Opinion
School Climate & Safety Opinion

The Urgent Need for Anti-Racist Education

By Christina Torres — August 14, 2019 4 min read
Illustration of broken black and white heart being mended.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Clarification: A previous version of the author’s bio misstated the name of the Center for Teaching Quality.

Lately, when I open my phone to read the day’s news, I’m reading not just with curiosity, but with fear. Our newsfeeds are filled with horrible stories of mass shootings and hate crimes that make many Americans feel unsafe and out of control.

Many of the recent shootings—including in El Paso, Texas; Pittsburgh; potentially Gilroy, Calif.—are linked to white supremacist hatred. And hate crimes have been on the rise nationwide for three consecutive years, according to FBI data released last year.

This growing hatred seeps into our classrooms. Like many teachers, I read these stories and statistics and wonder: What can I do to help my students feel safe and ensure that the next generation no longer operates from a place of hatred and fear?

These mass shooters were once students sitting in our classrooms. It’s an unsettling thought, and I don’t raise it to scare teachers about the students they have. Rather, it serves as a reminder that we as teachers have a role to play in combatting hate. More than just making our students aware of racism, we can do anti-racist work.

It’s easy to decry the shooters as “crazy.” In the wake of the recent shootings, some educators have called for increased support around mental health and social-emotional learning. While this is critical work, research suggests that the majority of mass shootings are not attributable to mental illness. In fact, roughly 65 percent of the more than 350 mass killers counted by Columbia University forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone showed no evidence of a severe mental disorder.

Even the best SEL programs on the market don’t address the deeper roots of hatred we’re seeing in our nation. Until we provide focused education about the history and current iterations of racist beliefs at the root of this hatred, we cannot claim we are actively working to solve the problem in our classrooms.

As educators, we don’t just teach content; we teach life lessons. Here are changes we can make to ensure we are breaking down racist beliefs and systems of white supremacy in our own classrooms:

1. Educate ourselves about anti-racism work.

We can’t do this work well with students if we don’t understand it ourselves. We must acknowledge that we have all been shaped by a system built on inequality and racism—one that consistently bombards us with stereotypical images of certain cultures and excludes voices from different backgrounds.

Understanding racism and its roots, questioning our own privilege and biases, and slowly dismantling those systems and beliefs internally and in our schools is a life-long process. Online communities like #ClearTheAir and #EduColor that host Twitter chats with important discussions and resources can provide insight into how other educators are grappling with these issues (as well as great ideas for bringing that work to the classroom).

Rethinking Schools provides multiple resources and readings about using schools to break down racial biases in our country. Christopher Emdin’s For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress, and Cornelius Minor’s We Got This are a few books that address how to create more equitable education in our classrooms, as well as the internal work teachers must begin to do to get there.

It’s also essential to understand racism outside our classrooms. Reading books like Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (with an excellent educator guide), How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, and Beverly Tatum’s seminal text Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria is another way to take ownership of our own journeys toward becoming aware and active against racism.

2. Reflect on the voices we’re sharing.

We can build empathy by listening to and studying other people’s stories. Unfortunately, there is very little diversity and inclusion in the stories many of us share in our classrooms. We need to reflect on whose voices we give power to and how we create a more inclusive space with the texts we use.

Online organizations like #DisruptTexts and We Need Diverse Books provide resources and materials about the importance of diversifying the texts in our classrooms. Reflecting on whose viewpoints are given power—in all subjects, including math and science—is an essential way to start breaking down biases and harmful perceptions.

3. Don’t be afraid to discuss current events—and ask for help, too.

Our classrooms cannot cocoon our students from the real world. We can begin talking through not only the recent violence in our country, but broader instances of systemic oppression related to white supremacy, anti-immigration sentiment, racism, and LGBTQ discrimination. Organizations like Teaching Tolerance and Facing History and Ourselves provide resources for discussing current events and their historical roots.

It is a sad truth that some of us may face resistance from our communities for doing this work. This pushback is often rooted in a fear of disrupting the status quo. By sharing plans and ideas with colleagues in our personal learning network who have more experience teaching these issues, we can navigate these pitfalls together. We should communicate with parents and other teachers to help garner support. We can rely on data and resources to explain the importance of this work to skeptics. These conversations are hard and nuanced, and we can help foster growth in each other by reaching out and asking for help.

The work we do in our classrooms may feel like a small drop in the ocean, but we know that what we teach our students can help turn the societal tide. Teaching anti-racism may not directly stop a mass shooting, but it can support a cultural shift that helps dismantle racist beliefs in ourselves and each other. If we teach our students to work against white supremacy and racism, we can help create a world that no longer nurtures hatred, but actively challenges the hateful beliefs that lead to targeted violence.

A version of this article appeared in the August 21, 2019 edition of Education Week as The Urgent Need for Anti-Racist Education

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School Climate & Safety Researchers Analyzed Years of Reports to a School Safety Tipline. Here's What They Learned
More than a third of gun-related tips in one state outlined possible school attacks, a new analysis finds.
4 min read
Illustration of a cellphone with a red exclamation mark inside of a word bubble.
iStock/Getty
School Climate & Safety Could Panic Buttons Save Lives in a School Shooting? More Schools Think So
There's legislative momentum to require panic alarm systems in schools. But many districts are installing the systems without a mandate.
6 min read
Visitors walk past a makeshift memorial honoring those recently killed at Robb Elementary School, Tuesday, July 12, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas. A Texas lawmaker says surveillance video from the school hallway where police waited as a gunman opened fire in a fourth-grade classroom will be shown this weekend to residents of Uvalde.
Visitors walk past a makeshift memorial on July 12, 2022, honoring those killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in a May 2022 school shooting. Nearly a year after the Uvalde shooting, lawmakers in Texas passed a bill requiring that every public school classroom have a panic alarm system.
Eric Gay/AP
School Climate & Safety Opinion How to Strengthen the Safety and Security of Your School
Resources, guidance, and best practices can help leaders feel ready and empowered to improve their school’s safety and security.
Lindsay Burton & Michelle Kefford
6 min read
Illustration about warnings, with a businessman and woman each holding a with megaphone in front of a caution symbol.
Nuthawut Somsuk/iStock/Getty
School Climate & Safety 'Cascade of Failures' in Response to Uvalde School Shooting, Investigation Finds
The long-awaited federal review emphasized law enforcement failures, but also noted lapses in the district's safety policies.
6 min read
Attorney General Merrick Garland, right, and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, left, tour murals of shooting victims on Jan. 17, 2024, in Uvalde, Texas.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, right, and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, left, tour murals of shooting victims on Jan. 17, 2024, in Uvalde, Texas. Details of the U.S. Department of Justice Department's long-awaited investigation into the tragedy were released Jan. 18.
Eric Gay/AP