{"id":474,"date":"2018-01-04T15:42:12","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T15:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/?p=474"},"modified":"2019-08-19T23:31:24","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T23:31:24","slug":"decentring-whiteness-in-the-middle-school-english-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/2018\/01\/04\/decentring-whiteness-in-the-middle-school-english-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Equity in the Middle School English Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Everyday, I step into my school and see pictures of white women on the walls: old-timey white women from the 1850\u2019s when my school was founded, middle-aged white women who are alumni and doing impressive things in the world, scores of white women who graduated in years past. These faces greet me as I walk towards my classroom and affirm my place in this building. Everyday, I walk past fellow white teachers. Walking quickly with their heels clicking against the old wood, walking with purpose and power, assured of their status in this building. And everyday I walk past classrooms of students learning of and through well-known white figures like Shakespeare, Sir John A., Pythagoras, Deb Ellis, Bill Nye, or Darwin. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>It is time to challenge this racist status quo in my teaching practice.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This year, my goal as a teacher is to de-centre whiteness in the English classroom. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But first, let\u2019s hear a little about racism from the always-entertaining and informative Francesca Ramsy of MTV\u2019s Decoded, so we can get closer to being on the same page about racism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"5 Things You Should Know About Racism | Decoded | MTV News\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8eTWZ80z9EE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what does \u201cde-centring whiteness mean\u201d? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you are white, which I am, it is not difficult to look around our institutions and see white-culture reflected back at you. When I was a young person in school in rural southern-Ontario, all of my teachers were white, all of the books (Every. Single. One.) that I read had white protagonists in them, and most (I\u2019m estimating 99% until high school) of my classmates were white. My whiteness was held up in front of me like a mirror and validated. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the classrooms that I teach, my students do not represent the larger diversity within the city of Toronto. As a teacher in an independent school, this is not surprising considering<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourkids.net\/private-schools-tuition-costs.php\"> how much it costs families<\/a> to send their children to my institution. That said, as more independent schools are waking up to how important it is to be inclusive spaces for families of all backgrounds, there is a shift within the student population to be more racially diverse. This is one reason for de-centring whiteness: not all of my students are white.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But it\u2019s also for the white folks in the house. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We do all of our students a monumental disservice, you could even say a human rights violation, if our hidden curriculum is only valuing and validating whiteness. All students need to see more than just<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/D9Ihs241zeg\"> the single stories<\/a> of groups of people in order to enter the world post-graduation a responsible citizen of the world. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what does \u201cde-centring\u201d whiteness entail?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, at its most basic, it includes me providing and teaching books with racially diverse characters and exploring the voices that are not included in any text that we read. Who is present and who is silent?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It includes exploring and discussing concepts such as <a href=\"http:\/\/preventexpulsion.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Implicit_Bias_Infographic_v3.png\">implicit bias<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/KoW2wAE6DzM\/maxresdefault.jpg\">micro-aggressions<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/serendipitydodah.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/05\/tumblr_m5la7jair11ryx9g7o1_1280.jpg\">single stories<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_lwymxTwmkQ\">white supremacy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qeYpvV3eRhY\">power, and privilege.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It involves ensuring that each student in my Middle School has the ability to investigate all aspects of their identities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of my favourite partners in crime at my school, a fellow provocative rabble rouser, proposed that we bring this question of identity investigating forward to our Middle School at a December faculty meeting. We asked:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong><em>How might we ensure that each member of the Middle School has access to opportunities in which they can share and investigate all aspects of their identities, especially those aspects that may be marginalized, difficult to understand, or not widely represented in our community?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And ran a protocol with about \u00bd of our Middle School faculty, collecting beliefs and doubts about the possibility of running student affinity groups. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I write this, I can hear the voices of Cohort mentors coaching me to keep it manageable, to remember my sphere of influence, and to design something that I actually have the power to control. So my action plan is not to run affinity groups (as it might not be until next year that such a project is ready to launch\u2026if ever), but rather, this is what I think I can bite off reasonably this year:<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Collect data and research about launching affinity groups<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meet with key stakeholders about this possibility, sharing findings from first preliminary MS Faculty protocol<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Run at least one protocol with stakeholders outside of MS Faculty (parents, students, board members?)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While I serve the Cohort 21 community as a facilitator, every year I chose a project focus to research, blog about, and experiment with in my classroom. Why wouldn\u2019t I leverage the collective hive-mind power of many CIS Ontario teachers together in one space, with one purpose? With so many people to ask questions to, and so many school experts to be connected with, I have always found that connecting my school goals with my Cohort 21 action plan research is the perfect way to kill two birds with one stone. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, Cohort hive-mind, my question for you is: <strong>how do you support your students of colour? What opportunities do you provide your students to explore their identities? Do you \/ have you used affinity groups in your school and, if so, what has your experience been? <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyday, I step into my school and see pictures of white women on the walls: old-timey white women from the 1850\u2019s when my school was founded, middle-aged white women who are alumni and doing impressive things in the world, scores of white women who graduated in years past. These faces greet me as I walk &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/2018\/01\/04\/decentring-whiteness-in-the-middle-school-english-classroom\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Building Equity in the Middle School English Classroom&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actionplan","category-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}