In my previous post, I shared my rational and motivation for striving to become an anti-racist educator. In this post I’ll share one step I took towards building my capacity to do anti-racist work along with a video resource and a book resource that guided my step forward. To reiterate what I communicated in my previous post, my hope is that the insights and resources I share, will help other educators who are striving to infuse their work with anti-racist practices; and by doing so, support the cultivation of a community of anti-racist educators.
In 2021, while collaborating with a colleague to create a series of professional learning sessions for in-service educators on culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), my colleague suggested we use the short video titled, The Archeology of the Self prior to discussing CRP. My colleague wanted to use the video to help educators think about their positionality prior to thinking about pedagogy. In the video Dr. Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz defines the archelogy of the self as a deep self-examination to uncover how issues of race, class, gender, religion, and other prominent identity markers live within a person. In the video, Dr. Sealy-Ruiz goes on to explain that if people, particularly teachers avoid doing a deep self-excavation to uncover their own archeology prior to working with racialized and marginalized student population then intentional or not, they will exact harm. Meaning they will say, do, and/or teach in ways that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or perpetuate other forms of oppression.
Watching this video, then for the first time, I realized the importance of first interrogating what I believe to be true about race among other identity markers prior to engaging in anti-racist work because I understood how those beliefs informed my thinking and practices within the classroom. When I began asking myself questions and thinking about what I believed to be true about race and other identity markers, I was surprised, disturbed and at times disappointed by what I discovered. I was also alarmed by recognizing how my beliefs manifested in my thoughts and teaching practices. Yet I understood this at times challenging and uncomfortable self-examination work to be a necessary step towards becoming an anti-racist educator.
Months later, this time working alone preparing to create and facilitate a different professional learning session for in-service educators on how to support the language and literacy needs of students from diverse linguistic and cultural communities, I read the book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Hammond. In the fourth chapter titled, Preparing to Be a Culturally Responsive Practitioner, Hammond writes,
“[…] [I]f teachers want to be successful in their work with culturally diverse students, they must first accept and understand themselves as cultural beings. This self-knowledge acts as a set of reference points that shape our mental models about teaching, learning, and dependent learners of color” (p. 56).
This quote resonated with me because I saw parallels between Dr. Sealy-Ruiz’s idea regarding the importance of understanding my archeology to avoid exacting harm on racialized and minoritized students; and Hammond’s idea regarding the importance of understanding my cultural reference points and the way they inform how I see, treat, and teach students, particularly racialized students.
Yet what I appreciated about Hammond’s chapter, that wasn’t captured in Dr. Sealy-Ruiz’s video, was that Hammond included instructions and a list of questions to guide me in thinking about my cultural reference points and by direct extension engage in a deep self-examination to gain insight to my cultural identity.
Some of the questions Hammond poses that helped me to interrogate my beliefs about race and the cultural frames I wear to inform how I see the world include: How did your family identify ethnically or racially? Who were the heroes celebrated in your family and/or community? What got shunned or shamed in your family? What earned you praise as a child? What physical, social, or cultural attributes were praised in your community? Which [physical, social, or cultural attributes] were you taught to avoid?
Note that I didn’t try to answer all these questions at once but rather gave myself time and space to deeply reflect on each question. I think educators who are committed to anti-racist work may find Hammond’s questions useful in helping them to gain insight to the cultural frames they wear to see and interpret the world and in so doing help them potentially progress in their work towards becoming an anti-racist educator.
In my third and concluding post, I plan to share another resource that helped me to identify principles of anti-racist education and how that resource guided me in taking another step towards becoming an anti-racist educator.
