This week’s readings hit a little extra close to home for me, since the main focus of one of the research articles was “Sumner High School,” which is actually Champlin Park High School and my own high school alma mater. I graduated in 2010, so a few years before either article was written, but I just couldn’t help relating the findings from them to my own experience at the very place where Dr. Grinage was researching and delving deeper into the impact of race in the classroom.
In particular, he notes how many of the teachers at Champlin Park all but erased race from conversations in the classroom, and that the school had a significantly Eurocentric curriculum. As a former student, I absolutely agree with him looking back. I took multiple AP courses, and all of these were from a dominantly white, Eurocentric perspective. In the same way, most of my other classes operated from this worldview, although it was unspoken. The part that really hit me, though, was how — honestly — these glaring omissions and the singularness of worldview present in my educational experience never really stuck out to me as odd. In fact, I was hardly aware of it at all. As a white student in a school where nearly every teacher had the same dominant racial background that I did, I simply was never required to question the “who, “what” or “why” behind the curriculum. So, the eye-opener for me was reading about how differently students who were black experienced the exact same school environment than I did. In one example, Dr. Grinage outlines how a student who asked a question about race was essentially told that her question was not appropriate. He notes that “Monica’s anger, but certainly not surprise, at the teacher’s response echoed how many black students felt about how teachers viewed the importance of race at Sumner— that is, insignificant and, at times, inappropriate” (Grinage, 2019, p. 237). Woof. That’s the school that I went to! It doesn’t make me feel defensive necessarily (I didn’t return to Champlin Park a single time until our practicum this fall, though I graduated in 2010… so I wasn’t exactly a passionately pro-CPHS alumni), it mainly just makes me feel sad. Sad that a student in the same context I was in could feel so invalidated by her experience in school. And although I don’t remember anything like the exchanges noted by the black students involved in the study, it begs the question… was I, as a white student, even aware of the racism occurring around me? Likely not. In all honesty, I came out of my high school and much of my undergraduate experience pretty racially naive and illiterate. I had no idea that racial trauma was not just an isolated incident that happen occasionally to people of color, but in reality “the permanence of racial trauma requires a development of methods for bereavement dedicated to living with loss, not escaping loss” (Grinage, 2019, p. 232), which results in racial melancholia he identifies as impacting these black students at Champlin Park. And, while this doesn’t make them powerless victims and the article outlined ways in which these students access agency throughout experiences with racism, it is still something that causes harm continually. As I process through the readings, and put them in concert with The Hate U Give and its exploration of the impact of racial violence on Starr, her family, and her community, I couldn’t help asking the question… “Where on earth do I go from here?” As a white woman, who hopes to become an educator, but grew up in a school setting where race was essentially “erased,” I can see the harmful — but easier— option that many educators take, which is to avoid the uncomfortable topic altogether. Even by way of personality, I tend to be someone who would rather avoid or run from conflict or discomfort instead of facing it head on. Unfortunately, though, that’s exactly what the teachers cited in the Champlin Park study were doing. Whatever their motives, they were suppressing real, honest discussion about race — and whether it came from overt or covert racism, discomfort with the topic, or something else, it still creates harm for students of color every time. As I reflected, I realized that I too could be in danger of repeating that pattern since I tend to avoid conflict and discomfort. That still doesn’t make it okay, though! It’s my job (not my future students’!) to learn how to be comfortable with discomfort. With that, I thought the step-by-step instructions for having a conversation about the n-word were super helpful. In particular, I appreciated the notion that “the most important mental preparation for teaching about the n-word is to acknowledge that both you as a teacher and many of your students will feel varying degrees of discomfort, but this discomfort should not be an impediment to having thoughtful and rich conversations about an otherwise controversial subject” (Grinage, 2013, p. 139). That is exactly the area that I need to grow, so I appreciated the naming of it, and the way that specific instructions for successfully navigating this type of conversation could help me learn how to not only include but delve deeply into the topic of race in my classroom. I wish I could just do it perfectly right at the start, but I know that I probably won’t. That shouldn’t, however, stop me from trying, learning and continuing to read up on how to helpfully include discussions of race in my future classroom. Resource Link: MN Compass Racial Equity Resources Directory - MN Compass is a yearly assessment completed by Wilder Research, a social justice research firm in St. Paul, measuring the health of Minnesota’s population in a wide range of areas including racial equity. This directory is a great short list of organizations working toward these aims right here in Minnesota! References: Grinage, J. (2013). Combating Huck Finn's Censorship: A Step-By-Step Approach to Discussing the N-Word. In Talking About Race: Alleviating the Fear (pp. 137–147). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Grinage, J. (2019). Endless Mourning: Racial Melancholia, Black Grief, and the Transformative Possibilities for Racial Justice in Education. Harvard Educational Review, 89(2), 227–250. Thomas, A., Turpin, B., & OverDrive Inc. (2017). The hate u give (Unabridged.). New York: Balzer + Bray.
1 Comment
Cami S.
11/10/2019 03:30:01 pm
Oh my goodness, Kathleen! I appreciate your total honesty with this blog post! When it comes down to it, all we really can do is acknowledge, navigate, and better ourselves as coming from places of privilege and use that privilege to help break down systems of oppression. It's quite shocking to me, as well, coming from a high school with almost NO cultural diversity to shift into college and finally become aware of the systematic racism and Eurocentrism of public schools today. And I wonder why the teachers didn't want to talk about it. I thought I had some pretty cool teachers, and yet I don't feel like I was ever given the opportunity to discuss racial issues. Was this because my school's demographic was almost entirely white and they didn't feel like it was relevant? Was it the discomfort they felt discussing these topics? Or was it something else? Whatever it was, it was wrong. I guess we just need to be better than our former teachers were in regards to this incredible oversight of omitting the truth.
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