• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

August 30, 2022 Review

Teaching for Justice & Belonging: A White Educator's Review

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Emma-Kate Schaake

Emma-Kate Schaake is a National Board Certified English teacher in Washington state. She's passionate about her teacher leadership role at the building and district levels, creating professional development on equity, school culture, and social justice. She writes about her ongoing journey to unlearn myopic history, act as an advocate for her students, and think critically about her role as an educator. Follow her on Instagram @msschaake
  • Learning and Teaching While White: A White Educator's Review - October 21, 2022
  • Banned Books Week is a Time for Educators to Fight Censorship - September 19, 2022
  • Is It Fair to Test Learning Loss? - September 14, 2022
  • Teaching for Justice & Belonging: A White Educator's Review - August 30, 2022
  • The Great Teacher Resignation: A Podcast About Life After Teaching - August 25, 2022
  • Leading Equity: A White Educator's Review - August 22, 2022
  • First They Came For "CRT," Now They're After "Gender Ideology" - July 22, 2022
  • What Ida B. Wells Can Teach Educators About Fighting for Truth - July 18, 2022
  • How to Raise an Antiracist: A White Educator's Review - July 6, 2022
  • No, Slavery Was Not "Involuntary Relocation" - July 5, 2022

Have you signed up for The Educator's Room Daily Newsletter? Click here and support independent journalism!

Teaching for Justice & Belonging by Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry and Dr. Tehia Starker Glass
Release Date: August 23, 2022

Teaching for Justice & Belonging, co-written by Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry, Founder and President of Brownicity, and Dr. Tehia Starker Glass, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Elementary Education at UNC Charlotte, is a breath of fresh, healing air in the educational justice space. 

The book's subtitle, "A journey for educators and parents," is apt from the start as the authors welcome readers to their garden and onto the journey to cultivate classrooms and communities for justice and belonging.

 Like all types of lifelong journeys, Drs. Carter Berry and Starker Glass assure readers this work "is wrought with detours, delays, and disappointments" and "requires commitments to a steady process–one that demands our informed intention, our full attention, and our greatest engagement."  

The Growth Cycle

The authors offer reflection questions and ideas for practice after each section to encourage the reader to take time to reflect, grounding the theoretical in the actionable. Our brains aren't microwaves, they say, and need time to process and engage with new learning.

 Each section of the book is organized into stages of a natural growth cycle with the truism "we reap what we sow." For each, I'm highlighting a key quote and concept that resonated with me. Although, as my much-highlighted copy will attest, there were many to choose from. 

Soil: The Groundwork

Just as plants cannot thrive in infertile soil, antiracist and justice work can not succeed without a strong, reflective, and healthy foundation. 

"To position ourselves to promote justice and belonging, we acknowledge personal privileges; acknowledge and work to change personal racial biases; and confront and disrupt acts and systems of racial discrimination. We engage in a consistent cycle of unlearning and learning. This growth cycle entails constant observation and reflection." 

Seed: Self-Assessment

Seeds represent, with time and intentionality, our potential for learning and growth.   

"Acknowledge where you are beginning and where you are planted. Be honest about where you are and how you feel about intentional growth. Identify your fears, apprehensions, and goals…Envision yourself as an antiracist, a colaborer in dismantling racist ideas and structures." 

Root: Build Racial Competency and Understanding

Roots are the lifeline of a plant. When teaching for justice and belonging, they represent the understanding of systemic injustices, policies, practices, and history that anchors antiracist work. 

When we realize and recognize the US's history of white supremacist ideas and people enacting racist harm, "we see how we've been shaped by their ideas and practices. We understand that we do not have to perpetuate their errors. We feel empowered to make different choices. If they were able to create systems that harmed people, certainly, we are able to create systems and practices that cherish people." 

Sprout: Early Growth and Signs of Hope 

Sprouts are the first evidence of recognizable growth. In a school setting, this sprout might be using diverse literature and media that act as windows and mirrors; representation as a starting place, not the end goal. 

"Humanize people, stories, and lived experiences of groups who have been traditionally marginalized and oppressed, viewed as complementary, or ignored to prioritize and legitimize Whiteness…Remember, diversity only seems alternative within a White supremacy modality." 

Bud: See and Celebrate Growth 

When you're ready for substantive, systemwide change, it's easy to become discouraged with the growth process. So, in the bud stage, the authors encourage us to reflect and celebrate our progress, no matter how incremental it seems. 

We should take time to recognize support from community members "who are investing in uprooting scarcity ideology (i.e., steal, kill, and destroy to survive) and planting seeds to harvest justice and belonging. The growth cycle is arduous and slow. And if we don't acknowledge and appreciate our bud, we will give up on the process of becoming a flower."

Weed: Uproot Growth Inhibitors

Weeds can prohibit growth, robbing healthy plants of vital nutrients. In education, weeds can be behaviors, mindsets, and actions that get in the way of antiracist growth. The "Lack of Fortitude" "weed" is especially poignant for me as educators face pushback on everything from CRT to gender identity. 

"Fear mongering and spreading confusion to garden partisan allegiance…is not new; it's simply rebranded…If we commit all our resources to putting out fires, who will cultivate the garden? We would rather use the water to nourish growth than extinguish every fire launched by political pyromaniacs!"

"I'm all too aware of what's at stake in equity work, but this book also reminded me of everything we have to gain." Teaching for Justice & Belonging: A White Educator's Review Click To Tweet

Bloom: Mature into a New Normal 

Blooming represents the culmination of one growth cycle and the arrival at a new normal. At this point, rest is essential in order to sustain this work long-term and start a new season. Their advice to teacher leaders particularly resonated with me, once again, in light of a fraught political landscape.

"Recognize that educators need time to learn, think, and process, rather than being catapulted into integrating new content and practices…Committing to justice means that you must nurture your educators and create a space for them to bloom…Do you have a plan and protocol for how you will respond to resistant educators, parents, or other constituents? How will you protect your educators who are aligning with the vision for justice and belonging?" 

Ready to Begin Again

This book is exactly what I needed to read at this time in my life, career, and antiracist education journey. In a great convergence of the gardening metaphor and real life, I read this in my backyard during the last days of summer break, soaking up the fleeting western Washington sunshine. At this point in August, my anxiety usually starts to skyrocket, overwhelmed by just how big my "why" feels and how insurmountable true educational justice feels.

However, this book's framework for growth gave me hope, eased my anxiety, reminded me that I'm not alone, and encouraged me to be patient. Lasting growth and change take time.  

As I finished reading the conclusion, I opened my computer, empowered to lesson plan for the first time all summer. I'm all too aware of what's at stake in equity work, but this book also reminded me of everything we have to gain. 

"We can choose to reconstruct resources once weaponized exclusively to maintain White dominance (schools, curricula, neighborhoods, churches, policy-making) into gardening tools to uproot systemic inequality and cultivate transformation. We can rebuild what racism has ruined. We can become known as repairers of broken things and spaces, where no one is denied dignity, where everyone can exhale and feel at home."

How beautiful to be seen as a repairer of what's broken. As a cultivator of a classroom that sounds like a sigh of relief looks like the genuine smile of being known, and even feels like home.

Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this article, please become a Patreon supporter by clicking here.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Suddenly Teammates After a Decade of Division Which is More Important, Equity or Winning? How to Raise an Antiracist: A White Educator's Review One Team, Separate Experiences
« Ask The Educator's Room: Leadership Battles and Anxious Mornings
First Year Teachers: Step Away from Influencer Culture »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • My Union Showed Up for Me, and I'll Never Forget It
  • Your Students Deserve a Diverse Classroom Library. Here's How to Set It Up.
  • You Don't Have to Watch the Tyre Nichols Video, But Be Ready to Talk About It
  • "Let's Make This Happen": Following Student Interests to Interest-Based Mentorships

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.