Education Now: Navigating Tensions Over Teaching Race & Racism

How can schools, educators, and families navigate the continued politicization and tensions around teaching and talking about race, racism, diversity, and equity? As laws banning critical race theory are passed, and rhetoric grows intense, we'll discuss what educators and families can do to make sure students are supported, learning, and prepared with the knowledge they need to understand their own histories and the diverse and global society they’ll enter.

Host
Uche Amaechi, Lecturer on Education, HGSE

Speakers Include
Daren Graves, Associate Professor of Education and Social Work, Simmons University and Co-Chair of HGSE's Professional Education program, Schooling for Critical Consciousness of Racism and Racial Injustice

Rosa Perez-Isiah, Director, Elementary Education, Equity, and Access in the Norwalk–La Mirada Unified School District, Los Angeles County, CA

Key takeaways and prompts for action:

• Students are participants in their own learning. They are making meaning of their own reality, and they need tools and a sense of agency as they do.  ​
• Learn from your students. Have a reciprocal teaching and learning process with your students. ​
• This work begins with understanding our beliefs and biases so we can understand how it impacts the growth of our students.​
• The work is about Truth, Connections, Understanding, and Acceptance. 

Resources:

• The Greatest Battle in History (Harvard Ed. magazine)
• You Want to Teach What? (Usable Knowledge)
• Bringing Controversial Books to the Classroom (Usable Knowledge)
• Harvard EdCast: Schooling for Critical Consciousness
• What You Can Do ... to Bring Multicultural Texts to the Classroom
• Beyond Conversations about Race : A Guide for Discussions with Students, Teachers, and Communities (How to Talk about Racism in Schools and Implement Equitable Classroom Practices), co-author Rosa Perez-Isiah