Our emphasis for
the Cultural Proficiency workshop this month was on “Building Relationships.”
We discussed how important it is, and how the actual nature of our
relationships with students have changed over the course of time. As
stated in a recent Educational Leadership article that Eugene Schegolkov
found, “The absolute, unquestionable, and essentially assumed authority that
teachers once possessed is diminishing and being replaced by an authority that
has to be earned. Building a healthy rapport and positive relationship
with students requires the careful cultivation of mutual respect, honesty, and
trust” (“Relationships and Rapport: ‘You Don’t Know Me Like That,’” Educational
Leadership, Fall 2018).
Building
relationships across lines of race, class, and culture becomes even more
complex, as we are constantly working to become more aware of our own biases
and assumptions that have led us to say or do things in the past that were
likely to close doors instead of open them. That is why it is extremely
important that we are doing work on our own as we continue to make connections. This work includes raising our awareness of
our whiteness and how that can impact the way we see the world and the way the
world sees us.
There are a great number of
resources to help us with this journey. Here are a couple that are
especially powerful. Robin DiAngelo’s White
Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism (2018) is
a fantastic and comprehensive guide to thinking differently about race and
racism. She specifically talks about the way that our notions of race and
whiteness are socialized into our understanding of the world from birth.
Therefore, it takes constant and perpetual work to make the “invisible”
aspects of socialized practices and beliefs “visible”. Too often, when we are made aware of our
assumptions, biases, and microaggressions, we respond rather defensively,
retreating to various natural responses that serve to show how we, in fact, are
not racist or a bad person. Instead, DiAngelo encourages us to think
differently about these encounters. Rather than being offended, own up to it,
acknowledge the person who had the courage to point it out, and think of it as
a gift-- a little lesson that you have learned, a little step closer to
becoming more aware of what is happening around you. You might not fully grasp why someone might
have been hurt by the thing you said or did even after they have explained it.
Then store it away. Put it
someplace where the distance of time will allow you to revisit it once again
and think a little more deeply about how this particular moment may have caused
concern for someone.
The second resource that will
offer a lot of useful tips is How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You.
This particular text, written by Bonnie Davis, gets into the day-to-day
practices of teaching, which allow for teachers to see how we can create
classroom environments that foster strong relationships across cultures.
Of course, the tips aren’t always exclusive to cross cultural
relationships, but nonetheless, they are meaningful steps we can take.
About a year ago, my brother who
is not a huge advocate of smart phone technology offered one saving grace it
offers: the opportunity to send little nudges of affirmation in unexpected
ways. You’ve probably done it before, a random little text message to
someone letting them know that you are thinking of them, that you love them,
that you are grateful for their presence in your life. It got me to
thinking about how beautiful those little “micro-affections” can be. It also got me to thinking of how many
different ways we can communicate that same message in real life. These could be micro-affections I communicate
by simply catching a student at my door to welcome them in. A private
note on the bottom of an assignment where I let someone know how much I
appreciate their effort or time. A
little post it, that expresses my awareness of a student’s struggle or
pain. Or even, the gift of space, which
is the ability to be present with someone, to listen with deep empathy, to
withhold judgement and to offer someone the time and energy they need to heal,
to grow, or to connect.
Teaching is a full body and
soul experience. Healing the historic gaps that have existed across race
and culture will take a tremendous amount of trust building and compassion.
And it begins with one micro-affection at a time, which ultimately will crowdsource
into an even greater community of warmth, safety, and understanding.
