- Narrator: Anti-racism: A term that has seen a surge
over the last few years,
especially following George Floyd's death in May of 2020.
The fight against racism has been happening
for hundreds of years in the United States,
but with today's hyperconnectivity
and digital platforms available inside your pocket,
younger generations are learning about racial injustices
as they occur, and conversations about racial inequities
are finding their way into schools and classrooms.
Today, many educators are creating opportunities
for age-appropriate conversations about race,
and are also embracing anti-racist teaching practices.
But what does anti-racist education look like?
[ticking sound]
- Marguerite: Anytime you look at cultural equality,
cultural responsive teaching, cultural pedagogy,
all of that is anti-racist teaching.
Because if you're not trying to disrupt a system
that is inequitable for some students,
then you're perpetuating a system.
- Narrator: Wisconsin educators Marguerite Penick-Parks
and Gail Bertram offer their advice
on approaching anti-racist education.
Dr. Marguerite Penick-Parks is a former K-12 teacher
and co-author of the book
The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys .
- If you're perpetuating the system in any way,
shape or form, you're being racist.
Whereas if you're working against the system
so that everybody has an equitable opportunity,
now you're in essence being an anti-racist.
- Narrator: Dr. Penick-Parks recommends using books
as a way to practice anti-racist education.
Books written by someone from an underrepresented group
who writes from their own experiences is an authentic way
to bring different perspectives into your classroom.
- I've had teachers who have asked me, a couple of times now,
they'll say, "Why do I need to read multicultural books?
"All of my students are white."
And my answer is,
"Maybe because all of you students are white," you know?
And when you're thinking about it in the literature field,
we talk about something known as windows and mirrors.
That a book should not only be a window
into other people's lives, but it should also be a mirror
where I see myself reflected back.
But when we talk about anti-racism
for classrooms that are diverse,
which is predominantly so many of our classrooms in Wisconsin,
if we don't positively show people who don't look like us,
we never show them the windows.
We never see people except what you see on the news
or in the media.
And those are all the negatives.
So we need to positively represent and adequately
and factually represent the diversity of communities.
- Narrator: Showing students the windows
doesn't have to just be in the books they read.
First grade classroom teacher Gail Bertram
shares how those windows can also appear
in the way you present your classroom.
- If you were an Idigenous child,
what would you see walking into your classroom?
Really just try to look through somebody else's lens.
If you were an Asian child, if you were a Black child,
would you see faces that look like yours?
It takes some effort to sort of stop yourself and say,
"Okay, you know, I have plenty of resources
"for the white heroes and the white people
"that we want to emulate, but I need to make sure
"that I'm also promoting the people of color,
"the Indigenous people to make sure
"that they too are represented."
It's so important that we, as white educators,
are aware, that we are reading,
that we are watching documentaries,
that we are listening to the stories of the people of color
and the Indigenous people of this country
so that we can learn about that.
And then we can teach our own children
and our future generations of students
about those kinds of things.
I think being white, the job is on us to do that
and to do that right.
If white people growing up in Wisconsin,
students, only learn about white people,
then they will never look at anybody else
as possible for being president,
as possible for being vice president, as a doctor.
So it's kind of like my daughter, one time, said,
"You know, Mom, I think I'll be a nurse."
And I'm like, "Well, why don't you be a doctor?"
And she's like, "Oh, well, I don't think
"girls can be doctors."
And I suddenly realized all of her doctors had been men.
And so if this representation is all kids see,
then it's all they know.
And as educators, it's critical that we present reality.
- Narrator: Apart from making sure that the books
and media you're using as well as and the physical environment
in which you're teaching
features representations of non-white people,
both Dr. Penick-Parks and Ms. Bertram say
that a good place to start is by creating opportunities
to have conversations about race and self-reflection.
- White people are taught, in essence,
that don't talk about race because well,
number one, we don't have to.
And number two, because we were taught it's not polite.
You shouldn't mention it,
but students of color are talking about race all the time,
so they're coming equipped.
If we don't equip our white students
to also know how to talk about it,
then we're doing them a disservice.
- Narrator: But that also means equipping ourselves
for critical conversations about race.
When somebody says something to you, such as, you know,
as a high school teacher, I'd have kids say to me,
things such as “Well, you're a racist.”
And instead of internalizing it and saying,
“No, I'm not, I'm a good white person.
"I'm doing this, I'm doing that, look at what I'm doing.”
Take a step back and say, well, “Why did you say that?”
to understand that if they said that, they have a reason for it.
You're gonna be uncomfortable and that's okay,
but you've got to be uncomfortable to learn.
- You have to accept the disquiet
of never being done with this work.
You know, the day I retire, I won't be done with this work.
I can't attend a personal development class
and be done with this work.
It's going to be lifelong.
And as teachers, we like to feel like we have the answers,
and this is an area where we'll never have the answers.
We'll never be done growing.
We'll never stop learning and becoming better.
- Narrator: Anti-racism is about learning
to find comfort in discomfort
so you can stay in the growth zone long enough
to unlearn unconscious patterns of oppression.
And learn to not just depend on the mirrors
to create your vision of the world,
but to look through the windows as well.
So what practices did we miss?
What anti-racist practices would you like to try
in your own classroom?
??