Anti-racist teaching strategies in elementary education

The project is about anti-racism in elementary education. To become anti-racist, teachers should listen to black children, families, and teachers. Books can help address anti-racism. In predominantly white schools, black students stay silent due to racism. Anti-racist teaching strategies include establishing shared vocabulary, creating safe spaces, and centering marginalized voices. The education system should include the teaching of darker parts of history. Black history is often overlooked. Racism affects students' education. Teachers should make sure everyone feels included and their learning is meaningful. Hi, my name is Cooper Price, and our project is on anti-racism in elementary education. How should a teacher become anti-racist? To become anti-racist, they should listen to what black children, families, and teachers have to say and hear their stories. How are you going to judge a person without knowing who they are or where they come from? Books are a great way. There are a variety of books available to help address anti-racism and anti-bias in schools and in classrooms and at the library. Reading through these books, educators should consider what the book says and what the meaning of the book is and what they as a teacher can do to address similar issues in their own classroom. I also think they should take a look at themselves and how they are as a person. Really dive into themselves and figure out all the racist things they do and try to make themselves a better person. My name is Brendan Smay, and I'm going to talk about the problem with predominantly white schools and anti-racist teaching strategies for those schools. In mostly white schools, black students find it easier to stay silent rather than to speak up. When a student is victim to a racist verbal attack, the school will provide traditional consequences for the offender and then usually the bullying will continue or worsen. Eventually, the students of color would rather just stay silent than make things worse for themselves. And this cycle continues and continues. There are multiple anti-racist teaching strategies for these schools to help solve this problem. It is more important than ever to help students understand issues of race and racism and make sure that they have a role in helping to dismantle systemic inequalities. It is important to talk about these issues in the classroom, especially in predominantly white spaces. The first strategy is to establish a shared vocabulary. Before reading a book that has racial issues in it, educate your students on the vocabulary they will see in the book. For example, define for them terms like racism, prejudice, and anti-racism. Second step is to create safe and exclusive spaces. When talking about sensitive topics such as race, safe spaces need to be assured. We need to make sure that students of color feel comfortable. Make it clear ahead of time how these situations will go. If we are reading a book containing racial slurs, discuss with the class prior to reading about how it will be handled. The third step is center marginalized voices and experiences. In books, characters are usually assumed to be white unless the author says otherwise. Usually students will read books from predominantly white authors. This article argues we get kids to read books from marginalized voices. When discussing literature, ask your students whose voices are heard and whose voices are being left out. Also ask who holds power and who doesn't. After doing all that research, what do you think is the most important step? I think the most important step is to create safe and exclusive spaces for the students. My name is Andrea Farina, and for mine I'm doing the history of the education system and how we need to be more inclusive with the history for all students. The education system needs to understand that the teaching of the past is important for all the students. This includes the teaching of the darker parts of our history. Some students may feel that the civil rights movement is kind of glossed over, like the learning of Martin Luther King and all the other major leaders in that event. This is problematic because when the students grow up and they feel that this has occurred, they may hold resentment towards the schools. They may not realize it in the moment, but when they grow up, they will see that the schools held out on what they view as very important history to them and their families. And they may feel that the schools don't care for them or their history. This is a problem that schools need to address, and we need to make sure moving forward that everyone feels included in schools. Teachers need to strive to make sure that their classrooms are engaging in all-inclusive teaching and make sure that the students feel included in their teaching, and the teachers need to see how important their role is in this. So, Drea, why do you think teachers don't cover the civil rights movement as much as other areas in history? I feel that most schools feel that they have to continue teaching the way that we've been teaching students for a long time, and then these areas just generally be passed over like they weren't major events in our history. My name is Nasir Druitt, and today I'm going to talk about anti-racism in elementary education and my personal experience throughout it. So, throughout my education experience, I've been treated an odd way out of my other classmates, and I used to think it was because of the type of kid I was. But later down the road, I realized it was more than that, and instead it was racism. Since elementary school, I've been a part of numerous stereotypes because of my skin color, and what seemed like a joke to my peers and me was blatant racism. This has never been something that was hidden from me. It's been thrown in my face through remarks and actions. Now that I'm in college, I wouldn't say times have changed, but I will say they got better and more understanding to society that racism isn't okay. Time to time, racist things still come my way, even with being basically grown out. But now society today is less tolerant of racism and more rebellious towards it. Josh, how do you feel that black history has been swept under the rug when compared to other parts of history? Honestly, to me, it really offends me that this piece of history is thrown out of the mix of the education system throughout the other stuff we do learn, because it's kind of like saying that that stuff didn't matter when it did happen. It's really saying that that piece of history is irrelevant. And to me, that offends me because of all the things that black people had to do to get to where they're at today, especially with being so that we barely had rights back then, and we were abolished from doing things that we should have been able to do. So just with that not being told to students in public and private schools and throughout the whole education system, it really offends me. So Cooper, I know you came from a very diverse school. How would you say that affected your education? Yeah, I did come from a very diverse school, and you know, it did affect it a lot. I got to see what other students had to go through when teachers would pick on them and purposely try to make them feel worse. Even though there were students in the classroom that were white that did worse things in the classroom and caused a bunch of ruckus, but just because they were white, the teacher never did anything about it. So Dreo, I know that you're a secondary education history major. Do you think there's anything we could do to solve the problem of the curriculum not teaching enough black history compared to other areas of history? Yeah, that's a good question. I think teachers just have to try to look at their class and realize what kind of history that their class would like to learn and be more willing to talk to their students and try to make sure everyone feels included. That's what I think I'm going to try to do when I'm a teacher is make sure that everyone in the classroom feels included and they feel like what they're learning actually is something that's meaningful to them and can help everyone out in the class. Thank you guys for listening. I hope you enjoyed.