I am seeing a resurgence of interest in educators calling on other educators to stop pushing kids out of class, to do deep reflective work on their own implicit bias, and to implement restorative practice approache to discipline. #ClearTheAir Thread/
While I deeply appreciate the challenges educators are posing to one another, and also agree, that we as educators must call on our peers to do deep reflective work about our own internalized bias and the ways we view student “misbehavior”,
this moment calls on us to approach school safety within a larger context. In short, we need a Yes/And solution to safety, discipline and racial justice in our schools.
Asking individual teachers to embrace a #traumainformed approach, create culturally-competent pedagogy and engage in #restorativepractice is extremely important. Nonetheless, this is not a systemic solution to racial justice in our education system.
Individual reflection and action are important components of larger structural change, but they are only a piece of the puzzle. Let me explain...
Individual teachers are not counselors, psychologists or social workers. Sometimes when kids are acting out or disrupting learning, they need more than a caring adult who is trying to also teach algebra—they need a trained mental health practitioner.
Additionally, many schools make Black/Brown students and parents feel unwelcome. This can happen when PTA’s exhibit microagressive behavior with Black/Brown/immigrant families.
It also happens when children are required to read books that exclude or denigrate the cultural contributions of their ancestors. #DisruptTexts
It also happens when student behavior is addressed unevenly by race. (Please see @MoniqueWMorris and her work on the pushout of Black girls from our schools.) @FilmPushout
How many times does conflict or disruption come into our classrooms from the hallway or the yard because Black/Latinx/Muslim and immigrant students are positioned within school communities as “others” or a “problem”? (@AROCBayArea @ColemanSF1 @CPASF can tell you. 👩🏽)
In these instances, we need schoolwide approaches to support belonging for underrepresented students, families and staff. We need culturally relevant pedagogy. We need schoolwide policies that ensure fairness and community-based implementation of discipline policies.
And what about the times trauma and conflict come into classrooms from outside our school walls? We need mentors and case-workers from non-profits with deep roots in community to come in and partner with educators to resolve conflict and create healing spaces that are safe.
While we appreciate their service, we don’t need more we’ll-meaning white female social workers. 🙏🏽 We need more Black, Latinx and API men in our schools to create space for youth of color to be vulnerable with one another, to find support and to help each other heal.
We need Black, Latinx and API counselors and community leaders to create mechanisms to support mothers, aunties and grandmothers so they can also heal from generational racial trauma, so they in turn have more capacity to partner with educators and nurture their kids.
In summary, individual solutions only address A PART of the problem. Putting the burden of fixing structural racism on individual educators places responsibility on folks who are already overloaded and under-resourced. This sets us all up to fail.
Racism is systemic. It’s institutional. To fix it, we need systemic and institutional solutions.
Individual reflection and action are an important part of this work. But we need to change the brick and mortar systems and policies of our educational institutions. And WE NEED TO FUND THIS WORK. /Thread.
