About a decade ago, when policy elites were bashing teachers on a regular basis, Ken Futernick was writing about the challenges that teachers face every day, including lack of support by administrators and poor working conditions. Recently, he has been creating podcasts in which teachers explain how they teach about important issues of the day, like teaching about racism and the Black Lives Matter movement, teaching during the pandemic, and teaching history in a way that is relevant to all students. He shared these three podcasts with me.
Brown University Psychology Professor Malik Boykin Teaches about Prejudice and Invites us to Dance for FreedomMalik Boykin (aka Malik Starx) is an accomplished musician and a professor of psychology at Brown University where he teaches a course on stigma and prejudice. Boykin shares two transformational teacher stories–the first from second grade when he was sent to the principal’s office for raising questions about Christopher Columbus. The second is about Dr. Jaia John, his social psychology professor at Howard University who carved out time at the start each class for students to share a poem, a personal story, or even a musical performance that had some relation to the course content.
Inspired by Dr. John, Boykin became a social psychologist and, like John, encourages his students to share something personal at the start of his classes. One of his students, Gabrielle Tanksley, describes what it’s like to be one of Boykin’s students, and she reads an extraordinary poem she shared recently in class. Starx wrote and performed “Dancing for Freedom,” the soundtrack played in this Teacher Story episode. At the end, he reflects on the inspiration for the song.
The Power of Stories and Early RelationshipsWhen 4th grade teacher Miriam Marecek turned down the lights and lit the reading candle, magic happened. Pediatrician and journalist Perri Klass describes what it was like being one of Ms. Marecek’s students and the impact it’s had on her life and professional career. Now, as national medical director for Reach Out and Read, Dr. Klass, promotes reading aloud together starting at birth.
In this episode she says, “If children grow up in literacy, rich environments, if there’s a lot of back and forth…they will, by the time they come to school, understand how books work. They will understand how print works. They will understand all kinds of things about stories and sequence that will help tremendously with learning to read. This is about growing up, enjoying the back and forth around early literacy in books with the other people in your family.”
Three Educators Reflect on How to Teach about the Insurrection Like most Americans, these three veteran teachers were horrified as they learned about the insurrection at the nation’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021. But each of them had to decide how to address this highly controversial topic with their students. What’s the proper role for a teacher with an event like this? What if some students’ parents or the students themselves supported the insurrection? Is there any way to talk about this and other controversial topics with very young students? Listen in as each teacher reflects on these and several other challenging questions.
To add to this, here’s a teacher story about the teaching of “anti-racism,” which has been getting more and more mainstream in the past several years.
https://t.co/jzOX8znrTB
We have a few polar opposite groups (small but very vocal) that are playing a dangerous game of tug of war with the large majority in the middle not having much say in what it needs/wants. There is more truth and consensus in the middle ground. What eventually happens is that “the middle” gets sick and tired of the war and having to “choose” sides and just stops participating. Brings to mind the quote by Rodney King from 1992……“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?”
Nah, dont like that one. Firstly, not a hippy. Secondly, legitimizes illusory divisions existed in the first place.
Secondly, middle nonsense. Thats even bellow two dimensional though thats one dimensional thought. Your train of thought is not only stuck in a box but it also takes up absolutely no space inside it! Why wonder why so meaningless? Middle? Like the assertion you only have one choice along a single line has a legitimate logical position that relates to the real world? How could it?
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I assume this teacher is non-union. He must be on thin ice.
When they have to put ads on a blog, lol.
I do not think the school or the teacher is handling this well. Anti-racism is the practice of making it possible for disparate voices to be heard and for problems to be confronted instead of swept under the rug. There should be not punishment, but justice. Justice is the end of oppression, not the punishment of people for speaking their own truths.
Anti-racism means ending segregationist and assimilationist practices like high stakes testing, tracking, and school privatization. It means ending institutional racism.
Those are all political/policy goals. They shouldn’t be part of “training.”
I agree. Racism is a pervasive and insidious problem in our country today. It will not be solved if one group points the finger at another group. Teachers need to confront our beliefs, but also, policy makers need to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror instead of blaming teachers for the oppressive systems the policy makers instituted to circumvent the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. We all need to re-examine ourselves.
Agreed. It was hard to make heads or tails about what was happening at the school in regards to “anti-racist” teaching.
It is not at all what I have experienced. Anti-racist teaching does not require “teachers like myself to treat students differently on the basis of race.” It is more about supporting an awareness of one’s own biases and allowing for broader stories to be told and accepted. It’s about inclusivity rather than division.
Leftcoastteacher,
I think there is some tension between ending segregationist and assimilation practices, depending on what one means by segregationist practice. The Akii-gikinoo’amaading charter school in Wisconsin overwhelmingly serves native students and therefore some here would call it a segregated charter school. The students there would, I think, argue that sending them to a desegregated public school would be an assimilationist practice.
What do you think?
It is segregationist to believe that Native students benefit from attending a separate charter school. It is assimilationist to believe that Native students have to assimilate, in other words to pass a standardized test or to act white, in order to enjoy the benefits of a public school. It is anti-racist to simply have a public school that respects and supports all students, in the same class, together, a place where people can be themselves without having to be separate. Yes, there is tension about ending segregationist and assimilationist practices because we all are fallible, and have fears we must confront.
Leftcoastteacher,
I see forcing native students into schools where policies are determined by white school boards and white legislatures, where they will be taught by white teachers, where there are so few native people that the vast majority of their friends will be white to be assimilationist. After all, assimilation into the dominant culture has been seen by many as an important feature of public education, and it has had no greater impact than on the native peoples. As the pioneer of native American education Richard Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle school said, is goal was to “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man”. You can read the full text of his famous speech here: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4929
No, you’re a fool. Racism is a tool of aristocracy to apear to extend the benefits a nepotism recieves to a larger body of slaves. That way they can more easily exploit them. Now you can say whitey gets blah blah privileges but youre not seeing or recognizing the exploitation they went through either. Why are they typically obedient and…. well not hard working… but definently obedient and collectivisim driven.
good lord.
Ken was my cohort leader when I earned my teaching credential in 1994. He was an outstanding advisor and helped me start my career on the right foot. I will now have to catch up on these podcasts. I hope you are doing well Diane! Take care.
I find this post deeply disturbing. Each and everyone of us is shaped by our own experiences. We all have stereotypical pictures of those who are “others.” Very often we act like our way is better and have no idea how someone could think or act like those “others.” In the case of racism, one group has traditionally been treated as lesser beings, and that behavior has/had institutional approval justifying the abuse. But we don’t seem to need to be of different colors to seek to dominate each other. Do we have an innate need to cling to what we know? Are we really just tribal beings, perhaps more sophisticated and less open about it than some societies/times.
The teacher has been relieved of his teaching duties and barred from the building. He’ll probably either be fired or non-renewed.
The first thing you should learn is to not teach confusion between alligations and convictions, ref insurrection alligation.
But if you were to consider the actual topic you’d first start with tge Eric holder quote, “there’s no such thing as entrapment when it comes to fbi stings.” https://www.colorlines.com/articles/holder-muslim-americans-theres-no-entrapment-fbi-stings
Now you can pretend a “blackish” man like eric holder would mean that to mean that only applies to “black” american muslims?
How does it relate? Give an inch. Lose a mile. Since they now suddenly warrantlessly allow themselves to pull entrapment, whats to stop them from starting their own extremist group? Enter proud boys. Note the habitual homosexual flirty name between it and Qannon. This will come up again later.