By Amy McClellan and Doug Baer

Of recent, we have had the fortune to collaborate with powerful people and change tact, avoiding a collision course with the annals of time and a legacy of “more teachers harming students.” Trapped in a seemingly sea of whiteness, we glimpsed on the horizon a building swell, a swell that would grow into a wave, like that of a tsunami. The aftermath of tremors from a fault line in Tucson Unified School District, a wave surging to the Greater Puget Sound region, spilling onto the school districts of Seattle, Edmonds, Shoreline, and Mukilteo. Though, as with all threats, bulkheads of resistance emerge, designed to weaken the impact of the impending change. Holes and cracks can’t keep all the water out. We will rise. Together.

Several school districts in Washington state are sideways-hugging the idea of incorporating Ethnic Studies, and creating space for change and liberation, while others will maintain a fortified white-washed bastion against it. Some districts will choose to adapt and grow, while others remain stuck in an antiquated, post-industrialized, racist schooling program that attends to the needs of some students, while harming the lives of many of our students. As good fortune would have it, we landed in districts that appear concerned with making the desperately needed changes, centering the lives of our students of color and moving to humanize the system of education. 

Mukilteo School District formed a committee comprised of seven educators from its three high schools, Assistant Superintendent, and Director of Curriculum, with the charge of creating and implementing an Ethnic Studies course; initially to be rolled out Fall of 2019, but quickly realized it was unobtainable because of the much-needed teacher growth, and thus pushed out to Fall of 2020.

Mukilteo School District’s Ethnic Studies committee intends to design a sustainable model, a program not designed for merely checking boxes, but a program with the flexibility to eventually go across all content areas, and vertically through all grade levels. The committee is grateful to not be alone in its journey, to be able to collaborate with members of neighboring school districts—some in infancy stages like Mukilteo, others in adolescent phases.  

A newly formed, committed group of like-minded educators from Edmonds, Mukilteo, and Shoreline gathers throughout the school year to lean into culturally responsive and anti-racist teaching. Jeff Stone, Ethnic Studies Lead in Edmonds, and the principal organizer, shared after our initial 2019-2020 gathering, “There is nothing more inspiring than a room full of educators, in the middle of November, engaging in after school learning meant to disrupt white supremacy.”

During the November gathering we worked in small groups, attempting to define and understand Ethnic Studies.

Draft of our Collective Thinking Thus Far from First Inter-District Gathering, 2019-2020

Additionally, we read “What is Ethnic Studies Pedagogy?” and “Ethnic Studies 10 Common Misconceptions” both found in Rethinking Ethnic Studies.

https://www.rethinkingschools.org/books/title/rethinking-ethnic-studies

“This book is food for the movement. It is sustenance for every educator committed to understanding and enacting Ethnic Studies. We take this gift as a guide for the needed work ahead.”–Django Paris, James A. & Cherry A. Banks Professor of Multicultural Education, University of Washington

We began to identify the needed skills to hone, and knowledge to cultivate in order to become anti-racist and culturally responsive educators within the realm of Ethnic Studies.

Draft of Skills and Knowledge from First Inter-District Gathering, 2019-2020

Attending these monthly inter-district meetings continues to be a place where critical learning moments occur, much like those experienced at the inaugural Ethnic Studies Institute, summer 2019.    

Along with the meeting’s agenda, often the value of the gatherings is in the intimate conversations and connections formed with other educators on the same journey. Amy McClellan, Shoreline School District, shares the following about our November gathering:

Being transformed by collaborating with our Ethnic Studies inter-district community gives me space to explore the messy work and be vulnerable, and self-reflective.  Being with fellow Ethnic Studies Educators supports me to be more courageous and continue to grow and be pushed beyond being just “culturally responsive” or “multicultural.”  I’m learning to lean into critical praxis with the goal of centering the lives of my students; empowering their agency so we can collectively disrupt and dismantle the system. 

My journey of attempting, through my practice, to be an Ethnic Studies educator is murky and challenging and I often get in my own way. I belong to the 89% of white educators in Washington state, and was schooled by educators who looked like me and centered the western European narrative, hence forming my bias. Being able to come together to decolonize my teaching with colleagues from neighboring districts is invaluable. Shoreline School District is in its infancy in how Ethnic Studies will play out. To have space to dialog on moments like the following, helps me know better and thereby do better. Last October, I attempted to help students deconstruct the myth about Columbus by posing the research question: Should we celebrate Columbus Day, Indigenous People’s Day, neither or both? 

Discussing this assignment with a colleague from Mukilteo, who is also learning and growing in their Ethnic Studies practice, the following ponderings came to light.

We wonder: 

• Did the wording of my research question give legitimacy to Columbus, who was a genocidal murderer? Would I ever ask a similar question if it was a day to honor Pol Pot, Andrew Jackson or Stalin? 
  
  
• Did I play it “safe” by not solely centering Indigenous People’s voices, and did I give too much space for Columbus Day? Did I fall into the pitfall of trying to remain “neutral” as an educator, and present multiple perspectives, thereby discounting the system of oppression and my position of privilege?

• Did I hope my students would “get it” and see the injustice through the content, and by reading about the Taino’s lives and culture and the Day of Mourning Movement?

• Did I want to give a platform to the experiences of the Italian Americans and their desire to be “American” but fall short in really unpacking the racial history and assimilation? 

As Paulo Freire states in A Pedagogy for Liberation, it is “through dialog, reflecting together on what we know and don’t know, we can then act critically to transform reality.” This experience solidified that for me. Being able to come together and be reminded of my bias and positionality is humbling albeit a fruitful and necessary part of the work.  

Together we can embrace the rising tides of change, harness our collective communities, and strive to center voices of students. Unpacking our bias and continuing to explore avenues by which to disrupt the system remains the challenge before us.

It’s been a while since our last post, and trolls have taken notice of our work. That’s always a good sign we’re headed in the right direction! We haven’t gone anywhere. We’ve just been incredibly busy building and growing. Keep an eye out for updates on our legislative demand! There is progress!

Below is the transcript of an interview Tracy Castro-Gill conducted for her doctorate program with Dr. Kyle Kinoshita, retired Chief of Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction for Seattle Public Schools. Kyle was the district office administrator in charge of implementing the ethnic studies program after the school board unanimously passed a resolution supporting a new ethnic studies program in 2017. Kyle retired from SPS last July, but still teaches at the University of Washington in an administrator preparation program.

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Identify the categories of key stakeholders.

Ok. Right. So, I’ll preface all my comments to say that ethnic studies is not a typical curriculum, such as English Language Arts or math because of the fact that, in particular, it deals with issues of race and equity, and because of that, it’s colored by the fact that in some ways it stands in opposition to institutionally established curriculum. So, that means that, in the case of the Seattle effort, the key stakeholders actually turned out to be members of the ethnic communities here in Seattle that have historically been underserved by Seattle Public Schools, and these stakeholders had been asserting for quite some time – decades probably – that in particular areas of curriculum that represented them, their communities, their history and current reality were not represented in the overall curriculum in Seattle Public Schools. So, I would say that was one category, the community. There was a related community internal to the system which would be teachers, teachers of color, and teachers who had a strong equity focus who also saw the lack in the curriculum and wanted to actually take some action to do something about it. As well, to a lesser extent, within the administrative structure of Seattle Public Schools there were certain individuals who actually sympathized with this and hoped to actually attempt some kind of action. That’s that question in terms of the categories.

How are stakeholders identified?

Right. I think that, again, not being a traditional sort of curriculum adoption or curriculum development effort, in some ways the stakeholders identified themselves, and that this was an effort that came about from the grassroots, both externally and internally. So, in many ways, they did not necessarily wait for the typical sort of pathway in which some district leadership selects and identifies stakeholders. They asserted themselves in terms of their identity of leadership. It just happened that, in this particular case, the district leaders involved began to recognize that and then really began to understand that these stakeholders not only had to be strongly represented in the effort, but they had to take leadership roles as well. 

How are stakeholders brought into the work of creating and implementing the program?

Let me say that in some ways there are some parallels to a traditional curriculum effort in that the kind of representative bodies that are created in order to provide input into curriculum development and adoption, there were kind of rough parallels in the sense of developing what now is known as the advisory committee. These are representatives from various parts of the system, particularly, teacher educators as well as people from the community. These are things that are part of a traditional curriculum effort. What was different about this, however, is that, you know, in many ways the stakeholders were actually active in some ways even prior to the effort in terms of developing ethnic studies. As they self identified themselves, the leadership which emerged was a community and activist and district partnership, or collaboration. They then recruited  stakeholders into committee work and into the actual work like writing curriculum as well as evaluating curriculum.

…I think would be important in finding an ally inside the organization and finding a way to expand presence in the organization in order to just handle, really, the structural parts of it. But, you know, if you wanted to talk about the leadership in content and development and the political leadership, these were essentially the activist educators as well as the community leaders…

Which category of stakeholders have been leading the work?

This is an interesting question in that it’s a unique kind of collaboration between the different categories. So, if you want to talk about, for example, that the structural leadership – having an internal district leader – was one component and that meant, for example, having a department as well as a manager level administrator leading the work. This meant that you could bring to bear system resources of both budget and space and time and, sort of, permissions that would kind of allow the work to develop. So those are kind of the structural pieces and lessons that I think would be important in finding an ally inside the organization and finding a way to expand presence in the organization in order to just handle, really, the structural parts of it. But, you know, if you wanted to talk about the leadership in content and development and the political leadership, these were essentially the activist educators as well as the community leaders, just in terms of helping provide direction, in terms of ensuring the authenticity of the work. I would say that it was the activist educators in the community that provided the main leadership of the work, and it was not something that came from within the district structure. So, in that sense, that form of leadership came external to the district structure which was kind of important in the sense that within the district structure there were built in barriers to the authentic development of that work, but by having the leadership external, this ensured those barriers didn’t impede the development of the content. 

Which category of stakeholders have been in the margins and need to be moved to the center and why?

Well, another interesting question. I think that I spoke earlier about the fact that you had several categories of stakeholders who were active in terms of leading the work in different ways. I think, in some ways, it’s the whole effort that can sometimes be put in the margins in the sense that once both the external activist leadership as well as the internal structural leadership get to a certain point where the work develops and will begin to impact some of the areas of work. In fact, the overall effort can tend to be marginalized and thwarted. So, I think that the structure that was developed both internally, with the district leaders that participate in the work and who advocate for the work, as was the collaboration together with the activist educators and the community, they need to be continually recognized as the leader. They need to be brought to the table to assist the work, becoming a central part of the work with Seattle Public School students and obstacles need to be removed. However, in fact, what’s actually happened in this effort is that [some] top district leaders have actually treated this as something that is threatening, and so, therefore, has put limits upon the entire initiative, and put limits on all the stakeholders.

Which category of stakeholders are absent?

Well, I think that I would say that there’s kind of two flavors of absence. One, if you think about the fact that there’s still many communities within Seattle who have been shut out of, or marginalized, from the overall process of education and those are ethnic communities who need to be – always – better represented. This is not necessarily the fault of the effort; it’s just that the effort being at its early stages. It still will probably continue to bring in stakeholders from the community who are not currently connected. Those could be, for example, some of our immigrant communities, some of the communities who live on the margins of society because of a particular kind of oppression exercised by the government. Things like that. So, that’s one type of absence. Another type of absence is different, that I would say, in that, the stakeholders – one set of stakeholders, in fact – are [some of] the top district administrative leadership. They are absent in the sense that they are not behaving in such a way that would actually support the authentic development of the initiative. And I use the term very carefully: [some of] the top district administrative leadership, vs. another stakeholder that I neglected to mention, for example, the elected school board, in fact, is one set of stakeholders that in a variety of ways have vocalized support for the effort. There have been some members who have questioned why the district administrative leadership has put constraints and limits and not, in fact, encouraged the development of this effort. 

Which category of stakeholders have been oppositional?

I think that kind of goes without saying that there are sectors of society for whom this kind of curriculum and its content are pretty threatening. So, and although it has not yet been kind of a central theme, yet, you do have the opposition of more privileged sections of the community, geographically, and some cases are located, for example, in the north end of Seattle. So, you have people who purport to adopt the liberal Seattle stance who have been vehement in terms of opposition to some of the people and the efforts of ethnic studies. So, for example, a community blogger who has traditionally been a bit of a gadfly on the district scene, again, purporting to be a Seattle liberal, who is vehement and really began to expose herself as a closeted racist because of the fact that this, the anti-racist content of ethnic studies, was so threatening. And, she represented a sector of society, you know, some of the folks who subscribed to the blog who cheered this on. So, you could see that that sector of society would actively stand in opposition to this curriculum as it would develop and get out to students.

Added later: [Kyle notes that there are objective obstacles by the very nature of the structure of school districts, irrespective of whether individuals may or may not support ethnic studies.]

In some ways this [obstacles at the district level] isn’t unique to ethnic studies: Any district structure has other stakeholders that compete for resources; their time, space, etc. In district structures, it’s often fairly common that they work in silos. So, that has been the case that there has been probably greater and lesser cooperation, for example, within the curriculum department around the development of ethnic studies that had to be sort of considered and dealt with and still essentially need some work in trying in terms of developing the breaking down of silos and the collaboration with the other curriculum areas in the department, which have their own kind of mini-organizational structures. As well, that also can take place within the larger categories of the organization. So, for example, you often times have competition between the curriculum department and the human resource department in terms of who really takes charge of race and equity issues. Who is allowed access? Who is allowed monetary resources? There is also competition, for example, within the organizational structure with student services who is charged with a multi-tiered system of support initiative, which also takes up quite a bit of resources in terms of money as well as time and energy of the people in school buildings. So, all of these sort of structural categories of [internal] stakeholders compete for resources, time, and access are [objectively] , barriers and obstacles to the development of ethnic studies.

Because of the fact that principals, in particular, have been put in the position of accountability for things like student assessment results, that can sometimes be a barrier put in place to actually develop the equity perspective and develop the ethnic studies perspective within the curriculum.

 (Kyle noted that principals are conflicted in relation to ethnic studies due to how the educational establishment has defined their roles in an urban district over the last twenty years) There are several reasons for this. One is that the accountability structure that has been in place for nearly twenty years, starting with No Child Left Behind, really dictates and directs the way curriculum and instruction is developed in schools. Because of the fact that principals, in particular, have been put in the position of accountability for things like student assessment results, that can sometimes be a barrier put in place to actually develop the equity perspective and develop the ethnic studies perspective within the curriculum. It’s really a false dichotomy because of the fact that even if you were to consider performance on things like assessments, engaging and rigorous content is a part of the ethnic studies initiative and, in fact, would not be in contradiction with the academic engagement of students of color. This has actually been proven in emerging research.

What institutional/bureaucratic systems support the creation and implementation of the Ethnic Studies curriculum?

I think, again, what has been pretty instrumental has been the structural development of a support system within the administrative structure of the district and the really intentional collaboration with the activist section of educators as well as the community. I spoke earlier about how that collaboration had been structured whereby the institutional leadership within the district structure helps direct resources, helps to clear obstacles, helps to find channels to other educators and then reach the students, and the fact that they also consent and advocate for the active leadership of the activist groups in terms of the actual content and development of the respect of ethnic studies. The development of that kind of collaboration, I think, is really beneficial to ensure that, not only is ethnic studies created, that it’s eventually institutionalized in various parts of the system.

What curriculum models (banking, learner-centered, critical theory, etc) are most frequently employed in classrooms?

I think that the current model – we’re kind of witnessing this torturous transition from the 20th century industrial model in which, basically, low-level and Eurocentric curriculum is developed in such a way that it is to be passively memorized by students and regurgitated. So, right now, there’s actually – within any given classroom – a really interesting and, sometimes, eclectic mix of those kinds of approaches in which teachers deliver [information one-way] with more learner-centered activities in the sense of putting the student more at the center of the learning. So, you have both of these sorts of trends existing within the same classroom, even within the same subject area, even within an individual lesson. In terms of critical theory, I would say that that is one of the things that is – unless you have the individual discretion of a teacher, who on their own initiative sort of develops incorporation of critical theory into the curriculum – it is definitely something that is very inconsistent and depending on the school and the geographical area, could be more or less common to a particular group of teachers. 

Added later:

Sub question: What role does high stakes testing play in the current classroom environment?

. . . decontextualized, low-level, unengaging, irrelevant curriculum has been developed and really brought into the classrooms where you have kids from communities that are ill-served and done under the name of “improving student achievement”, which is, essentially, code word for increasing the test scores.

Over the last twenty years, it’s had a major impact. So, for example, in [the past] particularly in schools where you have populations that are the least served it’s done two things to the curriculum: one is that a disproportionate emphasis on the so-called “basic subjects” of reading and mathematics have developed to the exclusion of other parts of the curriculum, but even within those areas the impact has been that decontextualized, low-level, unengaging, irrelevant curriculum has been developed and really brought into the classrooms where you have kids from communities that are ill-served and done under the name of “improving student achievement”, which is, essentially, codeword for increasing the test scores. So, in that sense, that the accountability system that began twenty years ago under No Child Left Behind – has had various iterations – still continues to have major impact and major damage [to efforts in replacing the Eurocentric focus of the] curriculum. Countervailing, I think, efforts have been because of the fact that education is not simply kind of a unitary sort of system. You have educators who, in a variety of ways, often times will rebel against [the Eurocentric, industrial age curriculum] and attempt to incorporate more student-centered, more relevant areas of curriculum. So, these kinds of dynamics are going on within any number of schools

How can Ethnic Studies curriculum improve curriculum models and make them more learner-centered?

You know, I think that one of the research findings of ethnic studies is that when you develop curriculum and curriculum approaches that really align with and approximate the reality of the students in the schools, in particular students from communities of color, you can see the engagement and the academic focus really develop. In fact, an ironic sort of finding is that the further development of ethnic studies curriculum and the further access to students of color actually accomplishes many of the academic gains that traditional institutions are trying to accomplish. So, I think that, in particular, the relevancy aspect is something that can be much more engaging to students of color but to white students as well. And by relevancy, I particular mean that for, example, the anti-racist focus, as well as the fact that the adoption of different cultural perspectives – it turns out to be much more interesting that the traditional Eurocentric presentation and perspective than was in the traditional curriculum.

by Erin Herda

Our Work is Movement Building

Saturday morning, a day for sleeping in, a day many of us dedicate as a non work day, yet hundreds of educators made there way to Chief Sealth High School to engage in a day of workshops to develop and reinforce their skills as transformative and disruptive educators. Teaching for social justice can be lonely work, so days like the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice (NWTSJ) conference are essential to keeping the work alive. Creating that critical community of support that is sometimes, or often, lacking at our schools. Every time I attend I am reminded why I keep fighting for ethnic studies and systemic change through policies, curriculum in my district, and most importantly that I am not alone. We are not alone. There are educators and preservice teachers who are dedicated to eradicating white supremacy from our educational systems. 

Build a Better World

The morning started off with the keynote, Barbara Madeloni, reminding us that our work is movement building to disrupt racism and white supremacy in our schools and community. It is through  collective leadership that takes on the structures of power that we will start to see change. This message came just at the right moment for those of us who have started to feel beat down by the inaction around us in our building and our school districts.

Ethnic Studies Now

Enter Washington State Ethnic Studies Now. The collective efforts of students, educators, and organizations dedicated to seeing Ethnic Studies (ES) as a pedagogical shift in K-12 education across the state and nation. This year attendees of the Northwest Teaching For Social Justice Conference had the opportunity to spend the whole day immersed in ethnic studies from a 101 workshop designed to introduce educators to what ethnic studies really is and the conceptual framework they use to decolonize the classroom and curriculum. A second session dedicated to working with educators who use the ES framework and students explaining the pedagogical shift necessary to truly implement ES. And in the last session we were invited to hear a panel of educators: Tracy Castro-Gill, Jeff Stone, Jesse Hagopian and Lisa Rice, moderated by Wayne Au, about their own experiences with ES from implementation to self care.

Here are some of my takeaways from this session.

Educators role in pushing for ES pedagogical shifts to implement ES.

• Ethnic Studies is a pedagogical shift, not just curriculum. You have to be willing to unlearn being an expert and hand over some of the control to the students. Exploring the pedagogical shift before content.
• It centers the whole child first. Understanding each student and the difference between them.
• Bring the student voice into the classroom, check in. Peace circles.
• Disrupting the things that have been taught that reinforce the power structures.
• White educators must explore their own whiteness.

How do you find resources?

• The News, use the principles of Black Lives Matter to guide curriculum. Project based, TALK TO PEOPLE and READ! (emphasis added)
• Seattle Framework, Collaborating with other teachers. Own experience with activism. Hip hop artists to disrupt the master narrative. Draw on the community.
• Anything can be turned into Ethnic Studies curriculum

How do you protect  BIPOC while creating critical growth for white students?

• You must be your authentic self if you want the students to be theirs.
• Talk across differences, talk to students ahead of time to lessen impact, its messy work dig in and repair. 
• Don’t run away from discomfort.
• Teach that whiteness is a racialized existence, example from Bacon’s Rebellion. 
• Teaching intersectional identities and have students explore them through projects and poems.
• Students need to analyze their own identity.

How to build networks of communities of care? THIS WORK IS HARD

• You have to decolonize your brain.
• Work with and collaborate in the community.
• Get over the idea of leaders.
• No meaningful change happens individually. Join together.
• Build your community by calling the meeting…and keep calling the meeting.

Moving forward

I still struggle with how to keep that buzz of the work alive when I enter my building and hear staff mock restorative practices, or that a coworker said that a teacher was in the wrong for teaching LGBTQ+ history, or that talking about race and racism is divisive to the staff. Does it really matter that there is a tiny island of us teaching with the ethnic studies framework and challenging the power structure if everyone else is reinforcing white supremacy through their curriculum and actions? Yes it does, It matters because it is clear that we are not just “first year teachers who want to save the world” (said to me by an administrator in the beginning of my career) rather we are professional educators who continue to grow into our critical pedagogy and disrupt systems that hurt our students and communities.

Ethnic Studies is not just a curriculum it is a vision of the future we need for a just and equitable society, it is what we owe our students in a system that harms them and their families daily. It is the only path for education I can see.

Featured Image: Educators at the Seattle Public Schools’ Ethnic Studies Summer Institute 2019 engaged in Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed strategies to learn about and reject cultural appropriation.

By Jeff Stone

As more and more K-12 educators in Washington engage in ethnic studies, having a common focus will be key to our collective success. At Washington State Ethnic Studies Now, one of our aims is to refuse the white gaze  as we spread ethnic studies into every corner that defines the education systems we work within.

White Gaze

In the late 90’s, the late Toni Morrison spoke of her refusal to write to appease the white gaze of America. Instead of writing to the expectations or lens of a dominating white society, her writings centered Black experiences and realities. Morrison refused to write (and live) by standards imposed by whiteness. 

These imposed standards of whiteness are the white gaze. The white gaze frames how we are supposed to behave, how to think, and what to value. It tells us what is normal, right, proper. And, when people think, act, or be outside of the gaze, they are seen as abnormal and broke. 

In education, the white gaze results in a whitewashed curriculum, white middle class values/norms driving pedagogy, biased discipline decisions, and English only instruction. It frames white students as the standard of academic success upon which BIPOC students are compared. When considered at all, the histories and values are BIPOC communities are often seen from a deficit stance. Something to be fixed or rid of. 

But, it does not need to be this way. Refusing the white gaze has a long history in BIPOC communities. It is nothing new. However, recent scholarship by Dr. Django Paris and Dr. H. Samy Alim has resulted in a push for the white-centric K-12 education system to reflect upon the goals, content, language, pedagogy, values, and outcomes of education. To reconsider the aims and intent of our educational systems.

As educators of and for ethnic studies, we believe that a key aim of our work is to promote ethnic studies in ways that refuse this white gaze and forge new paths for student learning. To forge these new paths, we need to be in solidarity with our BIPOC communities to reimagine the curriculum and pedagogy found in our systems. To reimagine the point of schooling to look beyond the white gaze.

Washington Teachers

The majority of teachers in Washington identify as white and are teaching a fast growing Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander student population. For many Western Washington districts, students who identify from these communities are now the majority of students served.  As the movement grows, this means that many white teachers will be teaching ethnic studies alongside their BIPOC peers.  

Key for all educators, but especially white educators, will be to act and work in solidarity with their BIPOC communities. But what does this mean? 

Being In Solidarity

Programs such as Seattle Public Schools Ethnic Studies Summer Institute and XITO are providing teachers with content and pedagogical shifts necessary for the critical examination of educational systems dominated by the white gaze. These programs teach the skills to disrupt and refuse.

To be in solidarity requires us to go further than learning. We must act. As individual teachers, schools, and districts build their ethnic studies programs, we purposely build them in ways that refuse the white gaze.  We must work with our BIPOC students, families, and communities to define what this refusal looks like. How do our communities wish to refuse the white gaze? How do our communities imagine their K-12 education? What role(s) do our communities want in this rebuilding process? 

There are no easy answers in this work, but we must begin to and continually engage with our BIPOC communities around the implementation of ethnic studies in ways that refuse the white gaze. 

What Can Refusing the White Gaze Look Like?

Refusing the white gaze has many faces. Some big, some small. It can mean collaborating with students and families to redefine the meaning of academic success: What does your community want out of school?  Refusal can look like translanguaging practices that encourage the maintenance and growth of their home languages.  Refuse to use resources that glorify the dominant narrative by bringing community elders into your classroom to teach and share. Refuse through grading practices, accept late work. 

Our Collective Call to Action

Our Washington State Ethnic Studies Now movement is only as strong as our community.  In this spirit, we pose the following questions to you. We are a collective community, able to learn with each other. So let’s share with each other. Reflect upon and share your ideas around these questions. Pose other questions for us to consider. Let’s be in community.

• As you, your school, and/or your district engage in ethnic studies, how are you being in solidarity with the BIPOC communities? 
• How are your actions of solidarity disrupting the white gaze of education in ways that your community desires?
• What roles do Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities have in your process of refusal?

by: Amanda Hubbard, K-5 Educator

          I am an educator of color in Seattle Public Schools and I’ve been struggling to find where I matter. Teaching and being with my students are the easy parts of being an educator compared to navigating the politics and social tensions of the school system. To say it is challenging working within a racist system is an understatement because at the end of the day we know we are upholding that same, racist system. So, about seven years into my career I started to burn out. Working in ‘failing’ schools, I struggled to find how I was making a lasting impact. I worked hard each year building my kids up only to witness how that system beats them back down to where they started. If I was going to stay in education, I needed community and allies to keep me going. I sought out trainings on racial equity and teaching for social justice. I served on Racial Equity teams. I organized professional development (P.D.) for my buildings and I am so grateful that this work eventually led me to the Ethnic Studies Task Force and Advisory Group. It was working within a women of color dominated space that I realized my own identities beyond being an educator. Questioning and building anti-racist curriculum was liberating work; defining a decolonized curriculum centered on our students and critical thinking was liberating work. I could not get enough and quickly focused my pursuit of racial equity on Ethnic Studies and getting the message out to as many educators as possible.

Accordingly, I attended and helped facilitate the Ethnic Studies (E.S.) Institute this summer and it awakened something in me. Inspired and shook, I felt thrust into the uncomfortable position of facing the many and unintended ways I perpetuate institutional and systemic racism in our public schools. As it happens though, this is the first step in becoming an anti-racist educator. Examining our practice is something we came back to again and again throughout the Institute. We analyzed lesson plans and units for the themes of E.S.: Origins, Identity, and Agency, Power and Oppression, History of Resistance and Liberation, and Action and Reflection. We asked ourselves how these themes revealed themselves and how they might be problematic and then revised our lessons and units to better meet the needs of our students of color. Little by little the weight of being antiracist in our practice and content eased. Working in solidarity with fellow antiracist educators renewed and affirmed for me that not only was this work critical to the health, success, and joy of our students of color, but that we are part of a bigger movement. It made me feel, for the first time, that we would be able to sustain this work.

As I’ve said, thinking about systemic and institutional issues led me to pursue continuous professional development on racial equity and I am thankful every day for the knowledge and community that Ethnic Studies provides. However, it is only through reflection that I realized what was driving me. In fact, E.S. has been a slow-burn type of awakening for me. Through collective knowledge building and discussions on colonialism and how it continues to shape us and our educational system I started to realize the kind of educator and person I wanted to be. I realized there’s a part of me that was lying every time I would say “I loved school!” as the reason why I became a teacher. Writing the E.S. frameworks demanded a level of self-reflection and vulnerability I had not ever tapped into. What would it mean to have our students and their identities at the center of our curriculum? What would a culturally responsive and relevant curriculum for a biracial, daughter of an immigrant girl really require? This felt like uncharted territory and part of the reason is because to create the language needed to begin decolonizing curriculum we also needed to decolonize ourselves. This meant dredging up memories I had carefully suppressed. This meant declaring that I became a teacher, not because ‘I loved school,’ but because I knew and know that students like me deserve more from their schools.

Growing Up in a White Supremacy

I remembered all the times I would agonize over my homework trying to answer questions that asked me to explain why I thought learning what we were learning was important. Even by middle school this question presented no challenge; I knew there was so much to learn! We learned about the revolutionary War and read My Brother Sam is Dead, we studied the ancient civilizations of Rome and Greece, and we lingered in the middle ages so long that we put on a huge Medieval Faire complete with costumes and reading far too much about King Arthur. I remember thinking, “What new and exciting cultures and histories would we learn about next?!” Except there was no next, not really. We slogged thru England and France’s futile wars, we unpacked battle after battle in U.S. History, and read and read about white American boys and men in staggering quantities. No matter the era, between North America and Europe it all eventually blurred together becoming indistinguishable fragments of history and literature; overwhelming in its whiteness. By the time I hit high school, when I was asked to justify why what we were learning was important, I knew that the correct answer was always- whatever my teacher said was the reason. I had to do little to no reflecting or critical thinking, I just had to parrot everything the teacher said.

“Upon the receipt of my diploma the world had taught me about the inferiority of Filipinos so well that I did not once question their erasure.”

Realizing these things imploded my internal life and narrative. Figuring out how and why, as an excelling student, I was so disengaged from school made me furious. I was furious because I realized this maintain-the-status-quo lesson, bad enough as it is, disguised far worse ones. While learning the parroting lesson I was internalizing lessons about who matters in the world and who does not. Lessons about the types of lives worth writing and reading about. Amongst all this “important” curriculum I never learned about a single Filipino and the coverage of other leaders of color was embarrassingly bare. Upon the receipt of my diploma the world had taught me about the inferiority of Filipinos so well that I did not once question their erasure. That is how insidious and significant the lack of representation is for our children of color- we rarely question it because by the time we finish our K-12 education we have internalized the message of inferiority. Students of color (SOC) are shown their excellence and potential for greatness through precious little beyond MLK and sports or music stars. Their ambitions sound more like fairy tales than realities. We tell our SOC to dream these things while their white peers are given countless models of greatness personified making their ambitions limitless. My people have famous scientists, writers, and engineers too, but who would ever know it after thirteen years in public education? All people of color know that their people, cultures, and countries, will rarely show up as anything more than a ‘fun fact’ or ‘bonus’ learning in our current curriculums.

The Unspoken Evil of Assimilation

How was I supposed to grow up to know that Filipinos ARE important people when I never once learned about them or how their labor helped build the U.S.? In this U.S. “Melting Pot” the expectation for assimilation is so stifling that my mother chose not to share any of her history with her children. Our pleas for stories of P.I. [Philippines] were met instead with questions like, “Did you do your homework?” or “How’re you doing in class?” These questions and the hundreds like it drove home the point that our biggest responsibility was to do school and not make a fuss. Not to learn, but to excel was our priority. This effectively sealed me off from half of who I am. As a child my reaction was to stop asking for my mother’s stories and, instead, tell myself that she does not have any worth telling. Once you combine my devaluing of my mother with the absence of any single person that resembled me or had a story like mine from school, then you begin to understand that I was part of another generation in this cycle of trauma and oppression. My mom was too fearful of her children not being accepted to share herself with us and my rejection of her for that is a painful truth without remedy. I could not and did not understand how the immense pressures of assimilation and the desire for something resembling her own upbringing drove her to make those decisions.

“Recognizing that people of color have been saving themselves for just as long as people have oppressed them was gratifying. It helped me make the connection that I am resilient like my mother. I am powerful like my mother and I do not have to accept her suppression of our culture anymore.”

Growing up I could only see her struggle; it took time and experience for me to begin to see her strength. Four years ago, my mom had a stroke that not only mentally impaired her but changed her into a childlike version of her former self. I lost my chance to know and understand her, but I found healing in Ethnic Studies. The framework and themes helped me reconcile my memories and experiences with my feelings. I was able to contextualize my mom’s abusive parenting. I understand now that she has countless experiences being underestimated and treated unjustly as a brown woman who speaks with an accent. She took the pain of those experiences and channeled it into criticizing her children into submitting to her high expectations. The weight of her struggle is eased when viewed through the Ethnic Studies theme and lens of Resistance and Liberation. It disabused me of the notion that I was powerless. Recognizing that people of color have been saving themselves for just as long as people have oppressed them was gratifying. It helped me make the connection that I am resilient like my mother. I am powerful like my mother and I do not have to accept her suppression of our culture anymore.

Ethnic Studies is Community

So, I grew up to be my mother’s ‘American’ daughter, but no amount of assimilation could compensate for the fact that I’m not white. No amount of assimilation helped me to find connections to who I am or where I fit in the world. The reality of our society is that I might be “half” white on paper, but never once have I been mistaken for white in this world. For every job interview I’ve had I had to prepare to watch my interviewers adjust their faces and expectations when they matched name: Amanda Hubbard (white) to face (ambiguously Asian). This is true for parents and families meeting me as their child’s teacher. This is true for me when I introduce my dad as my dad. These truths are founded upon our acceptance as a society of whiteness as the norm and color as the exception. When we challenge those ideals with Ethnic Studies, we are choosing to heal ourselves. E.S. chooses to normalize the experiences of POC and not treat racial equity work as taboo or rude to talk about. We pose critical questions about what we are learning, who it is for or about, and which powers and oppressions are present. Ethnic Studies provides a way to educate ourselves and our students about the differences in our world, the power dynamics of our world, and how to change them for the better using your own reflections and action steps.

One of the biggest strengths of the E.S. institute was that, by the end of the first day, it provided the information and space for 100 educators to begin to define who they are and what they want to be. We watched Curtis Acosta teach from the heart and connect with his Xicanx students using culturally responsive teaching and texts. We knew we wanted to be authentic and engaging like him and we analyzed his teaching moves finding the connections between the content we were learning about Ethnic Studies and how we needed to show up for students. We critiqued who was or was not represented in our lessons and units and debated their merits knowing they came from educators in the room brave enough to share them. We pushed ourselves to be vulnerable and acknowledged that we weren’t sure how all of this was supposed to work, but we trusted and respected each other enough to figure it out together. We are growing and increasing our impact because we create and sustain supportive learning environments and community.

The culmination of these experiences is that E.S. is the gap-closing answer to eliminating the chasm between our white students and our students of color. It brings the real ‘real world’ into the classroom. Students of color have curriculum that not only reflects them, but centers and empowers them to engage with it, challenge it, and ultimately shape it for the better. E.S. decenters whiteness from our content and practices and instead centers our instruction on students critically asking and answering: who is telling the story? Who benefits from its telling? Who has the power in the story? My school experience was not a unique one but there wasn’t a way for me to know that. School did not concern itself with the lives of immigrants, the working poor, or non-‘first world’ countries, me. I realized that school taught me how to do school, but it was teaching that taught me how to learn. Ethnic Studies is teaching me how to help our students.

By the Emma Fedore, Cece Chan, Aneesa Roidad, and Jon Greenberg of the NAACP Youth Coalition

Featured image by Chloe Collyer

The painful truth about public education is that racism is as common as bored students and overworked teachers. While many in our home of Seattle take pride in the city’s “progressive” reputation, the students of Seattle Public Schools, especially students of Color, know reality starkly contrasts with this reputation.

In fact, Seattle Public Schools is home to some of the worst racial disparities in the entire country – and the district has known about them for decades and decades. Yet little has changed – exemplified recently by a white teacher calling 911 on a 10 to 11-year-old Black child. To make matters worse, district leaders rarely invite students, those most negatively impacted by this racist system, to the racial-equity problem-solving table.

In Seattle, we decided to stop waiting for an invitation. The NAACP Youth Coalition (N-YC), a coalition of antiracist youth representing 12 high schools and universities in the Seattle area, formed to put a stop to the above realities. In the past two years, we have hosted anti-racism workshops for youth, organized youth panels for educators, and led school board mobilizations. As a result of our efforts, the Seattle School Board endorsed the Black Lives Matter at School movement, one of the first school boards in the nation to do so.

In these two years of activism, we have learned many lessons on organizing and making change, lessons we want to share with both the youth and educators so that the movement for racial justice can continue to spread.

Step 1: Find like-minded, passionate people in your school

            Where there is racism, there are people committed to fighting it. Schools are no exception. It’s just a matter a finding them. And starting small is perfectly fine. As Marge Piercy writes in “The low road,” “Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge.”

As an individual, students may not feel comfortable or safe enough to confront racism in your community, especially if it is coming from an authority figure. At Ballard High School, clubs such as Multicultural Committee offer a restorative and safe space for students of Color to voice concerns, celebrate their culture, or simply vent. Your school likely offers something similar or has ethnicity-specific groups such as a Black Student Union. 

            If not, many buildings usually have at least one visible antiracist teacher, who is likely connected with the youth most invested in antiracism. In the case of the NAACP Youth Coalition, we identified committed students across Seattle Public Schools through Social Equity Educators, an action-oriented caucus of Seattle’s educators union.

            The group that forms will be essential, not just for completing the subsequent steps, but also to provide a network of support in work that can be draining. Furthermore, there is safety in numbers, as students, teachers and administrators have power over us. They may be able to abuse that power with one student, but it becomes far more difficult with a unified group. Having a support network not only keeps you safe, but it can inspire students and hold the school accountable as the group moves forward with challenging racism. 

Step 2: Research past and current changemakers for guidance and inspiration

You may find that your history textbooks have skimmed over or silenced voices calling for radical change – especially if those voices belonged to people of Color. 

For instance, the skewed narrative that puts European “settlers” (virtually never called “colonizers”), not Native Americans, as the protagonists of United States history perpetuates white supremacy. Although textbooks have finally begun to acknowledge the egregious crimes committed against Native people in this country, they still fail to recognize the tenacity and strength of these people. By educating yourself on the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island, you are reframing the power imbalance that we’ve been taught. 

To challenge the sanitized narratives we learn in school, seek out books and essays written by authors of Color. Watch documentaries like Precious Knowledge and Agents of Change about the youth-centered struggles for ethnic studies. Scour the Internet, find podcasts, and then discuss them with your friends. Educate yourself on the struggles and successes of different ethnic and racial groups across history. Forming a holistic worldview will prepare you for activism that respects the voices and perspectives of those who have too often been written out of our history classes.

Social justice work is rooted in community, but it begins with an individual’s willingness to learn and grow. You can’t always control other people’s mindsets, but you will always have the capacity to educate yourself.

Step 3: Establish core values

It’s important to know what you’re fighting for. You’ll need to establish core values to set a foundation for your group or community. Why? Well, sometimes people have disagreements or get carried away with outside drama. In those moments (which will happen) when you need to pull everyone together, core values will remind everyone why they gathered for social justice in the first place. 

There’s a reason why organizations have mission statements; they help establish the group’s core values. Before we even had a name for our group, the founders of the NAACP Youth Coalition put antiracism at the center, recruiting students who had already been doing the same at their schools.

Step 4: Turn your values into demands

Once you have your core values, turn them into actionable items you want to get done or change you want to see. You believe in racial equity? Great! How is your school going to get there? 

At the earliest meetings of the NAACP Youth Coalition, we looked to recent activism at Seattle University, where students were demanding a more anti-racist humanities department.

One of the first priorities of the N-YC at the start each year has been collaboratively establishing our demands. During this past year, we decided on eight (read the full text here).

The NAACP Youth Coalition demands that the Seattle Public School district: 

• support the #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool actions indefinitely;
• improve its curricula, including mandatory Ethnic Studies, to better serve all students;
• increase opportunities to integrate voices of students of Color into its decision-making processes; 
• prioritize the occupied renovation of Rainier Beach High School;
• fund post-secondary opportunities in an equitable way;
• improve its discipline practices, implementing restorative justice district-wide; 
• prioritize training staff of all schools as well as central office staff on issues of race, equity, and racism, even if schools fail to apply for to Race & Equity Teams; and
• prioritize hiring and retaining more staff of color in all buildings regardless of demographics.  

After launching the NAACP Youth Coalition on Martin Luther King Day in 2018, each school board testimony we gave, workshop we attended or put on, and event we participated in has been in an effort to further our demands. Our demands are increasingly becoming part of the conversations at Seattle Public Schools, as they have been distributed at Racial Equity Team trainings, as well as the district’s Youth and Family Racial Justice Summit and Ethnic Studies Summer Institute!

By no means is your list of actions or demands permanent, especially if your demands are actually being met, as was the case with the Seattle School Board endorsing the Black Lives Matter at School week of action. Since our membership continues to evolve and grow, we will revisit them each year to ensure they reflect the will and needs of our current members.

Regardless, your demands should always align with your core values. 

Step 5: Start a club at your school and plan fun activities

            Now that you have committed youth, core values, and a list of demands, formalize your group! Clubs are a great way to take action within your school and the greater community. I know it can be exciting but remember to take your time to think out details of your club. Not all schools require a club constitution but we highly recommend making one! A club constitution forces you to think about the purpose, membership, duties, and responsibilities of your club – helpful and necessary steps if you want your club to be strong and organized. 

After you’ve gotten your club approved you can start thinking of how to market your club. For marketing, you should definitely be using social media like Instagram or Twitter. Using your Snapchat story is also a great way to advertise. Just think about what platforms you have and how you can use those to your advantage. You can also go “old school” and design posters to hang up around school. Lastly, if your school begins the day with daily announcements, advertise your club through this existing channels.

Next is planning club activities. Yes, your club should be focused on making change, but there’s no reason not to have some fun while you do, especially at the start. For your first meeting, draw crowds in with food (because we all know that students love free food). Make sure to tell everyone about your meeting schedule and social media presence, which helps your fellow students stay connected and aware of the events happening with your club. 

Another fun idea for club activities is potlucks! Potlucks are a fun way to bring a community together while also eating some bomb food. Ever heard of a joint potluck? Sometimes joining up with other clubs to do a collab potluck can symbolize allyship and respect. For example, if your club is associated with a specific race and a core value is supporting Black Lives Matter movement, then it might be awesome to do a joint potluck with your school’s Black Student Union! Not only will this bring more people but it opens a conversation around allyship and the BLM movement all in one event.

Crafts are always a fun activity, such as collage making with old magazines, poster making, or any art piece that speaks on cultural identity, oppression, and liberation. Asking art teachers that you trust is always a good idea. If a tragic incident has happened in the world or in your community, making a memorial to visually display peace, love, and justice is always beautiful. 

Of course, maybe an antiracist club already exists in your school, in which case: join an existing club!  Sometimes you don’t have the time or availability to make a club, and that’s totally okay! Just because you aren’t a physical leader of your own club doesn’t mean you can’t make change. Join an existing club and don’t be afraid to speak your truth and what you believe in. Existing clubs are looking for passionate new members. Whatever your role, you and your voice matters!

Step 6: Find and create opportunities to make change

            Okay, so you’ve done your research. You’ve got core values, a list of demands, and a group that meets regularly. Now it’s time to find and create opportunities that accomplish your goals. What posters, activities, or conversations can you create? Who can you partner with to create them? How will this accomplish your intended goal(s) or reach your audience?

None of those questions has just one answer or an answer that is “right.” There are many ways to take action, and what’s best for your group largely depends on the individual circumstances: the nature of your club, your school community, how supportive (or hostile) your school administration is.

Some groups have used heritage months as educational opportunities for schools in which whitewashed curricula are the default to show that marginalized groups in the school are indeed valued. For example, if it happens to be May, Asian and Pacific Islander heritage month, then maybe you watch Crazy Rich Asians with your Asian and Pacific Islander club to open a discussion about the importance of racial representation in the media.

Once you are a formally recognized club, it’s easier to influence your school. As part of school clubs, NAACP Youth Coalition members have led staff trainings and organized assemblies, both on issues of race and racism. At the building level, don’t be afraid to email teachers, administration, and department heads about the change you want to see happen in your school.

To make change at even bigger level, N-YC frequently targets the Seattle School Board, the elected body in charge of the district policy. In Seattle, this body – along with the superintendent, who is hired by the Board – has the power to turn our demands into a reality. Our school board mobilization to promote the national demands of Black Lives Matter at School, demands that align perfectly with our own, gained significant media attention (here, here, and here), which increases our influence with district leaders.

Step 7: Get funding

            During the NAACP Youth Coalition’s first year, a couple of Seattle School Board directors reached out to meet with the group. At this meeting, the Directors told the group that to make change, they need to keep showing up at school board meetings. This response revealed a fundamental flaw with the system: it requires privilege to fight for racial equity.

If you are facing multiple, interlocking systems of oppression, who has the time or ability to keep showing up to pressure school board directors? Furthermore, we can’t leave it to the privileged to lead the fight for racial equity, as they are the ones who least understand racism and other forms of oppression.

Rita Green, education chair of the local NAACP and one of the group’s founding adults, had a solution: pay the youth for their antiracism efforts. Green applied for and landed a Best Starts for Kids grant, which meant that our group’s youth could receive a stipend for N-YC’s many efforts. No longer do adult coordinators have to ask students to volunteer their time to make change.

During our first year, before the grant, the group only represented a few schools, mostly in the more affluent North End of Seattle, and membership declined by the end of the year. With the grant, however, at the end of year two, our membership is larger than ever!

Next year, we plan to hit the ground running. And we’d love to help you do the same! Please stay connected through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter or contact one of our coordinators.

by Jennifer Dunn

I’m packing my bags this morning for the third time this summer and it’s still July. On August 1^st I will have traveled through six states in 30 days. I just returned from a week-long training for new leaders with the National SEED project (created by none other than Dr. Peggy McIntosh)  in San Anselmo, California. One of the most important takeaways from this SEED experience for me was this: windows and mirrors. It is a practice that works well for Ethnic Studies and racial equity work because it is a flattening of power dynamics between two people. I can now see myself in relation to anyone and ask myself am I a window or a mirror to this person? Is my story a window or a mirror to their story? We are all in relation to one another.

Storytelling is a centerpiece to SEED work. In one session called “Schooling Stories”, I was asked to write about a time in school where I witnessed or experienced oppression and to write in the present tense. This is what I wrote and shared that day:

“I’m in the 8th grade. It’s 3rd period and the subject: Texas History. Today, we are learning about the Alamo. I sit and listen to my white teacher explain how the brave white men Davey Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William B. Travis all came to save the Alamo from the encroaching Mexican army. My heart hurts. I become so aware (once again) that most of my classmates are white. I look at their faces for reaction to this story but their faces reveal nothing but acceptance of the heroism of these men by the storyteller. I feel embarrassed and ashamed of being Mexican, of feeling like the defeated, of being the other, so I flip through the pages of my textbook looking for any story to counter this one. It isn’t there. As the story goes on, the capture of the Alamo by the Mexicans is clearly not the point, and includes the eventual triumphant capture of General Santa Ana disguised as low ranking soldier hiding in the grass in a nearby… I just can’t even listen anymore. I slide my hand into my pocket to reach for the headphones through the hole I have cut in my jacket packet and up through my sleeve from my walkman to listen to Selena belting out No Me Queda Mas.”

I wonder…Is this story a window or a mirror for you? As a student? What about as a teacher?

I cried while reading that story to a circle of strangers but mostly I think because it was the first time I got to tell it in a space that was honored rather than dismissed as insignificant. The first time that anyone had even asked me and ultimately revealed the roots of my pursuit of education justice. Then I had to have a real long look at myself in the mirror as a teacher and cry all over again wondering how many times I have been guilty of doing the same thing in my own classroom- controlling the narrative; telling other people’s stories. When I was 13, I didn’t have the tools to resist or even name the “master narrative” or the “single story” of white supremacy in curriculum and institutionalized racism. Today, I do.

This incredibly powerful activity of windows and mirrors at SEED training was presented first with artwork. As participants, we were asked to approach a table of copies of paintings and then to find a partner and discuss whether the image was a window or a mirror for us. This is the painting I chose:

This painting is a mirror to my childhood.  A childhood I felt joy at home and then shame about when I was at school. For years, I literally hid my home stories away at school and downplayed my roots. The Mexican and Tejano traditions practiced at home were assigned no value in my classes. Indigeneity was a thing of the past and the only way to “succeed” was assimilation. The decision I was forced to make in school was to accept and assimilate or rebel and be labeled a troublemaker.

My brother (a BRILLIANT mathematician) stopped attending school in the 10^th grade.

I assimilated.

Today, this “Schooling Story” reminds me of how I would like to be in relation with students and other people in public education. Another important part of SEED work is being in “just” relations with others. Windows and Mirrors is a tool in pursuit of just relationships but the road ahead is long because the system is so powerful. As an educator I am STILL pressured to assimilate to institutionalized norms and have been guilty of perpetuating assimilation in my own classroom when I have done things like teach AP and complied to testing culture. The pressure to produce “rigorous” content at “high standards” is very strong. The call for uniformity and the polished appearance of “excellence” – so loud. Still, I reset my practice mantra today that education is for liberation-not assimilation and that I will receive much criticism along the way in search of the real thing. Already I am labeled “not a team player” and a rogue with a bad attitude and, of course, the wrong tone when I do not consent to the status quo.  

Ultimately, our stories are not something we can see or hear by simply looking at one another and yet it seems more and more that we are creating a society where we are judged mostly by our social media profile “appearance”. I am suddenly aware of the irony of adding something to my “story” on Instagram and how many of us are probably faking it so we can appear successful. I also feel sad when people say things like “You look nothing like your name” and sigh when people look at me and ask, “what are you?” (Decolonizing Mixed Chicanx, btw.)

Stories involve investment in relationships. This SEED work reminded me that I need to make more space for storytelling in my classroom and in my adult relationships. Telling our stories is how we become centered in our roots and invested in the work authentically. It is how we can connect with one another- and ultimately a seed for “just” relations.

But I must tell my own story-not the story I have in relation to another-that is their story to tell. When I speak for others, I am not in “just” relations with them.

As I recommit myself to the cause of racial equity over assimilation in public education, I am also now writing my own education liberation story. I move forward as a teacher but as a co-researcher in indigeneity and honoring storytelling with others. I vow that I will not tell people’s stories for them. How about now? Am I your window or your mirror? Just checking.

Windows and mirrors came with this caution:

Be mindful of who you are in relation with.

Too many mirrors is vanity.

Too many windows. Voyeurism.

Now I am back to packing my bags for Tejas/Texas to spend time with family, but also in search of the stories I was never told or asked about in school. As I return home, I come to dig at roots. As I dig, I endeavor to go deeper than the Spanish (colonizing) language that was deemed unacceptable at school to Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. I look beneath America, to Aztlan and to Turtle Island and I am not alone. Already I have met a lot of other people looking for surfacing the same thing- their missing or erased stories.

Finally, my thoughts return to the first bag packing of the summer. After the last day of school, my partner and I set off on a road trip to Wyoming via Idaho and Montana. I am definitely also going through some eco-anxiety right now and have had this fear lately that if I don’t see some of Turtle Island now, I never will.  On the road, we listened to Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. In this novel, Butler reveals her philosophy called Earthseed in a not too distant future (2024, y’all) where climate change and broken government has led to societal breakdown. Butler says, “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” I have also been reading adrienne maree brown’s (she does not capitalize any part of her name like bell hooks) Emergent Strategy (hopefully the subject of my next post!) where brown harnesses social justice leaders from past and present and weaves together the intersectional issues of climate justice and racial justice.

In brown’s work, she looks to nature for solutions to heal our planet, ourselves and our communities-by being like dandelions, through our roots and seeds. Brown also repeatedly mentions in her book that “what you pay attention to grows.”

The response that forms in my mind right now to that is “The future is in the past.” I need to check out the roots but pay attention to what seeds I plant for others.

Everywhere I look right now:

windows and mirrors, roots and seeds

Follow Jennifer @JenniferisDunn.

Image source: 2020 Presidential Hopefuls Court Educators at NEA Representative Assembly

by Jon Greenberg

What exactly is a National Education Association Representative Assembly? As a teacher relatively new to union organizing, I thought I knew the answer but I was quite unprepared for the scale of this event, an event so big that it attracted 10 Democratic presidential candidates, each of whom traveled all the way to Houston to get ten minutes of speaking time with this body of educators.

The NEA’s Representative Assembly is the word’s largest “democratic deliberative body,” according to the NEA, during which over 8,000 elected delegates representing over 3 million educators converge and make decisions about the “vital issues that impact American public education and set Association policy and activities for the year ahead.” 

The bulk of this work is done through introducing New Business Items (NBIs), which are presented to the body, debated, and then voted on; this year there were 160 introduced! A group of us from the Seattle Education Association attended this year to advance ethnic studies at the national level. The NEA Black Caucus, specifically caucus chair Cecily Myart Cruz, had already organized a robust racial justice agenda that included a Black Lives Matter at School NBI and two ethnic studies NBIs. 

SEA delegate Kaitlin Kamalei Jenkins put forward a third ethnic studies NBI focusing on updating that groundbreaking research by Christine Sleeter confirming the benefits of ethnic studies, “The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies,” which was commissioned by the NEA and published in 2011, nearly a decade ago. 

Compiled below are the ethnic studies and Black Lives Matter at School NBIs that passed the body – all with little to no debate – as well as a few other NBIs related to racial justice too good to exclude. To check out important NBIs – on topics of lgbtqia+, climate change, union rights, #metoo movement, and more – read them all here. 

ETHNIC STUDIES NBIs

New Business Item 13

NEA will create an ongoing series in NEA Today using existing digital resources including NEAtoday.org and NEA Express Today, and promotion on the NEA Today social media highlight examples of the Ethnic Studies curricula and programs across the nation and connection to student growth and success of students who have access to Ethnic Studies. 

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

Note: This passed nearly unanimously, with perhaps one belated “nay” coming from the back of the room. 

New Business Item 16

NEA Board of Directors will consider a new policy statement on Ethnic Studies to be presented at the 2020 NEA RA for adoption.

ADOPTED 

Note: This passed narrowly, likely because of the $155,400 price tag. A policy statement, as opposed to a resolution (which is more of a belief statement) invites the NEA to invest more resources into ethnic studies. 

New Business Item 19

NEA will promote the Black Lives Matter Week of Action in schools during Black History Month in 2020.  Beginning in the fall of 2019, using existing communications resources, NEA will specifically call for clear efforts to demonstrate support for the four demands of the BLM Week of Action in schools:

1. Ending zero-tolerance policies and replacing them with restorative justice practices

2. Hiring and mentoring black educators

3. Mandating that Ethnic Studies be taught in preK-12 schools in age-appropriate ways

4. Hiring more counselors not cops

ADOPTED

Note: this passed unanimously! 

New Business Item 40

NEA will update the existing research review on the academic and social implications of Ethnic Studies and publish the results through existing NEA resources. 

ADOPTED 

Note: Seattle delegate Bruce Jackson estimates that this passed with 80 percent in favor. 

OTHER RACIAL JUSTICE NBIs

New Business Item A

NEA will immediately call on the Trump administration, U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and the courts, for the immediate end to the detention and criminalization of immigrant children and their families; including an end to ICE raids, which inflicts chaos, fear, and instability on entire communities.

Specifically and immediately, NEA will call on the U.S. government to address the human rights violations for which it is responsible in detention centers across the country by demanding that:

-Immigrant children currently incarcerated by the U.S. government be treated as human beings with infinite worth and potential, and not be exposed to conditions that harm or traumatize them.

-Detention facilities be open to visits by doctors, educators, social workers, clergy, and other children’s advocates.

-The U.S. government comply with the guidelines for basic standards of care of children set forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

-The U.S. government stop sending children and immigrant families to for-profit detention centers.

To achieve the above, NEA will:

1. Instruct our General Counsel to challenge such policies and practices in the courts and other venues by leading or joining cases with advocacy partners;

2. Call on members and affiliates to seek sponsors and support for legislation that protects immigrant families, the rights of asylum seekers, and the humane treatment of all immigrants;

3. Oppose ICE raids that terrify peaceful communities and endanger children who are left without caregivers when parents are arrested and detained;

4. Urge all presidential candidates to develop plans for comprehensive immigration reform that include specific ways to ensure the humane treatment of all immigrants and ways to end ICE raids and family separations;

5. Partner with immigrant rights’ organizations to inform our members and the families they serve of the civil and human rights of undocumented people through community engagement and specifically partner on training such as know-your-rights training;

6. Initiate and support networking locally so that our members and public can jointly engage in initiatives and actions on immigrant justice;

7. Promote the efforts of our affiliates and partners to protect immigrant students and families from the harm and trauma caused by fear of deportation, anti-immigrant violence and family separation’;

8. Mobilize members to contact their elected officials, participate in protests, and disseminate advocacy materials on urgent immigration issues; and

9. Expand NEA’s rapid response social justice activist network to engage and activate our members and allies on key immigration priorities.

10. NEA will provide information to state affiliates on how they can gain access to assist refugees being held in detention centers, how they can teach, provide social work servicing, psychology services, provide soap, toothbrushes and other sanitary needs to refugees. Please inform our members how we can take direct action of detentions centers.

ADOPTED AS AMENDED

New Business Item 11

Using existing resources, NEA will incorporate the concept of “White Fragility” into NEA trainings/staff development, literature, and other existing communications on social, gender, LGBTQIA, and racial justice whenever and wherever context and expense allows.

ADOPTED 

New Business Item 14

NEA will create model legislative language that state affiliates can use to eliminate the Praxis or alternative standardized test used for teacher certification.

ADOPTED 

New Business Item 17

The convenings created as a result of the 2018 NBI 117 Task Force report will recommend specific annual numeric goals for the recruitment of, and retention of, educators of color.  NEA will create a pilot cadre of educators of color (a minimum of 2 per state affiliate for at least 10 states) whose purpose is to identify and recruit high school and college ethnic students (African American, Hispanic, Indigenous People of America, Asian American, Pacific Islander) to enter the teaching profession starting with states that have Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges, Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 21

NEA will create an electronic toolkit that will assist locals in developing member allies who will serve as diversity ambassadors to engage in courageous conversations in an effort to support educators of color and other targeted and marginalized educators.

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED  

New Business Item 25

NEA will collaborate and partner with organizations and individuals who are doing the work to push reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States and to involve educators, students, and communities in the discussions around support for reparations. NEA will write an article in NEA Today to pay homage to educators who have been and are currently fighting for reparations, such as Ernie Smith, and to highlight the organizations and individuals involved in the fight for reparations. NEA will actively network and collaborate with organizations such as ACLU, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), and individuals such as Darrick Hamilton, to hold national teletown halls in different regions of the United States in order to educate members and the general public about the importance of reparations.

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 31

Utilizing existing communication resources, the NEA shall publicize the investigation that has uncovered state and federal funding for confederate museums, shrines, and groups that present a distorted view of history and perpetuate racist idealogy (www.smithsonianmag.com/history/costs-confederac-special-report-180970731/).

ADOPTED 

New Business Item 34

NEA will disseminate current information developed in partnership with the National Indian Educational Association and/or the National Congress of American Indians regarding missing and murdered indigenous women and girls during the month of May 2020.This will be in solidarity with Red Shawl Day. Information will be disseminated through established modes of communication.

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 41

The NEA will support an initiative to hire more diverse leadership staff such as assistant principals and principals in our schools, by notifying state affiliates to encourage their members of color to pursue a career in school leadership. In addition, the NEA will work to support this goal.  

As NEA continues to promote and push forward on improving diversity and inclusion of educational professionals, we direct NEA to include assistant principals, principals, and other administrators in work that we are already doing.

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED  

New Business Item 64

At the beginning of ALL NEA convenings, NEA will acknowledge the native people of whom the lands originated from. 

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 84 

The NEA will use existing resources by utilizing the Racial Justice Education program to provide quality anti-racist, anti-biased culturally competent virtual professional development opportunities. To continue to build upon already existing work by identifying regional, state, leaders, and volunteers or whomever the Committee deems to expand learning to facilitate and train the trainer model using an interactive virtual curriculum to build capacity in members at the state and local level.

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 87 

NEA will publish in the NEA Today the impact of voter suppression in the United States. 

ADOPTED 

New Business Item 91 

NEA will use existing resources to digitally publicize a list of resources educators can use to teach their students about the history of the U.S. government programs of detention and internment, deportations and repatriations, to include but not limited to the Mexican Repatriation (1929-1931), Bracero Program (1942), and Operation Wetback (1954).

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 93

NEA will use existing channels to call on educators to refrain from discouraging or explicitly telling students to not speak a language other than English at school.  NEA may also include information about:

·     The benefits of being multi-lingual;

·     How linguistic oppression is traumatic to children and stifles their academic achievement;

·     The white supremacy culture associated with “English only” movements; and

·     The history of violence inflicted on children for speaking a language other than English at school.

ADOPTED 

New Business Item 116 

NEA will create a sub-category of ethnicity under the race category on NEA360 and conference registration sites to help the association better understand the ethnic makeup of our membership and make sure that the needs of all members are met. They will also provide a report to state leadership detailing the ethnicity breakdowns of our membership. 

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 118 

The NEA will call on the U.S. government to accept responsibility for the destabilization of Central American countries (including, but not limited to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua), and that this destabilization is a root cause of the recent increase of asylum seekers in the United States. 

ADOPTED AS MODIFIED 

New Business Item 121

NEA will create a task force to examine means of data collection on discrimination, harassment, and bullying of members by the National Education Association leadership on the basis of race, gender identity and expression, or sexual orientation. The task force will also develop a process of grievance submission and accountability, as well as development and dissemination of reporting procedure and protocol.

ADOPTED AS AMENDED 

Note: This NBI was originally targeting racial discrimination but was sanitized and diluted through an amendment. 

New Business Item 143

NEA will use its existing communication vehicles to educate members and the public about the negative impact of excluding students from academic and extracurricular programs based on their natural hairstyles and from their hair being modified by any school officials, school staff, referees, or any other individuals in a public school or higher education environment.

ADOPTED 

Read more from Jon on his website: www.citizenshipandsocialjustice.com.

By Tracy Castro-Gill

Re-blogged from The Teacher Activist

I don’t think there would be much opposition to the following statement:

Social hierarchies of any kind result in oppression. Period.

When I teach my sixth graders about ancient history, one of the first concepts I introduce them to is that of the social hierarchy compared to the ideas of tribalism and egalitarianism. Haters will say, “But, wait! Ancient tribal societies were not egalitarian!” Yes, I know this, that’s why I said, “tribalism and egalitarianism.” While I know that many tribal structures include some type of a hierarchy, it is much less rigid than the hierarchies created by larger civilizations.

A VERY BRIEF HISTORY AND COMPARISON OF TRIBAL VS STATE HIERARCHIES

Francis Fukiyama, in his book The Origins of Political Order; From prehuman times to the French Revolution, does a great job of breaking down the differences between tribal and state governments. He does this mostly by describing the different ways in which personal property was valued, regulated, and shared. In tribal societies, personal property, mostly in the form of land holdings, was strategically traded between tribes, usually through marriage arrangements. Using this method required a sense of community and trust between different tribal governments. Yes, there were gender hierarchies and class hierarchies, but there was still a sense of family and community because of the cooperation between tribes. The leaders were in community and were familiar with the community, if not liked or loved by them. Leaders who lost the trust of the community lost power.

Fukiyama compares three ancient cultures and outlines when and why they went from tribal governments to state governments. All three, China, India, and Europe, started with tribal governments. The shift to state government came in waves in China because the tribal organization was so deep and the geography so wide. India remained largely tribal until it was invaded and occupied by European nation-states. Interestingly, Fukiyama points out that Europe’s transformation was the swiftest and strongest because of Christianity. Individualism, as discussed in the last blog post, and adherence to law are two important tenets of Christianity, especially after Reformation, and since early monarchies and Church leadership were virtually inseparable, Church law was law. This created a shift in how personal property was defined. It became more of an individual ownership and not something that is shared within community or to build alliances between communities. It laid the foundations for capitalism and individual gain over the common good. It also set the leaders apart from the people. Power was transferred to wealth instead of community agreements.

Through invasion, occupation, and colonization, other cultures eventually took on similar state governments creating the social hierarchies we are familiar with today: capitalist oligarchies, totalitarian dictatorships, constitutional monarchies, democratic socialism, etc. Those are just the state hierarchies. There are still the gender and class hierarchies, and we’ve added racial hierarchies. There are institutional hierarchies as well. I want to address the last few here, but as you can see… it’s going to take a while, which is why I’ve split this topic into a four part series.

DECOLONIZING THE CLASSROOM BY DISMANTLING CLASSROOM HIERARCHIES

“I am asking you to actively work to dismantle racial, class, gender, and institutional hierarchies in the classroom, in your school building, and in your school district.”

In part one of this series, I want to begin to argue that decolonizing our schools can’t happen unless we actively work to dismantle these hierarchies. No, I’m not asking you to dismantle capitalist oligarchies (though I believe if we do what I am suggesting, that will be a natural consequence). I am asking you to actively work to dismantle racial, class, gender, and institutional hierarchies in the classroom, in your school building, and in your school district. Until we do, we are still colonizing our students and each other. I will start with the classroom. Part two will address school and district-wide hierarchies, part three will address higher education, specifically in school administration preparation programs, and part four will be a reflection on how I’ve worked to dismantle hierarchies in my classroom.

Paolo Freire tells us that liberation requires a “praxis.” This can be defined as “theory in practice.” Recently, I learned from the leaders of the Mexican-American studies program in Tucson that the Aztec word for this is Huitzilopochtli, which translates to “hummingbird on the left.” It is taken to mean acting from the heart. Freire writes at length about what it takes to be a revolutionary leader. He says, “… but leaders who deny praxis to the oppressed thereby invalidate their own praxis… Revolutionary praxis is a unity, and the leaders cannot treat the oppressed as their possession.” How can leaders act from the heart if they are not only detached completely from the people they are trying to lead, but also feel they know better than the people? I, and Freire, argue that it’s impossible. That’s not leadership. That’s oppression, and the only way to avoid it is to dismantle the barriers created by hierarchies.

“Box checking educators are responsible for the rise of fascism in the United States.”

In the classroom, we are the leaders. We can further oppress our students, or lead them to praxis through education. I recognize that there are many of us in the profession who are box checkers. We show up, we check off the boxes for the standards we covered, and check off the boxes in our scope and sequence map, we collect a paycheck, and take our summer vacations. This is my official call to action: if you are this educator immediately cease and desist this practice! If you work with educators like this immediately organize educators who believe this is immoral and push those educators to immediately cease and desist their practice! Box checking educators are funneling our children into prisons, poverty, drugs, streets, and police brutality. Box checking educators are responsible for the rise of fascism in the United States. Box checking educators are killing public education.

We need to return to tribal values of community and cooperation through praxis and egalitarianism in our own practice. We must recognize that our students, regardless of age or ability, come into our classroom with an astounding wealth of knowledge, and for most of their lives, they have been told that their knowledge is not valid or not valuable simply because of their age. I am saying that this is a hierarchy; an institutional hierarchy, yes, because a classroom is part of a larger institution, but also an hierarchy based on age and perceived knowledge. I’ll go deeper into the perceived knowledge hierarchy in part three.

WHOSE KNOWLEDGE? THEIR KNOWLEDGE.

One of the first messages I give my students is that I see them. I see their lived experiences, and I value them as educators. I explain that I am at the front of the room only because I have the privileges of age and formal education, and that in no way makes me or my knowledge superior to theirs. I also share how much I love to learn with and from my students.

Dismantling hierarchies in the classroom requires a complete shift on the definition of knowledge. The human brain is wired to perceive the world and process knowledge through culture. From the moment we are born, how we interpret our experiences is painted by the culture we’re born into. Unfortunately, when we go to school to learn, we are expected to check those cultural perceptions at the door and allow teachers to fill our heads with the perceptions of white American cultural “knowledge.” Our brains become colonized.

I think it’s impossible for every educator to learn the culture of every student that is in front of us, and the beautiful consequence of dismantling age and knowledge hierarchies is that we don’t have to! Our students have what Dr. Anita Fernández refers to as “cultural wealth.” They bring with them all of the cultural knowledge and experiences of their communities. Learn from them! Don’t invalidate their knowledge! Utilize it! Value it! Teach your students the value of having diverse perspectives when solving problems and analyzing their world. You are there to give them resources and guide them. You’re not giving them wisdom, knowledge, or even a lens through which to see the world. They came to you already equipped with those things, but part of our own education has told us that they are ill equipped if it’s not the white way of doing things, and that children aren’t sophisticated enough to already have skills that we deem valuable.

LOVE AND HUMANITY

One thing I do think all educators have the responsibility to do is love their students. I love my students. I love who they are when they come to me. I love what they teach me and the joy they bring to my life. I love when they’re challenging and they push me to be a better human being. In order to fully dismantle hierarchies in the classroom we must love our students unconditionally. I have literally been laughed at in the past for suggesting this. It goes against what we’re taught – to be objective. Here’s another call to action: if you can’t love your students, get another job! If you know educators that don’t love their students, counsel them out of the profession!

If we don’t love and value our students, they won’t trust us as leaders. This is where we lose our kids. This is how we are funneling them into prisons or worse. Love your students! Be a valuable member of the classroom community. Don’t be a figurehead lecturing from behind a desk. Be with them. Learn with them. Commune with them. It’s not some hippy bullshit. It’s how we are meant to engage as human beings. Teaching and learning are part of the human experience, not some sterile, objective process.

Through unconditional love we can fully value the cultural wealth that our students bring to us and each other. When we love our students we see and build on their humanity, which is my goal as an educator. I’m not here to check boxes or prepare students for “college and beyond.” My goal is to grow human beings who value their humanity and the humanity of others. We’ve lost sight of that in education for a lot of reasons, mostly corporate ed reform, but that’s a blog post for another time.

“Dismantling classroom hierarchies through loving and valuing our students means empowering them to be change makers now, not after it’s too late.”

By practicing unconditional love and valuing the humanity of our students we are modeling the kind of human beings we want them to be – not become! Emphasis on now. Part of dismantling the hierarchy is showing students that their cultural wealth can be put to use now, not when they graduate or turn eighteen. They can change their world now. In kindergarten? Change how they treat one another. In 6th grade? Change school policies. In 11th grade? Change laws and perceptions in their community. Dismantling classroom hierarchies through loving and valuing our students means empowering them to be change makers now, not after it’s too late.

In partnership with the Creative Advantage, Seattle Public Schools teachers worked with guest teaching artists to develop Theater of the Oppressed strategies into Ethnic Studies classrooms. Pictured here: Ian Golash, Heather Griffin, Tracy Castro-Gill, Jéhan Òsanyìn, Lara Davis, Gail Sehlhorst, Jesse Hagopian, Jennifer Dunn Charlton, Rachel Atkins, Luke Azinger, Tina LaPadula, Tikka Sears.

by Jennifer Dunn Charlton

It is becoming clearer to me that Ethnic Studies is a mindset more than anything. It is the lens which we put on any particular subject or object of study. Once you understand the frameworks of the curriculum, any racial equity literate teacher could potentially deliver the content. But Ethnic Studies is not just content-it is a whole shift in the purpose and goal of education: Education for liberation-not assimilation. The challenge then becomes about moving away from traditional methods of content delivery and traditional assessments coded in white norms and what Paulo Freire referred to as “banking style education”. We remove barriers when we let go of high-pressure, independent assessments, but what do we replace it with? When I inform my students that we will be taking no tests, no quizzes and then ask students what they want to do instead, the default response is often a puzzled “give a PowerPoint presentation?” Students have been given so little autonomy over their own learning that they hardly know what to do-EVEN IN THE TENTH GRADE. Theater of the Oppressed (TO) is a gateway that leads to infinite possibilities beyond tests, quizzes, and PowerPoints.

In early spring 2019, I agreed to partner with a guest teacher to launch a series of lessons involving Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed in my humanities classroom. After meeting with the guest artist, we adapted lessons written by the Seattle Public Schools Ethnic Studies curriculum writers to incorporate TO moves. TO is a natural fit in the Ethnic Studies classroom because it transforms the room from passive consumption by spectators from traditional theater (and classroom?) space and everyone is a spect-actor. This can be a difficult shift for students who have learned to hide in the traditional classroom. Since everyone is involved simultaneously, no one can sit passively listening to a lecture, bubble in a long column of “C” on the quiz they didn’t prepare for or watching the clock for the class to end. Everyone is in because there is no “out.”

TO allows access to Ethnic Studies by making space to express through movements some of the things that are SO HARD TO SAY about topics like identity, privilege, indigeneity, white saviors, gentrification, etc. The work involves finding your real place in machines and confront your own role in perpetuating injustices-since we are all in the system-we are all guilty of complacency unless we as Mario Savio put it in his speech in front of his fellow students at Berkeley in 1964, “put our bodies upon the gears of the machine.”  

When I first agreed to pilot this work in partnership with Ethnic Studies, I worried that I would not be able to match the energy that experienced theater artists amaze me with, but by the second collaboration, I found myself almost talking over the teaching artist since I started having my own visions of how to help students create the motions and words in their work.

“We were preparing for real world communication needs without even realizing it.”

Over the weeks, a few days looked and felt similar: Warm up. Active machine or tableau work. Reflection. Warmups involved some fairly low stakes theater games. One game, red ball, uses imaginary balls of different colors being passed around a circle. Red ball requires making eye contact, listening, giving and receiving in a “gamified” format. We were preparing for real world communication needs without even realizing it.

The first full on TO activity we did together was build a machine. The machine represents the system; any system that we find ourselves inside of such as the patriarchy or racism. The machine that we rebuilt together was called the Machine of Gentrification. We first studied the Central District of Seattle by watching the music video “The Hood Ain’t the Same” by Draze and reading supporting articles and listening to a podcast about gentrification in Seattle housing and schools. We chose lyrics from the song that stuck out to us. Mine was “no white sheets but these suits and ties look the same to me.” Then we chose a gesture that would represent the words we were saying. After all coming up in partnerships with our gesture/word combinations, we moved into position on a pretend map of Seattle to identify where in the city this was happening and where we are in relation to the problem. We “ran the machine” in the order that we thought one thing was leading to another. This was very eye opening to students, “I think the machine of transformation really identified the problems we face and what it would look like if those problems were solved. It really got me thinking about how these problems are treated, where they’re located, and how our lives would be way different if these problems weren’t around.” -MH

Then we tried to imagine what the opposite of the problem would look like with our bodies. We created new gestures and words to demonstrate that change. This is where the magic happens. We identified a problem, imagined what we wanted to see instead and then we were able to explore different pathways to achieve the goal. Then we ran the machine sequentially with all of the moving parts cycling through problem, a change that needs to be made, and a solution. This was a little broad the first time we did it, but it absolutely led to students identifying real world problems that they were concerned about and helped them see ways in which they, as individuals, but also by forming alliances with other groups, could create change. I took photos and notes up on the overhead as they were creating all of this work.

We experimented in a few other activities such as tableau. In this activity, we built a tableau of the White Savior Complex. We read articles about different ways people accidentally or purposely do this in the world. Tableau is similar but different from Machines in that this activity involves identifying a problem, a change and a solution in the same way but differs in that it a robot style 3 pose sequence of movements as opposed to the machine which runs continuously with all of the parts moving at once. This was a good activity, since this class has a white majority. Had we just read about it, or even just discussed it, I don’t think it would have been as powerful as watching someone “act” a certain way and being able to see why it is problematic.

“Theatre of the Oppressed makes us ready to respond and ready for action.”

While I could (and probably will) write more extensively about all of the benefits of doing this work I really want to say this: TO makes us ready to respond and ready for action. In the first workshop I did to prepare for this work, it was suggested that this work is “acting like act-ivists until we become them.” I leaned into this energy to dive into topics that I am certain would have been harder for all students to engage in as a discussion and yet through TO, students were able to access the content, collaborate and create some truly meaningful projects using the same methodology that we developed in our theater work:  

The past few weeks have been very action-oriented. Students have organized open forums for the recent Abortion Legislation in several states, and also to some racist vandalism that happened inside the school among some really amazing other projects. These students have designed their own finals without feeling disengaged, left out, assimilated, bored or coerced. They are engaged in Freire’s “problem posing education”.

Follow Jennifer on Twitter @JenniferIsDunn