As some of you know, members of our library department participated in a cohort of school and public librarians around the state in using the online professional development program Project READY: Reimagining Equity and Access for Diverse Youth from September 2020 to October 2021. Librarians at University of North Carolina’s Library and Information Sciences Department created this program which, includes 27 learning modules that focus on racial equity work in schools and libraries. Former Upper School Librarian Kate Covintree recently wrote an article about our experience in Project READY for the professional journal of the Young Adult Library Services Association. Upon completion of the program in Mid-October, I set two goals for myself going forward. They were to continue to learn about the history of race and racism in this country and to examine my own teaching practice through the lenses of multicultural education and culturally responsive teaching. My first step in the process will be to delve deeper into the scholarship on these topics and then create an action plan to develop these concepts into practices that will improve the learning experiences of my students.
I set two goals for myself going forward. They were to continue to learn about the history of race and racism in this country and to examine my own teaching practice through the lenses of multicultural education and culturally responsive teaching.
Culturally Responsive Teaching:
When we were asked as members of the Strategic Innovation Committee and Committee of Department Heads to facilitate discussions related to DEI work for summer reading, Christine Smith and I felt it was the perfect opportunity to focus on James Banks’ Multicultural Education and Culturally Responsive Teaching. We used articles, podcasts, and videos from Project READY and included other resources as well. We had a rich conversation with Lower School teachers about how incorporating these strategies into our curriculum would improve our teaching.
Our hope is that working through the book as a group will lead to developing personal action research projects that we can implement in our programs.
A book that has been on my to-be-read pile for a couple of years is
Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Hammond. One of the most useful aspects of our participation in Project Ready was to reflect upon the readings with other educators. To that end, I have reached out to two colleagues from Project READY to develop an inquiry learning circle with the purpose of becoming more culturally responsive educators. Our hope is that working through the book as a group will lead to developing personal action research projects that we can implement in our programs. Not only will working through the book help us to hold one another accountable for the work that we do, we will also encourage and support one another in the implementation of each other's plans. Stay tuned for future updates.
Project READY has shown me that understanding racial equity and becoming a more culturally responsive teacher are lifelong learning endeavors.
History of Race and Racism:
At the recent AISNE Diversity Conference, in mid-October, I learned of a book that will help me continue to learn about the foundations of race and racism in the US. I attended an online author discussion with Clint Smith who wrote,
How the Word is Passed: a Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. Smith grew up in New Orleans, a predominantly Black city, which is full of monuments and memorials that pay homage to white slave holders. He began to question how New Orleans and other places in the US should reckon with their legacies of enslavement. These questions made him wonder “How is historical memory preserved in our public consciousness”. He traveled to historical sites such as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, the Whitney plantation--one of the only plantations which present an honest look at the work and living conditions of the of the enslaved people who lived there, and Angola, a prison in New Orleans built on the site of a former plantation. I have only just started the book and yet I feel as though Smith is sitting in a room with me recounting his experiences at these sites. His style of writing makes the material immediately accessible and lends a sense of urgency to the issues. He could easily scoff at the ignorance of the visitors he encounters but instead, he explores the complexity of these topics. Smith illuminates that much of what we learned in school here in the US discussed enslavement in abstract terms, and did not honestly portray the lives of individuals and families forced into this violent system of oppression.
Project READY has shown me that understanding racial equity and becoming a more culturally responsive teacher are lifelong learning endeavors. Moving forward, these two goals will guide my professional growth and inquiry and will lead me to new resources and opportunities. I am looking forward to engaging in the learning circle with my colleagues as I deepen my understanding of culturally responsive teaching, and Clint Smith’s book is opening my eyes and mind in ways I hadn't before considered.
Other resources of interest:
