Teaching for Racial Equity

Book excerpt: Recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Equity Award! It is not enough to be against racism in education teachers must be actively antiracist. Yet how do we start reflecting on our own beliefs and lives so we can truly teach for racial literacy? In the award-winning Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters, authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith engage in honest conversations between educators of color and their white colleagues. Authentic, inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable, teachers share stories of personal histories and experiences that shaped them as people and educators.In this book you will find: Strategies to understand different backgrounds through a racial lens and ways to address potentially difficult conversations with fellow educators In-depth overview of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Archaeology of SelfTM and how it can be personally and professionally adopted Lists of resources for teaching about and actively interrupting racism in education and tools that document systemic inequalities in the classroom Ways to facilitate student-led conversations which examine race and inequitable conditions found nationwide By examining inequalities found at a systemic level, teachers can start to remove some of their internal biases and allow students to show who they truly are. In turn, this can help create a school curriculum that makes space for BIPOC voices that inspire and invite students to share. Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters provides a resource for teachers and educators to critically reflect and begin work to interrupt racism at all levels.