2 thoughts on “LRNT 521 Unit 4. Activity 2. Briefing Note”
This briefing note is helping me make connections to white supremacy themes that have risen in my courses in groups of students. I have got better at recognizing, disarming and removing these voices in my classes but still not perfect. I am naively shocked when this happens.
I want to tell this story in my blog soon but a group of students were advancing their racist agenda in my second year of teaching. I did not handle it well and while I started to teach the course in an open pedagogy I quickly closed my approach in the course because I didn’t know how to manage it. If I had your recommendations I would have found my way forward in that scenario in a better way. Thanks for sharing these.
Thank you for taking the time to comment Karen. This is difficult work.The first step is to recognise race isn’t the issue, racism is.
What you do matters, even if it is not the best you feel you could have done.Your Black students are fortunate b/c you are willing to recognise their journey. You see it, you can’t feel it nor understand it, but being seen is important. If white students see you and what you do, you may reach a few, then a few more and a few more. There’s an idiom – how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
This briefing note is helping me make connections to white supremacy themes that have risen in my courses in groups of students. I have got better at recognizing, disarming and removing these voices in my classes but still not perfect. I am naively shocked when this happens.
I want to tell this story in my blog soon but a group of students were advancing their racist agenda in my second year of teaching. I did not handle it well and while I started to teach the course in an open pedagogy I quickly closed my approach in the course because I didn’t know how to manage it. If I had your recommendations I would have found my way forward in that scenario in a better way. Thanks for sharing these.
Thank you for taking the time to comment Karen. This is difficult work.The first step is to recognise race isn’t the issue, racism is.
What you do matters, even if it is not the best you feel you could have done.Your Black students are fortunate b/c you are willing to recognise their journey. You see it, you can’t feel it nor understand it, but being seen is important. If white students see you and what you do, you may reach a few, then a few more and a few more. There’s an idiom – how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
This letter resonates with me. I hope you find it helpful. https://www.teachingwhilewhite.org/blog/2019/6/21/a-letter-to-white-teachers-of-my-black-children
Katia