How to be an antiracist teacher in a mostly white school Taryn Coe
[Music]
think for yourself
the teacher might be wrong as a little
girl
these are the eight words i saw placed
prominently above the chalkboard in my
mother’s classroom
i knew even then that i wanted to follow
in my mom’s footsteps and become
a public high school teacher years later
in 2004 when i was setting up my first
classroom at the seattle high school
where i currently teach
i chose to display those same words i
knew that i wanted my classroom to be a
space where students felt valued
where they realized that their ideas
were just as important as mine
the school at which i teach is the
widest public high school
in the city of seattle with 75 percent
of its students identifying as caucasian
i remember my mom talking about the
challenges of incorporating anti-racist
practices
at the high school where she taught with
a mostly white student body and almost
entirely white staff
it was easy for many of the teachers and
students at the school to see racism as
someone else’s problem i have become
convinced
that it is especially important for
white educators in majority white
schools
to ensure that their students and
colleagues are educated
about racism because we as white people
are not experiencing the pervasive daily
racism
that people of color experience this is
compounded by the fact that white
students who grow up living in mostly
white neighborhoods and attending mostly
white schools
often have very little direct contact
with people of color
this means that unless their parents and
teachers actively choose to discuss
race and racism with the young people in
their lives our students will grow up
with a woefully incomplete understanding
of race and racism this leads to a lack
of knowledge about the profound
impact that race has on the power
structures in our country
and a lack of understanding as to how
people of different races are treated
in our country it is our job as
educators
especially white educators and majority
white schools
to ensure that our students have the
opportunity to learn about
how and why racism is still a problem so
that they can be part of working
toward a more just society especially in
a majority white school
students and teachers of color should
not be expected to educate white
students or white teachers about racism
i have worked with students and teachers
of color who feel like they are expected
to be experts on race and racism
or to be leading the fight against
racism in their schools
if and when the topic of racism comes up
in a classroom where there are few
students of color
well-intentioned white teachers
sometimes make these students the focus
of the discussion
share your experience with us so that we
can understand
rather than expecting white students to
do the hard work of acknowledging and
understanding
how white people benefit from systemic
racism in our country
i have talked with students of color who
already feel isolated and misunderstood
in majority white schools
these feelings are compounded when these
students are expected to lead the way
for their white peers
we as white teachers need to be
proactive about ensuring we have created
an environment where students of color
feel
safe respected and included rather than
spotlighted or isolated along the same
lines we as white educators should work
to ensure that we are not expecting our
colleagues of color
to shoulder the burden of anti-racist
work while shying away from the work
ourselves i try to remind myself that
it’s okay to be uncomfortable and i
acknowledge that there are times where i
will say or do the wrong thing when i’m
discussing racism with students
the important thing is that i’m willing
to own my mistakes
and i’m committed to learning and
growing from these mistakes
so that i can do better next time in
these instances i’m reminded of
holocaust survivor elie wiesel’s words
regarding neutrality and oppression
he says we must always take sides
neutrality helps the oppressor never the
victim
silence encourages the tormentor never
the tormented if i as a white educator
remain neutral
about racism i am not remaining neutral
at all
my silence is helping to perpetuate
racism
next i’d like to share some concrete
steps i’ve taken in my own life to
become a more actively anti-racist
educator i started by doing some work to
learn more about the history of racism
in our country
and to understand more about my own
identity and privilege as a white person
this included attending lecture series
about the history of racism
at a local university and reading widely
from leaders in the field of race and
equity work
i started a book group with other
educators and a discussion group with
other parents who are interested in
learning more about race and racism
for me it helped to do this initial work
in spaces that were distinct from my
school life
i was still able to talk about how and
why this learning was important for my
growth as a teacher
but it also encouraged me to think about
how and why this learning was important
for my growth as a parent
and a human being this has allowed the
anti-racist work i do as a teacher to be
more authentic
because it’s grounded in how i see my
purpose in the greater world
as an english language arts teacher i
had long been a proponent of teaching a
diverse set of texts
but i now knew that teaching diverse
authors alone is not
anti-racist i needed to go a step
further and make my teaching about race
more explicitly
to this end i crafted a new unit called
race in america
around three core texts that i was
already teaching monster by walter dean
myers
the absolutely true diary of a part-time
indian by sherman alexie
and american-born chinese by gene lewen
yang
each of these novels features a teenage
protagonist of color and is written by
an author of color
which provides a clear entry point for
students to begin exploring issues of
race and racism
i asked students to track the character
development of their novel’s protagonist
especially with regard to how the
character’s racial identity
impacts their development we supplement
students reading of these novels with a
wide variety of shorter texts that
explore issues of race and racism
and students draw connections between
the experiences of the novel’s
protagonists
and the issues that emerge in the
supplemental texts such as white
privilege
white supremacy implicit bias
microaggressions
since starting this unit i’ve expanded
the core novel options to include texts
by female authors of color
featuring female protagonists of color
this side of home
by renee watson and the hate u give by
angie thomas
in the case of the hate u give students
were the driving force behind the
addition of this text
this provides students with a concrete
way for them to work on turning their
study of race and racism
into action it’s important that students
are provided with an opportunity to take
meaningful steps toward fighting racism
as learning about racism can sometimes
leave students feeling hopeless
or overwhelmed helping students to see
their own
power and encouraging them to recognize
their ability to make a positive
difference in the world
can alleviate some of the cynicism and
frustration students feel
as they deepen their understanding of
the long history of institutional racism
and white supremacy in our country this
brings me to my final recommendation
about anti-racist work and education and
it also brings me back to where this
talk began
the most important expectation in my
classroom think
for yourself the teacher might be wrong
this idea is especially important as a
white teacher doing anti-racist work in
a predominantly white school
students especially students of color
need to feel safe calling me out when i
make mistakes
they need to know that they can hold me
accountable and point out to me when the
impact of my behavior is harmful
it is also critical that we as teachers
invite students to be active
participants in our anti-racist work
student learning should not be confined
to the classroom
students need to be provided the
opportunity to take an active role in
anti-racist activism in their school
and in the greater community i hope that
you will consider the ways in which you
can continue to deepen and expand
anti-racist teaching in your own
practice doing so is not easy
and we will make mistakes along the way
but if we remain
silent in the face of racism we are
complicit in perpetuating a system that
is harmful to our students
as elie wiesel said we must always take
sides given the choice let us take the
side of truth let us take the side of
inclusion
let us take the side of justice
because equity matters
you