[Teach to Change Illinois Now]

The following toolkit and resources within was curated by educators, for educators, in response to the urgent need for access to educator-specific anti-racist learning in one place. The teacher curators partnered with anti-racist expert Lorena Germán to ensure all materials included are high quality, appropriate for anti-racist learning, and center the voices of BIPOC experts. The collected resources and reflection questions are a starting place rather than an exhaustive list. Our country’s history of anti-Black violence did not begin with this spring and summer’s renwed focus on Black Lives Matter, and the work of reflection and anti-racist practices extends beyond any one link. This toolkit provides educators with differentiated resources to position themselves as lifelong learners and anti-racist educators. These resources are curated to meet Illinois educators’ different identities (although this is nonexhaustive), professional experiences, levels of consciousness, and prior experience with anti-bias anti-racist work. The goal of this toolkit is that each user will learn, move forward in their anti-racist journey, and start the 20-21 school year with at least one reflection and action step on their path of becoming an anti-racist teacher.

As our country struggles to respond to the brutal murder of George Floyd, the failure to arrest the officers responsible for killing Breonna Taylor as she slept in her home, the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery, and the unsolved murder of Arkansas teen Brayla Stone schools must activate as spaces that confront America’s violent and deadly culture of ignorance, fear, hate and racism. These murders are current news, but they are as old as the United States of America. Although these are receiving national attention, they are symptoms of hundreds of years of anti-Black violence in America and millions of lost names. Individuals and systems in this country can no longer inadequately respond to or ignore race, prejudice, racism and white supremacy within our school spaces because it is either convenient or too-challenging to tackle — especially for white educators who can always choose to opt out from difficult race work. As educators collectively, we must prepare ourselves to actively confront racism in all our school spaces.

The following toolkit and resources within was curated by educators, for educators, in response to the urgent need for access to educator-specific anti-racist learning in one place. The teacher curators partnered with anti-racist expert Lorena Germán to ensure all materials included are high quality, appropriate for anti-racist learning, and center the voices of BIPOC experts. The collected resources and reflection questions are a starting place rather than an exhaustive list. Our country’s history of anti-Black violence did not begin with this spring and summer’s renewed focus on Black Lives Matter, and the work of reflection and anti-racist practices extends beyond any one link. This toolkit provides educators with differentiated resources to position themselves as lifelong learners and anti-racist educators. These resources are curated to meet Illinois educators’ different identities (although this is nonexhaustive), professional experiences, levels of consciousness, and prior experience with anti-bias anti-racist work. The goal of this toolkit is that each user will learn, move forward in their anti-racist journey, and start the 20-21 school year with at least one reflection and action step on their path of becoming an anti-racist teacher.

As our country struggles to respond to the brutal murder of George Floyd, the failure to arrest the officers responsible for killing Breonna Taylor as she slept in her home, the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery, and the unsolved murder of Arkansas teen Brayla Stone schools must activate as spaces that confront America’s violent and deadly culture of ignorance, fear, hate and racism. These murders are current news, but they are as old as the United States of America. Although these are receiving national attention, they are symptoms of hundreds of years of anti-Black violence in America and millions of lost names. Individuals and systems in this country can no longer inadequately respond to or ignore race, prejudice, racism and white supremacy within our school spaces because it is either convenient or too-challenging to tackle — especially for white educators who can always choose to opt out from difficult race work. As educators collectively, we must prepare ourselves to actively confront racism in all our school spaces.