Following
the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia a few weeks ago, the hashtag Thisisnotus
surfaced on Twitter. The intention of the hashtag was to distance our
culture from that of the white supremacists. However, in doing so, the
hashtag seemed to suggest that these events were an anomaly, that they are the
exception to our culture, and that they do not represent our society today.
It
didn’t take long for civil rights activists to point out that this notion is
quite false. In fact, this is us. Our struggle with white supremacy
is not new. These organizations did not sprout overnight or spontaneously
form over the summer. What might be new is the awareness of the dominant
culture. The events of this summer have forced all of us-- even those who
might have been unaware-- to come face-to-face with white supremacy throughout
our country. For some, it was a rude awakening.
Part
of the problem is many of us in the dominant culture simply don’t know what we
don’t know. And it, unfortunately, means that we only come to terms with
these difficult issues when there is a national tragedy or when we are called
out for assumptions that we didn’t even realize we were making. We didn’t
know what we didn’t know. And so, for those of us who have the privilege of not
having to constantly think about this, we might be continually caught off guard
by these revelations.
It
is important that as a lifelong practice, we devote time to uncovering both our
unexamined biases as they apply to race, class, culture, and gender and
facilitate conversations with students-- and the people around us --
about them. And this will be the focus of our AVReading
Newsletters this year.
You
might wonder why a newsletter devoted to reading would choose this as a topic
of study. There are many reasons, but I will focus on the one that
matters the most. Teaching reading and literacy is all about access.
After all, being able to understand complex texts offers students access
to the world around them. But teaching someone to understand complex
texts means that you do more than just teach them to read the words on the
page. As Paulo Freire stated, you must also teach them to read the world.
This means that we must teach to not only read stories, but what those
stories mean within our culture. It means helping perceptions of the world
might be influenced by our race, class, culture, and gender. It means
that we need to show them how to decode institutions and how they can sometimes
trample on non-dominant groups in subtle ways. Teaching students to read the
world offers them access to the language of power. It teaches them how to
navigate between cultures, and ultimately, empowers them to speak out and act
in order to re-shape our community and world.
This
year, my focus will be on the discipline of critical literacy. For the most
part, the emphasis will be on challenging teachers to think more deeply about
their own belief structure when it comes to race, class, culture and gender.
We will examine things like biases and blind spots, privilege,
microaggressions, and language. We will also examine some very practical
ways that teachers can bring culturally responsive practices into their
classrooms: setting up courageous conversations, making connections, using
historical and current events to invite discussion.
In
traveling the country for speech and debate, I have been blessed with the
opportunity to visit so many different schools.
it is interesting how you can get a feel for a school, even when the
student body might not be present. Countless artifacts litter the
buildings communicating (in the absence of students and teachers) what the
school seems to value and represent. There is one, here in Minnesota,
that we travel to every year, and I’m always so impressed by the work they do
as a building. From the artwork posted in classrooms to the banners and
posters to the notices from clubs and committees to the permanent displays, you
just sense that equity is an ongoing and significant part of the school
culture. Our challenge is to live and teach in a similar fashion, creating
a space that not only fosters learning and growth but also awareness and transformation.
