In my first post about race, I shared a self-reflection on what it means to be a white teacher in a diverse school and the uncertainties/uncomfortableness I can feel when talking about race. In this post, I am going to share the action steps I have taken thus far on the journey to talking about race in the Spanish classroom.
I began brainstorming ways that I could include conversations about race in the classroom and found it quite difficult. This is because I am teaching four classes of Spanish 1 and at that level, students can only say memorized phrases or list of words for a few months. It is not until about second semester that the students can really begin to create with the language. That means my first few conversations about race will be very simple and straight forward. For example, finding a race related issue in the US and in a Latino country and have the students do a ven diagram or comparison chart. Another example will be providing my students conversational and opinion phrases in Spanish to use as we look at images or news articles about race.
As I continued to reflect, I came to the conclusion that the first thing I needed to do was create a community in the classroom and ensure it is a safe environment. This had to be my focus before I even began to think about talking about race in the classroom. To do this, I will welcome my students and spend time getting to know them and them me. I am going to spend the first three days ONLY doing games and community building activities IN SPANISH! This helps lower their effective filter, expose them to my style of teaching (90% target language) and build community. I also do several name games and have them wear name tags the first three days. Nothing says community like knowing your students name and saying it correctly. I also want it to be evident that my classroom is a safe place without having to say it. So I have created these posters to display on my door (see below). I have chosen to put them in English and Spanish as I know not all of my students will understand the Spanish right away and the point of the posters is to help students feel safe and build community, not teach them the words in Spanish. That can come later.
Next, I decided to begin having conversations with other teachers about addressing race in the classroom, white privilege and being a white teacher in a very diverse school. Having conversations with others is important for several reasons. One, it helps each one of us to feel more comfortable to talk about race with our students the more we actually talk about it with others. Two, we can learn from each other. I recently learned from some teachers that using the term minority isn’t acceptable anymore. It implies less than, not within the norm or under someone else. Lastly, you will find a wealth of information and support. To make this happen, I and eight other teachers will be spending our professional learning community (PLC) or inquiry group talking about race in the classroom. At my school, inquiry groups meet almost every Wednesday morning for 50 minutes throughout the whole school year.
Our essential questions are thus far are (we will fine tune them at our first meeting):
How understanding institutional racism impacts education in the classroom and our instruction?
How our unconscious biases impact student learning and our perceptions in the classroom
We will use resources from Solidarity Saturdays, articles from authors such as Ted Rademacher, self-reflections and peer observations to support our learning.
Additionally, finding out what is going on outside my own school building in regards to talking about race was my next step. One thing I found was a twitter chat run by EduColor Movement (check out their website and sign up for their newsletter). A twitter chat is where a moderator posts one question after another and in between each question, people all over the world can answer the question posed and connect to the conversation by other using the hash tag, in this case #educolor, or retweeting the original question. This is done in real time and tough, as you can only answer in 144 characters! Because I have two young daughters and was unable to participate in the live chat, I searched the hashtag later that evening, chose “lastest” instead of “top” as my filter options and was able to read the conversation and still respond! Participating in the life chat is much better and I highly recommend it, and I will when time permits. I have only participated in one chat and already have take-a-ways.
As an example, below is a question and my retweet.
Below is an example of my response to a question without retweeting it but just using the hashtag, #educolor, and referencing the questions (Q2 means questions 2) by using A2 to show my answer to question 2.
Here are examples of some of the questions from the twitter chat:
Lastly, after the first three days of only Spanish I always do English week. This is a week to talk about my classroom structure, why we do what we do, why we use Spanish 90% of the time, how to survive with only using Spanish, the proficiency levels and goal setting. During this time I am going to address the posters I created for my door and share with students my desire to have my room as a safe space, that I understand my role as a white female with privilege and how I stand “with” (not “for”) all of my students of color. This will transition us into an activity where my students will sit and read a letter I wrote to them about myself, my classroom and my educational journey. I will then have them write me a similar letter. Below are the questions I ask them. The purpose is to share myself with them and allow them a platform to share themselves with me. We will have been together a week and half at this point so some community will have been established and they will be more willing to open up.
Your hobbies and favorite things.
Who have you been? (how have you changed from last year or middle school)
Who will you be this year and your goals?
What are you nervous about?
What in a classroom helps you learn (teach)?
What in a classroom interrupts your learning (teaching)?
Answer this statement, and share with me “If only my teacher knew…”. Help me get to know you better.
I will leave this post here as I process more ways to talk about race in my classroom and ways that I can also learn and grow along this journey.