challenging Colorblind responses and tackling racism as a necessary topic to explicitly be discussed are ways that I plan on being an antiracist educator.

Borsheim-Black, Carlin. “‘It’s Pretty Much White’: Challenges and Opportunities of an Antiracist Approach to Literature Instruction in a Multilayered White Context.” Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 49, no. 4, 2015, pp. 407–29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24398713. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022.