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https://www.nextgenlearning.org/articles/what-happened-when-my-school-started-to-dismantle-white-supremacy-culture

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Joe Truss is a forth year principal of Visitation Valley Middle School in San Francisco, CA. In addition, he is a leadership coach helping educators to engineer for equity. He focuses on long-term planning, racial equity and the transformation of adults and the classroom culture.

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Diversity can be defined as the "sum of the ways that people are both alike and different (NEA, 2019). http://www.nea.org/tools/diversity-toolkit-introduction.html (Notes from class 4/23/20).

Example from class 4/24/20:  Teacher brings marbles into class and each color represents the student's race.  Students chose a marble that best represents their race.  No matter how many colored marbles are represented, all together represent diversity.  Diversity is the whole.

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*  The belief that culture does not just affect values and beliefs but also ways of thinking and the processesing of information
*  Integrate students' cultures into classroom setting
*  Focus on common attributes
*  Consider your own attitudes and beliefs about different cultures
*  Make connection with parents
*  Know your students!! (Notes from class 4/23/20)

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Teacher Competencies that Promote Culturally Responsive  Teaching

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Teacher Competencies that Promote Culturally Responsive  Teaching

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https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/culturally-responsive-teaching/teacher-competencies-that-promote-culturally-responsive-teaching/

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Ten Things Culturally Resonsive Teachers Do.

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Ten Things Culturally Resonsive Teachers Do.

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Feedback>Grades
Compassion>Perfection
Process>Procedure
Love>Judgement

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Acknowledgement this may initially be a shocking title/topic.  It may also make us feel quite uncomfortable.  That being said, as educators, we can no longer dance around topics of racism.  This article speaks to coming to a shared understanding and commitments. This is done by defining and exploring the framework of the White Supremacy Culture (WSC).   We need to dedicate more time to explore the dehumanizing effects of WSC in our schools.

Racism without malice is still racism!

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15 Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture

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15 Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture

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*  Perfectionism
*  Either/Or Thinking
*  Sense of Ugency
*  Defensiveness
*  Quantity over Quality
*  Worship the Written Word
*  Only One Right Way
*  Paternalism
*  Power Hoarding
*  Fear of Open Conflict
*  Individualism
*  I'm the Only One
*  Progress is Bigger than More
*  Objectivity
*  Right to Comfort

Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones, Dismantling Racism Workbook, 2001

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It is the water we are swimming in.  The trouble is we do not even see it.  WSC is "the idea that white people and the ideas, thoughts and beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to those people of color."
It is to be noted that one does not have to be a white supremaciast to hold these beliefs, because we have all been conditioned through exposure to media, parenting, schooling, and our interactions with power structures.

It is to be noted the author, Joe Truss is a black educator who has studied ethnic studies and critical race theory and he says he still perpetuates tenets of WSC in regards to curriculum, school partnerships and hiring.  He states he is a recovering perpetrator of WSC. He challenges white educators, "If I can be honest and vunerable, you can and must do the same."

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Three Reasons We Need to Dismantle White Supremacy Culture in Schools

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Three Reasons We Need to Dismantle White Supremacy Culture in Schools

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We must attack the problem head on.  We have to go deeper than diversity trainings and equity posters taped to our walls.
1.  WSC dehumanizes people of color.  It is imperative that we examine these deeply held beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, to build on a new set of habits, behaviors and systems.  People of color should not have to detach from self to fit into a white model as that is dehumanizing.

2.  WSC shuts down learning.  Cognative functions such as learning, problem solving or creative thinking stop based on the prevalance of WSC in our classroom cultures.

3.  Ignoring the undertones of racial issues can affect staff, teacher, administration's effectiveness and relationships. Dismantling WSC unites staff to work towards being anti-racist.  We cannot start with the branches of the tree or we will fail as educators.  We need to start with the roots.  We need to have educators reflect and ultimately declare that they want to be anti-racist teachers, even if they do not know how....YET. This has a power to unite us at a fundamental level, setting the stage for deeper commitments to learning strategies, practices and routines to support a collective purpose and commitment to learning.

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In the book, Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theroy Research and Practice, Geneva Gay talkes about the achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionally low at all levels of education.  She further states that more than ever, CRT is important to address the needs of today's diverse population.  All students will perform better on multple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through their own cultural experiences.

Gay, Geneva (2010). "Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research and Practice."Teachers College Press; New York, New York.

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Finding an Article that Spoke to me.....

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Finding an Article that Spoke to me.....

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I was searching for an article that would personally speak to me as well as one where I could dig deeper into CRT.  I was sure I had found a pathway to finding such an article when my principal included a (< and > )blurb in our weekly newsletter last week.  The author, Joe Truss is a principal, activist regarding CRT and leadership.  His clip below regarding < and >'s hooked me as I agree with his statements. I had found my author for my article.
Feedback>Grades
Compassion>Perfection
Process>Procedure
Love>Judgement

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I began to search things Mr. Truss and his collegues had written.  As articles popped up, I found various physical and emotional responses showing up in my body (fear, anger, guilt, withdraw, helplessness).  Titles included, "White Supremacy Culture is Poisioning your School," "Why is it so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism?, " White Fagility," and the article I chose, "What Happen When My School Started to Dismantle White Supremacy Culture."  I asked myself why I should chose an article that made me so uncomfortable? After much though, I decided why would I not chose such an article.  This is an emotionally charged subject that needs to be explored, discussed and disseminated to bring about positive change in our educational systems.

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This article challenged me personally and professionally.  It reinforced what I have always "preached," - "Racism without malice is still racism."  It made me see that if we want to provide true equality, we need to acknowledge and dismantle the WSC and build new foundations for an anti-racist and empowering education for all.  This is something that all races and cultures need to be apart of.  This is not an attack on people that have white skin.  This is a war on the impervious culture that we all live in and conciously and unconsiously support, feed and reinforce.  I do believe with unity, partnership and collaboration we can create a different paradigm that supports gifts each child brings to the classroom.  I want to be a part of this positive change.

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Self Reflection - Reading about White Supremacy Culture

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Self Reflection - Reading about White Supremacy Culture

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After reading the article, someone may want to ponder the following:

*  What caused me to have an emotional reaction?
*  What did I experience negatively?
*  What have I enacted on someone else at school, home or in realtionships/friendships relating to WSC?
*  What was the negative impact?
*  Why is this so comfortable / natural/ uncomfortable for me to explore or discuss these topics?

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Discussing WSC in a school, enables schools the have more impetus to make change because if we refuse, microaggressions, dehumanization, widening of the opportunty gap and disproportionate outcomes will continue.

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Shift Relationship Between Teachers and Administration

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Shift Relationship Between Teachers and Administration

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*  Give teachers more input in budget and hiring decisions
*  Adjust the pace of professional development to emphasize quality over quantity.
*  Develop a "with each other" culture amoung teachers and staff to include and support hard conversations about and microaggressions

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How School Practices Perpetuate WSC - Ask Questions?????

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How School Practices Perpetuate WSC - Ask Questions?????

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*  Are we sending negative or positive messages to our students?
*  Are we showing implicit bias when responding to student behavior leading to racially disproportionate disciple incidents?
*  Are we identifying resorative practices?
*  How is our school mission statement and partnerships tied to supporting racial equality?
*  Is our purpose with our pedagogy, curriclula, policies, decision making, processesses and adult structures in complicance with Culturally Responisive Teaching (CRT)?
*  Do we hear our student's, parent's and community voices?

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*  Help and support our students to empower themselves
*  Deeper learning so our classrooms can come alive
*  Curricula that affirms and engages students of color
*  Get rid of assessment practices that dismantle student success
Outcome = We may see students connecting their identities to their learning and applying it back to their communities to manifest social justice.