For Teachers Desiring to Be Anti-Racist

Student Contribution

By: Amber Burton,  Addison Lee, Nicole Mesimer, Kathleen Pennyway, and Eliana Pinckney

This list was developed by several students and teachers at Dreher High School. The students involved led a series of community gatherings called “Get Woke Talks” that centered around issues such as racism, gender identity, and activism. These recommendations come from the lived experiences of the writers. We hope you find them useful.

DO’s

1) Demonstrate care and compassion for your students’ identities.

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash
  • Allow students to attend Black History Month Celebrations and other celebrations of their history and culture. These celebrations are not “extra,” they are essential.
  • Find books and materials that resonate with your students’ cultural identities. Cover them in class if possible or offer them to students who you know will be interested.
  • Show up for your students. If your student is a member of the dance team, or the volleyball team, or the debate team, support them and their interests. 

2) Make a consistent effort to correctly pronounce a student’s name.

  • Names represent culture. Correctly pronouncing a student’s name can strengthen the relationship with that student, making them feel accepted and included. 
  • Taking the time to learn a student’s name correctly also shows them that you believe they matter. If you say “it’s too hard” or “I’m never going to learn it,” you are really saying that you do not want to take the time to learn it. 
  • Don’t give them or ask if they have a nickname, unless they tell you first. By asking your students for an alternate name, you continue the pattern of asking students of color to assimilate to white culture. You are renaming them to make you and/or others more comfortable.

3) Show your students that you are human too.

  • Let students know about your failures as well as your successes.
  • One of the things discussed in our group was trying to get a banned book approved for the classroom and getting pushback from other stakeholders in the community. This failure led to honest conversations about what teachers can and cannot do in the classroom.
  • If you make a mistake or cause harm, apologize, do what you can to repair the harm, and don’t make the mistake again. Expect the same from your students.

4) Be brave enough to take a stand.

  • When you encounter injustice, think about the consequences of staying silent, not just the consequences of speaking up.
  • Your students of color are watching how you handle racism in the classroom.
  • If a student makes a racist comment in your classroom and you say nothing, you are choosing your own comfort over the safety of your BIPOC students. 

5) Call things what they are.

  • Call racism and other forms of oppression by their names.

6) Be intersectional.

  • Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” which is a theory describing how all our identities work together and intersect to create different areas of privilege and discrimination.
  • Understand that both you and your students interact with the world through various identities.
  • When someone speaks from a different lived experience, do not question their truth because you haven’t experienced it. 

7) Treat all students of color the same, regardless of the type of classes they take. 

  • A student who takes all AP and honors classes should be treated the same as a student who only takes CP classes.

8) Include authors from different backgrounds, and not just for work regarding their identity

  • BIPOC authors do not just write about racism and racial trauma. There are amazing books that highlight the joy and resilience of BIPOC. Make sure you are including those books as well as ones about racism.
  • You don’t have to just use a Black author for books about race; authors create stories for every aspect and concept of life. 

9) Make additional efforts to build relationships with students of color and their families.

  • Realize that your knowledge of family and cultures is specific, not universal. 

DON’Ts

1) Don’t try to be comfortable.

  • This work doesn’t end, and if you are comfortable then you are accepting the status quo.

2) Don’t assume that parents are talking to their kids about racism and cultural history.

Photo by James Eades on Unsplash
  • Students have different needs and backgrounds. 
  • Many historical textbooks used in classrooms were written by white authors. Only recently has the erasure of histories of BIPOC been made widely available and accessible. 

3) Don’t ask a student of color to speak on behalf of their entire race.

  • Communities of color are not monolithic. 
  • Putting your students of color on the spot and asking them to speak for their race is harmful and unfair.

4) For white teachers: Do not be a white savior. Don’t extend help based on what you assume a student of color needs. This feeds into the assumption all students of color undergo the same issues.

  • The white savior complex is ego-driven. It comes from the belief that students of color need “fixing” and that you have the power to do so. This is harmful.  
  • If a student of color is having a bad day, don’t assume it’s because of the stereotypes associated with BIPOC. (Not all students of color come from low-income households or live with a single-parent, etc.) These students are affected by the same issues non-students of color are affected by. 
  • A great example of a white savior in the classroom is the movie Freedom Writers.

Learn More About Antiracist Work

This list is not intended to be a complete list of everything you need to know about antiracist teaching, but hopefully this can give you some things to think about as you move forward in your journey. Some other resources you may find useful are listed below.

  • Ibram X Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning
  • Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain
  • Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race

About the Authors

Pictured left to right are Nicole Mesimer, Kathleen Pennyway, Addison Lee, Eliana Pinckney, Amber Burton.
  • Amber Burton is 18. In the fall, she will be attending North Carolina A&T State University. She plans to double major in political science and African American studies, with aspirations of becoming a civil rights attorney and a political analyst.
  • Addison Lee is 17 and will be attending the University of South Carolina to major in public health. She hopes to minor in Women and Gender Studies in order to work on policy making and advocating for underserved communities.
  • Eliana Pinckney is 17. She will be attending Temple University in the fall to major in musical theatre and public relations. 
  • Nicole Mesimer teaches Spanish at Dreher High School.
  • Kathleen Pennyway teaches Theatre at Dreher High School.

Don’t Be Afraid to be Anti-Racist

Teaching

By: Nikki Griffin, North Carolina High School Social Studies Teacher

Many times in my career, as a classroom history teacher, I have come across colleagues who are fearful of being anti-racists. These mostly well-meaning teachers are by no means racists, but sometimes lack the courage to be ANTI-RACIST. Here is an important distinction to make for ourselves and for our students – being an anti-racist requires more of us than simply not being racist. Being anti-racist requires action, not just a disposition. Being anti-racist moves us to actively address issues of systemic racism in our schools and in our society. Being anti-racist demands expression of anti-racist ideas that directly challenge racist ideas.

My Journey to Being Anti-Racist

Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash

Last year, following the horrific murder of George Floyd and the proliferation of protests across the United States and the world in support of Black Lives Matter, I decided to put my own beliefs about being racist into action and to NOT hide behind my role as a teacher to remain on the sidelines of “teaching history” so I could avoid the more uncomfortable role of being anti-racist. Many of my students sent me messages expressing their sense of frustration that there was nothing they could do to be anti-racist or that they did not know how to show action to express their anti-racist views. My answer to them was almost always the same, “Let your voice be heard” or “Counter racist ideas with getting your own anti-racist ideas out there!”  Very often, I would remind these students that they had spent a whole year or more studying history with me and that they had the arsenal of knowledge with which to arm their anti-racist actions. Finally, I decided to take my own advice, step out of my role as classroom teacher, and publish a video called “Opportunity Lost.” Actually, this is a video series that I am still working on and intend to finish this summer.  

My message to teachers is that being a teacher does not mean you can not express your own views to the wider world. Just as you expand understanding of anti-racism in your classroom, your unique knowledge of your subject area, students, and community put you in a unique position to share ideas to the broader world to pursue the goal inspiring anti-racism in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea8ULb42vvU&t=7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvq3WJ7f0BM&t=31s

About the Author

Nicki Griffin has taught high school social studies in North Carolina for 29 years with a focus on AP History and AP Art History Teacher.  She attended East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.