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How can we identify and challenge bias in our reading and writing curriculum and instruction? How can we support students in becoming empathetic, engaged individuals who can read and write the world with compassion and deep thinking? Answering these questions requires deep personal reflection and intentional daily practice — and it’s crucial today more than ever, when students are overwhelmed with misinformation and disinformation. Join Tricia Ebarvia who will draw from her new book, Get Free, offering:
Strategies for scaffolding literacy instruction in ways that center students’ identities and experiences, and help them develop a more inclusive understanding of literature and writing
Classroom structures and routines that support critical listening and open, authentic conversation and writing responses
Invitations for teachers to re-examine curriculum and instructional practices, based on a deeper sense of who we are and what we bring to every reading and writing experience
Hello, there! My name is Tricia Ebarvia (pronounced eh-BAR-vee-ah, pronouns: she/her) — and I’m an educator in the Philadelphia area. A teacher at heart, I currently serve as the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at a PK-8 independent school. Prior to this, I taught high school English for 20 years (AP, American, and world literature courses) and also served as Department Chair.
AS AN EDUCATOR, I believe that developing a love of learning begins by centering students’ natural curiosity and nurturing a love of reading—a love I try to foster each day. I also believe that developing student voice is not only an important skill in writing, but a necessary one for students to become engaged, informed citizens. Building a racially and socially just society begins in our classrooms, and it is this belief that is at the root of all work I do and each of my relationships.
As a teacher, I often invited students to ask me questions, usually via index card during the opening week of school. Inevitably, a student asks what my dream job would be. It’s an interesting question, because it assumes that my dream job would be something other than teaching. But the truth is, I can’t imagine doing anything else but teaching. I’ve always believed teaching to be a vocation—from the Old French, “a calling”—and not just a job. As both a teacher and now as a school leader, I work to effect positive change in every role I walk to ensure that all children can be their most authentic and best selves.
My hope for all students is that they, too, can find their calling, that they find purpose—purpose that inspires them to work hard and to contribute positively to the world by making the lives of others better. We are, after all, ultimately bound up in the welfare of each other; we are, as Gwendolyn Brooks reminds us, “each other’s harvest . . . business . . . magnitude and bond.” I believe that teachers and students, in community with one another in classrooms everywhere, can be a powerful and transformative force for good. Each day, I walk into school and do my best to help students develop the skills they need not for the world as it is, but for the kind of world I think we all want—one built on the foundations of empathy, compassion, service, and justice.
AS A WRITER, my work has been published and/or featured in in English Journal, Literacy Today, The New York Times, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and Education Week, among others. In 2018, I co-founded the anti-bias, anti-racist pedagogy effort #DisruptTexts with the goal of advocating for more inclusive and equitable curricula and pedagogies. Because I believe that amplifying the voices of educators of color is critical to antiracist teaching and learning, Dr. Kim Parker and I co-host the annual #31DaysIBPOC collaborative blog project every May. Each summer, Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul and I co-lead IREL, the Institute for Racial Equity in Literacy. I am also very excited and proud to be the author of Get Free: Anti-Bias Literacy Instruction for Stronger Readers, Writers, and Thinkers, which will be published by Corwin Literacy in October 2023.
AS A FAMILY PERSON, you can find me spending time with my husband as we raise our three sons. We travel, watch movies, enjoy sports, and just keep each others’ company as much as we can, big moments and small. Because children grow up too fast, I document our lives through my passion for photography. My own children remind me every day that learning can be—and should be—filled with wonder and joy.
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