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Importance of Antiracist Education
Importance of Antiracist Education
Antiracist education is a theory pertaining to dismantling racism in society through the education system. Students who discuss race and learn antiracist teachings become more capable of critically thinking about social justice issues that may affect them and forming their own opinions and values about these injustices. Some topics that I will discuss below, such as whiteness, counter-storytelling, the British canon, and institutional racism, are all related to the education system and how the pedagogy of some teachers either perpetuates racist ideologies or promote antiracism in their teachings.
In this source, five different scholars analyze different research projects whose data explains the importance of language in the social construction of race, and how certain practices in the classroom affect students' perception of, and participation in, race discussion. It argues that not talking about race in schools perpetuates inequalities, especially in an overwhelmingly white environment with little diversity. How teachers and students talk about race is important because if done incorrectly, then an academic curriculum meant to facilitate race conversations will be ineffective. As a result, this article discusses the importance of effective antiracist education, and how that might be created in the classroom.
The source states that teachers can implement this in their classrooms by valuing perspectives and encouraging responses while guiding students toward a shared ethical position. An example it gave was a teacher who taught the relationship of language, identity, and race through poems that feature AAVE. The teacher in the example also continuously asks their students questions in order to keep them engaged and make them think critically about the content they are learning.
I want to facilitate discussions of race in my classroom through the texts I teach. The resource suggests focusing on “students’ uses of intertextuality in juxtaposing race as represented in literature to race in contemporary political, familial, and communicative situations” (Brown et. al. 465). I will use books to introduce concepts in the context of two differing perspectives, and allow my students to form their opinions on racial issues that can be discussed in the classroom through a literary and real-world lens.
This source explains that the obvious racist policies of the past have been replaced with a "new racism" that is harder to identify and fix in schools. It follows research conducted to analyze how schools are hindering efforts to stop racism, like blaming people of color for educational inequality on the individualized level. It lists the superficial solutions that are supposed to better the education system, but they are proven to be ineffective. It "argues for an enhanced commitment of practitioners and researchers to more frankly discuss, critically analyze, and challenge structural racism," and then apply that to educational policies (Kohli et. al. 196). There are so many problems in the education system, such as testing, charter school development, and school choice, that cause the gap in education to grow, which the source discusses in order to create a resolution.
To solve these issues, this source suggests increasing racial literacy in schools. Teachers need to be able to effectively guide their students in a discussion of racism, so promoting reading about social justice issues, for both teachers and students, can help generate these discussions. It also suggested using storytelling as a way of critically engaging students in the discussion while focusing on their literary studies as well.
I would like to use the idea of theater, art, and storytelling to teach my students more about race and racial inequality. I think that no matter what age students are, they respond more to creative outlets than text. It allows students to articulate their thoughts that are harder to express through a more fun and creative outlet, while also allowing them to think more critically about the world around them and how these ideas relate to their cultural identities.
This article begins by discussing the importance of English education to society, and how its importance has caused it to be at the forefront of educational debate regarding what students should be taught and how. To answer these questions, the author interviewed fifteen educational professionals to gain better insight into how teachers are implementing different strategies that cover social justice issues. The author, through extensive research, discovered three different methods that teachers were using in classrooms to promote this type of learning: (a) Adaptation/Coping, (b) Collaborative Inquiry/Applied Research, and (c) Activism. Using one of the methods listed above, the teachers included in the study were successful in creating a culturally relevant classroom that effectively taught students about social justice issues.
"Because language and literature play a significant role in mediating cultural identity and cultural diversity," it is crucial that teachers share their methods of developing discussion about social justice issues so that all children are afforded an education that is culturally relevant (Colarusso 434). Using the adaptation/coping method, one teacher mentioned in the article used graphic novels to motivate the students to read and understand the content. It also talked about increasing the diversity of the texts in English classrooms and using these books to promote activism among students.
In my classroom, I would like to implement a mix of the methodologies that were described in this source. I like the idea of using graphic novels instead of large chunks of text to convey important ideas. I think that the pictures send a larger message to readers. The graphic novel series March and American Born Chinese are both great at demonstrating how harmful racist ideologies are and allow students to think critically about potential solutions to stopping racism, following the activism method as well the adaptation/coping method.
This source talks about teaching about whiteness "to critique systems of power and to empower students" using YA books (Schieble 212). It says that scholars have proven that YA books effectively engage students in what they are reading about, and can be used as a great tool to teach students about whiteness studies. Whiteness is an important topic to teach in a class that discusses racism because it emphasizes whiteness as a race, and gives students the ability to identify how whiteness is used to oppress others. This article wants to teach teachers how to identify whiteness in the YA literature they are teaching about, and how to use it as a basis of critical literacy in the classroom.
Teaching strategies given in this article focus on using YA literature to teach about whiteness. It suggests that teachers "who create spaces for critical conversations 'ask [their] students to interrogate ways that social systems such as race privilege' (p. 156) have an impact on society" (Schieble 214). Two novels that the author suggests to complete this task are The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Speak. In the first book mentioned, the author explains how institutional racism is kept in place by white privilege. The characters in the book create institutional changes that directly benefit affluent white students, which can allow students who read the book to identify these racist practices in their own lives. Speak also touches on white privilege, as well as the patriarchy and class status, through the sexual assault of a teenage girl at a party and the events that follow her phone call to 911. Both novels portray the injustices of society in a YA setting, which helps students connect with these issues through the books they are reading and learning about.
In my own classroom, I will look through the novels that I am going to teach, and ensure that I am focusing on the story through a lens of whiteness. In other words, I will focus on how these books can help my students learn more about whiteness, how whiteness maintains oppressive practices in the book, and how that relates to today's society. As a white teacher, I want to make sure that I approach this subject in a manner that is both conducive to learning and taught using bias-free language. If I do not teach this subject correctly, then my students will not gain anything from it. I read Speak in high school, and it sparked much debate in my classes. If I do teach about books similar to Speak, I also want to make sure that I create an environment that is open to honest discussion, but make sure that my students end the discussion as well-informed individuals.
In this article, two educational professionals discuss how the British canon has become considered traditional literature that is supposed to be taught in every English Language Arts classroom. If students are not familiar with these works, they are considered "uncultured" or "uneducated" in most parts of the West academic world. However, only teaching British canon has perpetuated this notion that the only experience that is universal is white, straight, and male. This article suggests that there is a way for teachers to teach about the British canon that avoids spreading that ideology: counter-storytelling. Instead of teaching these works as universal, teachers can use these books "to subvert the white dominant narrative and provide a voice to groups from historically marginalized backgrounds" (Bissonette & Glazier 685).
To put this into action, the article calls for teachers to begin teaching culturally relevant information in their classrooms. Critical Race Theory is important when discussing contemporary injustices that are happening in society. Teachers need to use culturally responsive practices, such as teaching culturally relevant criteria, to stimulate their students into action and create an antiracist classroom environment. The article describes how one of the authors connects students of color to books in the British canon, saying that her students wrote "personal narratives of heroism while reading Beowulf, discussed the ways in which society "others" individuals while reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and threw a birthday party for Shakespeare every April 23" (Bissonette & Glazier 685). There are many creative ways that the British canon can be taught that allow students of color to feel culturally relevant while counteracting the racist ideologies that have been taught through the British canon for decades.
I think I would adopt these practices by teaching about the "dangers of a single story," which I myself have learned about multiple times over the years. I think that TED Talk is particularly relevant to these teaching because the British canon has perpetuated this idea that white male experiences were the only universal experiences that existed/mattered. I would then go on to teach about a novel from the British canon that either adheres to racist ideologies in the British canon that my students can counteract with their own experiences or a piece of literature that others itself from the status quo. Either way, these novels are a great tool to use to teach about antiracism while adhering to the standards of the curriculum.
One way that the education system practices covert racism is by censoring books by authors of color in schools. Districts end up only teaching books about the white experience, referring to books from white Victorian England as "classic literature" to make them seem most important to include in a curriculum. Providing students with different perspectives and experiences from various racial and ethnic backgrounds allows students the tools they need to actively participate in the discourse of racism, and introduces the importance of multicultural literature in the classroom. A few examples of potential books that could be taught to your students to introduce/continue multicultural literature studies are shown below, along with their descriptions and their reading levels. More examples can be found at this link.
Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
This children's book discusses the different elements of identities, and how these elements combine together to create each of our stories of self.
4th - 7th Grade
This book follows the story of a family consisting of four adopted sons and their two dads, showing how they navigate the hardships of being in a large family that does not follow the status quo.
7th - 9th Grade
This graphic novel consists of multiple stories within a story that all connect with how an Asian American boy handles his life in a society that constantly "others" him because of his race.
9th - 12th Grade
This novel follows the story of Danny Lopez, a young teenager who is half-white and half-Mexican, and how his struggle with his bi-racial identity shapes who he is.
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