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For teachers who are ready to learn more about ABAR (anti-bias and anti-racist) work and are in the initial stages of their learning.

It is likely that you self-identified with mainly 1s and 2s on the equity assessment, or that the statements in Ibrahim’s Fear Zone resonated with you.

Step 1: Initial Learning Resources

Read Talking About Race: Understanding Bias and explore the videos, resources, and reflection questions.
After watching, take the Harvard Implicit Bias Test to help better understand your biases, and how they may impact others.
Move on when you are ready by asking yourself the Step 2: Reflection Questions below.
Read Being an Anti-Racist Educator Is a Verb for an introduction of what it means to truly be an anti-racist educator.
Move on when you are ready by returning to the Step 2: Reflection Questions below.

Consider: Did any of your thinking change, why? How does bias relate to how you think about or approach your students or school community?

Keep learning by reading Talking About Race: Being Anti-Racist, which includes articles and materials on how to begin anti-bias work within ourselves.
After exploring this website, consider watching this video on hidden bias and strategies for ensuring that students in every grade feel like they’re part of the classroom community from the National Museum of African American History & Culture
Move on to read Talking About Race With Youth, which examines how youth form racial biases
After reading, dedicate time to return to the reflection questions in Step 2
Then reflectively consider the “read”, “explore” and “act”sections and identify which may be applicable to your classroom.

Additional learning: for those who prefer a multimedia source, set aside time to watch each of the short video linked here: Courageous Conversations About Race.

Make sure to download the “discussion guide” to help you reflect upon the content in each video.
Next, set aside time to explore the “resources” page which provides links to further reading, blogs, websites, videos, podcasts, and social media sites that will help you further expand your knowledge.

Step 2: Reflection Questions

No matter where you begin in this process, please continue to revisit these differentiated questions throughout your process

For white educators:

What is “bias”?, what does it look like within school systems today, and how does it impact students?
What are my biases?
How do my biases impact my work in the classroom and school community?
What conversations can I have regarding race, racism, and bias? With whom can I engage?
What will I do if a colleague exhibits biased behaviors towards BIPOC students or adults?
What will the work of becoming more anti-racist cost me, specifically?
How can I decolonize my classroom library?

For BIPOC educators:

What are my biases and how did they form?
How have I experienced biases in the education system, and how have those impacted me, both in and out of the classroom?
How can I continue to promote anti-racist conversations in my school community, and how can I involve white educators in the conversation?

Am I presenting windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors in my curriculum for all students in my class? What tropes or stereotypes might those reflections hold?

Step 3: Take Action

Review these Four Strategies To Build Relationships With Students and implement one activity from Short Story 4 Square Project as a remote or in-person lesson.If you choose the activity “Survey Your Students...”, set a goal date for knowing the answers to all or most of the questions listed.

Read What Books Are On Your Shelf and follow links from NCTE to expand your bookshelf. It is critically important that every student see themselves within books in your classroom, and that all students can also see and learn to appreciate characters that are different than they are. Make sure that students know what books are in your library.
Read Disrupting Implicit Racial Bias and Other Forms Of Discrimination and review the “solution slides” on pages 13 and 17 to identify an approach that you will introduce in your classroom.
Share a website, resource, or video that you find helpful with a colleague. Set a time to have a conversation with them.

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