Questions for PD meeting 2 Wednesday, July 22 3-5 pm

July 22, 2020

Questions for PD meeting 2 Wednesday, July 22 3-5 pm

From Brad Craddock:

Collegial Circle PD: July 22, 2020

How to Be An Antiracist - Discussion Questions (Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2)

What are your assumptions about race? How do you define racism?

What is your reaction to Kendi’s observation that the “concept of racist and antiracist are not fixed identities.” (Kendi, 10) How might this help us approach or teach the topic of racism to our students or how we think of our role as teachers and educators? How might it help us as we discuss the issues in this book?

On page 6 of his introduction, Kendi wonders if it was his “poor sense of self that first generated [his] poor sense of [his] people. Or was it [his] poor sense of people that inflamed [his] poor sense of self.” (Kendi, 6)

How might a poor sense of one’s culture or heritage--for one example learning only that your heritage and culture were “inferior slaves” to the more powerful “white oppressive system” negatively impact one’s sense of self?
Alternatively, how might one’s poor sense of self (for example, by being told you are inferior or that you recognize you struggle in classes) affect how you see or experience a racist “class system”?
What ramifications might this hold for our students?
What might we do in our own curricula that might address Kendi’s initial problem: that poor sense of self and poor sense of heritage/culture negatively impacts a child?

What messages might we send to our students that tells them that they are “subpar”; that perhaps the reason they fail is due to their race (something inherent in them that they cannot change)? Can you think of a student in your class that might think of themselves as “subpar” in this manner? Can you think of a time you allowed excuses or contributed to the idea that people of color are “inferior” to your white students? What institutional policies are in place in our school that contribute to this poor sense of self or culture? How might we “think outside the box” to address some of these school policies?

What is the difference between being “not racist” and being “antiracist”? Have you previously used the phrase “I’m not racist” or thought it before? Can you identify when these sorts of thoughts occur (under what circumstances or situations)? How can this phrase prevent us from fully examining our own ideas, thoughts, actions...how might it stop a meaningful discussion about Race in a classroom? What language can we use in place of saying, “I’m not racist”?

Why does Kendi assert that there is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy? Is he right? If so, let’s take a moment to reflect on our school programs:

Standardized tests (PSATs, SATs, ACTs, AP exams, etc.)
NY State Standards
Honors courses
Special education
Social services
Free/reduced lunch programs (including quality of food served & access to fresh water)
The Arts
Athletics and extracurricular activities
Access to technology; library resources
Dress code
Punishment/discipline system (ISS, OSS, classroom management systems)
Our grading system
Our school climate
Our physical school space (including our building, classrooms, ventilation, janitorial services, and access to support staff)
Community outreach
SOTA’s mission statement (student success: academic, artistic, humanistic)
Other*

How are we doing? Can we claim that any of these systems or policies in place are “nonracist or race-neutral? If not, what can we do to address this issue now that we recognize and can define it?

Why do we tend to pay more attention to individual acts of racism rather than examining institutional racism and the policies that cause racial inequities?

How is racial inequity affecting our school and students (or their families?) (Kendi, 18)

Kendi writes “the most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a race neutral one. The construct of race neutrality actually feeds White Nationalist victimhood by positing the notion that any policy protecting or advancing non-White Americans towards equity is reverse discrimation.” (Kendi, 20) What are your thoughts/opinions about this statement? Is Kendi right in your opinion? How might we be contributing to staying “neutral” in our school or community?

What are some racist ideas that affect our school? How might we change these to be anti-racist? (Kendi, 20-21)

How is our Rochester community contributing to racist policies? For example, child poverty in Rochester ranks in the top 3 worst cities in the Nation. Roughly 25,000 children live below the poverty line. With the Covid-19 pandemic how do we help combat this? How do we prepare to open our school knowing this impact on our community?

How have American policies contributed to the disproportionate punishment and incarceration of people of color? How have policies shaped perceptions about crime and violence? Were you surprised to learn about the connections between unemployment rates and rates of crime and violence? Why or why not?

W. E. B. Du Bois writes about double-consciousness in The Souls of Black Folk as a “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.” How can this dueling consciousness nourish a sense of pride in Black identity? How can this dueling consciousness also cultivate shame? How did dueling consciousness impact Kendi’s parents and, in turn, influence his own upbringing?

What assimilationist ideas (ones that express people of color are culturally or behaviorally inferior and therefore supporting enrichment programs to develop people of color) still persist in our curriculum and/or classroom instruction? In our school? (apart from this PD reading group…)

In what ways might we fall victim of segregationist ideas or beliefs (those that state people of color cannot be developed or are inferior) while teaching or in our school policies? In our county? How do we support segregationist ideas in our home lives? Does this have an impact on how/what we teach at SOTA?