As part of our yearlong study on being reflective practitioners, our emphasis this month is on honesty. A regular downside to self reflection is that we tend to be less than honest with our assessments. It is just really hard to acknowledge some truths or realities that might exist in our worlds because they can totally shake the foundations of what we might believe or think.
This is especially true when we begin to consider constructs like race and how schools have maintained systems of power that disproportionately target students of color. Being honest, in this sense, means that white teachers (like myself) have to perpetually acknowledge the way our whiteness has not only benefited us, but the way it has influenced the way we see race. And the same can be said for our understanding of class, gender, and ableness as well. It is not as though we had set out to create these biases and prejudices. They have happened over the course of our lifetimes, starting from our earliest days of development. Our views of the world have been largely shaped by the way we have been socialized into our current beliefs and perceptions.
Since we have internalized these beliefs and understandings of the world through a lifetime of experiences, it is understandable that even though our intentions may be good and our aspirations are to be anti-racist, we are likely to perpetuate white supremacy. It’s a difficult first step to take: acknowledging our complicity in a system that continually works to dehumanize and reduce people. Yet Native American Historian Jack Forbes once stated that while people today do not need to feel responsible for the offenses of their ancestors, they do need to feel responsible for what happens today, which is the product of the past (Ortiz 2015).
It is a difficult first step. Yet like so many difficult steps, it is an important one. It is a step that requires absolute honesty in looking at our own lives and acknowledges that for as much as we would like to believe that our positions are exclusively the result of our own hard work and merit, they have been assisted by a system of privileges. Unpacking this takes vigilance. A lifetime of socialized practices and assumptions is not reversed in a day, a month or a year. It takes a lifetime of honesty and fearless examination.
Here are some prompts for reflection or writing around the idea of honesty.
Where is the Pain and Suffering? We live in a world of great inequity. For some of us, we have the privilege of escaping the realities of those extreme inequities. We can either separate ourselves physically from the suffering or we find other ways to simply distract ourselves. Yet, this does not mean that the pain and suffering is nonexistent. Who in my family, class, community is in pain?
How Have I Been Silent? In light of that pain and suffering, how have I contributed to that pain and suffering in remaining silent? In what ways have I remained silent in the face of hurtful things other people have said? Have I challenged long held assumptions and biases of others?
Whose Voice Have I Silenced? Sometimes the spaces we create in our classrooms are not spaces where everyone feels comfortable sharing of themselves or their experiences. Sometimes we joke or tease with students in ways that might demean or minimize others. Sometimes we shut down or minimize the voices of students who are not part of the non-dominant culture. Sometimes we do not intervene when we should, we let racially or sexually charged assumptions go unchecked, and the result is that we silence the voices of students who might have otherwise engaged in our classrooms. What are choices I make throughout my day that might silence students?
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Beacon Press, 2015.
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