Webinar Features Teachers and Students on Antiracist Teaching & Learning Practices
On July 30th, the ARTLC, Students for Educational Justice, and Hearing Youth Voices hosted a webinar titled “The Anti-Racist Education We Need.” Attended by over 260 people, the webinar addressed the ways teachers and students envision and carry-out antiracist teaching and learning across all grades and subjects.
The program opened with a panel discussion featuring student organizers. Benie N’sumbu of Students for Educational Justice described the role student groups played in expanding African American and Latinx studies in CT public high schools. Lizette Perez from Hearing Youth Voices discussed the Schools that Work for Us framework, developed as an alternative school philosophy centered around collective power, freedom to be and move, relationships, and the student experience. Finally, Brigith Rivera from CT Students for a Dream expanded on the incompatibility of existing education systems and metrics of success with the experience of undocumented students.
The moderators then turned to three teachers with a long track record and history of anti-racist teaching. Nataliya Braginsky described the Black and Indigenous walking tour of New Haven her students put together as part of her class. Aside from illuminating traditionally overlooked aspects of BIPOC history, the project allowed students to take on the roles of experts whose works are important for the public, not just for the teacher. Marco Cenabre explained the systemic nature of racism and how institutions marginalize students even in the absence of interpersonal racism. Cenabre illustrated this through an exercise examining how the US Naturalization Test, though implicitly a summary of essential American knowledge, emphasizes the whiteness, classism, and sexism Audre Lorde identifies as society’s “mythical norm.” Ruth-Terry Walden, a literature teacher at Westhill High School in Stamford, discussed the creation of protest quilts that allowed students to explore the connections between the histories they learn and their own lived experiences, and to address what was most important to them.
Terry explained that “As an educator, you have to understand what’s important to your students and find a way to integrate it into what you’re teaching. Otherwise, you disavow who they are and what their reality is to them.”
The webinar concluded with a spotlight on the ways student and community groups are doing just that. Hearing Youth Voices explained the survey they conducted as part of the CT Black and Brown Student Union to identify the issues students are most concerned about. Braginsky addressed the disproportionate risk BIPOC communities face as students return to schools during the pandemic. SEJ described some steps they were taking to address the risks and inequities posed by a remote learning environment. They, in addition to CT Students for a Dream, also described their campaigns for police-free school campaigns.
Written by the ARTLC Team