As a teacher listening to calls to defund the police, my first reaction is to shrug and revel that someone else is feeling the misery of being expendable at budget time. Why should I suffer alone? That is a short-sighted view of the movement to defund the police. It’s not a movement to harm police. […]
Social Justice
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Preparing for a Long Journey of Anti-Racist Teaching
A Wake Up Call for White People The past two weeks have been a time of widespread racial awakening for many white people, including teachers. I have had several friends say to me, “I feel terrible for not doing more earlier.” I am personally very familiar with this feeling of shame. Although I’ve been lucky […]
Posted inHistory
I am a White Social Studies Teacher, and I am a Coward
For three consecutive Black History Months, I have picked up and then quickly put down the Black Lives Matter at Schools resources. Why? Because I was scared. I was worried that my white colleagues might think of me as radical. I was concerned that white students would grow uncomfortable and declare “that all lives mattered.” I fretted over the […]
Posted inSocial Justice
White Privilege and the Power of Revision in Education
My first honest conversation about white privilege came much too late in life. I was a 40-something doctoral candidate taking a class on multicultural education with a dozen other white women. Thankfully, the course was taught by the same (white) professor whose mantra became my own: The more I learn, the less I know. This […]
Posted innews
An Open Letter to White Educators
Trayvon Martin was killed on February 26, 2012. It has been eight years, and nothing has changed. Michael Brown was killed on August 9, 2014, preceding the Ferguson unrest that lasted weeks, and nothing has changed. Alton Sterling was killed on July 5, 2016, and nothing has changed. Stephon Clark was shot and killed on […]
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher
Opinion: There Are A Lot of Karens in My School Building and I’m Barely Surviving
Guest Writer: Brielle Stevens Brielle is a high school English teacher who enjoys writing, running, and traveling the world, pre-COVID. By now, we’ve all watched the viral video of Amy Cooper in Central Park, NY, threatening to call the police and saying “that an African-American man is threatening my life” before dialing 911. The video has received […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
Pandemic Movie Choice: Bad Education: A Movie Review
“It’s not having what you want,” quips Roslyn Assistant Superintendent Pam Gluckin in her Long Island accent, “it’s wanting what you got.” And what educators got from HBO’s Bad Education was a harrowing detail of a pair of school administrators gone rogue with the school district’s treasury, sacking $11.2 million before they were caught… by […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
TED Talks All Students Should See
I have lost many hours to the “suggested for you” videos listed on the right side of ted.com. There are times that I believe that their algorithm is broken . . . Really? Do you think I would be interested in “How I became part sea urchin”? More often, however, they nail it. Why, yes, […]