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Building the school to justice pipeline

By The Editors of Rethinking Schools

David Bacon

The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was originally created by queer Black women activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi as a call to action after George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin in July 2013. Their battle cry went viral and then turned into a national uprising when Darren Wilson, a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, killed Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager. The movement exploded when Staten Island police officer Daniel Pantaleo was not indicted for choking to death Eric Garner.

As the Black Lives Matter movement has grown, Black students have played a pivotal role. For example, at Seattle's Garfield High School, some 1,000 students, led by the Black Student Union (BSU), walked out the day after the non-indictment of Wilson was announced. As 17-year-old Issa George, vice president of the Garfield BSU, told the Seattle Times: "This is our time, as youth, to speak. . . . The waking up that America has done in the past couple of months-something that us as youth get to witness and get to be a part of-has been extremely powerful."

College, high school, and even middle school students have staged protests and school walkouts in cities around the country. According to reporting by the Nation 's George Joseph and others, student activists of the Baltimore Algebra Project held a die-in when their local school board voted to shut down the first of five schools. The board fled, and the students took over their chairs to lead a community forum on the closures.

Black students take these risks because they know their lives and futures are at stake-from police violence on the street; from the dismantling of their communities through foreclosures, gentrification, and unemployment; and from the destruction of their schools through corporate reform.

The School-to-Grave Pipeline

For the past decade, social justice educators have decried the school-to-prison pipeline: a series of interlocking policies-whitewashed, often scripted curriculum that neglects the contributions and struggles of people of color; zero tolerance and racist suspension and expulsion policies; and high-stakes tests-that funnel kids from the classroom to the cellblock. But, with the recent high-profile deaths of young African Americans, a "school-to-grave pipeline" is coming into focus. Mike Brown had just graduated from high school and was preparing to go to college when police killed him. According to a 2012 investigation by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, a Black person is killed by law enforcement, security guards, or vigilantes every 28 hours. A recent ProPublica report found that "Blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police."

The Black Lives Matter movement inspires us to fight the school-to-grave pipeline as an example of structural racism, after decades in which anti-racism has been defined in excessively personal terms through anti-bias or diversity training. Anti-bias work focuses primarily, and often exclusively, on internal and interpersonal racism. In other words, if you strive to not be racist in your personal relationships, that's good enough.

There is definitely a place for personal reflection and discussion of racist attitudes and beliefs. And there is no doubt that many individual police officers need anti-bias training and to be held responsible for their actions. But that's not enough, as the statistics on police violence, incarceration, school suspension and dropout rates, inequitable school financing, and school closures make clear. These are all sharp indicators of structural racism. When Michelle Alexander says mass incarceration is "the new Jim Crow," she insists that the racist structures that have existed since slavery have mutated and changed, but they have not been eradicated. We can't understand, teach about, or change what's happening in this country if we don't face this fact. And our students know that. Being an effective teacher in today's society means taking the Black Lives Matter movement seriously.

For all the "students first" rhetoric of the corporate education reformers-who claim their policies are directed at closing the "achievement gap"-they are conspicuously absent from the Black Lives Matter movement. In fact, the corporate reform agenda is in direct conflict with the goals of the movement. In city after city, Black students are those most affected by the decimation of neighborhood schools, the "no excuses" discipline and rote teaching of charters like KIPP, the substitution of endless test prep for meaningful curriculum, and the imposition of two-years-and-I'm-gone Teach For America corps members on our highest needs students.

Black Lives Matter doesn't just mean Black people don't want to be shot down in the streets by unaccountable police. As anti-racist teachers and students, we need to expand the slogan to include:

Stop closing schools in Black neighborhoods.

Fund schools equitably.

Support African American studies programs and substantive multicultural curriculum.

When activists staged a Black Lives Matter die-in in Detroit last December, Will Daniels, from United Students Against Sweatshops, told the Nation: "As a Black student, my rationale for doing the die-in was that structural racism causes not only police brutality, but also the starving of majority Black schools. This is a subtler form of violence."

Let Black Children Be Children

The murder of Tamir Rice exposes a connection between individual racism and structural racism with important implications for teachers. Tamir was only 12 years old when police showed up at the Cleveland park where he was playing with a toy gun and shot him down within two seconds of their arrival. When his 14-year-old sister ran over, she was tackled to the ground and handcuffed. The officer who called in the shooting described Tamir to the dispatcher as a "Black male, maybe 20."

Overestimating the age, size, and culpability of Black children is a widespread phenomenon, according to The Essence of Innocence: Consequences of Dehumanizing Black Children, based on research led by Phillip Atiba Goff and Matthew Christian Jackson of UCLA. One of their studies involved 264 mostly white female undergraduates who were asked to assess the age and innocence of white, Black, and Latino boys. The students saw the Black boys as more culpable and overestimated their age by 4.5 years. "Perceptions of the essential nature of children can be affected by race and, for Black children, this can mean they lose the protection afforded by assumed childhood innocence well before they become adults," said Jackson. "Black children may be viewed as adults when they're just 13 years old."

It's not much of a stretch to see how this affects Black children in schools where the majority of their teachers are not African American. Any time teachers or administrators see Black children as older than they are, "just being teenagers" (or pre-teens, or little kids) becomes something threatening that has to be controlled or disciplined. How can children grow and learn if the adults around them see them as older and "guiltier" than they are? What will it take for school communities to eradicate this deeply embedded prejudice?

Why Not "All Lives Matter?"

As the Black Lives Matter movement has grown, some participants have questioned whether "All Lives Matter" is a more inclusive slogan. Although we recognize the serious impact of racism and other forms of oppression on many groups of people in the United States, we think it's important to understand and talk with others about the historical and current realities behind this specific demand. As Alicia Garza, one of the movement's originators, explains:

When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. . . . It is an acknowledgment that one million Black people are locked in cages in this country. . . . It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families. . . . #BlackLivesMatter doesn't mean your life isn't important-it means that Black lives, which are seen as without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation. Given the disproportionate impact state violence has on Black lives, we understand that when Black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide-reaching and transformative for society as a whole.

A civil disobedience demonstration that closed down the federal building in Oakland during Martin Luther King Jr. weekend highlighted the connections. Behind a banner reading "Third World for Black Power," protesters identified themselves as Arabs, Filipinas/os, Latinas/os, Koreans, Chinese, Palestinians, and South Asians "for Black resistance." As Filipina activist Rhonda Ramiro said: "The wealth accumulated through the enslavement of Black people in the United States enabled the United States to go around the world and colonize countries like the Philippines. We see our struggle for independence as linked 100 percent."

Within that framework, how teachers apply this understanding will obviously vary from classroom to classroom, depending on how old the children are, their experience and knowledge about the issues involved, and the level of community that has been built in the classroom.

How to Make Black Lives Matter in Our Schools

So what does all this mean in individual classrooms and schools? Here are a few ideas for bringing Black Lives Matter into our teaching:

1. Provide a social justice, anti-racist curriculum that gives students the historical grounding, literacy skills, and space to explore the emotional intensity of feelings around the murder of Black youth by police. At the same time, deep discussion of these heavy issues needs to build on strong classroom community. Students can't launch into discussions of racism without a basis of trust and sharing among students and between students and teacher. That is the slow, steady work of meaningful classroom conversation, purposeful group work, reading and writing about critical social and personal issues, shared writing, and more. Teachers need to nurture communities of mutual respect and empathy.

2. Support students who want to have conversations about the Black Lives Matter movement outside the classroom, in school forums or school clubs. Educators supporting the work of BSUs in schools across the country have helped transform the school climate. Black students' sense of pride and self-worth have helped ignite this new civil rights movement.

3. Raise the Black Lives Matter movement with other teachers at our schools and in our unions. It's not enough to provide students with historical lessons. History is being made today by teachers planning Black Student Lives Matter forums and die-ins, advocating for hiring more Black teachers, and participating in many other actions around the country.

This is the moment social justice educators have been waiting for. When pro football players ran onto the field with their hands up in a demonstration of solidarity with the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" protests that followed Michael Brown's murder, some people in the audience supported them; others were opposed. But everyone knew what they meant. This is a sea change. The topic of police violence against Black people and systemic racism is on the table in a way it hasn't been for a generation. It's time to put aside the test prep and build a school-to-justice pipeline.

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We're at a tipping point. The killings of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Renisha McBride-and far too many other African Americans-have put to rest the myth of [...]

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"A handbook to help all educators fight racism."
- The Washington Post

"This book is not just for teachers in the classroom, but also for those of us who care about making Black lives matter in the community. It should be required reading for all who care about the future of Black youth."
- Opal Tometi, #BlackLivesMatter co-founder and executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration

"I love Teaching for Black Lives because it's a bible to understanding both the contributions of Black and Brown people to America as well as the struggles and chains of institutional racism."
- Michael Bennett, author of Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

"Every teacher in America needs to pick up this book."
- Linda Sarsour, National co-chair of the Women's March and co-founder of MPower Change

"Again, the folks at Rethinking Schools have stepped out to produce a timely volume that should become a central staple in how we understand race and the radical imaginary in K-12 classrooms."
- David Stovall, Professor of African American Studies and Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

"In this edited volume, we learn that Black Lives Matter is not just a rallying cry in the movement against police abuse and violence, but it is also a critical framework for understanding the persistent attacks on public education. As public schools face withering attacks on the national, state, and local level, this important collection edited by Watson, Hagopian, and Au will educate, inspire, and rally those in the struggle for education justice. From students, to educators, to a public that cares about public education, this book is a must-read to know the issues at stake and the strategies necessary to win."
- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

" Teaching for Black Lives is a moral lifeline for all educators looking to rehumanize our schools and society through education, love, and action."
- Awo Okaikor Aryee-Price, educator and national co-organizer of Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action

"Anyone who teaches Black students or has a Black child in school must read this book."
- Darnell M. Hunt, Dean of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA
American Studies and Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
CONTENTS Section 1: Making Black Lives Matter in Our Schools Black Students' Lives Matter
Building the school-to-justice pipeline
By the editors of Rethinking Schools How One Elementary School Sparked a Citywide Movement to Make Black Students' Lives Matter
By Wayne Au and Jesse Hagopian
Student Athletes Kneel to Level the Playing Field By Jesse Hagopian Happening Yesterday, Happened Tomorrow
Teaching the ongoing murders of Black men
By Renée Watson Space for Young Black Women
An interview with Candice Valenzuela
By Jody Sokolower Trayvon Martin and My Students
Writing toward justice
By Linda Christensen Two Sets of Notes By MK Asante Taking the Fight Against White Supremacy into Schools By Adam Sanchez A Vision for Black Lives
Policy demands for Black power, freedom, and justice
By the Movement for Black Lives coalition Section 2: Enslavement, Civil Rights, and Black Liberation The Color Line
How white elites sought to divide and conquer in the American colonies
By Bill Bigelow
Presidents and Slaves Helping students find the truth
When Black Lives Mattered: Why Teach Reconstruction By Adam Sanchez Reconstructing the South Medical Apartheid Teaching the Tuskegee Syphilis Study
By Gretchen Kraig-Turner
Beyond Just a Cells Unit
What my science students learned from the story of Henrietta Lacks

By Gretchen Kraig-Turner
Teaching SNCC
The organization at the heart of the civil rights revolution
Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington By Bill Fletcher Jr. Reflections of a "Deseg Baby" By Linda Mizell What We Don't Learn About the Black Panther Party - but Should By Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian
COINTELPRO Teaching the FBI's war on the Black freedom movement
By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca Section 3: Gentrification, Displacement, and Anti-Blackness Burned Out of Homes and History
Unearthing the silenced voices of the Tulsa Race Riot
"The Most Gentrified City of the Century" By Becky HenkleBerry and Jeff Waters What Do You Mean When You Say Urban?
Speaking honestly about race and students
Vacancies to Fill
Considering desire in the past and future of Chicago's vacant schools
By Eve L. Ewing Plotting Inequalities, Building Resistance By Bridget Brew, Crystal Proctor, and Adam Renner Bearing Witness Through Poetry By Renée Watson Shock-Doctrine Schooling in Haiti Neoliberalism off the Richter scale By Jesse Hagopian Lead Poisoning
Bringing social justice to chemistry
By Karen Zaccor Section 4: Discipline, the Schools-to-Prison Pipeline, and Mass Incarceration Jailing Our Minds By Abbie Cohen Schools and the New Jim Crow
An interview with Michelle Alexander
By Jody Sokolower Racial Justice Is Not a Choice
White supremacy, high-stakes testing, and the punishment of Black and Brown students
How K-12 Schools Push Out Black Girls
An interview with Monique W. Morris
By Kate Stoltzfus Haniyah's Story By Haniyah Muhammad Teaching Haniyah By Jody Sokolower Teaching the Prison-Industrial Complex By Aparna Lakshmi
Restorative Justice What it is and is not
By the editors of Rethinking Schools Baby Steps Toward Restorative Justice Section 5: Teaching Blackness, Loving Blackness, and Exploring Identity A Talk to Teachers By James Baldwin Black Like Me By Renée Watson Dear White Teacher By Chrysanthius Lathan Black Boys in White Spaces One mom's reflection By Dyan Watson Raised by Women
Celebrating our homes
Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class By Clint Smith #MeToo and The Color Purple
By Linda Christensen
Queering Black History and Getting Free By Dominique Hazzard Rethinking Islamophobia Combating bigotry by raising the voices of Black Muslims By Alison Kysia Rethinking Identity Afro-Mexican history By Michelle Nicola Brown Kids Can't Be in Our Club
Teaching 6-year-olds about skin color, race, culture, and respect
By Rita Tenorio A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son By Dyan Watson Black Is Beautiful By Kara Hinderlie
Introduction to Teaching for Black Lives

Black students' minds and bodies are under attack.

Fifteen-year-old Black student Coby Burren was in geography class at Pearland High School near Houston in the fall of 2015. As he read the assigned page of his textbook, he noticed something that deeply disturbed him: A map of the United States with a caption that said the Atlantic slave trade brought "millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations." Coby took a picture of his textbook and texted it to his mother, adding, "We was real hard workers wasn't we," along with a sarcastic emoji. Not only had the McGraw-Hill textbook replaced the word "slave" with "workers," they also placed the chapter on the enslavement of Africans in the chapter of the book titled "patterns of immigration" as if Africans came to the U.S. looking for a better life.

In the winter of 2017, a mother in Connecticut wrote about how she was troubled by a worksheet on slavery that her daughter had completed for school. The question asked, "How were the slaves treated in Connecticut?" Her daughter had initially written, "The slaves were treated badly and cruelly," but crossed that out and replaced it with the answer that was written in the textbook, which stated slaves were, "often cared for and [the slave owners] protected them like members of the family."

From the north to the south, corporate curriculum lies to our students, conceals pain and injustice, masks racism, and demeans our Black students. But it's not only the curriculum that is traumatizing students.

In October of 2015, a Black girl in South Carolina was ripped out of her desk and thrown across the room by a police officer in the school for allegedly refusing to put away her cell phone. The video captured by a classmate of the incident went viral. The officer who brutalized the girl was not charged with a crime and instead both the girl videotaping and the girl thrown across the room were arrested and charged with "disturbing schools." In May of 2017, surveillance video revealed a police officer at Woodland Hills High School in Churchill, Pennsylvania, choked and body slammed a Black boy in the office.

Recent data reveals that school security officers outnumber counselors in three out of five and four out of the top ten of the biggest school districts in the country, including New York City, Chicago, and Miami-Dade County, and Houston.

These examples reveal some of the policies that result in pushing kids out of school, making it difficult to graduate, then difficult to get a job, and finally more likely that they will end up in jail. This school-to-prison-pipeline begins with a curriculum that conceals the struggles and contributions of Black people and other people of color. It is a curriculum that fails to respect young Black people as intellectuals, and ignores their cultures, communities, and concerns. In the majority of textbooks, African Americans struggles and contributions are minimalized, portrayed as blatant stereotypes, or confined to a few roles that are acceptable to mainstream white society. This absence (or destructive presence) begins in elementary and continues throughout a Black student's schooling.

Even when teachers include African American history, they often fail to consider the methods used to teach about Black lives to Black and non-Black children. Command and control lecture and rote memorization are not effective means of teaching for Black lives. Indeed, teaching for Black lives means just the opposite: engaging students in critical self-reflection, grounding our curriculum and teaching in their lives and communities, and orienting them towards community activism and social transformation.

Teaching for Black lives means that we can't relegate Black history to certain historical time periods or events and we must include Black lives in all aspects of curriculum including science, math, literature, and the arts. Teaching for Black lives also means considering the loneliness of learning about one's history when you might be one of a few students in class (or few teachers in a school) that this history represents.

When Black history and Black contributions are denied in the curriculum and by those who teach it, Black people are themselves denied. Consequently, students who become disinterested in a course or vocal about its shortcomings and historical erasure are often labeled defiant and pushed out of the classroom. These students may then get swept up by police officers stationed in school and be hit with criminal charges for behavior that was once handled by school administration. If the offending student is sent to administration, they are often required to implement zero tolerance discipline policies prescribed by the school district that mandate suspension or expulsion for various infractions. When a decision to suspend a student is left up to an administrator's discretion, Black students are far more likely to be punished than their white peers. When students miss school, they fall behind in their classes and are more likely not to pass. The pipeline continues with the lack of tutoring programs, counseling services, college access programs, after school programs, healthcare, proper nutrition, and other support services that would assist students who are falling behind. And if a student makes it through that gauntlet of perils, high-stakes end-of-course exams are waiting to deter them from graduating.

The school-to-prison-pipeline is a major contributor to the overall epidemic of police violence and mass incarceration that functions as one of sharpest edges of structural racism in the United States.

The rise of the #BLM movement

A new rebellion against structural racism is underway in the form of the Black Lives Matter movement, galvanized by extrajudicial executions of Black people by the police and white vigilantes. The murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the ensuing national protests that followed showed the potential for a mass social movement, and the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was launched by three Black women, Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. Their demand that all Black lives have value was simple, yet visionary, especially in its call to highlight the most marginalized Black lives, including LGBTQ folks, women, and Black immigrant lives.

In August of 2014, Michael Brown was killed in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, his body left in the streets for hours as a reminder to the Black residents in the neighborhood that their lives are meaningless to the American Empire. But this time the potential for a national uprising was actualized as thousands of mostly Black residents of Ferguson took to the streets and inspired rallies across the country and around the world. Only weeks after the non-indictment decision of Michael Brown's killer, Darren Wilson, a NY grand jury failed to indict the officer who strangled Eric Garner to death on camera, and the movement went into high gear. Student walkouts, mass marches, and urban rebellions swept the country as people's anger boiled over at the racist criminal (in)justice system.

In 2015, the African American Policy Forum coined the hashtag #SayHerName in an effort to raise awareness about state violence against women including Black queer women and Black transgender women and the campaign took off in the aftermath of the death of Sandra Bland who died in jail while in police custody after being detained by an officer for a traffic stop.

Despite the ongoing protests, police killings of Black people have continued unabated, including widely known cases of Freddy Gray, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and Charleena Lyles, a pregnant mother who was killed in front of three of her four children. In addition to these adults, police have also killed many Black children in past few years including 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, 15-year-old Jordan Edwards, 13-year-old Tyre King, and 15-year-old Darius Smith.

The continuing police murders of Black people, and the refusal of the court system to punish police for these crimes, has continued to fuel an explosion of protests from the streets to the schools. Protest even erupted on NFL football fields in 2016 when then San Francisco 49er quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, sat and then took a knee, during the national anthem in protest of police brutality. Following Kaepernick's lead, student athletes from middle school through college took a knee against racism.

In Seattle, on October 19th 2016, the movement for Black lives burst into the struggle for equitable education when some 3,000 educators came to school wearing shirts that said, "Black Lives Matter, We Stand Together," with many of them teaching lessons about the long history of the struggle against racism. This movement spread across the country with educators in Philadelphia and Rochester, NY, holding similar actions. Then during the first school week of February, 2018, educators from around the country organized the first national, "Black Lives Matter at School" week of action. Educators taught lessons throughout the week that corresponded to the thirteen principals of the Black Lives Matter Global Network organization and raised three demands:

1) End Zero Tolerance Discipline and implement Restorative Justice.

2) Hire More Black Teachers

3) Black History/Ethnic Studies Mandated K-12.

Teaching for Black Lives grows directly out of the movement for Black lives. We recognize that anti-Black racism constructs Black people, and Blackness generally, as not counting as human life. The chapters here in Teaching for Black Lives push back directly against this construction by not only providing educators with critical perspectives on the role of schools in perpetuating anti-Blackness, but also by offering educators concrete examples of what it looks like to humanize Black people in curriculum, teaching, and policy. Throughout the book, we demonstrate how teachers can connect the curriculum to young people's lives and root their concerns and daily experiences in what is taught and how classrooms are set up. We also highlight the hope and beauty of student activism and collective action.

The first section of Teaching for Black Lives, "Making Black Lives Matter in Our Schools," frames how police violence and the movement for Black lives can explicitly be brought to schools and classrooms by educators through organizing mass action and through curriculum. The pairing of these is purposeful: Not only is it critical that we teach about the systemic violence against Black people and the travesty of Black deaths, it is also important for students and teachers to understand their roles in organizing in support of Black life and Black communities, and against anti-Black racism.

In Section II, "Enslavement, Civil Rights, and Black Liberation," Teaching for Black Lives takes a historical turn. Here the chapters focus on how Black history is taught in the classroom. We recognize for instance, that the enslavement of Africans and their descendants, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement are all regularly taught in schools, but, as we alluded to at the beginning of this introduction, we also know that these subjects are too often taught in ways that further dehumanize Black people and perpetuate anti-Black racism. Thus the chapters we include in this section reframe the teaching of these histories in ways that challenge white supremacy and reject many of the popular, yet racist, myths that all too often paint Black people as non-actors in their own liberation. To that end, through textbook critique, role plays, and other classroom-based activities, several chapters in this section focus on how racism and white supremacy have operated historically, and highlight how Black people organized in the interest of their own freedom.

However, we know that anti-Blackness isn't just historical: It is spatial too. Through gentrification and the violence of displacement, anti-Blackness terraforms Black communities into white ones, and working-class communities into spaces for wealthy elites. Anti-Black racism also starves Black communities of resources, either turning them into neoliberal marketplaces for profit, as in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina, or simply allowing them to remain toxic for Black residents. Teaching for Black Lives takes this up in Section III, "Gentrification, Displacement, and Anti-Blackness." In particular, the chapters in this section highlight how these issues can and should be taught through a critical lens of racial and economic justice.

Displacement is not just a socio-economic process. It is real and concrete because it happens to Black bodies. Specifically, this happens in part through our schools' roles in the mass incarceration of Black people. In Section IV, "Discipline, the School-to-Prison Pipeline, and Mass Incarceration," the chapter authors explore the ways that school discipline policy and practice contribute directly to the disproportionate punishment and incarceration of Black students. This section examines what it means to teach students whose family members are incarcerated, as well as how to teach about the system of mass incarceration impacting Black communities. Section IV concludes with chapters that highlight the ways that schools can challenge mass incarceration, including some possibilities for restorative and transformative justice.

Finally, Section V, "Teaching Blackness, Loving Blackness, and Exploring Identity", recognizes that Teaching for Black Lives encompasses more than just teaching critique and social action. It is also about teaching Black identity and the beauty of Blackness both as self-care for Black students and as a way to directly confront anti-Blackness. Here, we pivot towards looking at ways we can and should affirm Black identity in our classrooms and with our children, as we explore the varied and complex relationships between teaching, learning, and being Black. This includes respecting and affirming the language that bathes our existence, and explores the intersectionality with other identities. Here the authors celebrate Blackness and all of its hues while explicating the tensions between being seen and unseen all at once.

We do not expect Teaching for Black Lives to end police violence against Black communities, stop anti-Black racism in schools, or end the school-to-prison pipeline. We do, however, see this collection as playing an important role in highlighting the ways educators can and should make their classrooms and schools sites of resistance to white supremacy and anti-Blackness, as well as sites for knowing the hope and beauty in Blackness. The ferocity of racism in the United States against black minds and black bodies demands that teachers fight back. We must organize against anti-blackness amongst our colleagues and in our communities; we must march against police brutality in the streets; and we must teach for Black lives in our classrooms. We call on others to join us in this fight.

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Teaching for Black Lives grows directly out of the movement for Black lives. We recognize that anti-Black racism constructs Black people, and Blackness generally, as not counting as human life. [...]

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In the essay “Student Athletes Kneel to Level the Playing Field (pp. 32-38),” Jesse Hagopian discusses the role middle and high school athletes have had in the struggle for Black lives. What could we do in our schools that would engage students and student athletes? How could we provide space for our student athletes to use their platforms today?

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In the essay “Student Athletes Kneel to Level the Playing Field (pp. 32-38),” Jesse Hagopian discusses the role middle and high school athletes have had in the struggle for Black lives. What could we do in our schools that would engage students and student athletes? How could we provide space for our student athletes to use their platforms today?

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In the editorial “Black Students’ Lives Matter (pp.16-21),” the Rethinking Schools editors suggest three immediate steps for bringing the BLM movement into our teaching.  What are those recommendations?  What do you think would work here? What are other ways for educators to support?

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In the editorial “Black Students’ Lives Matter (pp.16-21),” the Rethinking Schools editors suggest three immediate steps for bringing the BLM movement into our teaching.  What are those recommendations?  What do you think would work here? What are other ways for educators to support?

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In Wayne Au and Jesse Hagopian’s “How One Elementary School Sparked a Citywide Movement to Make Black Students’ Lives Matter (pp. 22-31),”they discuss what it means to show up for students inside and outside of the classroom through organizing. How can you use the lessons learned from this piece to mobilize and organize for Black lives?

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In Wayne Au and Jesse Hagopian’s “How One Elementary School Sparked a Citywide Movement to Make Black Students’ Lives Matter (pp. 22-31),”they discuss what it means to show up for students inside and outside of the classroom through organizing. How can you use the lessons learned from this piece to mobilize and organize for Black lives?

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“Things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race” - Obama 

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“Things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race” - Obama 

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Group Work Quote Analysis p.65

1. Context for the quote

2. Identification of the Speaker: Who is it? What is their authority on this topic?

3. Introduction to quote: Do you agree or disagree with the quote? Why? What is missing? What else do readers need to know?

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Taking the Fight Against White Supremacy into Schools By: Adam Sanchez

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Taking the Fight Against White Supremacy into Schools By: Adam Sanchez

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Adam Sanchez writes about how to engage students in discussions about the removal of statues and monuments to Enslavers, Confederates, and white supremacists (pp.70-73). How should we decide as a society who we should publicly honor? How can we engage students in answering this question?

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What vocabulary in the lesson is problematic? How would you address that?

What would you change about the lesson? What would you use?

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“We do a disservice when we sanitize history and sweep uncomfortable truths under the rug.” Agree/Disagree and why

“While discovering which presidents were enslavers, it pokes an important hole in the godlike mystique that surrounds the ‘Founding Fathers’” Agree/Disagree and why

Why was it important for some people to paint this narrative about the ‘Founding Fathers’?

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When my students and I began investigating which presidents owned enslaved people, our attempts focused on traditional history textbooks and student-friendly websites from the White House and the Smithsonian Institute. These efforts turned up virtually nothing.

We then pursued two different sources of information: history books written for adults and more in-depth websites.

I brought in two books that were somewhat helpful: James Lowen's Lies My Teacher Told Me (Simon and Schuster, 1995) and Kenneth O'Reilly's Nixon's Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton (Free Press, 1995). By using the indexes and reading the text out loud, we uncovered facts about some of the presidents.

We used the web search engines google and altavista with the search words "presidents and slavery." We soon learned we had to be more specific and include the president's name and "slavery" - for example, "President George Washington and slavery." Some results were student friendly, such as the mention of the people that Washington owned (and some of their escapes) at www.mountvernon.org/education/slavery. There was also a bill of sale for an enslaved person signed by Dolly Madison, the wife of President James Madison, at http://www.whitehousehistory.org/04_history/subs_timeline/c_africans/frame_c_1810.html.

Many websites had a large amount of text and were beyond the reading level of many of my students. So I cut and pasted long articles into a word processing document so we could search for the word "slave" to see if there was any specific mention of slave ownership.

In their research, students often asked, "How do we know this is true? Our history books aren't telling the truth, why should we think this does?"

I explained the difference between primary and secondary sources and how a primary source - like a bill of sale or original list of enslaved people - was pretty solid evidence. To help ensure accuracy, the students decided that if we used secondary sources, we needed to find at least two different citations.

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When Black Lives Mattered By: Adam Sanchez (p.96-98)

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When Black Lives Mattered By: Adam Sanchez (p.96-98)

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What vocabulary in the lesson is problematic? How would you address that?

What would you change about the lesson? What would you use?

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When Black Lives Mattered: Why Teach Reconstruction - Zinn Education Project

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By Adam Sanchez Every day seems to bring new horrors as the U.S. president’s racist rhetoric and policies have provided an increasingly encouraging environment for attacks on Black people and other communities of color. The acquittal of yet another police officer accused of murdering a Black man in…

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Reconstructing The South By: Bill Bigelow (p.99-107)

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Reconstructing The South By: Bill Bigelow (p.99-107)

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What vocabulary in the lesson is problematic? How would you address that?

What would you change about the lesson? What would you use?

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In elementary school, my teacher made me pick cotton. She brought each student their own plant, and her goal was to make us understand how hard cotton is to pick. It has only been a couple of years since I began to tell this story in public. I kept it a secret for a couple of reasons. First, as a small child, I trusted my teacher and did not allow myself to believe that she would cause me or any other students harm. Second, after some years passed, I was ashamed that it had taken me this long to understand the impact of what happened.

I understand now that this experience is the reason why I later learned to hate family tree assignments, especially those that included pictures. How do you explain to your classmates and your teacher that your family is not missing, but the assignment will always be incomplete because you don't know their names or have pictures of them?

Michael Dumas, an assistant professor in the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Education and African American Studies department, describes school as a particularly harmful place for Black students in the article "'Losing an Arm': Schooling as a Site of Black Suffering." He notes that this suffering is the kind that "we have been least willing or able to acknowledge or give voice to."

My story and many others like it are examples of school-based racial trauma-a type of physical or emotional injury uniquely impacting Black and Brown children in school spaces. As I reflected on my own experience, I wondered whether what happened to me is still occurring in schools. And, if so, what does this mean?

Racial Trauma as Curriculum Violence

I started conducting research to find out. Every level of education has been affected by the presence of racial trauma. K-12, private, public, parochial and higher education institutions are reporting racist incidents that include the isolation, bullying, taunting, stalking, intimidation and physical assault of Black and Brown students. Although identifying these types of harm is important in capturing a realistic landscape of what school is like for many students, it leaves out what is often a more subtle aspect of racial trauma: curriculum violence.

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In elementary school, my teacher made me pick cotton. She brought each student their own plant, and her goal was to make us understand how hard cotton is to pick. It has only been a couple of years since I began to tell this story in public.

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1. For educators who teach math or science, how can they teach social justice in their classrooms?

2. Why is it essential for teachers who don’t teach language arts or history to also teach for social justice?

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By Gretchen Kraig-Turner

When I think of Black Lives Matter, what comes to mind first is police brutality and the resulting lost lives of young men and women in recent times. But as a science teacher, I know that racism in the United States also has roots that extend deep into the history of medical research.

Medical apartheid, the systematic oppression and exclusion of African Americans in our healthcare systems, has existed since the time of slavery and continues today in medical offices and research universities. What care people receive, what diseases are studied, and who is included in research groups are still delineated by race.

The term medical apartheid is explained in Harriet Washington's 2007 work, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Washington documents how "diverse forms of racial discrimination have shaped both the relationship between white physicians and black patients and the attitude of the latter towards modern medicine in general."

Medical apartheid is a reality that many of my students and their families face. I teach in the only predominantly African American high school in Oregon. Being talked down to by doctors is a common experience, as is leaving the doctor's office without receiving adequate care. One of my students told us that her uncle's treatment for a heart condition was so substandard, her family sued the hospital for discrimination. Critically examining the history of medical research is a way to bring the experiences of my students and their families into the classroom, and a way to connect our study of bioethics to the often hidden history of African American men and women who fought for their dignity and rights against a medical system that treated them like lab rats.

So I begin my Research and Medicine course, a senior-level course in our Health Sciences and Biotechnology Program, with an exploration of bioethics, a theme that continues throughout all of the units. We focus on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (TSS), a chapter of scientific and medical history rarely discussed in high school. Particularly as a white educator, I am conscious that leading the school year with a unit on a deeply painful example of Black oppression needs to be done with care. is is the capstone course of the program, and I already know the students when the class starts. Without a level of trust and mutual respect already established, this unit would not be as successful. If I did not know my students well, I would wait until later in the year, after a safe space had been created. Another reason to wait is that the TSS leads to discussions about cell types (particularly types of bacteria) and epidemiology, which are typically covered later in the year.

Day one of the unit starts with me asking a simple question: "In what ways are you in control of your health and in what ways are you not in control?" I list a couple examples: "I'm in control of how often I exercise but I'm not in control of air pollution in my neighborhood." The students do a think-pair-share with the question, scribbling down answers and then sharing with their lab bench partner.

As we start to answer the question as a whole class, I write their answers on the whiteboard under the headers "In Control" and "Not in Control." Pretty quickly, someone disagrees about the appropriate header.

"One way I'm in control of my health is what food I eat," Robert says. I write "foods" under In Control.

Charene asks, "What if good food isn't available?"

Kia yells out, "Our school lunch is terrible but it's free. Is that a choice? I don't eat that junk!"

After more examples are generated, I ask: "Who does have a choice about what food they eat? Why do some people have different levels of access to doctors? How come some neighborhoods have better air quality? Why can't some people go running safely at night?"

Soon nothing in the In Control column is safe from my kids' scrutiny. We talk about each item through a social justice lens. For example, going to the doctor regularly is tied to insurance-which is tied to job and education level-and access to transportation. Exercising is linked to living in a safe neighborhood, child-care, money for gyms, air quality, and concern about what police see when a middle-aged white woman is running vs. a Black or Brown youth. The class inevitably concludes that health and healthcare are a complex mix of choice and circumstance, and that those with more social and economic power have a different level of choice.

Sade sums it up: "None of this is a choice for poor people, just for people who can buy whatever they choose, and who has that kind of money isn't always fair."
The Tuskegee Mixer
My students' insights on these intersections in our healthcare system lead into a mixer on the TSS. The TSS exemplifies how race, class, and healthcare have intersected in this country, all themes the students raised during our warm-up.

The "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male" (now formally known as the "U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee"), which began in 1932 in rural Alabama, spanned most of the 20th century. African American men with syphilis (the sexually transmitted disease or a different strain of the bacteria known as yaws) were observed, yet received no treatment. They were denied standard treatment-heavy metal treatments at first, and later penicillin-and forbidden to seek medical treatment elsewhere. The architects of the study went as far as barring the men from the World War II draft, where they would have been treated with penicillin. The study continued into the early 1970s, when a whistle-blower, fed up with trying to get the attention of his superiors, took the story to a journalist. After the article appeared, Congress held hearings that suspended the study and led to passage of the National Research Act, which includes a mandated code of ethics for research on human subjects.

"We're going to look at a time in medical history when informed consent didn't exist," I tell the students as I introduce the mixer. I give each student the role of a study subject, a doctor, a public health official, a widow, or a journalist. There are roles that show the damage inflicted, and also roles that show the resistance and whistleblowing that ultimately exposed and ended the study. For example:

Charles Pollard was a participant who later became an activist:

I am a Macon County farmer, and I started in the Tuskegee Study in the early 1930s. I recall the day in 1932 when some men came by and told me I would receive a free physical examination if I came by the one-room school near my house. So I went on over and they told me I had bad blood. . . . And that's what they've been telling me ever since.

I was at a stockyard in Montgomery, and a newspaper woman started talking to me about the study in Tuskegee. She asked me if I knew Nurse Rivers. That's how I discovered I was one of the men in the study. Once I found out how those doctors at Tuskegee used the African American men of Macon County in their study, I went to see Fred Gray. He was Rosa Parks' and Martin Luther King Jr.'s attorney. He took our case and sued the federal government for using us as guinea pigs without our consent.

Being in this study violated my rights. After I found out about the real purpose of the study, I told reporters, "All I knew was that [the doctors and nurses] just kept saying I had the bad blood-they never mentioned syphilis to me, not even once."

Other roles include Nurse Eunice Rivers and Dr. Eugene Dibble, both African Americans who worked as researchers in the study, supporting the study perhaps as a way to bring both money and prestige to Tuskegee. Roles of the white doctors who designed and orchestrated the study include upsetting quotes. For example, Dr. Thomas Murrell, an advisor to the study's leaders, said:

So the scourge sweeps among them. Those that are treated are only half cured, and the effort to assimilate into a complex civilization drives their diseased minds until the results are criminal records. Perhaps here, in conjunction with tuberculosis, will be the end of the Negro problem. Disease will accomplish what man cannot.

Once the students read, understand, and are prepared to play the person in their role sheet, I ask everyone to walk around the room, telling people who they are and learning about other participants in the drama.

Their initial curiosity quickly changes to disbelief for some and hardening anger for others. They fill out a question sheet as they meet the other characters, and then spend a few minutes reflecting on questions raised by the mixer, and what surprised, angered, or left them hopeful. "Why did they do this? What did they learn?"

"Why didn't they give the men penicillin?"

"How long did this last?"

Students start to make the connections between the study and the pre-World War II eugenics movement they studied previously. As David points out, "This is a lot like what the Nazi doctors did in Auschwitz."
Whistle-blowers
Then we transition into reading the article that brought national attention to the study. In 1966, Peter Buxtun, a U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) venereal disease investigator, tried to alert his superiors about the immorality and lack of scientific ethics of the study, but they would not listen. In 1968, William Carter Jenkins, an African American statistician at PHS, called for an end to the study in a small anti-racist newsletter he founded. Nothing changed. Finally, Buxtun went to the mainstream press, and Associated Press journalist Jean Heller broke the story in the Washington Evening Star. She begins:

Washington, July 25 [1972]-For 40 years the United States Public Health Service has conducted a study in which human beings with syphilis, who were induced to serve as guinea pigs, have gone without medical treatment for the disease and a few have died of its late effects, even though an effective therapy was eventually discovered.

Officials of the health service who initiated the experiment have long since retired. Current officials, who say they have serious doubts about the morality of the study, also say that it is too late to treat the syphilis in any surviving participants.

The students also read the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's description of syphilis, including the progression of the disease and recommended treatment, and a summary I created of other relevant information.

Then I assign some writing: Using these resources and what you learned from meeting everyone in the mixer, write a first-person testimony that could have been used at the congressional hearings that followed Heller's story. You can be the same person you portrayed in the mixer, or someone else. Explain why you think the study happened, your understanding of the disease itself, and if reparations are appropriate or not. Explain your reasons.

These are quick-writes, not final pieces, but aimed at getting students to understand the human lives behind the medical facts. Lejay writes from the perspective of a widow of one of the men in the study:

I am Ruth Fields and I became a widow during the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. My husband passed away from the effects of syphilis. . . . In the early 1920s, syphilis was a major health issue and concern. In 1932, a study was conducted of 399 men with syphilis and 201 without, the men were given occasional assessments, and were told they were being treated. In 1936, local physicians were asked to help with the study, but not treat the men, and to follow the men until death. Penicillin became a treatment option for syphilis but the men in the study couldn't receive it. . . .

I endured so much hurt, pain, and loss because of this study, and I just want everyone who was involved to be punished for their actions, because they hurt and killed and destroyed so many lives.

Shirene writes from the point of view of one of the men in the study:

I am Roy Douglas. Poor, uneducated African American men like myself experienced an outbreak of syphilis. We were sent to hospitals for having "bad blood." Doctors didn't know how the STD worked, the side effects, or the symptoms. To get the information that they needed, they used us as test dummies. Over 400 of us were denied help, medicine, and the proper treatment for years. Some men suffered from mild symptoms like rashes, then spots appeared on the surface of their skin. With time, their nerves, brains, and more shut down. . . . In 1945, penicillin was finally accepted as a treatment for syphilis.

After more than 30 years of researching, the study finally ended in 1972. I personally feel like the study was a small version of a genocide. . . . It was unnecessary and wrong to use poor, Black men as guinea pigs for experiments. Out of the whole dehumanizing study, the only positive outcome was the cure. ere should have been more rules or procedures set up to maintain the health of the sick men. No one deserves to die when there is some type of medicine to cure them. I believe that every person that lent a hand in the study should have gone to prison.

Where Do We Go from Here?
There is so much of the TSS that is hard to swallow. The sheer length-more than 40 years-is astounding for any longitudinal study, let alone one that watched men die from a brutal infection that attacks the nervous system. The fact that researchers went to great lengths to keep the men from finding out that there was a simple cure shows the purpose was not to find treatment. That the study continued throughout and after the Civil Rights Movement is perplexing and contrary to a narrative of racial equity so often spun in history books. But my students' anger is often more personal.

The students are not paranoid. The United States has a history of funding unethical studies on vulnerable populations. We read articles about similar cases in which U.S. doctors and scientists took advantage of vulnerable populations-from sterilizing female prisoners in California to infecting prisoners in Guatemala with syphilis.

It's at this point that I ask students to write up their own code for bioethical human research: If you were in charge of how and what research could be conducted, what limitations would you place? How would you define informed consent? How would you guarantee informed consent? Is anyone off limits? If not, how do you guarantee that they are not being taken advantage of by unscrupulous researchers?

After writing their own codes, I distribute copies of the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report. The students then write a reflection on how their codes differ and what might be missing from each of the lists: How is your code similar to the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report? How is it different? What did you mention that should be added to those codes?

With their bioethical codes hung in the hallway leading to my classroom and armed with the knowledge that science isn't always ethical, I give students their first major assignment of the year: a research paper on a bioethics topic of their choice.

Before we began this course with a study of the TSS, I read papers about artificially extending life or genetically modified creatures that sounded more like science fiction than real issues affecting my students and their families. But now that we begin with an exploration of bioethics rooted in the history of the TSS, the papers have become more interesting and personal. I still give the students a list of bioethics topics from the CDC website, but through conversations in class and students opening up about their own experiences, the topics have increased in relevance and student engagement. Now students write about why mortality rates of cancers are different for people of different races. They explore how U.S. scientists have engineered studies taking place in Latin America. One young woman wrote a history of gynecology in the United States, from unanesthetized surgeries of women who were enslaved through much more recent forced sterilizations of women of color. Another student wrote about medical experiments by Japanese doctors in Chinese prisoner of war camps during World War II. They now write about subjects that tomorrow's doctors and researchers need to understand in order to combat the idea that the health and healthcare of some do not matter as much as that of others.
RESOURCES Tuskegee Syphilis Study Mixer Materials [PDF]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2016. Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs): Syphilis. cdc.gov/std/syphilis.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2016. U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee: The Tuskegee Timeline. cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm.

Tuskegee University. 2016. About the USPHS Syphilis Study.

tuskegee.edu/about_us/centers_of_excellence/bioethics_center/about_the_usphs_ syphilis_study.aspx.

Washington, Harriet. 2006. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. First Anchor Books.

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Medical Apartheid: Teaching the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

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Students in a bioethics class are horrified to learn about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, during which African American men were denied treatment for syphilis. They draw connections to other medical injustices and write their own codes of ethics for medical research.

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“A woman with brown skin as smooth as the back of a chocolate bar, thick long hair as strong as rope, who made sure her nails were always done, painted with bright red nail polish, was brought into the world August 1, 1920.” This sentence is not what one typically thinks of as “science writing.” Yet, it captures how my students see Henrietta.

What resonates with you when you read this quote?

What happens when students read about the person behind the science, math, moment etc…?

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What My Science Students Learned from the Story of Henrietta Lacks

By Gretchen Kraig-Turner

Illustrator: Keith Henry Brown

Every year when I distribute The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot to my biotechnology class, I am greeted with "Turner, this isn't English class!" And every year I tell my students, "I promise you: This book is going to change the way you think about science. Give it a chance."

I make this promise to my students because I know the beginning of the story will pique their interest. Skloot brilliantly describes the beginnings of both Henrietta Lacks, the woman, and HeLa, the first immortal cell line, in a way that gains the interest of a wide swath of students. Henrietta's daughter, Deborah, is quoted on the first page: "When I go to the doctor for checkups I always say my mother was HeLa. They get all excited, tell me stuff like how her cells helped make my blood pressure medicines and anti-depression pills . . . but they don't never explain more than just sayin, Yeah, your mother was on the moon, she been in nuclear bombs, and made that polio vaccine. . . . But I always thought it was strange, if our mother's cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can't afford to see no doctors? I used to get so mad. . . . But I don't got it in me no more to fight. I just want to know who my mother was."

Students who take my class out of a pure interest in science get what they came for in the descriptions of lab science and discoveries about cells and cancer. And, students who take my class because a family member or teacher said they should be in the biotech program get drawn in by family stories, the tales of Henrietta being shuffled around amongst family members and her children growing up without a mother - all with the ease of reading a well-told, captivating story. And students who have not seen themselves in science history hear the voices and stories of Black women front and center - sometimes for the first time - from the very beginning of this book.

When students come back the second day after getting the book, they are excited, saying: "OK, this book is alright" and "I didn't think I'd like it this much" and "She's Black?" and "Wait, her cells are still alive?"

Rebecca Skloot was a high school student at an alternative school in Portland, Oregon, when she first heard a story about a Black woman whose cells have immeasurably changed our understanding of the very basics of biology. Skloot was taking a community college course when an instructor mentioned Henrietta Lacks during a lecture on cell division. He told the class that Henrietta's cells had led to great discoveries, that her cells continued to live decades after her death in labs around the world, that her cells were the first to do this, to be immortal, and he told the class she was Black. At that point, this was about all that the scientific community really knew of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cancer cells, which grow and divide very quickly and remain a laboratory staple today, would be used to add volumes to our understanding of cells, genetics, and a host of other fundamental areas of science. Skloot remained curious about Ms. Lacks as a person, and went on to write a book that told the story of Henrietta, her family, and how the cells came into the hands of doctors, scientists, and Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951.

Skloot's book on Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating account of her previously hidden story. The writing expertly weaves the journey of the Lacks family's tireless work to uncover the story of Henrietta's cells with both scientific and African American history. The basic narrative is that Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman from Baltimore, sought care for cervical cancer in a segregated hospital, and in the process of doing so, white doctors and scientists took her cancer cells with dubious consent, believing that the patients of the "colored ward" were essentially trading being research subjects for health care. The impacts of this incident specifically, and inequalities in health care more generally, affected Henrietta's children and grandchildren immensely. The importance of her cells to the scientific community cannot be overstated, and yet the Lacks family never saw any of the money generated from the innumerable discoveries from the cells. Henrietta's descendants struggled with poverty, including battles with getting proper health care, and were left in the dark - the consent forms then were rudimentary, at best - about what doctors and scientists both took and found. One can infer that had Henrietta been white with more resources, either her cells would never have been taken in the first place or her family would have received recognition for their mother's profound contribution to science.

The book combines the science behind why her cells are so important with personal narrative in a unique way. As a science teacher in the only majority African American high school in Oregon, I thought my students would find the story an engaging way to learn about cells (particularly cell growth and cancer), how research protocols have evolved over the last 100 years, and about the intersections of institutionalized racism and biomedical history. We typically spend about six weeks on the book, and the richness of the story, both in science content and my students' ability to relate to the Lacks family, make this relatively long unit worthwhile.
Reading the Book to Teach the Book
Before reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I had never considered using a book that more resembles a novel than an academic science text in my classes. I initially thought we could maybe read a section of the book before doing some more serious work on how cells grow. The story would be a small feature of a cell unit, not cells being a section of a book unit. But, after reading the book, I couldn't pick out just one section or one passage and contain the powerful story to a mere sidenote to a cell unit.

As a science teacher, I had no idea how to teach books - this wasn't ever addressed in our pedagogy courses, nor did I have examples from other science teachers of how to do this. I wanted the process to be familiar to my students, so I worked with English teachers at my school to learn how they taught books. I learned how to do dialogue journals and teach students to take notes with a final paper in mind. When I read the book, I thought about what I would do if I were asked to write a paper on the story, and I picked several themes: Medical Apartheid (a term coined by Harriet Washington to describe racial inequity in health care), Informed Consent, Lab Science, and Scientific Discoveries. Then I re-read the book, this time keeping a dialogue journal with quotes on one side and my comments on the other. I divided my notebook into five sections with the themes listed above and a fifth one titled "Family." I created discussion questions for each chapter and found supplemental readings about cell culturing, cancer growth, and rights to one's own tissues and genetic codes (in subsequent years, the amount of supplemental articles on Henrietta exploded and this became easier). I also kept an eye out for when I could do labs alongside the reading to bring to life what the scientists did in the book.

As the unit developed over the years, more research has come out about Henrietta's cells, including bioethical violations such as publishing the genetic code of HeLa (which was a violation of her family's rights to their own genetic codes). Continuing to monitor the New York Times science section (where Rebecca Skloot has published updates to the initial narrative, including "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Sequel" in 2013) helps tremendously with making sure the supplemental readings I give my students are current.

Other supplemental materials stemmed from students wanting to know more about the examples of medical apartheid discussed in the book. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a long-term study conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service on untreated syphilis in Black men that went on decades after the cure was found, is referenced several times throughout the book, but the most chilling descriptions of how African American people were treated comes in a chapter called "Night Doctors." This chapter outlines much of why African American people have reasons to distrust the medical establishment and includes stories of enslaved people being used for "gruesome research," Black people being kidnapped off the streets to be used in medical studies and as cadavers, and more recent studies looking for genes that could predict criminal behavior by studying Black families. Dr. Harriet Washington's book Medical Apartheid is an excellent resource for students wishing to learn more, as is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
Cell Culture
Cell culturing is central to the beginning of the book. Scientists tried for decades to grow human cells outside of the human body before finding Henrietta's immortal cells. While we obviously can't grow human cells in the classroom, the process of even much more basic cell culturing was new to my students. I designed a lab on yeast culturing, a eukaryotic cell often used in genetics experiments, that we did as we read about the first ventures of human cell culture. The lab was a simple exploration into how to maximize growth and minimize contamination. And the supplies to do such labs are actually relatively inexpensive. I used baker's yeast from the grocery store for my cell source, and ordered basic petri dishes and a yeast-peptone-dextrose (YPD) media. Students made a media with 25g of YPD and 10-15g of agar per liter of distilled water and poured this into the petri dishes, which then sat overnight to solidify. We mixed a small amount of the yeast with table sugar in warm water (just as you'd do when baking bread) and then poured that mixture onto the plates. We grew the yeast at both room temperature (25 C) and in an incubator at 37 C (human body temperature). When growth didn't occur or contamination from bacteria took over the yeast growth, I tell my students, "These issues are the same as what the scientists in the book faced. This is real science." We work to problem-solve the issues and compare growth at different temperatures. We also discuss how contamination occurs and why sterile environments are so important. I ask, "Why do you think contamination can occur if we keep the lid open too long?" or "How come yeast grows best at body temperature instead of room temperature?"
Teaching About Cancer
As we continued to read the book, I found that students needed to know more about cancer and what happens when the mechanisms of the cell cycle go awry. My students had a lot of questions: "Why can't the scientists use any of her cells? Why only the cancer ones?" I answer that "Only the cancer ones have the mutation that causes the cells to divide uncontrollably." Another student, Ny'osha, wanted to know "If Deborah (her daughter) gets cancer, will those cells be immortal too?" "Not necessarily," I responded. "This could depend on if her cancer was purely genetic or due to viruses." And Marti, somewhat indignantly, wanted to know "If her husband hadn't been messing around, would Henrietta have even gotten that cancer?" "Probably not!" I answered. "Let's talk about oncoviruses!"

The first year I taught this unit I did a review on mitosis and then directed my students to the National Institutes of Health's websites on cancer. Each student did a worksheet on mitosis and wrote a generalized summary of how cancer works. Henrietta's cancer was more robust than most cancers, the vast majority of which would not survive outside the human body. The disruptions to the cell cycle that her cancer caused are representative of many cancers and it's important for the students to understand how cancer cells generally differ from healthy cells. For the last few years of teaching this unit, I also use an article titled "UW researchers report on genome of aggressive cervical cancer that killed Henrietta Lacks" and show a PowerPoint on HPV and cervical cancer by Lydia Breen and Rebecca Veilleux from an MIT/HHMI Summer Teacher Institute.

My students write short responses to questions such as: What was the "perfect storm" that went wrong in Henrietta's cervical cells? What is a haplotype and what unique information does it give scientists? Why was publishing Henrietta's genome problematic for her family? Why must participants give materials (like cells) for research to occur? Explain the relationship between telomeres and cancer cells' immortality.
Bioethical Issues
The cell culturing and cancer portions take up about the first four of the six-week unit. I teach these as short units that cover basic reviews of cell function and division. As well as diving deeper into those subjects, we set aside time to have discussions around the bioethical questions raised in the book. Discussions take place as a whole class and in small reading groups that I establish when we first start the book. The reading groups meet weekly and discuss a set of questions (some of which are from Random House's Teacher Guide) for each section. I write out the questions and give them to the students before they read the corresponding chapter. In these groups, the students are able to relate the science they learned in class to the Lacks family story. The book details Henrietta's life, from being raised, along with her cousins, by her grandfather after losing her mother at age 4, to having five children with one of these cousins. Her life started on a tobacco farm in rural Virginia and ended in Baltimore.

While Henrietta is most famous for her immortal cells, my students relate to her on a human level. One student, Asianique Savage, opened her final essay with: "A woman with brown skin as smooth as the back of a chocolate bar, thick long hair as strong as rope, who made sure her nails were always done, painted with bright red nail polish, was brought into the world August 1, 1920." This sentence is not what one typically thinks of as "science writing," and yet it captures how my students see Henrietta.

Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's youngest daughter, is a central character in the book. Her anger at losing her mother and not fully understanding the science behind why her mom is so famous creates some tension throughout the book. In response to the question "What does Deborah mean when she says (p. 235), 'I do want to go see them cells, but I'm not ready yet'?" Keisha said that she sees "why Deborah is always so mad and she's stressed all the time. She doesn't have her mom, the doctors disrespect her and her family, and they're poor while all those people make money off of drug patents. She didn't even really know what a cell was, let alone why her mother's were still alive. It's complicated for her."

Through the story of the Lacks family, my students are also able to explore the deeper questions of how race intersects with medical history as a whole. Questions like: "Describe HL's medical history. Why do you think she cancelled appointments, stopped treatments, and refused tests?" "How were HL's tissues obtained? Did she consent? Does it matter?" and "Why did the doctors in the '50s use patients from public wards for research?" were designed to get students to think about how Henrietta, as a Black woman, could have been fearful of going to the hospital. Henrietta's distrust in medical institutions is still seen today in Black culture as described by Vann R. Newkirk II in a 2016 article in The Atlantic titled "A Generation of Bad Blood":

Research has long suggested that the ill effects of the Tuskegee Study extend beyond those men and their families to the greater whole of Black culture. Black patients consistently express less trust in their physicians and the medical system than white patients, are more likely to believe medical conspiracies, and are much less likely to have common, positive experiences in health-care settings. These have all been connected to misgivings among Black patients about Tuskegee and America's long history of real medical exploitation of Black people.

My students understand this at a personal level: "They would never take the cells from a white woman like that," claims Ty. "But look at what was accomplished with them. They shoulda asked her and gotten her permission though," adds Aliyah. Near the end of the book, I ask my students, "Do the scientists owe the Lacks family anything? Does the lack of consent impact your thoughts on reparations to the family?" Many of my students wrestled with this question as part of their final paper.
The Culminating Paper
Once we are about two-thirds through the book, I have the students start to work on their final papers. The students' composition books were divided into the same categories that are choices for their final papers: Medical Apartheid, Informed Consent, Lab Science, Scientific Discoveries, and a fifth category, Family, as this theme is so critical to the story that my students could not write any paper without including the story of the Lacks family. As they read the book they jotted down their notes in these five sections, and for most students, one of the categories eventually emerged as the one they are most interested in. This category was then the students' focus as they finished the book. We use class time for writing the five- to 10-page final paper, and I encourage students to utilize their reading groups - and me - to go through outlines and drafts.

Many students pick one of the first two themes: Informed Consent and Medical Apartheid. This speaks to how my students related and were interested in the parts of the book that spoke directly to racial biases in medical care and research.

The criteria for these themes are prescribed in my directions to the students. Each section has four to five content-based criteria. Many of my students are not used to writing papers that blend both academic and conversational voices, and I have noticed that without content-specific criteria, my students tend to leave the science out of the science papers!

I have found the students are much more comfortable deeply explaining the family issues and generalizing the science content. But the papers that are written using the content-based criteria sheets reflect the understanding of the undeniable contributions to science from using Henrietta Lacks' cells with the perspective and acknowledgement that the matriarch of an African American family is at the very center of these scientific advances and discussions.

Here is an excerpt from Desiree' DuBoise's paper:

The misuse of Henrietta Lacks' cells, as well as the mistreatment of her family, was unethical. A big reason for the lack of information given to the Lacks family about the use of Henrietta's cells was the fact that there was no precedent for how to go about using and profiting from cell research; it hadn't been done before. The fact that the cells came from a poor Black woman only heightened the unlikelihood of doctors and researchers taking time out to meet the needs of the family (Johns Hopkins). The name of the owner of the cells went unknown for decades. The HeLa cells were thought to belong to either Henrietta Lacks, Helen Lane, or Helen Larson (Skloot, 1). Many have wondered why none of Henrietta's family recognized her picture in articles written or knew about the studies using her cells. The Lacks family was poor and Black and living in the South; most of them had no more than a middle school education, so they wouldn't have had access to articles and journals that were talking about the use of Henrietta's cells.

Giving the cells a name and a story validated my students in a way that is not often seen in our science classrooms. Black students are frequently pushed out of classrooms in a multitude of ways; we need to seek ways to bring Black students' voices into every subject, and particularly into STEM classes where Black students are underrepresented. Terri Watson, in an Education Week web series on "Black Girls and School Discipline," said, "I think Black girls are seen as either invisible or they're problematized." Henrietta Lacks and the story of her cells exemplifies both. As a Black woman, Henrietta was separated into the "colored ward" of the hospital where her cells were seen as payment for her health care, and her cells were identified as hers only after decades of invisibility. Dedicating significant time to learn the story of a Black woman to whom biomedical research owes a great deal was time well spent. What we learned was more than the sum of Henrietta's story and the science content of the book.

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A science teacher includes Black voices and Black history in her classroom by building curriculum around The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In doing so, she shows how nonfiction books should not be relegated to language arts but can be effective in a science classroom.

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Teaching SNCC By: Adam Sanchez (p.123-131)  

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Teaching SNCC By: Adam Sanchez (p.123-131)  

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1. What resonated with you?

2. What would you change about the lesson? What would you use?

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By Adam Sanchez

Illustrator: Danny Lyon (Magnum)

"That's the problem with Black Lives Matter! We need a strong leader like Martin Luther King!" Tyriq shouted as I wrote King's name on the board.

I started my unit on the Civil Rights Movement by asking my high school students to list every person or organization they knew was involved. They replied with several familiar names: Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Emmett Till. Occasionally a student knew an organization: the NAACP or the Black Panther Party.

"Has anyone ever heard of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee?" I asked while writing the acronym on the board.

"S-N-C-C?" students sounded out as my black expo marker moved across the whiteboard.

"Have you ever heard of the sit-ins?" I prodded.

"Yeah, weren't they in Alabama?" Matt answered.

"No, Mississippi! Four students sat down at a lunch counter, right?" Kadiatou proudly declared.

This is usually the extent of my students' prior knowledge of SNCC, one of the organizations most responsible for pushing the Civil Rights Movement forward. Without the history of SNCC at their disposal, students think of the Civil Rights Movement as one that was dominated by charismatic leaders and not one that involved thousands of young people like themselves. Learning the history of how young students risked their lives to build a multigenerational movement against racism and for political and economic power allows students to draw new conclusions about the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement and how to apply them to today.
You Are Members of SNCC
Pedagogically based on Rethinking Schools editor Bill Bigelow's abolitionist role play, and drawing content from the voices of SNCC veterans and the scholarship of Howard Zinn, Clayborne Carson, and other historians, I created a series of role plays where students imagined themselves as SNCC members. In their roles, students debated key questions the organization faced while battling Jim Crow. My hope was that by role-playing the moments in SNCC's history where activists made important decisions, students would gain a deeper understanding of how the movement evolved, what difficulties it faced, and most importantly, an understanding that social movements involve ordinary people taking action, but also discussing and debating a way forward.

I taught the role play in my U.S. history class at Madison High School in Portland, Oregon, and more recently in a course about the Civil Rights Movement at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City. Both schools serve a diverse mix of Black, Latina/o, Asian, and white students - unusual examples of diversity for both public school districts. They also house a large population of students who come from low-income families.

To introduce the role play, I created a handout that situates students in the role of an SNCC member through providing background on what led up to the formation of SNCC. Before reading the handout out loud as a class, I told students they would be writing from the role of an SNCC member and should highlight any information - particularly about historical events - they might want to include. The role begins with historical background:

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Boynton v. Virginia, and several other court cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled Jim Crow segregation unconstitutional. But from movie theaters to swimming pools, parks to restaurants, buses to schools, almost every aspect of public life in the South remains segregated.

In 1955, 50,000 African Americans in Montgomery (Alabama's second-largest city) participated in a boycott to end segregation of the city buses. . . . But after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the movement struggled to move forward. Segregationists launched a massive campaign of terror that prevented further gains. . . . While the protests of the 1950s gave you a sense of pride and power, it increasingly became clear that larger, more dramatic actions would be necessary to break the back of Jim Crow. You were prepared to act and you were not alone.

The handout continues by discussing the initial sit-ins that spread quickly across the South and led to the formation of SNCC. After reading about the sit-ins and SNCC's founding conference in April of 1960, we quickly moved on to another crucial event that shaped SNCC's early history: the Freedom Rides.
Freedom Rider Letter
To introduce the Freedom Rides, I edited together two clips from the PBS documentary Freedom Riders. The first part introduces students to the concept of the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) though the South to protest segregation in interstate travel facilities. The clip also takes students through the burning of one Greyhound bus in Anniston, Alabama, and the attack on the Freedom Riders in a second bus by a white mob in Birmingham.

The second part reveals that after the violence in Birmingham, the first round of Freedom Riders decided to fly to New Orleans and head home. It then turns to the Nashville students in SNCC who decided they couldn't let the Freedom Rides end in failure. As SNCC leader Diane Nash explains in the video:

If we allowed the Freedom Ride to stop at that point, just after so much violence had been inflicted, the message would have been sent that all you have to do to stop a nonviolent campaign is inflict massive violence. It was critical that the Freedom Ride not stop, and that it be continued immediately.

After the clip, I tell students that to get in the role of an SNCC member, they will be writing letters to their parents as if they were planning to join the Freedom Rides. Together we read a short assignment that reiterates some of the basic facts about the Freedom Rides and gives them more information about what to write: "Describe for your parents the experiences that led you to risk your life in order to end segregation in the South. You can choose your gender, your race, your age, your social class, and the region where you grew up. Give yourself a name and a history. Be imaginative. In vivid detail, tell the story of the events that made you who you are now: a Freedom Rider." While in reality, many Freedom Riders chose not to tell their parents, this activity allows students to think through what makes someone willing to take great risks for a just cause.

Whether giving this assignment as homework or giving students in-class time to work on it, I often get back incredible letters. Marquandre wrote passionately about why he felt the need to join:

Dear Mom and Dad,

I have made the decision to join the Freedom Riders. I know it's a big risk, but I feel I need to do this. I'm sure you've heard about the bus that was burned in Anniston and the attack on the Freedom Riders in Birmingham. We can't let this violence be the end. We need to show them that their violence can't stop our fight.

Now I know you'll be angry with me for dropping out of school to join the Freedom Rides. I really appreciate all you have done for me, and how hard you worked to get me to college. But seeing you work so hard for so little is why I'm doing this. I remember how you worked 10 or 12 hours a day just to pay the bills and put food on the table for me and my sisters.

I know you wanted a better future for me. But I've heard that nearly all of last year's graduates fell short of their dreams to be doctors, lawyers, journalists, and so on. They say "knowledge is power," but what's the point of an education when I'm still going to end up in a low-wage job because I'm Black? I want Lily and Diana to know that their brother fought for their future. I want my children to grow up in a country where segregation doesn't exist. . . . If not now, when? This is our time.

After students finished working, I had them read their letters to each other in pairs or small groups. Sometimes I asked the class to form a circle and read each letter aloud one by one. I was never disappointed when I took the time to do this. It helps students gain a deeper connection to their roles and creates a rich aural portrait of a social movement.
Organizing Mississippi
When students finished sharing their letters, we watched the movie Freedom Song. Freedom Song is an indispensable film that gives a gripping narrative based on SNCC's first voter registration project in McComb, Mississippi. I've found that the film helps give students a deep visual understanding of SNCC's organizing efforts that grounds the role play that follows. While watching Freedom Song, I asked students to pay attention to what leadership looks like in SNCC and how SNCC makes decisions. I also point out that in the last scenes of the film, some of the students from the local community where SNCC was organizing join SNCC and move to organize other parts of the state, while others stay behind and maintain the voter registration classes that SNCC began. In other words, as the best organizers do, SNCC organized themselves out of a job - they built a local movement that not only could sustain itself once they left, but could also help spread the movement to other parts of the state.

Next I distributed a handout containing three key questions that SNCC debated during their fight for racial justice in Mississippi:

1. Should SNCC focus its efforts on voter registration or direct action?

2. Should SNCC bring a thousand mostly white volunteers to Mississippi? If so, should SNCC limit the role of white volunteers?

3. Should SNCC workers carry guns? If not, should SNCC allow or seek out local people to defend its organizers with guns?

Each question is accompanied with some historical context that helps students understand why this has become a debated question within SNCC, as well as short arguments for both sides. Here's an example from the handout:

Situation: While SNCC has always been a Black-led, majority-Black organization, there has always been a small number of white SNCC members. But Northern white students have been increasingly getting involved. At SNCC's 1963 conference, one-third of the participants were white. Some staff members are now proposing to bring 1,000 mostly white students from all around the United States to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 to help with voter registration efforts. This plan has sparked discussion in SNCC on the role of whites in the movement.

Question: Should SNCC bring 1,000 mostly white volunteers to Mississippi? If so, should SNCC limit the role of white volunteers?

Arguments: Some Black SNCC members are concerned that instead of Black volunteers helping to build local leadership to organize their own communities, whites tend to take over leadership roles in the movement, preventing Southern Blacks from getting the support they need to lead. Many Northern whites enter SNCC with skills and an education that allow them to dominate discussions. If SNCC does decide to bring down white volunteers, these organizers insist that white activists should focus on organizing the Southern white community. After all, isn't it the racism in white communities that is the biggest barrier to Black progress? Other SNCC members argue that too many local activists have been murdered for trying to organize and vote and the majority of the nation will only care when their white sons and daughters are in harm's way. Bringing student volunteers from all around the country will mean increased attention on Mississippi's racist practices from the family and friends of the volunteers, as well as the media. This spotlight might force the federal government to protect civil rights workers and Blacks in Mississippi trying to register to vote. In addition, some local organizers argue that if we're trying to break down the barrier of segregation, we can't segregate ourselves. Moreover, Black people are a minority in the United States and can't change things alone.

I gave students the handout the class period before the actual role play and asked them to jot down initial answers to each question for homework. This is especially helpful for students who don't feel as comfortable speaking in class discussion or who take longer to process their thoughts.

I explained to students that we would run our meetings in the same manner that SNCC ran meetings. We would choose a chair to call on other students and try to reach informal consensus. I echoed what I was told by SNCC veteran Judy Richardson: "Each one of us is putting our lives on the line, so we want to try to make sure that we come to a decision that we all feel comfortable with." Once we chose a facilitator (or one for each question), I concluded with another insight I learned from Richardson: "Now the last thing you need to know about how SNCC ran meetings is that if things got really heated, someone would start singing and then others would just join in to remind everyone what they meant to each other and all they'd been through together. So, I'm going to teach you a song that they might have sung, and if our discussion at any point gets really contentious, we can sing to remind us that we are all in this together." I sang for students "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around," and encouraged them to sing with me the second and third round. This was a little out of my comfort zone as a teacher, and singing in a social studies class can be out of students' comfort zone, but it became an essential and beautiful part of the role play. In addition to when the debate got heated, we sang the song to refocus after a lockdown drill, and I even heard a few students singing it in the hallways after class.
Students Run Their Own Meeting
To start the role play students sat in a circle. I encouraged them to read the entire question out loud - including the situation and the arguments - before jumping into each debate. This way, students who weren't present when I gave out the questions or who didn't have a chance to read them for homework could still participate in the discussions. Students ran the debate, though occasionally I did jump in to the discussion to play devil's advocate, ensure they were taking all sides seriously, or re-emphasize the historical context that had provoked the question they were debating. When I did jump in, I always did so as an equal - raising my hand and waiting to be called on by the student facilitator. In general, I've been blown away by the seriousness and passion students bring to these discussions. Here's a sample from our class debate on the first question: Should SNCC focus its efforts on voter registration or direct action?

Dwell: I think we should focus on voter registration because if we had some sort of political power we could take out the racist politicians.

Jade: I disagree. I think direct action is more useful. We've seen that the Brown v. Board decision didn't actually desegregate schools. It took direct action. Action moves things forward faster and we want change now.

Giorgio: I agree with Dwell, focusing on voter registration is going to create a permanent change that will come from the government, not just changes in a few small places.

Rachel: But at the end of the day, it was the protests that pushed the government to make new laws. And isn't it suspicious that the Kennedys are saying they will help us secure funds if we focus on voter registration? Whose side are they on? Do they just want these new voters to vote for them?

Shona: I see voter registration as direct action. As we saw in Freedom Song, SNCC members get beaten up whether they are doing sit-ins or voter registration. Both are forms of nonviolent disobedience. Why can't we focus on both?

The time frame for the debates has varied depending on the pacing of class discussions and how much wiggle room I had built into the unit, but it has always taken at least one or two class periods. As we go, I have students jot down the decisions the class made, whether they agreed or disagreed with those decisions, and why.

When students finished debating the last question, I gave them a short reading adapted from several sources that explains how these debates played out in reality. Naturally, after debating the questions themselves, students were eager to know "what really happened." Either for homework or as a debrief in class, I asked students to compare the decisions we made in class with SNCC's ultimate decisions on those topics, write about what decision they found most interesting or surprising, and think about how SNCC's experience in Mississippi changed the organization. While most students tended to agree with the decisions SNCC made, debating these questions as a class allowed them to look at the decisions more critically and not see them as inevitable. Imari wrote: "While SNCC chose not to limit the role of white volunteers I disagree with this decision. In class we discussed how white college students would tend to dominate discussions and reinforce Southern Blacks' sense of inferiority. While I agree with SNCC that they shouldn't segregate Black and white SNCC members, I think they could have placed some limits on white volunteers."

Adeola's comments about how organizing in Mississippi transformed SNCC were particularly insightful: "I think SNCC members felt like they couldn't be safe without being armed. They would get violently attacked by whites for trying to get the most basic things like the right to vote. They probably began to see nonviolence as more of a tactic than a policy."

After debriefing the role play, we watched part of an Eyes on the Prize episode that covers Freedom Summer [season 1, episode 5, Mississippi: Is This America?], when more than 1,000 volunteers joined SNCC organizers to dramatically increase voter registration in Mississippi. We also learned how during the summer, activists form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention of 1964. The organizing involved in creating the MFDP was tremendous, full of valuable lessons, and worth spending time on in the classroom. I've often used Teaching for Change's phenomenal lesson " Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid " to cover this complicated effort with students.
Case Studies in Organizing Alabama
After learning about Freedom Summer, we return to the role play. Students are again seated in a circle and run their own meeting. This time, however, I split the class into three circles - groups large enough to still have a diverse group of vocal peers and small enough that they could get through questions a bit quicker. Armed with background about SNCC's work in Mississippi, I wanted to move student discussions away from SNCC's internal and more philosophical debates and toward more concrete problem-solving that happens during an organizing campaign.

I chose two "case studies" that further draw out SNCC's history and unique contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. The first case study looks at the famous 1965 voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, from the perspective of SNCC. Several of my students had seen the movie Selma, but even for them, looking at the campaign through the eyes of SNCC was a new experience. I started with a short reading that gave students background about SNCC's long work in Selma and the new campaign launched by Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The reading explains the difference between the two organizations' organizing methods: "SNCC projects emphasize the development of grassroots organizations headed by local people. SNCC organizers work, eat, and sleep in a community - for years, if necessary - and attempt to slowly develop a large local leadership that can carry on the struggle eventually without SNCC field staff. . . . The SCLC led local communities into nonviolent confrontations with segregationists and the brutal cops and state police who backed up Jim Crow laws. They hoped to bring national media attention to local struggles and force the federal government to intervene to support civil rights activists."

I explained to students why I've put them in multiple circles, have each circle pick their own facilitator, and hand out five "problem-solving" questions SNCC faced during the Selma campaign. In their circles, students debate and decide on answers to the five questions. Some of the questions ask students to decide whether they should support the efforts of the SCLC, while others are more open-ended and require students to come up with creative solutions. Here's a short excerpt from one student discussion on whether SNCC should support the 50-mile nonviolent march from Selma to Montgomery that will go through some of the most violent areas of Alabama:

Aris: No, no, no! First, it's a 50-mile march! Then King's going to take them through these violent racist places. And he's nonviolent, so that means that if they want to snatch our people up, we're gonna have to let them!

Nakiyah: But King brings a lot of publicity with him. You think they are going to attack us while the cameras are on us?

Aris: It's a 50-mile march. The cameras can't be on us all the time.

Elian: But the troopers just shot a protester, we have to respond in some way and we're stronger if we respond with King.

After students finish debating the questions, we read what really happened in a short excerpt I adapted from Clayborne Carson's In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Students often leave this case study a little frustrated with King's actions in Selma - a stark difference to how students feel after watching the movie, Selma. Aris commented, "The first march he wasn't there. The second march he's there, but turns it around. What's up with this guy?" In our debrief discussion, we return to the philosophical differences between SNCC and SCLC to answer this. I point out to students that at least in this instance, the SCLC's strategy worked and the Voting Rights Act was introduced out of the crisis in Selma. But my student Francisco would not let SCLC off the hook: "But they came in after SNCC had been working in Selma for two years. So who's to say SNCC's strategy didn't work?" The point of this case study is not to answer these questions for students - but to get them to grapple with different organizing models for social change.

The next day we started on the second case study, which takes students through the SNCC organizing campaign in Lowndes County, Alabama. The format is identical to the previous day's, so students come ready to dive in. One question asks students how SNCC will respond to increasing white terror. Another question, set after the Voting Rights Act, asks students now that most official barriers to Blacks voting have come down, should people vote for the Democratic Party? Especially given that Alabama's Democrats have a slogan that touts "white supremacy?"

In addition to the voting rights campaign in Lowndes, the debrief reading for this case study takes students through the birth of the original Black Panther Party, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), and their impressive showing in the 1966 elections. In less than two years, Lowndes County went from a place that had not one registered Black voter to a model of independent Black organization that others aimed to emulate across the country.
Why Learn SNCC?
Probably the most important part of SNCC's legacy is not its nonviolent direct action tactics, but its base-building through community organizing. SNCC was influenced by the communities in which they organized, just as SNCC influenced them. The debates throughout SNCC's various organizing campaigns reflect this relationship with the communities in which they organized. Playing out these debates in the classroom shows students that social movements aren't only about protest - but also about tactics, strategy, and the ability to hold a debate and move forward together. Tracking SNCC's ideological transformation can also help highlight how social movements can quickly radicalize, as what seemed impossible only a few years before is made possible through protest and organization.

Too often, the experience of SNCC is ignored when we teach the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Instead, the movement is often taught with a focus on prominent movement leaders. The "Rosa sat and Martin dreamed" narrative not only trivializes the role of these activists, it robs us of the deeper history of the Civil Rights Movement. It's not enough for students to simply learn about the sit-ins or Freedom Rides. SNCC's organizing campaigns need to be at the center of civil rights curriculum. In today's racist world, students need to grasp that social change does not simply occur by finding the right tactic to implement - or waiting around for a strong leader to emerge - but through slow, patient organizing that empowers oppressed communities. This crucial lesson of the Civil Rights Movement will help us plot a course for our movements today - and may help students imagine playing a role in those movements. As my student Nakiyah wrote me in her final course evaluation, "Learning about SNCC was so interesting because SNCC was so effective. Knowing that the racism they experienced still exists in a similar but different way today made me want to make a change and gather my generation to fight."
Resource
For Adam Sanchez's SNCC handout and role play, go here: http://bit.ly/2ihBTwa

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Teaching SNCC: The Organization at the Heart of the Civil Rights Revolution

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Teaching the history of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee helps students see the Civil Rights Movement as being fueled by thousands of young people like themselves instead of a few charismatic leaders. "Without the history of SNCC at their disposal, students think of the Civil Rights Movement as one that was dominated by charismatic leaders and not one that involved thousands of young people like themselves.

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Reflections of a “Deseg Baby” By: Linda Mizell (p. 137-139)

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Reflections of a “Deseg Baby” By: Linda Mizell (p. 137-139)

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Which article should we have spent more time with and why?

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photo: U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

I grew up in the segregated South, and came of age as a "deseg baby." My friends and I began our school lives in modern buildings constructed in our segregated neighborhoods in the late 1950s and early 1960s, some of them during periods of budget reductions.

In 1955, with the decision known as Brown II, the Supreme Court decreed that public schools be desegregated "with all deliberate speed," though it would be another 16 years before any real effort was made to carry out that decree on a large scale. Predictably, the responses of the 21 states directly affected by the Brown decision ranged from "ready compliance" to hostile, aggressive legal challenge and evasion. A number of southern states chose the path that Florida did: While attempting to legally challenge the ruling, the state also tried to forestall counter challenges from the black community by making our separate schools "equal" through a rash of new construction and renovation and unprecedented purchases of new instructional supplies.

It was too little, too late, but it added fuel to a debate that had been carried on for over a century-whether "separate schools with equal facilities are more advantageous than mixed schools with prejudice"-a question posed by ardent desegregationist Charles H. Thompson, the first dean of Howard University's school of education and founding editor of the influential Journal of Negro Education.

There is considerable evidence that until early in the 20th century significant numbers of African Americans, if not the majority, supported the existence of separate schools. Many viewed them as "symbols of racial achievement [that] provided about the only avenue of opportunity for black professionals," wrote historian Daniel Crofts.

Prior to the 1930s, African-American schools were not necessarily considered academically inferior; nor were "mixed" (integrated) schools equated with "equal" (or superior) education. It was not uncommon in the 1930s to be opposed to the evils of segregation and still support separate schools, though it seems paradoxical. This debate was one of the hottest topics in the African-American press.

Yet, with few exceptions, supporters of African-American schools were denounced as "accommodationists" and/or "self-serving fools" intent on little more than preserving patronage positions. A. Philip Randolph even called them "Jim Crow niggers." Today, if we remember these folks at all, this is pretty much how we remember them.

An African-American man uses the segregated, "colored " entrance to a Belzoni, Mississippi, theater in 1939.photo: U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ WOLCOTT

Judge Robert L. Carter (who served as NAACP General Counsel and was a lead attorney in the Brown cases) noted in retrospect that the legal team had not sought the advice of professional educators in shaping its collective ideology, saying "[W]e felt no need for such guidance because of our conviction that equal education meant integrated education." As sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot noted, "although the Brown decision focused on schooling, it disregarded the development of children and the perspectives of families and communities."

Between 1935, when the NAACP began implementing its school strategy, and 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down the Brown decision, the goal of equal educational opportunity and the strategy of desegregation were conflated in such a way as to make it difficult to publicly oppose-or even to question-the ideology of integration. The debate among African Americans didn't end, though; it simply became a private rather than a public conversation.

I grew up hearing those "in-house" conversations. Many times over the past 30 years, I've wished that I had the opportunity to talk with the folks we dismissed as "Toms," to explore with them the perspectives they gained by simultaneously supporting black institutions and challenging Jim Crow education. Can "separate but equal" schools really work? We don't know: We've never really had them. Does integration work? Haven't had much experience with that, either.

While much has been written on the challenges, limitations, and miscalculations of desegregation policy as an effective vehicle for guaranteeing equality of access to educational opportunity, the prevailing viewpoint-especially as we approach the 50th anniversary of Brown-attributes contemporary wisdom to historical hindsight. It would have been difficult to accurately predict the complicated mix of social, political, legal, and economic factors that have led to school resegregation in the United States. Yet academic tracking, discriminatory disciplinary practices, the radical decline in the number of black teachers and administrators, rising drop-out rates, and other challenges that define 21st century educational apartheid were real and imminent threats to parents and educators in the 1930s-just as real as the inferior facilities and other manifestations of institutional neglect that galvanized their opposition to segregation.

By the time I graduated from high school, the county system had been fully desegregated, but it seemed that we had slipped even further away from the goal of access to quality education. Thirty years later, hometown debate over the continued failure of our public schools to educate African-American children has been deflected by a new proliferation of "neighborhood" schools and a revived emphasis on "choice" as an alternative to court-ordered busing.

Vanessa Siddle Walker, Gloria Ladson-Billings, and others have documented how segregation forced black communities to develop strategies and structures that allowed effective schools under the worst of circumstances. Yet they are clear that there is nothing to be gained from romanticizing the non-existent "good old days" of segregation.

It seems to me we're still missing the point that W. E. B. DuBois made in 1935: "The Negro needs neither segregated schools nor mixed schools. What he needs is Education. What he must remember is that there is no magic, either in mixed schools or in segregated schools."

It's the same point that parents and educators have been making for the last 150 years. Would we now be better prepared to respond to the challenges of desegregation if we'd been able to have a more honest public debate on its potential risks and benefits all along?

Linda Mizell ( lindamiz@aol.com) is a lecturer in education at Tufts University. She is a member of the steering committee for the National Coalition of Education Activists (NCEA) and a senior associate with Enidlee Consultants USA.

Recommended Reading

Plural but Equal , by Harold Cruse (William Morrow, 1988). $12.95.

Shades of Brown , edited by Derrick A. Bell (Teachers College Press, 1980). 150 pp. $29.99.

Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South , by Vanessa Siddle Walker (University of North Carolina, 1996). 276 pp. $18.95.

Too Much Schooling , edited by Mwalimu J. Shujaa (Africa World Press, 1994). 412 pp. $21.95.

What Brown Should Have Said , edited by Jack Balkin (New York University Press, 2001). 257 pp. $20.

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I grew up in the segregated South, and came of age as a "deseg baby." My friends and I began our school lives in modern buildings constructed in our segregated neighborhoods in the late 1950s and early 1960s, some of them during periods of budget reductions.

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What we don’t learn about the Black Panther Party-but Should By: Adam Sanchez & Jesse Hagopian (p. 141-149)

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What we don’t learn about the Black Panther Party-but Should By: Adam Sanchez & Jesse Hagopian (p. 141-149)

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Thoughts? Ideas?

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By Adam Sanchez, Jesse Hagopian

Illustrator: Bettmann | Getty Images

On Monday April 1, 1967, "George Dowell and several neighbors from North Richmond, California . . . heard 10 gunshots. Sometime after 5:00 a.m., George came upon his older brother Denzil Dowell lying in the street, shot in the back and head. Police from the county sheriff's department were there, but no ambulance had been called. . . . [The] sheriff's office reported that deputy sheriffs Mel Brunkhorst and Kenneth Gibson had arrived at the scene at 4:50 a.m. on a tip from an unidentified caller about a burglary in progress. They claimed that when they arrived, Denzil Dowell and another man ran from the back of a liquor store and refused to stop when ordered to halt. Brunkhorst fired one blast from a shotgun, striking Dowell and killing him. . . . For the Dowells, the official explanation did not add up, and community members helped the family investigate. . . . There was no sign of entry, forced or otherwise, at Bill's Liquors, the store that Dowell had allegedly been robbing. Further, the police had reported that Dowell had not only run but also jumped two fences to get away before being shot down. But Dowell had a bad hip, a limp, and the family claimed that he could not run, let alone jump fences. . . . A doctor who worked on the case told the family that judging from the way the bullets had entered Dowell's body, Dowell had been shot with his hands raised. . . . Mrs. Dowell publicly announced, 'I believe the police murdered my son.' . . . A white jury took little time deciding that the killing of unarmed Dowell was 'justifiable homicide' because the police officers on the scene had suspected that he was in the act of committing a felony. Outraged, the Black community demanded justice."
-Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Jr. Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
Helping North Richmond's Black community demand justice for the killing of Denzil Dowell was one of the first major organizing campaigns of the Black Panther Party, and the first issue of The Black Panther newspaper, which at its height around 1970 had a circulation of 140,000 copies per week, asked, "WHY WAS DENZIL DOWELL KILLED?" Anyone reading the story of Dowell today can't help but draw parallels to the unarmed Black men and women regularly murdered by police. The disparity between the police's story and the victim's family's, the police harassment Dowell endured before his murder, the jury letting Dowell's killer off without punishment, even the reports that Dowell had his hands raised while he was gunned down, eerily echo the police killings today that have led to the explosion of the movement for Black lives.

Yet when we learn about the early years of the Panthers, the organizing they did in Richmond - conducting their own investigation into Dowell's death, confronting police who harassed Dowell's family, helping mothers in the community organize against abuse at the local school, organizing armed street rallies in which hundreds filled out applications to join the Party - is almost always absent. Born just over 50 years ago, the history of the Black Panther Party holds vital lessons for today's movement to confront racism and police violence - yet textbooks either misrepresent or minimize the significance of the Panthers. Armed with a revolutionary socialist ideology, they fought in Black communities across the nation for giving the poor access to decent housing, health care, education, and much more. And as the Panthers grew, so did the issues they organized around.

This local organizing that the Panthers engaged in has been largely erased, yet it is precisely what won them such widespread support. By 1970, a Market Dynamics/ABC poll found that Black people judged the Panthers to be the organization "most likely" to increase the effectiveness of the Black liberation struggle, and two-thirds showed admiration for the party. Coming in the midst of an all-out assault on the Panthers from the white press and law enforcement - including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's claim that the Panthers were "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" - this support was remarkable.

The Textbook Version of the BPP

A few of the major textbooks don't even mention the Black Panthers, while most spend only a sentence or two on the organization. Even the small number that do devote a few paragraphs to the Party give little context for their actions and greatly distort their ideology.

Textbooks often associate the Panthers with violence and racial separatism. For example, according to Teachers' Curriculum Institute's History Alive! The United States Through Modern Times, "Black Power groups formed that embraced militant strategies and the use of violence. Organizations such as the Black Panthers rejected all things white and talked of building a separate black nation." While ignoring that the Panthers believed in using violence only in self-defense, this passage also attempts to divide the Panthers from "nonviolent" civil rights groups. The Panthers didn't develop out of thin air but evolved from their relationships with other civil rights organizations, especially the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The name and symbol of the Panthers were adopted from the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), an independent political organization SNCC helped organize in Alabama, which was also called the "Black Panther Party." Furthermore, SNCC allied with the Panthers in 1968 and although the alliance lasted only five months, it was a crucial time for the growth of the Panthers.

The passage from History Alive! also incorrectly paints the Panthers as anti-white, erasing their important work building multiracial coalitions. Most famously, Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton organized the Rainbow Coalition that included the Puerto Rican Young Lords and the Young Patriots - a group of poor, Southern, white migrants. The Black Panthers helped the Patriots set up their own community service programs. In California, the Panthers made an important alliance with the mostly white Peace and Freedom Party, which in 1968 ran Eldridge Cleaver for President in an attempt to provide an antiwar, anti-racist alternative to the Democratic Party. An editorial in The Black Panther explained: "The increasing isolation of the black radical movement from the white radical movement was a dangerous thing, playing into the power structure's game of divide and conquer."

Other textbooks also erase the socialist character of the Black Panther Party. Holt McDougal's The Americans reads, "Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded a political party known as the Black Panthers to fight police brutality in the ghetto." While the textbook later acknowledges other things the Panthers advocated, by reducing the reason for their founding to fighting police brutality, The Americans profoundly diminishes the important ideological basis of the party. More clearly than any other national civil rights organization, the Panthers linked the fight against racism with the fight against capitalism. As Panther Huey Newton explained, "We realize that this country became very rich upon slavery and that slavery is capitalism in the extreme. We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both." The Panthers understood that Black people could not achieve socialism on their own and their work building multiracial anti-capitalist coalitions flowed from that analysis. In fact, the Panthers developed an education requirement for joining the party that consisted of reading 10 books relating to Black liberation and socialism.

Several textbooks also blame the Panthers for the end of the Civil Rights Movement, while simultaneously ignoring or downplaying the role the FBI played in destroying the party. In a later section in The Americans, the authors write, "Public support for the Civil Rights Movement declined because some whites were frightened by the urban riots and the Black Panthers." What textbooks like this fail to mention is the decline in public support was a result of the counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) of the FBI. According to scholar Ward Churchill:

The Black Panther Party was savaged by a campaign of political repression, which in terms of its sheer viciousness has few parallels in American history. Coordinated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation . . . and enlisting dozens of local police departments around the country, the assault left at least 30 Panthers dead, scores of others imprisoned after dubious convictions, and hundreds more suffering permanent physical or psychological damage. Simultaneously, the party was infiltrated at every level by agents provocateurs, all of them harnessed to the task of disrupting its internal functioning. Completing the package was a torrent of "disinformation" planted in the media to discredit the Panthers before the public, both personally and organizationally, thus isolating them from potential support.

With minimal and problematic coverage in the history textbooks, there is little curriculum for teachers hoping to provide students with the crucial history of the Black Panther Party. This is why we were excited last year to hear that PBS began distributing Stanley Nelson's new documentary Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. The documentary is an essential tool for the classroom and gives high school teachers an incomparable visual companion to teaching the Panthers. Like any documentary, the film has some oversights that teachers should be aware of. Although it discusses the Panthers' 10-Point Platform, it doesn't do a great job of explaining the Panthers' Marxist ideology. It also doesn't provide enough historical context for the Panthers' activities, making it difficult for students to fully understand both the rise and fall of the Party. And in its attempt to tell the national story of the Panthers, it sometimes skips over important local organizing efforts. But chunked into sections and coupled with readings that help flesh out the documentary's omissions, it is a crucial addition to any social justice teacher's tool chest.

Teaching the Panthers Through Role Play

To introduce the film and to try to give students a fuller picture of the party's history, we developed a mixer activity in which each student takes on a role of someone who was in, or connected to, the Black Panthers. Students are given a role with a thumbnail sketch of that person's biography along with details that help illuminate aspects of the party. In all of the roles, we tried to emphasize why people joined the Black Panther Party. For example, the role of Kathleen Cleaver begins:

As a young Black woman growing up in Alabama in the 1950s, you wanted to challenge injustice. You were inspired by powerful women leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). . . . These women were creating a social revolution in the Deep South and all worked with SNCC. . . . In 1966, you went to organize in SNCC's New York office and then to Atlanta, Georgia. You had joined SNCC at the time it took up the slogan "Black Power," and you saw the Black Panther Party as taking the positions SNCC was headed toward. . . . You decided to move to San Francisco and join the Panthers.

Among the other roles is Ruby Dowell, Denzil Dowell's sister who joined the party after the organizing the Panthers did in Richmond.

We also tried to highlight the repression the Panthers faced along with some of the lesser known but important stories of Panther community organizing. The role for Lumumba Shakur, founder of the New York Black Panther Party chapter, explains how the entire New York Panther leadership was arrested on flimsy evidence. Part of the role's description:

You spent two years in prison while the trial proceeded. You organized prisoners to fight for better living conditions and at one point took control of the jail from the prison guards. You demanded and received bail hearings for every prisoner. Hundreds of prisoners were released as a result of the new hearings.

Students also encounter Panther allies like William "Preacherman" Fesperman of the Young Patriots, Madonna Thunder Hawk of the American Indian Movement, Gloria Arellanes of the Brown Berets, and Jose "Cha-Cha" Jimenez of the Young Lords. They also meet Panther "enemies" like FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Los Angeles Police Officer Pat McKinley.

One of the most overlooked aspects of the Panthers we tried to highlight was their role in the struggle for anti-racist education. Historian Donna Murch details how the Panthers had their origins in "agitation for Black Studies courses and debates about the 'relevance' of education," and describes the membership of Panthers as "composed largely of Southern migrants under 25, including many students recruited from local high schools and community colleges..." The Panthers were originally formed out of a study group at Oakland's Merritt community college. The Panthers' belief in the need for an education beyond what was being taught in the school system led them to develop a network of liberation schools for youth.

In the mixer, the role of Ericka Huggins highlights the Panthers' flagship liberation school in Oakland. Other roles highlight the Panthers' fight for ethnic studies and their free breakfast program that fed hundreds of hungry children before school and was eventually adopted by the U.S. education system - one of the party's most meaningful and lasting reforms.

Lastly, we tried to include criticisms of the Panthers in the roles - not just from the police and conservative politicians, but from Black Panthers themselves. Often students can glorify the Black Panther Party, especially students of color who are regularly harassed by police and are justifiably impressed with the Panthers' bold defiance against what they called "the pig power structure." But the Black Panther Party existed as a national organization for only a short period, and while a large responsibility for their destruction should be put on the FBI and police efforts to destroy the party, it's also important for students to ask whether the Panthers could have done anything differently. Whether it is the sexism some female Panthers experienced, or the ideological debate that caused an eventual split in the party, we wanted to provide students with tools to critically assess this complex history.

To start the activity, we distribute roles to students and ask them to read them several times, underline important information, and list out three or four crucial facts on the back of the role. Students are often blown away by the stories presented. "My character's a badass!" one student exclaimed after reading about Bobby Seale's acts of defiance in the courtroom when he was put on trial after participating in the 1968 antiwar demonstration at the Democratic National Convention.

When students finish reading, we give out eight questions that guide them as they circulate around the room, meeting others and finding a different person to answer each of the questions. For example, "Find someone who has an opinion on the role of women in the Black Panther Party. Who is this person and what is their opinion?" We encourage students to take their time - the point of the mixer is not to race through and get all the answers to the questions, but to learn from the various stories in the room to get a fuller picture of the Black Panther Party. As teachers, we participate in the mixer as well. It's helpful to take a role with a more complex critique that might be hard for students to explain, like Stokely Carmichael or Luke Tripp of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement. Students are often eager to learn the stories in the room and a buzz fills the air as they grab one another and share their roles.

At the end of class - with at least 20 minutes left, we ask students to head back to their seats and silently write on four questions:

1. What were some of the things you learned about the Black Panthers that you didn't know before the mixer?

2. Whose story did you find most interesting or surprising?

3. What did you think of the critiques of the Black Panthers you encountered?

4. What would you like to know more about?

We've always been impressed by the rich discussion these four questions produce. Students are often surprised to learn the story of Richard Aoki. "I thought they'd only allow Black people into their group, but Aoki was Japanese American," Maya wrote. For many students this is the first time they learn about Latinx or Asian American radicals. Aliyah exclaimed, "It was cool to learn about Gloria [Arellanes] and Cha-Cha Jimenez. I didn't know that Mexicans and Puerto Ricans were fighting in the same ways as the Panthers." "Yeah, my mom told me about the Brown Berets," Ayanna stated, "but I didn't know that they were connected to the Panthers."

Students are often shocked at the level of violence the Panthers faced at the hands of the FBI. "It was sad to hear the story of Lil' Bobby Hutton," Brandon wrote. "He was trying to help his people and was shot more than 12 times with his hands up. He was only 16!" David added, "I found it interesting the way the FBI set up the BPP. It's clear the government did not want them to succeed." More specifically, James noticed, "The FBI sent fake letters to the Oakland and New York Panthers to create tensions between them. I didn't realize the FBI was so involved in breaking them up."

We've found that students can often be impressively articulate when evaluating the critiques they come in contact with during the mixer. Keisha wrote, "I thought Luke Tripp's ideas made sense when thinking about how to fight capitalism. He founded the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement in Detroit and was focused on helping working-class Blacks. He thought the confrontations with police would just get Panthers thrown in jail and that they should focus on organizing strikes." Melanie disagreed, "I actually think the confrontations with police were important because it showed people the Panthers weren't scared." Madison grappled with the differing views of sexism in the party that she encountered: "It was interesting that Roberta Alexander called out sexism in the BPP and thought they didn't give women equal rights. Other Panther women I met disagreed. People still have sexist attitudes toward women and women don't have equal rights so that was interesting to think about." Other students defended the Panthers against critiques from the right and left. "[California State Assemblyman] Donald Mulford said that he wanted to protect society from Black people with guns. But I feel like society needs to be protected from white people with guns," declared JT. "I really like Stokely Carmichael," Gregory began, "but I disagree with his critique of the Panthers for making alliances with white people. I get where he's coming from, but you can't fight racism with racism." Without realizing it, Gregory's words echoed Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton's.

We hope the mixer we wrote, Stanley Nelson's new documentary, Wayne Au's lesson on the Panthers' 10-Point Program, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca's lesson on COINTELPRO, can be starting points for educators who hope to arm a new generation with the story of the Panthers. As the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party passes by, these lessons should be just a few of many to come that help teachers and students explore this rich - and too often ignored Ñ history.

Resources: Click here for the Black Panther Party mixer.

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What We Don't Learn About the Black Panther Party - but Should

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By Adam Sanchez, Jesse Hagopian Illustrator: Bettmann | Getty Images On Monday April 1, 1967, "George Dowell and several neighbors from North Richmond, California . . . heard 10 gunshots. Sometime after 5:00 a.m., George came upon his older brother Denzil Dowell lying in the street, shot in the back and head.

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COINTELPRO Teaching the FBI’s war on the Black Freedom movement By: Ursula Wolfe-Rocca (p.151-159)

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COINTELPRO Teaching the FBI’s war on the Black Freedom movement By: Ursula Wolfe-Rocca (p.151-159)

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Thoughts? Ideas?

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By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Illustrator: Emory Douglas

Graphic illustration of the impact of COINTELPRO by Black Panther Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, 1976.

Student-selected and student-run current events discussions are a daily ingredient of my high school social studies classes. The first 20 minutes of every 90-minute class period, we read an excerpt from a recent newspaper article and discuss its significance. In the last few years, the discussions have been dominated by names that have piled up with sickening frequency: Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland. My students, mostly Asian American and white, live in Lake Oswego, one of the wealthiest cities in Oregon and a community that benefits from mostly positive relationships with police. They struggle to understand a society that continues to allow Black lives to die at the hands of law enforcement.

This year, student attention has turned to how activists are responding to the racism in the criminal justice system, particularly the Black Lives Matter movement. In November 2015, a student brought in an Oregonian article, "Black Lives Matter: Oregon Justice Department Searched Social Media Hashtags." The article detailed the department's digital surveillance of people solely on the basis of their use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. My students thoughtfully discussed and debated whether tying #BlackLivesMatter to potential threats to police (the premise of the surveillance program) was justifiable, with most students agreeing with the Urban League and the American Civil Liberties Union that the U.S. Department of Justice acted improperly and potentially unlawfully.

But what was not noted in the Oregonian article was the historical resonance of this story, which recalls the ugly, often illegal, treatment of Black activists by the U.S. justice system during an earlier era of our history.

My students had little way of knowing about this story behind the story because mainstream textbooks almost entirely ignore COINTELPRO, the FBI's counterintelligence program of the 1960s and '70s that targeted a wide range of activists, including the Black freedom movement.

COINTELPRO offers me, as a teacher of classes on government, a treasure trove of opportunities to illustrate key concepts, including the rule of law, civil liberties, social protest, and due process, yet it is completely absent from my school's government book, Magruder's American Government (Pearson).

One of the options for U.S. history teachers in my school district is American Odyssey (McGraw Hill). In a section titled "The Movement Appraised," the book sums up the end of the Civil Rights Movement:

Without strong leadership in the years following King's death, the civil rights movement floundered. Middle-class Americans, both African American and white, tired of the violence and the struggle. The war in Vietnam and crime in the streets at home became the new issue at the forefront of the nation's consciousness.

Here we find a slew of problematic assertions about the Civil Rights Movement, plus a notable absence. Nowhere does American Odyssey note that, in addition to King's death and Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement also had to contend with a declaration of war made against it by agencies of its own government.

American Odyssey is not alone in its omission. American Journey (Pearson), another U.S. history textbook used in my school, also ignores COINTELPRO.

The only textbook in my district that does mention COINTELPRO is America: A Concise History (St. Martin's), a college-level text used to teach AP history classes. Its summary and analysis takes exactly one sentence: "In the late 1960s SDS and other antiwar groups fell victim to police harassment, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and CIA agents infiltrated and disrupted radical organizations." Without context, without emphasis, without a real-life illustration of what "harassment," "infiltrated," and "disrupted" actually meant in the lives of those targeted, this sentence is suffocated into meaninglessness.

Why do textbook writers and publishers leave out this crucial episode in U.S. history? Perhaps they take their cues from the FBI itself. According to the FBI website:

The FBI began COINTELPRO-short for Counterintelligence Program-in 1956 to disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, it was expanded to include a number of other domestic groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party. All COINTELPRO operations were ended in 1971. Although limited in scope (about two-tenths of one percent of the FBI's workload over a 15-year period), COINTELPRO was later rightfully criticized by Congress and the American people for abridging first amendment rights and for other reasons.

Apparently, mainstream textbooks have accepted-hook, line, and sinker-the FBI's whitewash of COINTELPRO as "limited in scope" and applying to only a few organizations. But COINTELPRO was neither "limited in scope" nor applied only to the organizations listed in the FBI's description. Under then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO included legal harassment, intimidation, wiretapping, infiltration, smear campaigns, and blackmail, and resulted in countless prison sentences and, in the case of Black Panther Fred Hampton and others, murder. This scope of operations can hardly be described as "limited." Moreover, these tactics were employed against every national civil rights organization, the antiwar movement (particularly on college campuses), Students for a Democratic Society, the American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican Young Lords, and others.

A better way to understand the wide net cast by COINTELPRO is the final report of the Church Committee. In the early 1970s, following a number of allegations in the press about overreaching government intelligence operations, a Senate committee, chaired by Democrat Frank Church of Idaho, began an investigation of U.S. intelligence agencies. Their 1976 report states: "The unexpressed major premise of much of COINTELPRO is that the Bureau [FBI] has a role in maintaining the existing social order, and that its efforts should be aimed toward combating those who threaten that order." In other words, anyone who challenged the status quo of racism, militarism, and capitalism in American society was fair game for surveillance and harassment. Rather than "limited," the FBI's scope potentially included all social and political activists, an alarming and outrageous revelation in a country purportedly governed by the protections of free speech and assembly in the First Amendment.

Bringing COINTELPRO into the Classroom

I post a recent headline on the overhead screen: "Top Officer in Iraq: 'We must neutralize this enemy.'" I ask my 11th-grade U.S. history students, "So what does the word neutralize mean in this headline?" Well-schooled in the popular culture of war and violence, they have no trouble with this task.

"Kill."

"Destroy."

"Eliminate."

"Get rid of."

I write their definitions on the board and explain we will come back to them in a bit. I say that in this lesson we are going to look at a bunch of old documents from the FBI. I try to build excitement by telling students that these documents were classified top secret and not meant to be seen by everyday folks like us. I continue: "In fact, we only found out about them because a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stuffed suitcases full of documents-selecting the night of a much-anticipated Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight so the security guard would be distracted."

I post the first document on the overhead for the class to analyze together. It's a memo sent by Hoover in 1967 to FBI field offices throughout the country: "Black Nationalist-Hate Groups" (see Resources). In it, Hoover instructs his agency "to assign responsibility for following and coordinating this new counterintelligence program to an experienced and imaginative Special Agent well-versed in investigations relating to black nationalist, hate-type organizations."

At this point in the unit, students have compared the activism of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party, analyzing the tactics and social critiques brought to bear by different strands of the movement. Students draw on this background when I ask them to predict which organizations will be targeted under Hoover's counterintelligence program. "So guys, who are the 'hate-type organizations' referred to in this document?"

A number of hands shoot up-students think they've got this one. Invariably, their first guess is that the FBI must have targeted the Black Panthers. They explain that the Panthers advocated Black Power and self-defense, and encouraged members to own firearms. Students plausibly predict that if the FBI were to treat any Black activist groups as a potential threat, those with the most revolutionary rhetoric and those bearing arms would have been first in line.

"Well, you're right," I say. "So, were the Black Panthers a threat to American security? Did the FBI have a justifiable reason to be tracking them?"

There are always some students who bristle at the militancy of groups like the Black Panthers. Whether it is the Panthers' use of the term "pig" to describe law enforcement, or Malcolm X's reference to "white devils," or the philosophy of self-defense, my students struggle with a discomfort they do not feel when we are talking about SNCC's sit-ins. I try to help students separate their discomfort about the group's rhetoric from the question of whether the threat they posed to the U.S. government was a security threat or a political one.

I remind students of prior lessons-the Panthers' 10 Point Program, their careful adherence to state gun laws to protect them from being charged on weapons infractions, their street patrols to monitor police violence, their breakfast for children programs, their freedom schools.

After some discussion, a consensus usually emerges among my students: White America may not have liked their message or their tactics, but the Black Panthers represented a political challenge. They weren't doing anything to merit the FBI response.

I continue: "But the Black Panthers were not the only ones targeted. Let's take a look at the other groups on the FBI's list."

I reveal the next page of the document, which states the groups to which "intensified attention under this program will be afforded," and I ask students to call out other organizations they see listed that we have studied in this unit.

"SNCC!"

"SCLC!"

"CORE!"

I add some humor by acting confused: "Wait a second, can you guys help me out here? Remind me again, who was the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference?"

Before I am even done with my act of feigned ignorance, students are shouting, "King! King was the leader of SCLC!"

"Oh yes, that's right! Now help me again because I can't seem to remember: Was he a member of a 'hate-type' organization?"

Students roll their eyes at my poor acting and adamantly confirm: "No! He was all about nonviolence!"

Now I get serious and pause for some analysis and questioning: "OK, folks, what is going on here? Why would the FBI target activist organizations, including those that were explicitly nonviolent, like SCLC and CORE?"

Students offer a few suggestions:

"Maybe Hoover was really racist and didn't want the Civil Rights Movement to succeed."

"Maybe the FBI worried that the nonviolent organizations were going to become more militant."

But this discussion usually ends soon after it begins. Students are flummoxed. They have grown up in a world that glorifies and mythologizes King; they cannot make sense of the notion that U.S. security agencies viewed him as a threat.

In spite of its brevity, this discussion is important. It frames the inquiry to come by cultivating students' curiosity and confusion.

Now I present to students the final part of the document. This is where Hoover reveals the goal of COINTELPRO:

The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder.

I ask a student to read this quote aloud since hearing the words disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize underscores their sinister meaning.

I remind the class of the earlier definitions of neutralize on the board. I ask, "So what is the FBI saying it wants to do to SCLC, SNCC, CORE, and the Black Panthers?"

Students look at the board, but they can't quite believe what is written there, so they add question marks.

"Kill?"

"Destroy?"

"Eliminate?"

"Get rid of?"

Most years, there will be a student who interjects at this point to suggest that maybe neutralize means something different in this context; surely it can't be as bad as I make it sound. This disbelief is the perfect tone to set for the next step of the lesson, when students delve into the documents and see for themselves what the FBI meant by neutralize.

The Documents

I arrange the desks into groups of four. I provide students packets of declassified memos (see Resources) from the COINTELPRO era. These documents are a representative sample of the scope and tactics of the program, and reveal the FBI's use of infiltration, psychological warfare, legal harassment, and media manipulation against activists and organizations.

I give students a worksheet with some guiding questions to complete as they read and discuss. It mixes retrieval and analysis questions, so students are directed toward the highlights of the documents and the significance of what they read.

For example, for the memo dated 9/27/68, about the Black Panther Party, the worksheet asks, "How does the FBI characterize the Black Panther Party?" Students skim the memo and locate this sentence: "It is the most violence-prone organization of all the extremist groups now operating in the United States." This is a simple retrieval question. But then I ask, "What activities by the Panthers are not mentioned anywhere in these documents?" Here I urge students to go back to earlier lessons on the social dimensions of the Panthers and recall the breadth of community programs offered by the Panthers, from health clinics to nutrition classes to free breakfasts for children.

I encourage students to tackle the documents together, reading aloud, talking, deciphering, and questioning as they go. These documents can be tough and the copy quality, with lots of redacting, is not always great. Since students are generally very engaged during this lesson, it can get loud.

COINTELPRO and Martin Luther King Jr.

Midway through the packet, students read about the FBI's program of harassment against Martin Luther King Jr. When they arrive at these documents, I always know, because I start to hear a lot of this:

"Wait, what is this?"

"I am totally confused-this letter was sent to King?"

"Ms. Wolfe, we don't understand document 6 at all."

This is my cue to stop the group work and read the King documents together as a class, documents that reveal that through illegal wiretapping, the FBI collected evidence of King's extramarital affairs and used this evidence to try (unsuccessfully) to blackmail him. The documents show that the FBI not only attempted to discredit King, but also to get him to commit suicide.

It is hard to overstate how dumbfounded the students are by these revelations. How could the U.S. government participate in this level of harassment of a man they have been taught to embrace as a near-deity?

This is a perfect teaching opportunity to help establish the truth about King: He was not the watered-down, Hallmark-holiday caricature that has come to dominate our culture; in the eyes of people like Hoover, he was a dangerous radical who needed to be targeted.

The FBI and Hoover saw King as the radical who, in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," called out racial moderates for their gradualist approach to injustices that required immediate action; the radical whose opposition to the Vietnam War, famously expressed at Riverside Church, led him to describe the U.S. government as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"; and the radical who warned Americans, "When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

I do not always address all of these dimensions of King with my students, but even just one of these examples helps delineate the breadth of his critique of U.S. society and establish for students why the FBI might see him as a threat and a target of COINTELPRO.

King Was Human

At this moment in the lesson, students want to talk about King's infidelity.

"Ms. Wolfe, please tell me it is not true that King cheated on his wife!"

"Wait, the FBI made that up, right? To make him look bad?"

I try to limit the length of this conversation, since it is obviously not directly related to the goals of my lesson, but I think it would be a mistake to shut down these heartfelt student questions.

"Yes," I say. "It's true, King did cheat on his wife."

Most students seem saddened by this news and sometimes question whether King's infidelity discredits and undermines his heroic status. I challenge kids to move beyond this all-or-nothing moral position: "Look, humans are multidimensional. We can be fantastic in one situation, but miserable in another. Imagine if your entire life's accomplishments were ignored and you were judged only on the basis of the worst thing you ever did. Would that be fair?"

Students begrudgingly take my point but are still sad, as though they have just learned a dark secret about a close family member.

I wonder if there may be a hidden lesson in critical thinking when we reveal King's moral imperfection to students. If we insist that our activist heroes demonstrate moral perfection-or if we hide their blemishes-do we not in some way transmit the message to young people that heroic action is something for a small elect, the untarnished few, not for imperfect people like you and me?

The Murder of Fred Hampton

We've clarified the goals of COINTELPRO and learned about the actual strategies, methods, and targets of the program. But, so far, COINTELPRO has been revealed only on paper. Now it is time to show students how the program damaged and destroyed people's lives.

I show students an excerpt of the documentary Eyes on the Prize - part of the episode "A Nation of Law?" that details the story of Fred Hampton. Hampton was a former NAACP youth organizer who became the chair of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968. Hampton embodied what was powerful and promising about the Panthers. At just 20 years of age, he helped the Panthers establish a breakfast for children program and a free medical clinic on the South Side of Chicago. He taught political education classes and was working to create a multiracial "rainbow coalition" of Chicago youth groups that included the Blackstone Rangers (a street gang), the Young Lords, and the Young Patriots, an organization of working-class white youth, often migrants from Appalachia. Howard Saffold, a member of the Chicago Police Department at the time, eloquently sums up law enforcement's concerns about Hampton's coalition-building:

The Panthers were pursuing an ideology that said we need to take these young minds, this young energy, and turn it into part of our movement in terms of Black liberation and the rest of it. And I saw a very purposeful, intentional effort on the part of the police department to keep that head from hooking up to that body. It was like, you know, do not let this thing become a part of what could ultimately be a political movement, because that's exactly what it was.

Like most of the leaders of the Black freedom movement, Hampton drew the interest of the FBI and COINTELPRO. In 1969, following months of harassment, Hampton was shot and killed as he slept in his bed, his pregnant partner beside him, during a police raid on his home. He was 21 years old.

As they watch the documentary, students take notes on the facts of the Hampton case, and we stop the film often to discuss what we see and hear. I help them tease out the COINTELPRO dimension of the story: an FBI informant infiltrated the Chicago chapter of the Panthers and earned Hampton's trust. He proceeded to provide a floor plan of Hampton's apartment, noting which room he slept in. This information was used by the raiding officers who killed him.

Following the film, students complete a viewer response journal to talk back to the film, a way to process the horror, shock, and grief many of them feel after watching the deadly consequences of COINTELPRO. Aiden grapples with Hampton's innocence: "The police had no reason to come to Hampton's house like that and open fire. He wasn't hurting anyone and he hadn't done anything wrong." Carrie echoes an elderly woman quoted in the film: "The tragic death of Fred Hampton was 'nothing but a Northern lynching.'" Avery writes: "A mob of people came into Fred's home, for no reason, and murdered him. The fact that these were police officers only made it more unbelievably awful."

The Hampton murder also serves as a moment to bring students back to our earlier discussion of the word neutralize. Did the FBI target Hampton for murder? Although FBI agents did not pull the trigger on the weapons that killed Hampton, they provided critical information to those who did. It is clear to students that murder was an acceptable outcome in the larger project of destruction undertaken by COINTELPRO.

Indicting COINTELPRO

I usually end this lesson with students writing a piece related to the Church Committee report. The report concludes, in part:

The findings which have emerged from our investigation convince us that the government's domestic intelligence policies and practices require fundamental reform. . . . The Committee's fundamental conclusion is that intelligence activities have undermined the constitutional rights of citizens.

After reading this statement, I lead a quick discussion of which constitutional rights the report might be referring to; students have recently studied government, so it doesn't take long for them to recall the Fourth Amendment's privacy protections, the First Amendment's speech and expression protections, and the Fifth Amendment's due process protections. We also use this discussion to recall examples from our investigation of the COINTELPRO documents that demonstrate the government infringing on these rights. Finally, I ask students to use the committee's statement as the thesis for some in-class writing.

The prompt reads:

Based on the documents you read and the film you watched, write at least two supporting paragraphs for the excerpt from the Church Committee's conclusions. In order to do this you will need to:

1. Identify protections in the Bill of Rights that were denied or abused by COINTELPRO.

2. Identify examples from the COINTELPRO documents or the film that prove that the rights of activists were abused.

3. Explain and analyze how the evidence in the documents proves that a constitutional injustice occurred.

Admittedly, this is a rather dry academic exercise, but it requires students to formalize their thinking about COINTELPRO as they craft what amounts to an indictment. The task requires students to show, unequivocally and unambiguously, that COINTELPRO was not just unethical and unjust, but illegal too.

Final Thoughts

When I first started teaching about COINTELPRO back in the early 2000s, I ended the unit with a discussion of then-President George W. Bush's NSA surveillance program, which had recently been exposed and was being hotly debated; more recently, I have drawn connections to the Edward Snowden revelations. This year I will address government tracking of Black Lives Matter activists and the use of social media platforms to gather intelligence on protest movements and protest leaders. It seems that the questions of surveillance and government overreach are never out of date.

COINTELPRO is not just a surveillance story. It is a story about a duplicitous and destructive government-sponsored war against Black and other activists. And though the COINTELPRO documents have long been made public, it is a story history textbooks continue to ignore.

Textbook publishers' disregard for the history of COINTELPRO is one more example of the crucial importance of the Black Lives Matter movement, which lays bare the systemic dangers faced by Black people in the United States while simultaneously affirming and celebrating Black life. When activists use social media to show the nation the brutal strangulation of Eric Garner or the mowing down of Tamir Rice or the deadly harassment of Sandra Bland, we cannot fail to recognize the injustice and racism of the criminal justice system. When that same social media shows us Garner's wife pleading, "He should be here celebrating Christmas and Thanksgiving and everything else with his children and grandchildren"; or a photo gone viral of Rice as a shy, smiling boy; or a Facebook post of Bland looking joyful about a new job-we feel the human potential lost as a consequence of these injustices.

What I attempt in my classroom is a Black Lives Matter treatment of COINTELPRO, where we reveal the injustice of the program while simultaneously affirming and celebrating the promise of the activists it sought to silence. Just as Black Lives Matter activists use video footage to convince a disbelieving wider public of what African Americans have long known about police brutality, we teachers can use our classrooms to shine a light on history that has been available, but systematically ignored, by our textbooks and in our curricula, a history that emphatically communicates: Black history matters.

Resources

Goldfield, David, et al. 2005. The American Journey: A History of the United States. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. Pearson.

Henretta, James A., David Brody, and Lynn Dumenil. 2006. America: A Concise History. St. Martin's.

McClenaghan, William. 2005. Magruder's American Government. Pearson.

Nash, Gary. 2004. American Odyssey: The 20th Century and Beyond. McGraw Hill.

PBS. 1990. "A Nation of Law?" Eyes on the Prize. Produced by Henry Hampton. Blackside.

COINTELPRO Documents

Unless otherwise indicated, the following documents can be found in Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall. 2001. The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret War Against Dissent in the United States. 2nd ed. South End Press:

Dec. 1, 1964. FBI memo about "taking steps to remove King from the national picture." The memo suggests sending Martin Luther King Jr. an anonymous letter encouraging him to commit suicide. p. 98. A clean, unredacted version of the letter to King and be found at nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html?_r=1.

Aug. 25, 1967. Memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover initiating COINTELPRO against civil rights organizations. vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro/cointel-pro-black-extremists/cointelpro-black-extremists-part-01-of/view.

March 8, 1968. FBI memo suggesting misinformation leaflets be distributed in Baltimore to combat the influence of new SCLC offices opening there. vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro/cointel-pro-black-extremists/cointelpro-black-extremists-part-01-of/view, p. 78-79.

July 10, 1968. FBI memo proposing false information be used to "convey the impression that [Stokely] Carmichael is a CIA informant." p. 128.

Sept. 27, 1968. FBI memo describing the Black Panther Party as the "most violence prone organization . . . now operating in the United States," with FBI plans to create factionalism within the party. p. 124.

Oct. 10, 1968. FBI memo in which a "media source" is sought "to help neutralize extremist Black Panthers and foster a split between them and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee." p.127.

December 1969. Floor plan of Fred Hampton's apartment, as drawn by an FBI informant. p. 139

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COINTELPRO: Teaching the FBI's War on the Black Freedom Movement

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By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca Illustrator: Emory Douglas Student-selected and student-run current events discussions are a daily ingredient of my high school social studies classes. The first 20 minutes of every 90-minute class period, we read an excerpt from a recent newspaper article and discuss its significance.

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Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington (p.132-136)

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Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington (p.132-136)

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What is something you just learned that you didn’t already know?

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By Bill Fletcher Jr.
August 28 will mark the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Publicly associated with Dr. King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech, this march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation's capital. The day went down in history as a powerful show of force against Jim Crow segregation. Over time this great event has risen to levels of near mythology. The powerful speech by Dr. King, replayed, in part, for us every January on Martin Luther King Day, has eclipsed all else-so much so that too many people believe that the March on Washington was entirely the work of Dr. King. It is also barely remembered that the March on Washington was for freedom and jobs.

In fact, The Americans, a high school history text by publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, tells students that the march was called simply "to persuade Congress to pass the [1963 civil rights] bill." In reality, the demand for jobs was not a throwaway line designed to get trade union support. Instead it reflected the growing economic crisis affecting black workers.

Indeed, while Dr. King was a major player, the March on Washington did not begin as a classic civil rights march and was not initiated by him. There is one constituency that can legitimately claim the legacy of the march-one that has been eclipsed in both history as well as in much of the lead-up to the August 2013 commemorations: black labor.

Initiated by A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the march became a joint project with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Randolph and other black labor leaders, particularly those grouped around the Negro American Labor Council, were responding to the fact that the black worker was largely being ignored in the discussions about civil rights. In addition, the economic situation was becoming complicated terrain for black workers.

As historian Nancy MacLean has pointed out, the elements of what came to be known as deindustrialization-which was really part of a reorganization of global capitalism-were beginning to have an effect in the United States, even in 1963. As with most other disasters, it started with a particular and stark impact on black America.

It is also barely remembered that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee played a key role in the event. The civil rights leadership insisted that the militant rhetoric of the original speech by SNCC's then-chairman John Lewis-now Congressman John Lewis-be toned down. Reading U.S. history textbooks, students are seldom even introduced to the words of Lewis or other speakers. Here is Pearson's U.S. history textbook coverage:

"Many people, including Christian and Jewish religious leaders, gave speeches that day, but none moved the crowd as did King. His voice rang as he proclaimed, 'l have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skins but the content of their character.'"

Teaching about the March on Washington presents a series of challenges precisely because it involves counteracting sanitized textbooks and demythologizing not only the march, but also the Black Freedom Struggle-the Civil Rights Movement, as it became known. As such, there are a few points that cannot be overlooked if we want to honor the march's true story:
1. The context.
The idea for the march in 1963 did not appear out of nowhere, and the fact that A. Philip Randolph originated it was no accident. The notion of the March on Washington in 1963 was, in certain respects, the revival of an idea from 1941 when Randolph convened a group to plan a march on Washington, D.C. to protest the segregation of the growing war industry. That march, which was planned as a black march on Washington, never happened because the mere threat of 100,000 African Americans marching forced President Franklin Roosevelt to give in to the demand for an executive order bringing about formal desegregation of the war industry.
2. The actual march was the result of work that began in the 1950s.
Although conceptualized by Randolph, the march was actually the result of the increasing tempo of a social movement. It could not have been organized in a little more than six months-as it was-if it had not been connected to local organizing that had gone on for decades in NAACP youth councils, churches, unions, women's groups, and more. It was not individuals who chartered buses from all over the country-it was organizations.
3. The march's principal organizer was Bayard Rustin.
This year President Obama will posthumously award Bayard Rustin the Medal of Freedom, however teaching about Rustin complicates the simplistic Civil Rights narrative offered to students by corporate history textbooks. Rustin was a gay pacifist with a long history of organizing, but despite his record of achievements, homophobia led to him being denied the title of national director of the march-technically, he served under Randolph.

Rustin closed the march with a list of demands and had everyone pledge "that I will not relax until victory is won." He was a complicated character who remained in organized labor and became a mentor to many, especially to younger activists in the burgeoning gay rights movement. At the same time, he refused to later condemn the Vietnam War and was critical of the Black Power Movement.
4. The march was controversial on many levels within the Black Freedom Movement.
Individuals, such as Malcolm X, were critical of it, albeit in a contradictory manner, claiming that it would not amount to anything. And there were those within the march who, like then-SNCC chairman John Lewis, wanted a more militant posture.
5. The economic situation for African Americans was not addressed in any fundamental manner in the aftermath of the march.
There were periodic improvements, but the crisis that Randolph and the NALC saw brewing in the early 1960s took on the features of a catastrophe by the mid to late 1970s, a fact that we have been living with ever since. Divorcing "civil rights" from economic justice is a feature common to mainstream approaches to history, including those found in school curricula.
6. The entirety of Dr. King's August 28, 1963 address should be read.
What comes across is something very different from the morally righteous and tame "I Have a Dream!" clips and textbook soundbites usually offered around the time of Dr. King's birthday. In fact, the speech is a militant and audacious indictment of Jim Crow segregation and the situation facing African Americans.

To truly honor the legacy of this anniversary, teachers should have students compare the King of the actual speech with the King from the clips. It would also be useful to have students read and discuss some of the day's other speeches. For example, in Randolph's opening speech he proclaimed that those gathered before him represented "the advance guard of a massive moral revolution" aimed at creating a society where "the sanctity of private property takes second place to the sanctity of the human personality." This is a sentiment that we never hear about that day.

This 50th anniversary of the March on Washington also offers an opportunity to connect the issues and experiences of 1963 with current realities. In 2013, black workers have been largely abandoned in most discussions about race and civil rights. As National Black Worker Center Project founder Steven Pitts has repeatedly pointed out, with the economic restructuring that has destroyed key centers of the black working class, such as Detroit and St. Louis, much of the economic development that has emerged has either avoided the black worker altogether or limited the role of black workers to the most menial positions. Thus, unemployment for blacks remains more than double that of whites and hovers around Depression levels in many communities.

We can all do justice to this anniversary by asking the right questions and providing the actual historical context in which the 1963 March unfolded. More so, we can also offer, as Rustin asked the marchers in 1963, our "personal commitment to the struggle for jobs and freedom for Americans. . .and the achievement of social peace through social justice. How do you pledge?"

This article is part of the Zinn Education Project's If We Knew Our History series.

Posted on: GOOD | Huffington Post | Common Dreams.

© 2013 The Zinn Education Project, a project of Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

Photo credits:

Official program for the March on Washington: National Archives.

Bayard Rustin and Cleveland Robinson: Library of Congress, photo by Orlando Fernandez for New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper.

All other photos from The Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs/the Labor History Archives at Wayne State University, www.reuther.wayne.edu.

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Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington - Zinn Education Project

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By Bill Fletcher Jr. August 28 will mark the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Publicly associated with Dr. King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech, this march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation's capital.

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I think it means the way black sktudents, adults, teenagers, think, dress, etc. aren't seen as the "norm". It bothers me because we all, regardless of race/ethncity, think, dress, or present ourselves differently. Black people shouldn't be under attack or scrutinized for being different. It should be embraced.

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First, there is so much to unpack mentally,

I feel like if no one has seen and been somewhere or experienced how can that person know their trauma

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This is personal explanation for so much of my education. Except for 6th and 7th grade I have usually been the only black child in my classes

"My story and many others like it are examples of school-based racial trauma—a type of physical or emotional injury uniquely impacting Black and Brown children in school spaces."

And this gives words to the the knot in the pit of my stomach during many parts of the school day and school events.

"As I define it in my work, curriculum violence occurs when educators and curriculum writers have constructed a set of lessons that damage or otherwise adversely affect students intellectually and emotionally."

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Read the poem and then answer the questions:

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Read the poem and then answer the questions:

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You will read one line of what you wrote aloud.Who were you raised by? And what did you learn from those formative people and influences?

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Unearthing the silenced voices of the Tulsa Race Massacre

By Linda Christensen

Illustrator: Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society

1921 photo of the destruction of Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood. (PHOTO CREDIT: RESEARCH DIVISION OF THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY)

In this article, Rethinking Schools editor and language arts teacher Linda Christensen describes a section of Stealing Home, a unit she created about ways the homes of people of color have been stolen through "race riots" and "urban renewal" in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Los Angeles' Chavez Ravine; and Portland, Oregon's Albina neighborhood. This is the first of a two-part series about the unit.

I teach language arts, so why would I teach my students about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre? In language arts circles, we discuss reading as a window to the world, but in a country plagued with foreclosures and homelessness, we need to question the world we're gazing at: How are contemporary evictions a historical reach from the past? What has happened to Black and brown communities? Why do people of color have less inherited wealth than whites? The untold history-the buried stories-reveals patterns that affect our students' current lives, from eviction notices to the hunger of deep poverty. I can wax poetic about the importance of story in students' lives, but reading literature of poverty and despair without offering a historical explanation leaves students with little understanding about how things came to be the way they are. And that's worth reading and writing about.

Jefferson High School, where I co-teach a junior language arts class with Dianne Leahy-a wonderful teacher who allows me to keep my teaching chops alive by creating and teaching curriculum with her-is located in a gentrifying neighborhood that once was the heart of the African American community in Portland. Families were pushed out of their homes because of urban renewal beginning in the 1960s and again, more recently, because of gentrification. As the price of homes rises in what is now called the "Alberta Arts Neighborhood," most of our students' families can no longer afford to live in our school's neighborhood. They live in apartments on the outskirts of the city, and a number ride buses or the commuter train to come to school at Jefferson.

For me, learning about the history of the Tulsa Race Masssacre coincided with the current economic crisis that has led to epic foreclosures and evictions. I realized that, like many people, the majority of my family "wealth" is tied up in our home. We drew on that wealth to send our daughters to college. They will inherit the house, and the wealth it represents, when my husband and I pass on. The story of Tulsa may be an extreme instance of violent dispossession, but it highlights a pattern of historical expulsions and exclusions that explains the lack of inherited wealth in Black and brown communities. According to historian Hannibal B. Johnson, "The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was set against a backdrop of a multitude of race riots in America. 1919 was known as 'red summer' because blood was flowing in the streets. There were over 25 major riots in 1919 in America." (See Elliot Jaspin's book Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America for more on this topic.) The complicit silence of textbooks about the history of race riots and racial exclusions that pushed Black people off their lands and out of their homes keeps our students ignorant about the reasons for the lack of economic resources in the Black community. Instead students must imagine why their people lack wealth.

The term "race riot" does not adequately describe the events of May 31-June 1, 1921, in Tulsa. Though some sources labeled the episode a "race riot" or a "race war," implying that both Blacks and whites might be equally to blame for lawlessness and violence, the historical record documents that what occurred was a sustained and murderous assault on Black lives and property. This assault was met by a brave but unsuccessful armed defense of their community by some Black World War I veterans and others. During the night and day of the massacre, deputized whites killed more than 300 African Americans; they looted and burned to the ground 40 square blocks, including 1,265 African American homes, hospitals, schools, churches, and 150 businesses. White deputies and members of the National Guard arrested and detained 6,000 Black Tulsans who were released only upon being vouched for by a white employer or other white citizen; 9,000 African Americans were left homeless and living in tents well into the winter of 1921.

Building Background Knowledge and Interest

In class, before we began the unit, I briefly discussed the arc of our upcoming study. "We are starting this unit because I want you to think about wealth in this country. Who has it? Who doesn't? An important study just discovered that whites have 20 times the wealth of blacks. Why is that? When there's a question that puzzles you, you have to investigate. For many people, including me, our wealth is tied up in our homes. So what happens when you lose your home?"

Students frequently bring up the gentrification of the neighborhood, which has rapidly transformed from mom-and-pop grocery stores to chic restaurants and upscale boutiques. Rather than describe the problem of gentrification at this early stage of the study, I move them into the history, keeping the question of homes and wealth in front of them as we move forward. To stimulate our students' interest in resurrecting this silenced history of Tulsa, I created a tea party/mixer about the night of the invasion of Greenwood, as the African American section of Tulsa was called. Using sources from historians John Hope Franklin, Scott Ellsworth, and others, I wrote roles for students that gave them each a slice of what happened that night: the arrest of Dick Rowland, a young African American shoe shiner, who allegedly raped Sarah Page, a white elevator operator, in broad daylight (later, students learn that authorities dropped all charges); the newspaper article that incited whites and blacks to gather at the courthouse; the gathering of armed Black World War I veterans to prevent a lynching; the deputizing and arming of whites, many of whom were in the KKK; the internment of Blacks; the death of more than 300 African American men, women, and children; the burning and looting of their homes and businesses. Because not all white Tulsans shared the racial views of the white rioters, I included roles of a few whites and a recent immigrant from Mexico who provided safety in the midst of death and chaos. These roles allowed students to understand that, even in moments of violence, people stood up and reached across race and class borders to help. I invented one role, Thelma Booker, as a compilation of people I'd read about; the others were individuals whose stories I found in Ellsworth's book, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, and other materials. Three of the roles give a sense of the information students learned through the tea party/mixer:

Mrs. Jackson: A mob attacked my home and killed my husband on the night of June 1, 1921. My husband was a surgeon. The Mayo brothers said he was the best surgeon in the country. My husband fought off the mob that attacked our house. An officer who knew my husband came up to the house and assured him that if he would surrender he would be protected. This my husband did. The officer sent him under guard to the Convention Hall, where black people were kept for "protection" from the mob. While my husband was on his way to the detention center, he was shot and killed in cold blood. The officer who had assured my husband of protection told Walter White, the Nation journalist, "Dr. Jackson was an able, clean-cut man. He did only what any red-blooded man would have done under similar circumstances in defending his home. Dr. Jackson was murdered by white ruffians."

Thelma Booker: The National Guard came knocking on our door and told us we had to leave our homes. They said it wasn't safe and they were going to protect us. We didn't feel too comfortable about that. Then they marched us through the white area of Tulsa, made us raise our hands in the air as we walked through as if we were going to attack someone with our house slippers. First, we were taken to the Convention Hall, then to the ball field, and finally to the fairgrounds, like we were prize cattle. You know, they even went and rounded up black folks who worked as domestics in white people's homes. Oh sure, they fed us and gave us medical attention. And while our homes and businesses were looted and burned behind us, they made us stay until a white person came and vouched for us. Anyone who was vouched for received a card. Anyone without a card on the streets could be arrested. Of course, we had to pay for our food and all while we were being "protected." We were sent out to clean up the city. We were paid standard laborers' wages. It was by no means an easy existence, but some whites soon complained that we were being "spoiled" at the fairgrounds and by the attention given us by the Red Cross and other charitable organizations.

Ruth Phelps: Honestly, I couldn't believe what was happening. We lived outside of the city along the road to Sand Springs, about a day's walk north from Tulsa. We helped out the Black folks running away from Tulsa. We hid and fed about 20 Black massacre victims in the basement of our home for most of a week. We believed that the Golden Rule applied whether people were white, Black, or Native American. So when terrified and hungry Black people came to our door, we hid them in our basement. I put an extra pot of beans and sow belly on the stove. Our house became a "safe house" for Black Tulsans who were not imprisoned by the white authorities. Just like the Underground Railroad, Blacks walked through the woods and along creek beds at night. Then we hid them during the day until it was safe for them to move on.

We didn't ask what happened that night in Tulsa. We knew by watching them huddle and cry in the basement that it was terrible. When we drove to Greenwood later and saw the burned down remains of their homes, we were glad that we offered sanctuary, so they knew that God lived in some white folks.

I briefly discussed the event before launching into the tea party. "You are going to become people who were involved in what is called the Tulsa Race Massacre on the night of May 31, 1921." I told them that Tulsa was divided into two sections-the white section and Greenwood, where most African Americans lived. We had studied Jim Crow, so they understood segregation. "I want you to figure out what happened that night. First, read over your role. Underline or highlight key pieces of information. You will need to be able to tell others about what happened to you and what you witnessed. Once you have read your role, turn over your paper and write down the key events, so you can retell them to your classmates."

After students read their roles, I handed out a series of questions to help them elicit information from each other's roles. We read over the questions, which included: "Find someone who suffered a loss during the massacre. What did they lose? What happened?" Students found one or more questions that they could answer based on their role. Before I turned them loose, I added, "You are entering the roles of people whose lives may have been shattered on that night. Take their lives seriously. Give them the dignity they deserve."

Students circulated through the room, talking in pairs, finding out bits and pieces of what happened that night. Because this was an introduction to the unit, not the full story, they ended the activity with information, but also with questions. I asked them to write down key facts they learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre and what they still wanted to know. Their questions filled the class: What really started the massacre? Did Black people rebuild their houses? Why didn't we learn about this before? (When I guest-taught this lesson in a history class at Jefferson a few years ago, a couple of students spontaneously pulled out their history textbooks and searched for an entry on Tulsa, but didn't find one.)

History and Poetry

Rather than answer their questions in a lecture, I discovered several accessible readings and YouTube clips. Four short related videos, narrated by historians Scott Ellsworth and Hannibal B. Johnson and Tulsa Historical Society director Robert Powers, tell the story, using historical photographs from the night of the massacre. These clips also feature interviews with three survivors: Juanita Burnett Arnold, George Monroe, and Ernestine Alpha Gibbs. I asked students to take notes that answer the questions they raised in class, but also to record details and stories that resonated for them. "You will write a poem, a piece of historical fiction, and an essay about this time period. I want you to absorb the era as well as the facts. Write down the names of people, buildings, streets, parks. Grab people's stories, their faces, and their lives. I want you to know what happened, but I also want you to try to understand how people felt about that night. As you learn about this history, make connections to what's happening today. How does this history echo in your life?"

After watching each 10-minute video clip, we stopped and debriefed: "What questions got answered for you? What images stuck with you? Whose stories will you carry with you?"

Then I asked: "When we began this unit, I said that we were going to ask about wealth in our country: Who has it, who doesn't, and why? How does the history of Tulsa help us begin to answer these questions? How does what happened in Tulsa connect to the question of Black wealth?" As students talked, I listed their observations on the board as a reference they could return to during our writing.

Once we had images and names, I discussed two ways to write poems about the event-as a persona poem or an image poem: "For a persona poem, write from the point of view of a person or object. Use the word 'I'. For an image poem, describe what you see. Form a picture for the reader with your words." Christina wrote a persona poem from the perspective of a burned wall; she called it "The Last One Standing":

I am the last one standing.
Nothing lives within me.
Nothing remains.
All around me are ashes of what used to be.
I am just a memory of what this
town was before the riot.
I felt the others burning down
on my left and right.
I saw the glowing flames in the midst
of this dark night and the leftover embers
of the morning.
Bodies scattered about,
blood on my stoop.
I am the last one standing.
I am the remains of this race riot,
never written in a textbook,
I hold one of history's lost truths.

Reading and Writing Historical Fiction

As we pursued the Stealing Home unit, Dianne and I discovered If We Must Die: A Novel of Tulsa's 1921 Greenwood Riot by Pat Carr. We wanted students to tap into the ways that literature can deepen history by bringing to life the mind-numbing numbers of loss through the stories of individuals. The novel tells the story of 1921 Tulsa through the character of Berneen O'Brien, a woman of "Black Irish" descent, who accepts a job at a Black school in Greenwood. She "passes" for Black during the day and returns home to her uncle, who is a member of the KKK. The reader discovers the racial tensions and the eruption of the massacre from Berneen's perspective.

Students kept track of historical events in their dialogue journal, but they also took notes on the author's craft: the way Pat Carr showed how characters felt through the use of interior monologue, actions, and dialogue, as well as the strategies she used to mix historical fact and fiction. After students read a chunk of the book, they gathered in groups and created posters about the difference between history and fiction, using notes from their dialogue journals. The poster had three sections:

1. Quotes that referenced history.

2. Quotes that illustrated the qualities of fiction.

3. Their analysis of the differences.

For the third section, one group wrote:

In the novel, fiction is often very detailed and elaborated, for example, "The shoulder of his white shirt suddenly blossomed red as if he'd run headlong into a sack of crimson paint." Fact is usually subtle, using the names of people and place and events-Greenwood Avenue, Dreamland Theatre, the Drexel Building. Most events in the novel were factual-the shooting, the looting, the internment-but most of the characters and their personalities were fabricated. There are things that the author says to describe a character that couldn't be known-their body language, their speech patterns, their interior monologue.

As I teach social justice lessons, I am also always teaching students how to read and write with greater clarity. We don't have to parse out the language arts skills and teach them as stand-alone lessons; they are part of the daily classroom work.

We asked students to write a piece of fiction based on their knowledge of the events, modeled on Carr's work. Writing historical fiction pushes students to learn more about the past and to more fully understand the events and the time period. Students had to go back to the documents and videos to get down the sequence of events; they had to get inside people's heads to understand why the African American World War I veterans stood up for Dick Rawlins, why they were adamant that there would be no more lynchings. But they also had to learn about people's daily lives-where they lived, where they shopped, where they worked, and details like the fact that no one watched television in 1921.

To prime students for the assignment, we distributed a newspaper article written in 2009 that describes interviews with three survivors of the Tulsa massacre-Beulah Smith, Ruth Avery, and Kenny Booker. The article reviews the events and contains quotes from the survivors:

Beulah Smith was 14 years old the night of the riot. A neighbor named Frenchie came pounding on her family's door in a Tulsa neighborhood known as "Little Africa" that also went up in flames. Get your families out of here because they're killing [Black people] uptown," she remembers Frenchie saying. "We hid in the weeds in the hog pen," Smith told CNN. . . . Booker, then a teenager, hid with his family in their attic until the home was torched. "When we got downstairs, things were burning. My sister asked me, 'Kenny, is the world on fire?' I said, 'I don't know, but we're in a heck of a lot of trouble, baby.'"

Many students used these specific incidents in their stories. Some even used the dialogue from the article, then invented the rest of the story.

Dianne and I developed a graphic organizer for students to get them started (see Resources). Then we spent part of a period listing potential characters and scenes that students could use in their stories: Kenny Booker, Sarah Page, Beulah Smith, Walter White, the NAACP journalist, Ruth Phelps. I also encouraged them to use pieces of their own lives in their stories. I told them, "In the novel I'm writing about women organizing for change on the Mexican border, I have the main character bake desserts when she's stressed. I also tap into my own desire for justice, my work organizing. I found that when I use pieces of my life, the characters come to life." Students who have experienced homelessness or evictions used their feelings of loss as they wrote. Desi, who is biracial, wrote her story from the points of view of two characters-an African American boy caught with his younger sister in the masssacre and fire, and the white girl who loves him. Jalean recreated his family-an older brother who lives with his mother and two younger siblings he adores. He also created a character modeled on the security guard at Jefferson, who has been a wise elder in Jalean's life.

The student writing was stunning. Students invented backstories to help readers understand their characters' histories and motivation. They used the tools of fiction writers-character development, dialogue, interior monologue, setting descriptions. Desiree DuBoise's story illustrates how students used the scenes from the photos of the city's destruction, the voices of the people we studied, and the history of the time period to create their stories:

The sky rained down rivers of flame. I had always been the man of the house, but now Mama was probably long gone, too. She had gone into Greenwood to her floral shop that morning, and never came back home. I was alone in the attic except for Billy Mae. I looked down into her round brown eyes and saw fear that reflected my own. Her thick black lashes were coated with tears, and the only noise that came from her was a soft keening. She was so young, younger than I had been when the Klan took Pop away. I watched as they strung him up like an animal and beat him till every inch of his tall frame was coated with crimson blood. That was years ago. Now my sister had to watch her own city burn, the only place she'd ever known. She could hear the screams coming up from the streets just as well as I could. The floorboards of the attic creaked as I shifted my weight. My sister looked at me then.

"Kenny?" she said my name quietly. "Is the world on fire?"

I looked away. Outside, a thick black fog hung in the air, rising noxiously from thick fingers of smoke that danced and clawed their way towards the sky.

"I don't know, Billy. But we're in a heck of a lot of trouble."

I looked to the window again. The last thing I would try to do in this world was protect my only sister.

"Billy, when we hit the street, if I fall, you run. No matter what, you keep running, OK?"

She nodded at me, tears streaming down her round, ebony-hued cheeks.

I grabbed her up and took the stairs two at a time. Around me, the world was aflame. Pictures of my family burned. My mother, a stunning shot of her in her white wedding dress was torched black, an eerie sight. I turned toward the front door, felt the hot breeze gusting through its gaping frame.

Dianne and I took our students to the band room, the only room big enough to comfortably accommodate all 42 of us, and students read their stories from the podium. The read-around took two days. As students read, those who were stuck or who couldn't get started figured out a storyline; others were prompted to revise after hearing their peers' details, flashbacks, and interior monologues. Although the students didn't directly address the loss of economic wealth through their stories, they wrote about the impact of the devastation: the deaths, the loss of photos, pianos, houses, neighborhoods. Jalean said, "I felt proud to know that there were thriving African American communities. I feel cheated that I never got to live in one."

Reparations Role Play

To inject hope and justice into the unit, Dianne and I created a role play about the efforts to obtain restitution for the deaths and damages suffered by the Black population of Greenwood. We needed to return more directly to our theme of wealth inequality, to reinforce the idea that the injustices of the past affect the present, and that it's never too late for justice-even many years after an event like the Tulsa Race Massacre.

In 1997, the Oklahoma State Legislature authorized a commission to study the riot. After three and a half years of research, the commission delivered its report. Rather than just reading about the results of those proceedings and a 2003 lawsuit initiated on behalf of the survivors and their descendants, we wanted students to think about what "fair" compensation for the loss might mean. We put students in the position of commission members. We asked them to determine what reparations, if any, should be made to the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre and their descendants.

Before we started the activity, we reviewed the losses from that night-the deaths and the number of homes, schools, and businesses burned and looted. We gave students three choices to initiate their conversations:

1. Do nothing.

2. Repay individuals and their descendants for their losses.

3. Create reparations for the Greenwood community.

Students had passionate arguments about what should happen. Students' understanding of the long-term impact of the loss of inherited wealth through the destruction of homes and community echoed throughout their discussions. A number of students repeated Aaron's statement, "We can't change what happened in the past, but we can compensate the offspring for the loss of their property and inheritance. At least give the descendants scholarships." Some students felt that wasn't enough. Desiree said, "Who suffered the most? Which was worse-death or property loss? The entire community suffered. We should choose a mixture of compensations: There should be scholarships as well as compensation for the survivors and their descendants. There should be a memorial day and a reburial of the mass graves."

Sarah was afraid that bringing up the past would open old wounds and restart the racism that initiated the massacre. Skylar said, "Who cares if it makes people uncomfortable? They are going to have to deal with it. These things happened, and we have to address them." Vince and many others agreed. "This is not just the past. Racial inequality is still a problem. Forgetting about what happened and burying it without dealing with it is why we still have problems today."

And this was exactly what we wanted kids to see: The past is not dead. We didn't want to get lost in the history of Tulsa, though it needs to be remembered; we wanted students to recognize the historical patterns of stolen wealth in Black, brown, and poor communities. We wanted them to connect the current economic struggle of people of color to dynamics from the past. We wanted them to see that in many ways Tulsa and other historically Black communities are still burning, still being looted. We wanted to bring the story home.

RESOURCES

To inject hope and justice into the unit, Dianne and I created a role play about the efforts to obtain restitution for the deaths and damages suffered by the Black population of Greenwood. We needed to return more directly to our theme of wealth inequality, to reinforce the idea that the injustices of the past affect the present, and that it's never too late for justice-even many years after an event like the Tulsa Race Massacre.

In 1997, the Oklahoma State Legislature authorized a commission to study the riot. After three and a half years of research, the commission delivered its report. Rather than just reading about the results of those proceedings and a 2003 lawsuit initiated on behalf of the survivors and their descendants, we wanted students to think about what "fair" compensation for the loss might mean. We put students in the position of commission members. We asked them to determine what reparations, if any, should be made to the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre and their descendants.

Before we started the activity, we reviewed the losses from that night-the deaths and the number of homes, schools, and businesses burned and looted. We gave students three choices to initiate their conversations:

1. Do nothing.

2. Repay individuals and their descendants for their losses.

3. Create reparations for the Greenwood community.

Students had passionate arguments about what should happen. Students' understanding of the long-term impact of the loss of inherited wealth through the destruction of homes and community echoed throughout their discussions. A number of students repeated Aaron's statement, "We can't change what happened in the past, but we can compensate the offspring for the loss of their property and inheritance. At least give the descendants scholarships." Some students felt that wasn't enough. Desiree said, "Who suffered the most? Which was worse-death or property loss? The entire community suffered. We should choose a mixture of compensations: There should be scholarships as well as compensation for the survivors and their descendants. There should be a memorial day and a reburial of the mass graves."

Sarah was afraid that bringing up the past would open old wounds and restart the racism that initiated the massacre. Skylar said, "Who cares if it makes people uncomfortable? They are going to have to deal with it. These things happened, and we have to address them." Vince and many others agreed. "This is not just the past. Racial inequality is still a problem. Forgetting about what happened and burying it without dealing with it is why we still have problems today."

And this was exactly what we wanted kids to see: The past is not dead. We didn't want to get lost in the history of Tulsa, though it needs to be remembered; we wanted students to recognize the historical patterns of stolen wealth in Black, brown, and poor communities. We wanted them to connect the current economic struggle of people of color to dynamics from the past. We wanted them to see that in many ways Tulsa and other historically Black communities are still burning, still being looted. We wanted to bring the story home.

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By Linda Christensen Illustrator: Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society I teach language arts, so why would I teach my students about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre? In language arts circles, we discuss reading as a window to the world, but in a country plagued with foreclosures and homelessness, we need to question the world we're gazing at: How are contemporary evictions a historical reach from the past?

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By Becky HenkleBerry, Jeff Waters

Illustrator: Chris Kindred

Boise-Eliot/Humboldt School is a special place. It stands, 90-year-old red brick and mortar, amongst newly constructed condos, craft breweries, and combination laundromat-bars, just a block off historic Mississippi Avenue in the Albina area of North Portland, Oregon. It is an obstinate place that, despite its decreasing enrollment and "level one" Oregon State School Report Card status, has survived two separate school closures and simply refused to yield to the forces of gentrification.

A recent article in Governing: The States and Localities described Portland as "the most gentrified city of the century," and the vast majority of the gentrified tracts are in North and Northeast Portland. Although North Portland's demographics have drastically changed over the last two decades, from predominantly African American to predominantly white, Boise-Eliot/Humboldt's student population hasn't. In a neighborhood that is mostly white, we serve the largest volume of African American students in the state. Less than half of the students who live within our district boundary attend our school, and less than half of our student population lives in our neighborhood.

As gentrification has forced out many working-class families of color, affluent white families, who often choose to opt out of the neighborhood's "failing" public schools, have moved in. Many of the students we teach at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt travel long distances, riding public transportation from far in East Portland, to attend our historically Black school. Families often use the addresses of aunties, grandmas, and friends to ensure that their sons and daughters will continue a legacy that sometimes dates back to the flood of 1948, which destroyed the World War II shipyard-worker city of Vanport and pushed its largely African American population into the Albina area.

The mechanisms of segregated housing-unfair lending practices, exclusionary laws, eminent domain, urban renewal, and gentrification-are not distinct to Portland. These racist laws and practices continue to affect communities nationally. Our school, our neighborhood, and our students are part of a larger story, a larger conversation. Because this history is so relevant to our students' lives and is often ignored by traditional curriculum, we decided to co-teach an integrated language arts/social studies unit on gentrification and neighborhood history to our 8th graders.

We hoped this unit would say: Yes, you've lived this. You are living this. Your experiences are important. And, in the face of a changing community, you have something to share that is irreplaceable. You have the opportunity to educate our community and neighborhood about a destructive process that we've all been part of.

We wanted to help students wade through Oregon's often ignored racial history, and to help them feel empowered to go beyond the facts and into the messiness of evaluation and activism. What resulted was a yearlong process that included facilitating structured student discussions; interviewing families; lots of reading and writing; self-publishing a digital multimedia book about the history of race in our state, city, and neighborhood; and a student-driven community activism project.

"Those Fancy Apartments Are Going Up All Over"

We decided to launch our unit with a general overview of gentrification-What is it? How has our neighborhood changed?-and students' personal narratives. We wanted to show students that this unit was deeply rooted in their own experiences. Moreover, we hoped to encourage students to find their own voices to talk back to discriminatory practices.

In his social studies class, Jeff began with a simple definition: "Gentrification is a change in a neighborhood," he said, writing the sentence as a bullet point on a note sheet beneath the document camera. The students dutifully copied the sentence in the notes section of their social studies notebooks. "Our neighborhood has gone through gentrification. A lot of you grew up here. How have you seen it change?" Jeff asked the class.

The students looked up from their notes, and a few hands went halfway up. "The New Seasons [a high-end grocery store] is new. Does that count?" asked Jada.

"Absolutely, that's a change. Let's write it down." Jeff wrote a second bullet in the notes: "How has our neighborhood changed?" and beneath it he put a dash and wrote "New Seasons Market."

A few more hands shot up. "There are a lot more white people," stated Jayla. "I'm not trying to be racist, but I was walking down Mississippi and I didn't see any Black people at all, and it didn't used to be like that."

"They tore down that one bar; what was it called?" asked Aaliyah.

"LV's 22? Wasn't that it?" offered Jayla, leaning forward in her seat.

"That's interesting. What are they building in its place?" Jeff prodded.

"Probably some of those fancy new apartments. They're going up all over, down Mississippi and Vancouver and Williams," said Jayla.

Jeff added "a lot of new buildings" to the list as students named more changes they had seen in the neighborhood. MyKyla talked about her family moving. Jordan said the butcher shop no longer carried certain items, like oxtails, that her grandma wanted. Hailey mentioned that Self-Enhancement, Inc. (a Black community-focused charter school and community resource) had moved its services out to East Portland-or, as our students call it, "The Numbers" (a reference to street names like 157th Avenue). Aaliyah talked about the new bike lanes on Vancouver and Williams, major thoroughfares a few blocks from the school. It just kept coming. After a substantial list was created, we organized our experiences into three categories: people, physical structures, and community services.

"But gentrification isn't any old change," Jeff said. "It impacts certain people more than others, doesn't it? Jayla, what did you notice about race in our neighborhood? Can you connect that to gentrification?"

"Well," Jayla began, "it seems like the people who were already here, Black people, have been hurt more."

Later, we would discuss specific aspects of Portland's development, like using eminent domain to force people of color and low-income families out of their homes. But the students seemed ready to write, and Jeff introduced the first assignment of our unit-the personal narrative: "We've all seen or experienced at least one aspect of gentrification, but many of our families have been here for generations."

"My great-grandma went here!" shouted a student.

"Over the weekend you are going to interview your parents, grandma, auntie, someone you live with, about your family's experiences with gentrification. You can ask them whatever you want, but there are a few questions that you have to ask. Turn your notebooks to your writing section and let's get them written down. What section?"

"Writing!" came a chorus of voices.

Leaving half a page for each question, students wrote down the following:

Why do we live where we live?
Why do I attend Boise-Eliot/Humboldt?
How have the changes in our neighborhood affected our family?
Do you think these changes are good or bad?
What are your hopes for me, my education, and our school?"

Students seemed excited about the activity, and we hoped that this excitement would bring families and their stories into the curriculum. Almost immediately, we started hearing from family members and school staff about the impact the project was having on students. One parent commented, "This project is important because it's about what is really going on in our kids' lives." Our students were talking about gentrification in the halls and other classes, on the bus ride home to East Portland, and around their kitchen tables.

When they returned to social studies class on Monday, many came with stories to share. "Did you know my great-grandpa owned the Desert Motel and the Rose City Cab Company? And those are the oldest African American businesses in the city?" Jada exclaimed when given the opportunity to share her research with the class.

Happy to build on the enthusiasm generated by students' discussions with their families, Jeff introduced the narrative through a prompt: "As a member of this school community, you have experienced gentrification in some capacity. Use your family interviews to craft a personal narrative that explores your family's experience."

Over the next two weeks we used our school's computers to draft, edit, and revise the narratives. As the students wrote, Jeff furiously read, responded, and asked questions. What emerged was a complex portrait of family history and a changing community.

For example, Cayden wrote: "On holidays like Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and birthdays, it is harder to get my whole family all in one house because my uncle and cousins live out in The Numbers." She also tried to make sense of the relationship between the changing demographics of North Portland, where the school is, and East Portland, The Numbers, where her family now lives:

The only kind of people we see in East Portland are Hispanic and African American people. Finally, one day I asked my uncle, "Why don't you ever see Caucasian people in this neighborhood?"

"A few years back if we would have lived out here you would have seen a lot of white people, but now you mostly see African American people because the prices of the houses in North and Northeast have raised, and I would not be able to afford the houses closer, near my job," he replied.

Many students expressed a frustration that likely mirrored that of their family members. Hailey, our 8th-grade vice president, wrote:

I don't think white folks get it. You are making things more expensive for us people, in a place where we still are struggling to survive. We don't wanna be a part of it anymore because we know that it's going to be too expensive, and what we want the neighborhood to be will not be considered.

"He Was Even a Doctor"

Students recognized and could describe the changes that were taking place in North Portland. They saw the unfairness of having to move due to rent hikes and the decline of Section 8 (subsidized) housing in the neighborhood. However, students were left wondering why and how this had happened. What were the explicit and intentional policies whitewashing the neighborhood? The purpose of the subsequent reading lessons was to help students understand the mechanisms and policies behind the changes. We wanted to give them specific people, places and policies so that they could analyze the marginalization many were experiencing and take on the role of activist.

When students entered language arts class on Monday, each table had a manila envelope with five copies of the same article. Becky explained: "Today we are going to build on what you've learned in Mr. Waters' class by reading parts of a research project, The History of Portland's African American Community, 1805 to the Present. We're doing this for three reasons: to learn more about the history of our neighborhood, to practice reading tricky text by chunking and paraphrasing, and to see what good nonfiction writing looks like." Becky instructed students to read through the article once independently and to underline what confused or surprised them.

As Becky circulated through the room, she began to notice patterns in what students were highlighting. After 10 minutes, she asked students to share out what they were wondering and uncovering.

Elijah raised his hand. "Did you know that Dr. Unthank, the one from Unthank Park, had a dead cat thrown at his house because he moved into a white neighborhood down by Grant High School?"

"Yeah, and they broke his windows and threw garbage all over the place. And someone wanted to give him $1,500 if he would move out," Jacob added.

"He was even a doctor, and they did that."

As we continued reading, chunking, paraphrasing, and discussing, students kept a chart in their notebooks that was split into three categories: people, places, and policies. They continued to record names: DeNorval Unthank; the Dude Ranch, the center of the Portland jazz and arts scene in the 1940s; and the Hill Block Building, the center of Black-owned business in Northeast Portland.

New vocabulary surfaced. We took time to define and discuss important terms: Oregon Exclusion Laws (the legal exclusion of people of color from the state), redlining (the purposeful and legal confinement of people of color within specific neighborhoods), and eminent domain (the city's ability to oust residents based on a justification that the property could be better used to serve the public) all created a climate that has encouraged the exploitation of the city's citizens of color.

We wanted the students to see how the terms connected and interacted. We used the history of the Hill Block Building and Legacy Emanuel Hospital to illustrate this.

The iconic metal dome of the Hill Block Building, all that's left of the historic building, now sits atop a gazebo in a neighborhood park a handful of blocks from the school, something the students were quick to point out.

"What do we know about why that building was torn down?" Becky asked. "And how Legacy Emanuel was developed?"

Hailey raised her hand, her eyes on the article on her desk. "This article says that 188 houses were torn down to expand the hospital."

"Didn't the hospital apologize for that?" came a voice from the back.

"How could they just tear down houses?" came a surprised and angry response.

"Well, they were 'blighted,'" Hailey explained, looking through her graphic organizer, "and so the city said they could. But the article also says that the city was purposefully ignoring neighborhood requests for help, and we know that the city used"-she looked down at her paper again-"they used redlining to make sure that the neighborhood was mostly Black people in the first place. So basically, they forced people to live there, ignored them, and then forced them to move by using eminent domain."

"And the Hill Block Building?" Becky asked, returning to the original question.

"That building was torn down, too," Hailey stated flatly.

As our notebook charts filled with names and ideas, students began to connect the current changes with what they had learned.

Emiliano commented: "Places getting expensive here is like opposite redlining. It's keeping people out of the neighborhood now."

Students had begun to see the current changes in the neighborhood as the most recent iteration of a long history of purposeful disenfranchisement and systematic racism.

"What Can We Do About This?"

As the group settled into Jeff's class, sharpening pencils and scraping chairs, he typed the starter question into a PowerPoint: "Why are we learning about this?"

"Well," Hailey began, "we are learning about this because it's important."

"But why does it matter?" Cayden quipped.

The students looked at one another. "It matters because people have been hurt," Hailey said, a little unsure of herself. "Most of my family has had to move out to The Numbers, and a lot of these people moving into the neighborhood, they don't even know that." Many students nodded.

"What can we do about this? Should we do anything?" Jeff asked.

"Should we tell them?" asked Malik, often one of the most soft-spoken boys in the room.

The students settled on an answer: Yes, we should tell them. We should tell the stories of urban renewal, of Legacy Emanuel Hospital, of a vibrant Black middle class. We should tell the stories of Vanport. We should tell them that exclusion laws, codified by Chief Justice Reuben P. Boise, our school's namesake, required beatings for African Americans caught living in the state. The students wanted to tell it all.

After class, we reflected on Hailey's candor and Malik's question. This was an opportunity to make it about something bigger than the essay, or the test, or the assignments, or the grade. Percolating in Becky's mind was an iBook project she had learned about a few months previously during a workshop with Peter Pappas, a faculty member at the University of Portland. With his graduate students, Pappas had edited an iBook about Portland's Japantown in the 1950s. The iBook platform included widgets, scrolling sidebars, and wipe-away images to showcase student writing. More importantly, it was possible to make a compendium of class articles available to the broader community as a free download.

It seemed simple enough: Students would need to write and revise their pieces, Becky would compile the articles, and then together we would find a way to actually get people in the neighborhood to read it.

In language arts, students began by choosing their topics. If we wanted a book that told the truth and sang justice, we knew kids were going to have to love their topics. To prepare, Becky pulled out all of the readings, images, and classwork from the past two months, and then asked students to do the same as they entered class.

"What histories live in our neighborhood that shouldn't be forgotten?" she asked. "What do we want new people in the neighborhood to know about how gentrification has happened in our neighborhood?" She asked students to reflect on their own as they looked through their body of work. After a few minutes, she broke the quiet of the room and asked students to begin writing names of people, places, or events that were possible chapters for our book.

She circulated, noticing what students were scribbling.

Jayla wrote: Aunt Vera, Williams Avenue

Jada wrote: jazz, Cotton Club, Vanport, Dr. Unthank

Zion wrote: I-5 freeway project, the Rose Garden

Malena wrote: eminent domain, Legacy Emanuel Hospital

When most students had finished, Becky directed them: "In a moment, I would like you to get up and move around the room. Read your lists with a few different people and then decide on the story you really want to write."

Chairs scraped and the room got loud. Students shared their lists and began to discuss their topics. To encourage students to say more about their topics and stay focused, Becky wrote two sentence starters on the board:

I want readers to know. . .
This topic is important to tell about because. . .

"I want to write about Vanport because so many people died," Michael told a friend.

"I want readers to know that only white men got free land from the government in the Donation Land Act," Zion decided.

Eventually, discussions petered out and students returned to their seats. Becky projected a document titled "Albina Research Topics" and instructed students: "When you're ready, raise your hand and I'll write your topic on the board." What emerged was the rough draft of the table of contents of our book, Albina Stories. It was fairly evenly divided between important historical places that showed the historic culture of the neighborhood, racist and unfair policies that paved the way for our neighborhood's destruction, and biographies of people who worked for change. Students were curating the story of who had been left out and who benefited.

As we dug into the nitty-gritty of research and writing, Becky encouraged a few students to craft a foreword and an afterword to our historical compilation. These students had stepped up to the plate as leaders in this conversation and appeared ready to help guide their peers. Becky asked them to read the foreword and afterword of The History of Portland's African American Community, and to think about the purpose of these parts of a book. What do authors try to get across to their readers and how do they reflect on their own research?

A few days later, Becky sat down to read what Cayden had written:

This book was written to enlighten people of the history of Portland and explicitly the Albina neighborhood. It goes back to before Oregon was a state and ends in 2014. Our research has come from a wide array of sources, from articles and essays to images and journals. This book isn't just informative, it has the views of the writers and their feelings about the topic. Whether it's gentrification or eminent domain, our views of right and wrong are expressed.

Prejudice and discrimination against the minorities in Portland started before Oregon was even a state. Whites who wanted nothing to do with African Americans moved out west. . . One of them remarked that he had come to Oregon to get rid of "saucy free Negroes." When Oregon became a state, the legislative committee created exclusion laws to keep African Americans from living in Oregon. Although these laws are no longer a part of the state constitution, we still feel the effects of this unequal treatment.

Cayden's writing was reflective of what powerful research does: It makes us question our assumptions by voicing truth, not just facts. Classroom research is about how teachers and students relate to the world, about developing an informed voice and working together to question, to challenge, to talk back, and to encourage change.

"Know Your History"

The final product was a sleek multimedia project that included video interviews, short narratives, informational articles, and an abundance of pictures. Fifty-eight different projects filled the "pages" of the digital book. But months slipped by, and we realized we had never actually sent it out into the world or asked students to turn their knowledge, opinions, and emotions into action.

"We're going to circle back to something we did a little while ago," Jeff said, as he pointed to the iPad cart in the corner. "Get a partner. Send one student per group to the cart to grab an iPad."

He handed each student a graphic organizer with instructions for how to access the Albina Stories iBook. The plan was to reacquaint students with the contents of the book, get them to draw connections between a few articles, and ask them how they would get someone else excited about the articles. The students had other ideas.

"Tiana! Read mine!" MyKayla shouted across the room.

"I can't believe I wrote that! Are we going to get to work on these?" asked Tiana.

"Sure, if that's what you decide to do," Jeff responded.

"My name is spelled wrong!" complained Malik.

"This looks really nice," said Alexis.

After fighting the momentum and trying to pull students back to the graphic organizer, Jeff decided to step back and watch. The classroom was loud, it was buzzing, the students were on task, and the graphic organizers were getting done, slowly.

What was supposed to be a half-hour lesson turned into 50 minutes, and Jeff wrapped up by bringing the class back together and assigning a task to keep the project on track: "This is a remarkable book. You all did incredible work. How do we get people to read it? Throw out some ideas, and let's make a list. You can do anything you want, as long as it is focused, and as long as it promotes Albina Stories."

It felt risky giving students so much freedom, but the ideas that came back were solid. Yes, there were a few student groups that decided to "make a poster," but the vast majority took divergent and exciting paths-a letter to President Obama and our district superintendent, social media promotion, t-shirts and hats promoting the book and expressing opinions on gentrification. For some groups, the poster turned into an opportunity to canvas the neighborhood, staple fliers to telephone poles, and hand them out on the street. "Gentrification destroys communities!" exclaimed Jasmine's poster.

Alexis decided on letter writing. In a letter to President Obama, she wrote about our school, the negative impact of gentrification, and Albina Stories. Then she hammered it home with specific policy requests, advocating for fair housing laws and rent control. In another letter, to the Portland superintendent of schools, she requested that the school district use our book to teach the history of race in our city.

One group decided to use the opportunity to fundraise for our school's end of the year activities. They baked a ton of cookies, made 50 fliers advertising Albina Stories, and based themselves outside Jada's mom's beauty shop, located a handful of blocks from the school. They raised more money in an hour and a half than any of our in-school fundraisers.

The students returned to school buzzing about the conversations and connections they had experienced.

"Mr. Waters, come look at this," Chris called from across the computer lab. Chris, Kareem, Malik, and Michael were huddled around the screen.

"What is it?" Jeff asked.

"It's our Facebook page for the book. We have more than 100 likes."

"How many of those are students at our school?"

"Not very many. Some are from other schools. Some are people we don't even know," said Kareem. Even the local neighborhood association expressed an interest in sharing the book on their website.

At our spring open house and 5th-grade night, Becky set up her classroom with computers so students could share Albina Stories with parents and families. Families hovered over the devices, flipping through pages, as students explained the interviews, pictures, and essays.

Throughout the unit, we had struggled to answer the question "To what end?" Through the community action project, this came into focus. We had helped students understand the history of racism in our city, brought their families into the process, given them space to reflect on their own experiences, and helped them take responsibility and feel empowered.

The quality of student work argues against the narrative of a failing school and disengaged students of color. As students and their families continue to be forced to move miles away from the historical Black center of Portland, our students joined their voices with many other local activists and community members to expose the policies that support the rich and white in our community, and punish people of color. Our middle schoolers became community changemakers.

Resources

Boise-Eliot/Humboldt School. 2015. Albina Stories. goo.gl/9pFWaO.

Gibson, Karen J. 2007. "Bleeding Albina: A History of Community Disinvestment, 1940-2000," Transforming Anthropology. kingneighborhood. goo.gl/1137KV.

Pappas, Peter. 2014. Portland's Japantown Revealed. itunes.apple.com/us/book/portlands-japantown-revealed/id887076348?mt=13.

Oregon Public Broadcasting. 1999. Local Color. goo.gl/PVX8B.

Parks, Casey. 2012. "Fifty years later, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center attempts to make amends for razing neighborhood." Oregon Live. oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/09/post_273.html.

Portland Bureau of Planning. 1993. The History of Portland's African American Community, 1805 to the Present. multco.us/file/15283/download.

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"The Most Gentrified City of the Century"

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Middle school teachers collaborate to help students understand and critique the changes that have taken place in their Portland, Oregon, neighborhood. Their inspired students create an online resource of local history and heroes.

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Speaking honestly about race and students

By Dyan Watson

Illustrator: Pete Yahnke Railand

Illustration: Pete Yahnke Railand

Ethnic, inner city, urban. What do these terms mean in education?

I am a teacher educator who studies how people use language to talk about race. One word that I've examined over the past five years is urban. A quick look in the dictionary, and there is no surprise: Urban means related to the city, characteristic of a city or city life. So what does that mean when we say urban education? What is unique about city schools or city education? That depends on the city you're talking about. In large, densely populated cities, such as Boston, New York, and Los Angeles, city schools are often characterized by large, diverse populations, many poor students, budget shortfalls, and bureaucracy. So why, then, do we use the term urban when what we really mean are schools with majority black and Latina/o populations?

Take for example my city: Portland, Ore. Downtown there is a high school named Lincoln. It is less than a mile from the Pearl District, a hip place that boasts unique food, shops, new condos, and the best of urban renewal. It is a stone's throw from a soccer stadium and surrounded by tall buildings, people biking to work in suits, folks who routinely beg, and the hub of the public transit system.

Across the river in North Portland, there is a high school named Jefferson. It is surrounded by family dwellings, mom-and-pop shops, and wide streets for biking, walking, and playing. There is a community college across the street.

Which one of these schools is urban? Lincoln? Jefferson? Both?

Before you decide, let me give you a bit more information. At Lincoln, the downtown school, the population is more than 75 percent white, 4.5 percent of the students are black, 8.6 percent are Asian, and 6.6 percent are Latina/o; 10.5 percent are on free/reduced lunch; and the school does not receive Title 1 funding. At Jefferson, the school across the river, 59 percent of the students are black, 8 percent are Asian/Pacific Islanders, and 17 percent are Latina/o; 70 percent are on free/reduced lunch; and the school does receive Title 1 funding.

Made up your mind yet?

A few years ago I interviewed 17 teachers who attended an "urban education" program. I asked them what was the difference, if any, between urban teaching and non-urban teaching. Ruth remarked: "To me, urban students come from an environment where they can't see the value of education. They can't see why it matters, because everyone that they know, everything that they do, has nothing to do with having an education."

Thinking about the definition of urban-related to the city-I can't help but wonder: What is it about city kids that makes this teacher think they don't value education? It wasn't until after three interviews of each teacher that the whole picture emerged, one in which urban was constructed as a code word for race-specifically black and Latina/o-and often for poor. Teachers equated urban with students of color and the characteristics they perceived as belonging to students of color.

At one point I asked these teachers what urban meant and the most often cited response was "racially diverse students." Now taken as is, this would mean students of a multitude of races-including whites. But it was clear from these interviews that "racially diverse" excluded white students and often left Asian Americans and Native Americans on the side as well.

As Molly noted: "My teacher education program definitely prepared me to be a teacher. I think my school placement prepared me to be an urban teacher. Had I been in the exact same university classes, but had a school placement in Lake Genesis [a majority white high school], I wouldn't have been prepared to be an urban teacher."

I wonder, which parts of good teaching translate into all types of schools and which parts don't? What's urban about urban teaching?

Two years ago I presented some of my research to preservice teachers. One of them challenged me. "But that is how they act. Urban kids don't want to learn as much as the other students in class. Their parents don't care as much, they don't arrive at school on time, and they don't get their homework done. So these teachers are just responding to reality. I see it at North High School all the time."

Reflecting on this, I thought about how he separated his students-all of whom were from the local neighborhood-into two categories: urban and normal. Then I thought, oh yeah, urban means less than. The kids who are doing well, the kids who know how to do school, are normal. And the kids who don't know how to do school are urban.

Does it matter what language we use? It only matters if you are going to use it to mask your feelings-overly positive or negative-about a certain race or economic group. This is no time for euphemisms and unexamined beliefs about race. Our schools are deeply divided along racial and class lines. We need teachers who will examine themselves as racial beings who teach other racial beings and figure out what they are doing wrong and what they are doing right.

What would it look like to use race words (e.g., African American, European American, Korean American) when thinking about your classroom and curriculum? You might test yourself by starting to use "black" when you really mean it instead of low achieving, underserved, at-risk, our kids, those kids, inner city-or urban.

So what do you mean when you say urban?

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By Dyan Watson Illustrator: Pete Yahnke Railand Ethnic, inner city, urban. What do these terms mean in education? I am a teacher educator who studies how people use language to talk about race. One word that I've examined over the past five years is urban.

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Bringing social justice to chemistry

By Karen Zaccor

Illustrator: Kelly Hayes

Chicago Light Brigade demonstrators protesting lead contamination outside Gale Elementary, June 2014.
Photo by Kelly Hayes

I've been reading Rethinking Schools for years, wondering "How do these teachers get such great engagement, such profound thinking from their students?" Like many science teachers, I struggle to incorporate social justice topics in my science classes, especially in chemistry. I can't send students off to college unfamiliar with basics like the periodic table, but none of them comes to class excited about metals vs nonmetals or the significance of valence electrons.

And then the catastrophe of lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, hit the media. The stories exposed how in early 2014 Flint's governor-appointed city manager, in a cost-saving move, decided that the primarily African American city, already reeling from high poverty and unemployment rates, would get its water from the highly corrosive Flint River rather than continuing to use Lake Huron. The health problems this created were compounded by the decision to save an additional $100 a day by not adding anti-corrosive agents. City, state, and national officials brushed off residents' complaints for months while the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality falsified data to minimize the lead problem. By the time a newly elected mayor declared a state of emergency, the percent of children under 6 with elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) had doubled; in the most affected neighborhoods, almost 16 percent of young children had been poisoned. The devastating effects of these decisions and the racism behind them were laid bare for all to see.

Because the Flint crisis is shining a light on lead poisoning nationally, it seemed a perfect topic for my chemistry class. Lead poisoning is also a problem in Chicago, where I teach. So I thought it would resonate with my students, many of whom were already interested in social justice issues.

My main objective for the unit was to get my students to see how a science-based issue in their own city was affecting them personally. I wanted them to realize that learning about it could empower them to take action.

Lead in Water, Lead in Paint

We kicked off the second semester and the new unit with a brainstorm about what students had heard about Flint. The crisis was news to many students, but a few had heard about the lead in the water. Some reflected, as Justin did, that "Flint happened because they don't care about Black people."

"Flint is a scandal that's making news right now," I said, "but we also have a lead poisoning scandal right here in Chicago." I passed out a recent article by Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Hawthorne. I wanted to set a context for how my students viewed Chicago policies and actions regarding lead. I agreed with students like Justin who believed that the cost-saving measures taken in Flint occurred out of a profound lack of concern for the health and well-being of the mostly African American, mostly poor, population. I wanted my students to ponder whether a similar lack of concern for its poor residents of color lies beneath Chicago's failure to invest in solutions to this most solvable of public health problems.

"Why do I call lead poisoning in Chicago a scandal? As you read and record the ideas that are important to you and your reaction to them, I want you to keep that question in mind. Think about who this is happening to and why." Students began to read quietly, creating a dialogue journal with important information recorded on the left side and their reactions in the form of insights, questions, and connections on the right.

Hawthorne highlights a family living in public housing. All nine children in the family were eventually found to have lead poisoning. Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) practice was to conduct only a visual inspection (rather than testing surfaces for lead) and they proclaimed the home safe before the family moved in. When the mother sought to move to lead-free housing, she was threatened with loss of her Section 8 (federally subsidized housing) voucher. CHA was also operating under HUD guidelines that were 25 years out of date, using a blood lead standard of 20 μg/dL of lead (200 parts per billion) vs. the current CDC standard of 5 μg/dL (50 ppb).

This article and many others we read focused on the problem of lead-based paint. The Flint crisis has exposed the problem of lead in the water due to widespread use of lead pipes. Although most communities use anti-corrosives, they are not foolproof, and stories about lead in water are now appearing all over the country. But experts say that, except in the case of babies drinking formula made with lead-contaminated water, water is the source of about 20 percent of the lead in children's blood. And that means identifying and remediating the source of the other 80 percent. In cities like Chicago with many buildings built before 1978, the main source of lead poisoning is most likely the paint in children's homes.

Poisoning rates can be quite high. In Chicago, the percent of children with elevated BLLs is double the national average. In the poorest neighborhoods, more than 20 percent of the children tested have elevated BLLs.

"Who is in charge of the CHA program? Because they are the real problem," Afia wrote in her reading log, responding to reporting that CHA regulations allow landlords to request indefinite extensions to fix lead paint hazards as they continue to collect taxpayer-financed rent checks. Janesha was angry that the family's rent subsidy was threatened when the mother tried to protect her children from lead. "Why did they treat her like she was nothing when she told them about the lead?"

"They should take action no matter how much lead is found in the blood," observed Krysstal. Current science acknowledges that no level of lead can be considered safe. Perhaps most poignant was Ciera's comment: "I used to live in a house with lead paint when I was in 5th grade." Several other students with younger siblings expressed concerns about the potential for lead in their apartments.

The Science of Lead Poisoning

To understand how lead harms children, we focused in on the biochemistry of lead poisoning. Lead is a poison when ingested in any quantity. As an ion, it mimics calcium and iron in the body. It can replace iron in hemoglobin in someone with an iron-poor diet, increasing the likelihood of anemia. Lead can penetrate the blood-brain barrier and replace calcium in key pathways that are part of the development of neural networks, memory function, and the control of executive function. This is of particular concern in children under 6, whose brains are still developing; brain damage caused is permanent. The students worked in groups to create posters or body models showing the different ways lead can affect a child's growth and development.

We read studies showing that several points of IQ can be lost, even at low levels of lead exposure. An analysis of standardized test scores of Chicago 3rd graders showed a significant increase in failure rates in math and reading for children with low BLLs. The study attributed as much as 25 percent of test failures to lead poisoning. My students have grown up in a school system where standardized test results can result in students being held back a grade. Monique connected the dots for us: "Even a small amount of lead might cause a student to fail the test. They fall behind and don't graduate high school. Then employment becomes difficult."

Indeed, a lifetime of challenges awaits the child with lead poisoning. Since the damage that occurs can be subtle, many families never realize that their children have been poisoned and are losing their full potential.

The Geography of Lead Poisoning

Many students felt a strong connection to this issue, but I wanted to deepen the impact. So I created a "Lead Where We Live" assignment based on an interactive website put up by the Chicago Tribune. I found the census tracts with the highest levels of lead poisoning in the city and constructed the assignment to highlight that information, as well as leaving space for students to record citywide averages and averages for their home census tract. The website tracks changes in the incidence of lead poisoning in Chicago between 1995 and 2013. One thing I wanted students to understand was that in the early 1990s, lead poisoning was equally likely to affect any community in the city from the richest to the poorest. By 2013, it was far more likely to affect the poorest communities.

"I want you to explore this site," I told my students. "Look for patterns. How does the pattern of lead poisoning change for the city as a whole from 1995 to 2013? Where is there a drop in the number of cases? Is it the same everywhere? What could explain differences? How does the pattern for your own census tract compare with the pattern for the whole city?"

After gathering data, the students graphed what they found and then answered some analysis questions. I was working to balance reading with other activities that offered a change of pace and developed students' skills at summarizing information or representing data. I also wanted to press them to think about how data can be used-or misused. On one hand, the huge decline in lead poisoning from the mid-1990s is a wonderful thing. On the other hand, that decline can obscure the fact that, in some communities, more than one child in five has a high BLL; that adds up to about 10,000 children per year in the city. Since only about half of the children between 6 months and 6 years old were tested in 2013, the actual number could be much higher.

My students were angry that more is not being done in communities hit hardest by lead poisoning. In their reflections on the data, they were adamant that every child's future should be considered important. They couldn't believe that so few people knew enough about the possible dangers of lead. Over and over, they reported that neither they nor their parents remember them being tested for lead as young children-and their younger siblings are not being tested either.

Each article and activity reinforced the students' realization that lead poisoning is an entirely preventable problem. "They invest in the wrong things," said Keshanna angrily. She had just read that Chicago spends more each year on software licensing than it does to eliminate lead poisoning. "The government doesn't care to help because [we're] lower class and African American," she said.

Over and over, my students linked the lack of funding to a lack of concern for their communities. In a city that closed 50 schools "to save money" but somehow has money for bike paths and a new sports stadium, in a city wracked by police killings of youth of color, it's hard to reach any other conclusion.

What Can Families Do?

Most people's initial response to a health problem is to resort to medicine, but there is no pill or potion to cure lead poisoning. At very high BLLs, chelation therapy, in which a chemical agent binds to lead to remove it from the blood, is often used. But it comes with its own risks and side effects and does not resolve brain damage that has already occurred. The best protection is to prevent exposure to lead in the first place, but the huge drop in funding for lead poisoning, from the national level to the city, means that Chicago's lead inspection program is reactive rather than proactive. Inspection comes after a child has been poisoned and the damage is already done.

"Back in the early 1990s, the BLL that would trigger an inspection was 20µg/dL," I explained. "Now the standard is 5-but we learned that HUD and CHA are still using a standard of 20. The city has only 11 inspectors. Do they come quickly when a child is found poisoned or is there a backlog? How long does the landlord get to fix the problem? We don't know the answers to these questions, but what we've read suggests months, even years, can pass.

"We know that our families are not being informed about lead poisoning and its dangers. We know lead is everywhere, thanks to years of lead-based paint and leaded gasoline. The city has to take responsibility and get rid of every bit of lead paint that could hurt a child.

"But, in the meantime, is there anything families can do themselves?"

We set out to develop a lead poisoning prevention protocol for families. There are certain cleanup methods that make it less likely that children will ingest lead even if it is present in their building. In addition, there are nutrients parents should make sure their children are eating: iron and calcium-essential minerals that compete with lead for absorption-and vitamin C, which makes it easier to digest those minerals. We did a simulation in the lab to demonstrate how consuming more calcium and iron reduces how much lead the body takes up.

Then we went to the library. Working in small groups, students researched foods that are lead-healthy. Other students came up with a list of cleanup guidelines:

Wipe down windowsills and doorframes with a damp rag daily to minimize dust from open windows and doors.

Damp mop floors instead of vacuuming, which can spread lead dust.

Wash toys frequently.

Shoes that can track in dirt from lead-contaminated soil should be left outside.

If a family member works at a job involving lead-based products, leave their work clothes outside the house.

Wash children's hands frequently and definitely before eating.

What Should We Fight For?

These were things families could do, but what about system-wide solutions? My students agreed that inspecting properties before families move in was the single best strategy. It fit perfectly into our discussion when Sheila Sutton from the Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO) came to speak to the class. She told us that MTO was pushing an ordinance called Chicago Healthy Homes Inspection Program that would require proactive inspection for lead and other common issues prevalent in low-income housing. She invited us to consider ways their work might fit into whatever we decided to do.

Indeed, the time had come to decide what we were going to do for a culminating project. I did not want to lose out on an ideal opportunity for activism. At the same time, I was wary of confusing my own desire for action with my students' needs and interests. So I started a brainstorming session based on these questions:

What do you feel most interested in/motivated to work on?

What did we learn that is worth sharing?

What do you think it is possible for us to have an impact on?

I recorded their ideas. Several students had ideas for information that should go out to the community:

"We could share information on the effects of lead."

"What about how to protect your children?"

Others focused on system-wide changes we should push the city to make. Eventually we agreed on the most important information for a community awareness campaign and five demands to make of city officials:

1. Do city-wide outreach about the dangers of lead poisoning and how to prevent it, especially to families in Section 8 and other low-cost housing.

2. Make sure all health providers know and follow the recommended schedule for testing infants and children for lead poisoning.

3. Adopt and fund the Chicago Healthy Homes Inspection Program ordinance. Ensure that HUD and CHA adequately inspect their buildings, using current CDC standards for lead.

4. Inspect elementary schools and daycare centers for lead-based paint and adequately fund lead abatement.

5. Make sure the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) food program includes the daily requirement of nutrients that protect against lead poisoning.

I went home excited about the great ideas the students had generated. I used their suggestions to design a flexible final assignment. The next day, I let students choose the format for the project they would create. They chose to work on an informational brochure, a power-point presentation, a radio public service announcement (PSA), a TV PSA, and a press packet.

Ideally, students would have gotten a few class periods of work time and then a day to present. They would have had clear guidelines for their work and I would have had time to meet with each group to clarify any confusion. But, as all too often happens, my plans were interrupted by field trips, professional development, and standardized testing. When the time came to present, I realized I should have been more alert to the students who were struggling with what their product should look like and how they could get there.

In the end, we had a good brochure, an excellent TV PSA, and some interesting new nuggets of information. One example came from research into our demand to inspect Chicago schools for lead. "CPS's own documents say we should assume any school built before 1978 has lead-based paint," wrote Ayiana. She read articles about a CPS school in which lead paint was found in 2009 but not cleaned up until 2014. "If this school had lead this recently," she argued, "other CPS schools must have lead, too."

In fact, Chicago is now testing for lead in the water at all CPS schools. CPS head Forrest Claypool has vowed to do "whatever it takes" to eliminate the lead in the water, but no one has mentioned the need to inspect schools for lead paint nor vowed to clean that up, although it may be an even more serious problem.

Looking to the Future

Eventually, two groups of students were able to share our findings with real audiences. The power-point group presented at our school's annual Social Justice Expo and got lots of positive feedback. Another group of students presented our demands and the evidence behind them to our local alderman, who was very receptive.

However, once the unit was over it was a challenge to find the time or student motivation to take our demands to another level. We haven't been able to get an audience with other aldermen and attempts to reach a wider audience fizzled as students headed toward the end of the school year.

Looking back, I see a lot of things I would do differently in the future. In particular, I would put the students more in charge of seeking information, rather than doing so much of the work myself. Instead of relying so heavily on articles, I would also ask students to survey classmates, teachers, and families; interview people whose families were affected by lead poisoning; and reach out to local experts. I would also structure the project so students had an opportunity to report out initial findings at an earlier stage. I have observed in the past that, once students realize that others see the information they have to offer as valuable, they become more interested in the work. I think that would have created a stronger commitment to pursue some kind of action.

I'm encouraged, though, as I read students' final reflections and see how many students discussed the lead issues we were studying with others:

I learned something I never heard of before and I was able to make others aware of it.

I spoke to my neighbor and explained lead, how we are exposed, and how we can change it.

I had my sister take my nephews to get tested for lead poisoning.

In the end, the biggest takeaway may be that the students realized that chemistry is important in their everyday lives and can inform struggles for justice in their communities.

RESOURCES

Epton, Abraham, Alex Bordens, and Geoff Hing. May 1, 2015. "Chicago Lead Poisoning Rates Vary by Location, Time." apps.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chicago-lead-poisoning/index.html.

Hawthorne, Michael. May 1, 2015. "Lead Paint Poisons Poor Chicago Kids as City Spends Millions Less on Cleanup." Chicago Tribune. chicagotribune.com/news/ct-lead-poisoningchicago-met-20150501-story.html#page=1.

Hawthorne, Michael. Dec. 31, 2015. "Federal Housing Policy Leaves Poor Kids at Risk of Lead Poisoning." Chicago Tribune. chicagotribune.com/news/ct-cha-lead-paint-hazards-met-20151231story.html.

Kowalski, Kathiann. July 24, 2015. "To Protect Kids, Get the Lead Out." Science News for Students. student.societyforscience.org/article/protect-kids-get-lead-out.

Mergel, Maria. Oct. 20, 2010. "Health Effects of Lead." Toxipedia. toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Health+Effects+of+Lead.

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By Karen Zaccor Illustrator: Kelly Hayes I've been reading Rethinking Schools for years, wondering "How do these teachers get such great engagement, such profound thinking from their students?" Like many science teachers, I struggle to incorporate social justice topics in my science classes, especially in chemistry.

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Which Article in Section 3 Stands Out the Most to You?

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Which Article in Section 3 Stands Out the Most to You?

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Why? What does it mean for Our District?

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I was raised by my parents & sort of kind of my maternal grandparents. They were very "Old School" in a lot of ways so I have used their "Old School Ways" in a lot of how I conduct myself.

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I think it means that Black students are being bullied with physical attacks as well as mental abuse attempting to diminish their true value.

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I also agree that the led poisoning stood out. It's awful that we're still dealing with led paint in houses. I know my son (20 months old) was tested for led months ago and it was a terrifying experience to think he might have a small led level.

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By Abbie Cohen

Illustrator: Hanna Barczyk (hannabarczyk.com)

A crowd of students milled about aimlessly - the doors were locked. Hoods on, shoulders slumped, huddled together to avoid the cold morning wind. They exchanged looks and morning yawns. Every face was Black or Brown. Suddenly, a loud buzz. The doors unlocked. Bodies filed in one by one, feet barely lifting off the cement. At the first set of doors, a petite white woman greeted each person. She stuck out her hand, expecting a firm handshake and eye contact. If anyone did not meet her standards, she sent them to the back of the line to try again.

After passing through the first checkpoint, the students silently climbed a staircase and stripped off their winter clothes. The rules were clear: all jackets, hats, and gloves had to be removed. Everyone had to be in uniform. If anyone failed to complete that task, they were taken into a side room to finish the job.

At the top of the stairs stood another white woman. Everyone also had to give her a firm handshake with satisfactory eye contact. In addition, she offered every person the command: "belt." On cue, each individual raised their shirt to prove that they were, in fact, wearing a belt. If the woman surmised that someone lifted their shirt in a sassy manner or demonstrated "attitude," she directed them into a side room. If a person messed up their uniform in the process of revealing their belt, they too were ushered into the side room to re-tuck their shirt and redo the presentation.

Finally, the group entered a large open area. They sat silently in rows, fidgeting uncomfortably. Many of their bodies were too big for the small space mandated for them. As they awaited instructions, there were two options: read silently or stare off into space. There was no noise. No chatter. No laughter. No fun.

After 10 minutes, another white woman emerged. She dismissed each row individually. The silence remained. If a person made a sound or stood up too soon, the woman ordered the entire row to sit back down and try again. The task had to be performed to her exact specifications. As the room gradually emptied, the bodies trudged off in a variety of directions for other checkpoints.

It felt like some sort of prison. At best, it resembled some kind of Dickensian factory, ruled with an iron - and white - fist. In reality, this is the daily routine at STRIVE Prep-Green Valley Ranch, a Denver public charter school that in 2016-17 housed some 120 6th graders, 120 7th graders, and 120 8th graders.

These children are not inmates, they are middle schoolers.
What it means to STRIVE
The STRIVE Preparatory Schools network of charters was founded about a dozen years ago. It has quickly expanded throughout Denver's educational landscape and to date this charter management organization ( which according to the Colorado League of Charter Schools is actually a CMO-nonprofit/EMO-for-profit) has opened 11 schools serving students from kindergarten to 12th grade across the city. STRIVE Prep claims, on the homepage of its website, to provide an academic space "where a revolutionary education is commonplace and attending college is expected." This CMO boasts that it provides academically demanding courses and high expectations for students. But in practice, in order to reach these objectives, STRIVE Prep has implemented a regimented, punitive educational experience that eliminates creativity, fun, self-expression, and the joys of being a child or going to school.

The STRIVE Prep network appears to fully embody the "no-excuses" pedagogical approach to teaching and classroom management. The no-excuses movement emerged in the 1990s and was later also supported by federal education policies like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) that encouraged market-oriented reformers to solve this country's stubborn opportunity gap. No-excuses schools argue that they can increase the academic performance of Black, Brown, and working-class youth by instituting a rigid and inflexible disciplinary system. Severe punishments like suspension and expulsion are linked to small infractions like talking in the hallway or not wearing appropriate attire. No-excuses schools suggest that ending behavioral issues guarantees academic success. In practice, however, many no-excuses schools have simply over-punished urban youth, turning public schools into detention centers.

I visited STRIVE Prep-Green Valley Ranch as part of my job as a member of the administrative team at Breakthrough Kent Denver, an organization that provides opportunities to under-resourced middle and high school students, while also preparing recent high school graduates and college students to enter the field of education. I spent much of my time recruiting 6th graders across the city to apply to our program and checking in with our alumni. During the 2016-17 academic year, I visited nearly 30 middle schools and 20 high schools in Denver. What I witnessed at STRIVE shook me to the core. Their disciplinary procedures highlighted the potential pitfalls of turning over public schools to the free market. This kind of autonomy from the public school district is one of the key reasons that charterization appeals to free-market reformers - and other Denver charters have also adopted punitive regimes that essentially criminalize students' behavior. They seem to take their cues from this country's prison-industrial-complex: Students are inmates and deserve to be treated as such.

Certainly, not all charter schools have a disciplinary program as strict, rigid, or problematic as STRIVE Prep. But the fact such a program exists in the first place - and in the public system, no less - presents a grave threat to the future of public education in this city and across the nation.
"No excuses"
"No-excuses" charter schools suggest that Black and Brown youth can achieve academically only within environments that have a disciplinary code that mirrors that of the carceral state. These schools explicitly critique the cultural norms and rhythms of non-white students. They imply that the only way to learn is by conforming to a prescribed routine and strict rules that dictate what students wear, what it means to pay attention in class, how students should organize their work, and even how they should walk up a flight of stairs or enter a classroom. In many ways it adheres to a type of "broken windows" reasoning employed by some police departments. If students are slouching, they must be punished. If students are talking in the hall, they must be punished. If students don't have their eyes on the teacher, they must be punished. Research shows the "no-excuses" model is also built on a profound system of rewards and punishments. If students perform or execute a task well they could receive merits or shout-outs at an all-school assembly. However, if students perform poorly or execute a task not up to "standard" they may be given a range of punishments from detention to all-too-frequent suspensions.

A report published in 2015 by Padres & Jóvenes Unidos, a nonprofit in Denver that, among other things, works to illuminate harsh school discipline, zero-tolerance policies, and the disproportionate impact of those practices on students of color from working-class families, found that from 2013 to 2014 STRIVE Prep-Green Valley Ranch had the fourth highest rate of out-of-school suspensions (OSS) in the city. That year the school had a jaw-dropping rate of 29.5 incidents of out-of-school suspensions for every 100 students. A school that sends kids home so often cannot be effectively educating all of its students.

"No-excuses" discipline is a problem that extends beyond this one school. In Denver's public school district, more than one-fourth of the just over 200 schools are charters. The 2015 Padres & Jóvenes Unidos report illustrates that in 2013-2014, five of the top eight schools with the highest OSS rates were all charters. The most flagrant offender, Sims-Fayola International Academy Charter School, was Denver's first all-boys public charter. It had an OSS rate of 71.3 percent in 2013-2014 and shut down about three years after opening, throwing its students and their families into turmoil. The next seven schools on the Padres & Jóvenes Unidos list all have OSS rates between 25.6 and 32.7 percent. Three of them are in the STRIVE network.

School suspensions traumatize students and families, making teaching and learning more difficult. While writing this piece, I had the opportunity to discuss disciplinary procedures with students at Breakthrough Kent Denver's monthly "Saturday School" program. One student who attended STRIVE Prep-Green Valley Ranch described to me the fear STRIVE instilled in her. Like many 7th graders she enjoyed experimenting with her newfound sense of maturity and creativity. She had recently dyed her hair red. Only afterward did she panic and realize that this act violated her school's disciplinary code. If an administrator or teacher noticed, she would be subject to an in-school suspension (ISS). She noted that she had already been suspended three times this academic year for wearing the wrong shoes to an exam, wearing fake nails, and wearing an out-of-dress-code shirt because her mother could not afford another STRIVE polo. If she received another ISS, she was sure she would receive an out-of-school suspension. This young student is bright, highly motivated, and excited about her future; she wants to be an engineer. However, she has come to hate school because she is unable to express herself and embrace her creative side.
"Got to Go"
This disturbing phenomenon is not unique to Denver. Success Academy Charter Schools, New York City's largest charter network (with more than 40 schools and plans to expand), has made headlines for its punitive measures. Two years ago, the New York Times published an exposé of Success Academy based on interviews and documents that "suggest that some administrators in the network have singled out children they would like to see leave."

The article noted that at Success Academy Fort Greene, a K-4 school, school leaders had a list of 16 students' names:

The heading on the list was "Got to Go."

Nine of the students on the list later withdrew from the school. Some of their parents said in interviews that while their children attended Success, their lives were upended by repeated suspensions and frequent demands that they pick up their children early or meet with school or network staff members. Four of the parents said that school or network employees told them explicitly that the school, whose oldest students are now in the 3rd grade, was not right for their children and that they should go elsewhere.

Eva Moskowitz, Success Academy's chief executive officer, responded to the list by saying "mistakes are sometimes made." The numbers suggest a different story. Suspensions appear to be endemic to Success Academy and NYC charter schools. According to that same New York Times article:

In the 2012-13 school year, the most recent one for which state data is available, Success schools suspended between 4 percent and 23 percent of their students at least once, with most suspending more than 10 percent. According to the most recent statistics from the city's Education Department, from 2013-14, traditional public schools suspended 3 percent of students that academic year.

Moreover, the 7 percent of students who go to charter schools in New York City made up 42 percent of suspensions, according to an article in The Atlantic that cited data from 2014. The article also noted that comparable patterns exist in Washington, D.C., and Boston and that in 2014-2015, 48 of the 50 schools in New York City with the most student suspensions were charters.

It is important to note that Moskowitz is a supporter of controversial Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. DeVos, an ardent believer in school choice, envisions school systems entirely geared to the free market. DeVos' budget proposal outlined her desire to expand school choice across the nation, while also eliminating programs for our most vulnerable students. Her plan would slash $9 billion in the 2018 fiscal year. This includes a $3.5 billion cut to teacher training and after-school programs, among others.

Meanwhile, DeVos wants the federal government to stimulate more choice options both in the public and private school sector. Education Week reported that while DeVos was visiting a charter school in Washington, D.C., she explained, "I think the choices that have grown up and have been afforded to families here are very, very strong and encouraging. I think there's continued room for more choices and improvements across the board." DeVos' support for choice in D.C. ignores the larger context. Charter schools in D.C. suspend and expel at rates substantially higher than the national average. A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office reveals that Black students in Washington, D.C., and students with disabilities were expelled and suspended at disproportionate rates in the 2013-2014 school year. The Washington Post, citing data from that GAO study, noted that "Black students were 80 percent of charter school students, but 93 percent of those suspended and 92 percent of those expelled during 2013-2014." Moreover, Black boys represent "39 percent of the charter students, but 56 percent of the suspended students and 55 percent of those expelled." Even more appalling evidence from the GAO report points out that "16 of D.C.'s 105 charter schools suspended over a fifth of their students over the course of the school year 2015-2016." By expanding charterization and choice, DeVos' budget will only exacerbate the problem of no-excuses discipline, widening the opportunity gap in the process.

A national report published by the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, run out of the University of California at Los Angeles by Gary Orfield and Patricia Gándara, provided the first comprehensive nationwide description and comparison of school discipline in both charter and non-charter public schools in 2011-12. Of all 95,000 schools across the country included in the Civil Rights Project's report, more than 500 charters suspended Black youth at a rate that was at least 10 percentage points higher than the rate for white students. Clearly, the racialized impact of these policies is a national phenomenon. This intensive policing of students of color has bleak consequences for our young students and our democracy.

Educational research has shown that students who are harshly disciplined in school are more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system. A report published in 2011 by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and Texas A&M University's Public Policy Research Institute found that more than one in seven students who was suspended or expelled "was in contact with the juvenile justice system (i.e., contact with a county's juvenile probation department) at least once between 7th and 12th grade." According to a Washington Post article from 2011 that cited the data, "by comparison, just 2 percent of students with no suspensions or expulsions had juvenile justice involvement." The evidence is clear: No-excuses charter schools only exacerbate this country's racialized criminal justice system.

Denver Public Schools and the city government have publicly expressed that they want to end the school-to-prison pipeline. Local officials will never reach that goal as long as so many schools treat students as inmates. Democracy is healthiest when our educational institutions reflect our best virtues - creativity, joy, and growth. We must strengthen our oversight over no-excuses charter schools, thereby ensuring that no child in that city - or our country - is subjected to policies that could have been culled from one of Denver's neighboring prisons.
Abbie Cohen spent a year as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Medellín, Colombia. She is currently a master's candidate at Harvard Graduate School of Education studying education policy and management.

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An education researcher explores "no-excuses" discipline policies and the rate of out-of-school suspensions at charter schools in Denver and around the nation. "Democracy is healthiest when our educational institutions reflect our best virtues - creativity, joy, and growth.

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An interview with Michelle Alexander

By Jody Sokolower

As Rethinking Schools began to explore the school-to-prison pipeline, we searched for a construct that would help us understand how the criminalization of youth fits into the larger social picture. At just that moment, we discovered The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.

Alexander poses a thought-provoking and insightful thesis: Mass incarceration, justified and organized around the war on drugs, has become the new face of racial discrimination in the United States. Since 1970, the number of people behind bars in this country has increased 600 percent.

What is most striking about these numbers is the racial dimension. The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, DC, for example, it is estimated that 75 percent of young black men can expect to serve time in prison.

Equally disturbing is Alexander's description of the lifelong civil and human rights implications of being arrested and serving time in prison, and the implications for what many call our "post-racial" society. As she explains in her introduction:

What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color "criminals" and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination-employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service-are suddenly legal. As a criminal you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

We asked Alexander to share her thoughts about the implications of her work when applied to education and the lives of children and youth. She spoke with Rethinking Schools editor Jody Sokolower on Sept. 1, 2011.

RS: What is the impact of mass incarceration on African American children and youth?

MA: There is an extraordinary impact. For African American children, in particular, the odds are extremely high that they will have a parent or loved one, a relative, who has either spent time behind bars or who has acquired a criminal record and thus is part of the under-caste-the group of people who can be legally discriminated against for the rest of their lives. For many African American children, their fathers, and increasingly their mothers, are behind bars. It is very difficult for them to visit. Many people are held hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home. There is a tremendous amount of shame with having a parent or other family member incarcerated. There can be fear of having it revealed to others at school.

But also, for these children, their life chances are greatly diminished. They are more likely to be raised in severe poverty; their parents are unlikely to be able to find work or housing and are often ineligible even for food stamps.

For children, the era of mass incarceration has meant a tremendous amount of family separation, broken homes, poverty, and a far, far greater level of hopelessness as they see so many of their loved ones cycling in and out of prison. Children who have incarcerated parents are far more likely themselves to be incarcerated.

When young black men reach a certain age-whether or not there is incarceration in their families-they themselves are the target of police stops, interrogations, frisks, often for no reason other than their race. And, of course, this level of harassment sends a message to them, often at an early age: No matter who you are or what you do, you're going to find yourself behind bars one way or the other. This reinforces the sense that prison is part of their destiny, rather than a choice one makes.
A Birdcage as a Metaphor
RS: At one point in The New Jim Crow, you refer to the metaphor of a birdcage as a way to describe structural racism and apply that to mass incarceration. How does what is happening to African American youth in our schools fit into that picture?

MA: The idea of the metaphor is there can be many bars, wires that keep a person trapped. All of them don't have to have been created for the purpose of harming or caging the bird, but they still serve that function. Certainly youth of color, particularly those in ghetto communities, find themselves born into the cage. They are born into a community in which the rules, laws, policies, structures of their lives virtually guarantee that they will remain trapped for life. It begins at a very early age when their parents themselves are either behind bars or locked in a permanent second-class status and cannot afford them the opportunities they otherwise could. For example, those with felony convictions are denied access to public housing, hundreds of professions that require certification, financial support for education, and often the right to vote. Thousands of people are unable even to get food stamps because they were once caught with drugs.

The cage itself is manifested by the ghetto, which is racially segregated, isolated, cut off from social and economic opportunities. The cage is the unequal educational opportunities these children are provided at a very early age coupled with the constant police surveillance they're likely to encounter, making it very likely that they're going to serve time and be caught for committing the various types of minor crimes-particularly drug crimes-that occur with roughly equal frequency in middle-class white communities but go largely ignored.

So, for many, whether they go to prison or not is far less about the choices they make and far more about what kind of cage they're born into. Middle-class white children, children of privilege, are afforded the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes and still go on to college, still dream big dreams. But for kids who are born in the ghetto in the era of mass incarceration, the system is designed in such a way that it traps them, often for life.

RS: How do you define and analyze the school-to-prison pipeline?

MA: It's really part of the large cage or caste that I was describing earlier. The school-to-prison pipeline is another metaphor-a good one for explaining how children are funneled directly from schools into prison. Instead of schools being a pipeline to opportunity, schools are feeding our prisons.

It's important for us to understand how school discipline policies have been influenced by the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement. Many people imagine that zero tolerance rhetoric emerged within the school environment, but it's not true. In fact, the Advancement Project published a report showing that one of the earliest examples of zero tolerance language in school discipline manuals was a cut-and-paste job from a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration manual. The wave of punitiveness that washed over the United States with the rise of the drug war and the get tough movement really flooded our schools. Schools, caught up in this maelstrom, began viewing children as criminals or suspects, rather than as young people with an enormous amount of potential struggling in their own ways and their own difficult context to make it and hopefully thrive. We began viewing the youth in schools as potential violators rather than as children needing our guidance.
The Mythology of Colorblindness
RS: In your book, you explain that the policies of mass incarceration are technically "colorblind" but lead to starkly racialized results. How do you see this specifically affecting children and young people of color?

MA: The mythology around colorblindness leads people to imagine that if poor kids of color are failing or getting locked up in large numbers, it must be something wrong with them. It leads young kids of color to look around and say: "There must be something wrong with me, there must be something wrong with us. Is there something inherent, something different about me, about us as a people, that leads us to fail so often, that leads us to live in these miserable conditions, that leads us to go in and out of prison?"

The mythology of colorblindness takes the race question off the table. It makes it difficult for people to even formulate the question: Could this be about something more than individual choices? Maybe there is something going on that's linked to the history of race in our country and the way race is reproducing itself in modern times.

I think this mythology-that of course we're all beyond race, of course our police officers aren't racist, of course our politicians don't mean any harm to people of color-this idea that we're beyond all that (so it must be something else) makes it difficult for young people as well as the grown-ups to be able to see clearly and honestly the truth of what's going on. It makes it difficult to see that the backlash against the Civil Rights Movement manifested itself in the form of mass incarceration, in the form of defunding and devaluing schools serving kids of color and all the rest. We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In my own view, it's our refusal to deal openly and honestly with race that leads us to keep repeating these cycles of exclusion and division, and rebirthing a caste-like system that we claim we've left behind.

RS: We are in the midst of a huge attack on public education-privatization through charters and vouchers; increased standardization, regimentation, and testing; and the destruction of teachers' unions. Much of it is justified by what appears to be anti-racist rhetoric: Schools aren't meeting the needs of inner-city children, so their parents need choices. How do you see this?

MA: People who focus solely on what do we do given the current context are avoiding the big why. Why is it that these schools aren't meeting these kids' needs? Why is it that such a large percentage of the African American population today is trapped in these ghettos? What is the bigger picture?

The bigger picture is that over the last 30 years, we have spent $1 trillion waging a drug war that has failed in any meaningful way to reduce drug addiction or abuse, and yet has siphoned an enormous amount of resources away from other public services, especially education. We are in a social and political context in which the norm is to punish poor folks of color rather than to educate and empower them with economic opportunity. It is that political context that leads some people to ask: Don't children need to be able to escape poorly performing schools? Of course, no one should be trapped in bad schools or bad neighborhoods. No one. But I think we need to be asking a larger question: How do we change the norm, the larger context that people seem to accept as a given? Are we so thoroughly resigned to what "is" that we cannot even begin a serious conversation about how to create what ought to be?

The education justice movement and the prison justice movement have been operating separately in many places as though they're in silos. But the reality is we're not going to provide meaningful education opportunities to poor kids, kids of color, until and unless we recognize that we're wasting trillions of dollars on a failed criminal justice system. Kids are growing up in communities in which they see their loved ones cycling in and out of prison and in which they are sent the message in countless ways that they, too, are going to prison one way or another. We cannot build healthy, functioning schools within a context where there is no funding available because it's going to building prisons and police forces.

RS: And fighting wars?

MA: Yes, and fighting wars. And where there is so much hopelessness because of the prevalence of mass incarceration.

At the same time, we're foolish if we think we're going to end mass incarceration unless we are willing to deal with the reality that huge percentages of poor people are going to remain jobless, locked out of the mainstream economy, unless and until they have a quality education that prepares them well for the new economy. There has got to be much more collaboration between the two movements and a greater appreciation for the work of the advocates in each community. It's got to be a movement that's about education, not incarceration-about jobs, not jails. A movement that integrates the work in these various camps from, in my view, a human rights perspective.
Fighting Back
RS: What is the role of teachers in responding to this crisis? What should we be doing in our classrooms? What should we be doing as education activists?

MA: That is a wonderful question and one I'm wrestling with myself now. I am in the process of working with others trying to develop curriculum and materials that will make it easier to talk to young people about these issues in ways that won't lead to paralysis, fear, or resignation, but instead will enlighten and inspire action and critical thinking in the future. It's very difficult but it must be done.

We have to be willing to take some risks. In my experience, there is a lot of hesitancy to approach these issues in the classroom out of fear that students will become emotional or angry, or that the information will reinforce their sense of futility about their own lives and experience. It's important to teach them about the reality of the system, that it is in fact the case that they are being targeted unfairly, that the rules have been set up in a way that authorize unfair treatment of them, and how difficult it is to challenge these laws in the courts. We need to teach them how our politics have changed in recent years, how there has been, in fact, a backlash. But we need to couple that information with stories of how people in the past have challenged these kinds of injustices, and the role that youth have played historically in those struggles.

I think it's important to encourage young people to tell their own stories and to speak openly about their own experiences with the criminal justice system and the experiences of their family. We need to ensure that the classroom environment is a supportive one so that the shame and stigma can be dispelled. Then teachers can use those stories of what students have witnessed and experienced as the opportunity to begin asking questions: How did we get here? Why is this happening? How are things different in other communities? How is this linked to what has gone on in prior periods of our nation's history? And what, then, can we do about it?

Just providing information about how bad things are, or the statistics and data on incarceration by themselves, does lead to more depression and resignation and is not empowering. The information has to be presented in a way that's linked to the piece about encouraging students to think critically and creatively about how they might respond to injustice, and how young people have responded to injustice in the past.

RS: What specifically?

MA:There's a range of possibilities. I was inspired by what students have done in some schools organizing walkouts protesting the lack of funding and that sort of thing. There are opportunities for students to engage in those types of protests-taking to the streets-but there is also writing poetry, writing music, beginning to express themselves, holding forums, educating each other, the whole range. For example, for a period of time the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, Calif., was focused on youth engagement and advocacy to challenge mass incarceration. They launched a number of youth campaigns to close youth incarceration facilities in northern California. They demonstrated that it is really possible to blend hip-hop culture with very creative and specific advocacy and to develop young leaders. Young people today are very creative in using social media and there is a wide range of ways that they can get involved.

The most important thing at this stage is inspiring an awakening. There is a tremendous amount of confusion and denial that exists about mass incarceration today, and that is the biggest barrier to movement building. As long as we remain in denial about this system, movement building will be impossible. Exposing youth in classrooms to the truth about this system and developing their critical capacities will, I believe, open the door to meaningful engagement and collective, inspired action.

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The author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness applies her thought-provoking analysis to children, schools, and priorities for education activism.

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White supremacy, high-stakes testing, and the punishment of Black and Brown students

By Wayne Au

Illustrator: Chris Kindred

Chris Kindred

"Education is the great civil rights issue of our time."
-Former U.S. President George W. Bush (2002)

"[The educational achievement gap] is the civil rights issue of our time."
-Former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige (2004)

"Education is the Civil Rights Movement of our generation."
-Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2010)

"Education is the civil rights issue of our time."
-Former U.S. President Barack Obama (2011)

"Education is the civil rights issue of our time."
-U.S. President Donald Trump (2017)

Starting with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the logic has been this: There are race-based gaps in standardized test scores. Closing those gaps should be the goal for achieving racial equality in education. Connected to clear punishments for failure, we can use those tests to achieve this goal.

Since then, politicians from both parties have repeated the mantra that educational achievement gaps are the "civil rights issue of our time." This is one of the reasons why a number of mainstream civil rights organizations in May 2015 spoke out against the movement to let students and parents opt out of high-stakes testing. Their argument: Without the data, we can't hold schools and teachers accountable for racial inequality.

The problem is that high-stakes standardized testing has not only failed at achieving racial equality, its proliferation has only exacerbated racial inequality and worsened the education for students of color.

But we are in a moment of profound resistance and change as the movements to bring Ethnic Studies to classrooms across the country and make Black students' lives matter in schools are gaining traction. And it is critical we understand that high-stakes standardized tests do not serve students of color. They support white supremacy.
The Faulty (Bio)logics of Testing for Racial Justice
The logic of high-stakes testing for racial justice is simple. Standardized tests produce data that we can look at and identify "achievement gaps." Then, if we don't see the scores of low-performing racial groups increase to close these gaps, teachers, schools, and students are held "accountable" to punishments like funding cuts, charter school conversion, or withholding diplomas, among other consequences. The idea is that these threats will lead to higher test scores for students from low-income families and students of color.

The arguments for using high-stakes testing for racial equality all assume that our standardized tests provide accurate measurements of teaching and learning. This presumption does not hold true. Test scores correlate most strongly with family income, neighborhood, educational levels of parents, and access to resources - all factors that are measures of wealth that exist outside of schools.

This is not to say that schools and teachers are not important in student learning and achievement. However, it is to say that while teachers are central to how our children learn and experience education, the tests offer such narrow measures that they miss most of the processes, experiences, and relationships that define teaching and learning. Further, it is also to say that, as we have seen in so many "miracle" schools, a rise in test scores is rarely connected to genuine improvements in student learning and instead has typically been produced by gaming the system, being selective about who is enrolled in a school, or losing low achievers through attrition or expulsion.

It is also important to recognize that high-stakes tests are not race-neutral tools capable of promoting racial equality. At their origins more than 100 years ago, standardized tests were used as weapons against communities of color, immigrants, and the poor. Because they were presumed to be objective, test results were used to "prove" that whites, the rich, and the U.S.-born were biologically more intelligent than non-whites, the poor, and immigrants. In turn, the tests provided backing to early concepts of aptitude and IQ, which were then used to justify the race, class, and cultural inequalities of the time.

For instance, in 1916, based on standardized test scores, Stanford Professor Lewis Terman (one of the founders of standardized testing in U.S. schools) argued that certain races inherited "deficient" IQs, saying that "No amount of school instruction will ever make them intelligent voters or capable citizens." He further asserted that "feeblemindedness" was "very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among negroes [sic]," and suggested that "Children of this group should be segregated in special classes and be given instruction that is practical . . ." Terman reasoned that while these students were unable to "master abstractions" they still could be made into "efficient workers." This testing was then brought en masse into the growing public school system (in large part due to Terman's work), and standardized test scores were used to justify educational tracking for kids of color, immigrants, and the poor.

This kind of test-informed inequality stems in part from the design paradigm of our standardized tests themselves: They were - and are - built on the assumption that human intelligence is based on biological aptitude that is "naturally" distributed across populations on a bell curve. This bell curve logic decrees that, if a test was given to a large population, some would score high, a lot would be in the middle, and some would do very poorly.

The bell curve underlying the construction of high-stakes standardized tests means that they will always produce high scorers and low scorers. Put differently, the assumed unequal distribution of intelligence built into the tests makes it impossible for everyone to pass and be deemed successful. This reality paints all discussion of closing the achievement gap in test scores in a new light. It does not mean everyone succeeds on the tests. Rather, "closing the achievement gap" in test scores means proportionate success and failure between groups, such that we have equal numbers of rich and poor students passing and failing, equal numbers of Black, white, Asian, Native, and Latinx passing and failing, etc. - all neatly and equally distributed along the bell curve.

In addition, the test-and-punish logic of using a high-stakes standardized test to hold schools, teachers, and students "accountable" for race-based score improvement has failed miserably. While it is true that a 2011 National Research Council report indicates that test scores in math and English/language arts for Black and Latinx students have generally risen since the implementation of No Child Left Behind, the report also points out that the test scores of white students have risen even more in the same time period. So, after more than a decade of the punitive policies, the threats against and disciplining of teachers, students, and schools have exacerbated racial test score gaps instead of closing them.
High-Stakes Testing and the Disciplining of Black and Brown Bodies
The idea of discipline is at the heart of policies and practices aimed at holding students, teachers, and schools "accountable" for raising test scores. There is physical discipline: Students are bound by a set amount of testing time. They must remain silent. Their movements are restricted and generally must stay seated. They also are taken out of their regular classrooms and are required to sit in test-specific rooms. They either cannot access resources beyond the assessment or are limited to only using specified resources (e.g., calculators). Testing happens under the disciplinary gaze of an authority (a proctor) watching for transgressions.

There is also the discipline of enduring the stress and physical limits placed on students for hours at a time, as well as the emotional discipline of handling the stress of the high stakes. While this is problematic for all kids, it is especially damaging to young children who are expected to endure testing experiences that are developmentally inappropriate for them.

High-stakes standardized tests also discipline curriculum and learning: They determine what knowledge and content is considered legitimate for teaching in the classroom. They also discipline teachers' pedagogy because they compel teachers to teach to the test and place restrictions on depth and breadth of subject matter. Further, the tests discipline educational resources, as money gets used on test-aligned textbooks, teaching materials, technologies, and professional development.

While high-stakes standardized testing disciplines all students, non-white and low-income students are disciplined with disproportionate intensity because the tests concentrate failure in their schools and communities. This means that low-income kids and kids of color are tested more; experience the greatest loss of time spent on non-tested or less-tested subjects like art, music, science, and social studies; don't have multicultural, anti-racist curriculum made available to them because those areas are not on the tests; and lose opportunities for culturally relevant instruction because the tests tend to inhibit process-based, student-centered instruction in favor of rote memorization.

Further, because of the increased intensity of testing and more restrictive curriculum and educational environments, high-stakes tests acculturate children of color to a norm of being disciplined by state authorities Ñ they are tested more frequently, have their performance scrutinized more closely by educational officials and policymakers, are punished more often for test performance, and are subjected to more drastic "corrections" in curriculum and pedagogy than their white counterparts.

The disciplining of Black and Brown children by high-stakes standardized testing also manifests in very concrete and material ways. A 2013 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that in one state having a high-stakes graduation exit exam correlated with a 12.5 percent increase in the rate of incarceration. Again, given that these tests fail kids of color disproportionately, this study suggests that high-stakes standardized tests are a conduit for the school-to-prison pipeline.
High-Stakes Testing as Retributive Justice
Ultimately, high-stakes standardized testing, with its focus on surveillance, discipline, and punishment, represents a form of retributive justice. Built around the concept of "retribution" for a crime, retributive justice seeks vengeance for a wrongful act, and it is the cornerstone of our entire system of criminal justice in the United States. Howard Zehr, Distinguished Professor of Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University, explains that retributive justice operates along three questions:

What rule has been broken?

Who is to blame?

What punishment do they deserve?

Educational "accountability" based on high-stakes testing is an expression of retributive justice. Our systems of accountability criminalize test failure, and instead of trying to fix the problem, policymakers use the results to punish students, teachers, schools, and communities.

Can we test our way to racial justice? Currently, we cannot. The paradigm of test and punish does not promote justice in any form.

Indeed, looking at its impact, high-stakes standardized tests serve to promote injustice and inflict acute damage on kids of color. However, there are other models beyond retributive justice.
Restorative Assessment
Restorative justice has become an increasingly popular alternative to models of disciplinary, retributive justice that are all too common in schools. According to Zehr, models of restorative justice ask a different set of questions:

Who has been hurt and what are their needs?

Who is obligated to address these needs?

Who has a "stake" in this situation and what is the process of involving them in making things right and preventing future occurrences?

Following this, a model of assessment aimed at racial justice would begin by recognizing that students of color have been hurt by institutionalized racism and white supremacy in our schools and that our current assessments have perpetuated this hurt. Further, a restorative assessment model would then need to explicitly name who is obligated to address the institutionalized racism and white supremacy faced by our students in their schools. We would also need to attend to who has voice and power in determining the assessment, as well as their role and responsibility in making things right.

Restorative assessment would also take seriously the idea of healing our kids and communities. Imagine the possibility of an assessment that would be a part of a process of healing the hurt caused by white supremacy and institutionalized racism. Imagine an assessment that was culturally responsive in form and content, one that assessed students for identity development, knowledge of self, cultural knowledge, and confronting internalized oppression/colonization.

Aspects of restorative assessment exist in some places. For instance, much of Linda Christensen's work, which asks students to write powerfully through pain, or to consider race, class, and the power of language in their lives, begins to point the way toward forms of restorative assessment in the classroom. Her lessons often urge students to express their identities through language, in the process humanizing them while opening pathways toward healing. The practices and pedagogy of the formerly banned Mexican American Studies program in Tucson, Arizona, also orient us toward restorative assessment, as they engaged their students in deep learning that sought to decolonize curriculum and their cultural selves.

One example at the elementary level is La Escuela Fratney, a two-way bilingual elementary school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where students have used gallery walks and student-led parent conferences to demonstrate knowledge of their own cultures, skills for working in diverse groups, strategies to fight racist experiences, and reading and writing in languages other than English in order to meet district goals and performance indicators for anti-racist and anti-biased attitudes.

Restorative assessment also invites a conversation about the very forms our assessments take. For instance, as opposed to numerical scores generated by the typical high-stakes standardized test, process-based portfolios and performance assessments allow for more nuanced, human, and complex expressions of student learning, growth, and development that could more accurately embody restoration and healing. It also puts the very idea of AÐF and decimal grading systems into question since those singular grades and decimal scores perform the same functions of surveillance and punishment as standardized tests.

The public New York Performance Standards Consortium schools have produced evidence that this kind of restorative assessment is more effective, particularly with students of color. In the consortium, in order to graduate high school, students are required to produce a series of portfolios across multiple subject areas to demonstrate their skills and learning, and are then also required to defend that portfolio to a panel of teachers, their peers, and community members. The consortium schools have significantly lower dropout rates and higher college attainment rates for their low-income students, students of color, and English language learners than other comparable public schools.
Transformative Assessment
However, because restorative justice focuses mainly on individual wrongdoing and individual events, many activists see it as just a small step toward something bigger: transformative justice - which recognizes the conditions that contribute to and shape wrongdoing. According to Zehr, transformative justice asks a set of distinctly different questions from both retributive and restorative models of justice:

What social circumstances produced the harmful behavior?

What structures exist between this structure and others like it?

What measures could prevent further occurrences?

If we applied these to thinking through what transformative assessment might look like, then it suggests a series of skills and a knowledge base that we want to make sure our students are learning. For instance, we might assess students on their understanding of what historical and socioeconomic circumstances produced the institutionalized racism and white supremacy we see in our schools. Given the continued focus on high-stakes testing in education policy and practice, transformative assessment could also check for student understanding of how testing itself reproduces inequalities and maintains white supremacy.

As is implied by the name, transformative assessment could also assess students on their understanding of and capacities for institutional and community transformation. This could include assessing their knowledge of strategies for challenging institutional racism in their schools, districts, and communities. From an activist and transformational perspective, there are concrete skills, understandings, and forms of resistance that we want to foster and develop in our students as potentially powerful individuals and collectives. If we want to assess those skills, then we are forced to consider forms of assessment that are not retributive and ways that are not connected to our current norms and assumptions about standardized testing and accountability.

For instance, in May 2016, students at Forest Grove High School outside of Portland, Oregon, protested a Trump-inspired "build a wall" banner that was hung at their school. Hundreds of Forest Grove students walked out and rallied against the act of racism. Soon, as word spread through social media, they were joined by students from six other high schools in the area. In the following days students from Portland high schools and Portland Community College joined for a rally in the city of Portland itself. It was a powerful moment for student organizing in the Portland area that helped sharpen people's consciousness about anti-immigrant racism in the region.

The Forest Grove High School students offer just one example, and we're seeing even more effective organizing by young people, for instance, in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that took place in Parkland, Florida. There are basic skill sets for organizing that we could see in student learning through transformative assessment. There are also forms of consciousness and political orientations that are anti-racist (in the case of Forest Grove) and oppositional to structural authority, helping students understand and act on their collective power in transformative ways. Indeed, student activism also points to the important relationship between restorative and transformative assessment: Restorative assessment, with its focus on healing, cultural self-knowledge, and decolonization, can help foster the kinds of critical consciousness that can contribute directly to student involvement in mass mobilizations and movements for social justice we might connect with transformative assessment.

Further, student organizing in Forest Grove, Parkland, and elsewhere suggests the possibility that we can create and wield restorative and transformative assessments to foster this kind of activism as a central aspect of public education. Such assessments would have to challenge racism and white supremacy with a focus on cultural and community healing and radical institutional transformation. Such assessments would also have to be constructed to openly challenge hegemonic power and require a complete break from our current system and the faulty logics of high-stakes standardized testing.
Reclaiming Assessment
The possibility of restorative and transformative assessment is a call for educators and students to reclaim the very idea of "assessment" from the high-stakes standardized tests and corporate education reformers using them for profits and privatization. It invites us to see the very act of assessment as both a tool of healing and as a means to fight the white supremacist legacies of public education in this country. Further, this reclaiming of assessment is also critical for activists and educators working to reform the disciplinary practices of schools. The simple fact is that you can't practice restorative and transformative justice in schools that rely on retributive forms of assessment like high-stakes standardized testing. The healing and hopefulness of one is smothered by the punishment and pain of the other.

Right now, there are real fights in the streets about police killings of Black people, about xenophobia, nationalism, white supremacy, native sovereignty, Islamophobia, gentrification, poverty, health care, and the protection of the environment. Students are struggling with these issues in their lives and are out protesting in the streets. Our students need restorative understandings to help them make sense of their lives and times, and they need to know about transformative strategies and skills that they can use in these fights. The possibility of restorative and transformative assessment is a call for educators to create forms of schooling and assessment that are liberatory, partisan, and in the interest of justice.

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High-stakes tests have not only failed to achieve racial equality in schooling, they've also made it worse for students of color.

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Q&A With Monique W. Morris: How K-12 Schools Push Out Black Girls (Opinion)

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Monique W. Morris, author and researcher, discusses the plight of black girls, who are disproportionately turned out of K-12 schools.

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By Jody Sokolower

Illustrator: Thea Gahr

Thea Gahr

Several years ago, I taught a unit on power in my 9th-grade social studies classes at Berkeley High School in California's Bay Area. It's a diverse school-rich folks from the hills, middle- and working-class from the flats; about one-third each of African American and white students; the other third a combination of Latina/o, multi-ethnic, South Asian, and others.

For our initial activity, I asked students to interview someone-a relative, neighbor, or themselves-about an encounter with the police. I emphasized that it could be any kind of contact, positive or negative. The questions were basic: Where were you and what were you doing when the encounter began? What did the police do and say? What was the result? How did it make you feel?

The next day, I had the students tell their stories in small groups. Then we rotated the groups so each student ended up hearing everyone else's story. After we returned our desks to a large circle, I asked the students: What did you hear? What does it make you think?

The results were stark. As Valerie, a Filipina student, said: "At least in terms of the cops, there are two realities happening in the same city, one for white kids, one for everyone else." To be sure, some white students told stories of being hassled for skateboarding or followed in stores, but there were also stories of lost children reunited with their families and of petting police horses in the park. Among the African American, Latina/o, and Muslim students, the stories piled up of being stopped while walking down the street, thrown against walls, and frisked; immigration agents breaking into apartments; visits to older brothers and other relatives in prison. I was stunned by how sharp the differences were. I was also surprised by the level of openness in the room. The students with painful stories were eager to share them, and the other students were interested and supportive.

One student wrote in a reflection on the activity: "My brother is in jail, and it makes everyone in my family upset. But I never talk about it at school or with my friends. That makes it even worse." Like Haniyah, many of my students of color were describing the impact of the criminal justice system on their families and communities. They were also describing their own fears and vulnerability to getting trapped in the school-to-prison pipeline, and their need to have school be a place to share, analyze, and put their experience in a broader context.

As Haniyah so clearly describes, having a parent or loved one caught up in the criminal justice system is an ongoing crisis that affects every aspect of family life. In many communities, we are in essence teaching in war zones. In California, for example, as you travel through the Central Valley, virtually every freeway exit accesses an institution where people are locked up. Some of us have spent way too much time in or visiting prisons; others have no idea that we are surrounded by people who are incarcerated. Nationally, more than 7 million children have a parent caught up in the criminal justice system.

As teachers we need to understand what is happening so we can provide support. One source of information is programs like the one that Haniyah participated in. Project WHAT! provides leadership development and paid jobs to youth with incarcerated family members. The young people connect their own experiences to the skills and information they need to lead workshops for teachers, social workers, probation and parole officers. They hope to raise awareness and improve services and policies that affect children with incarcerated parents.

"It's enormously helpful if teachers look for context, if they realize that a child might be acting out because of something big that happened at home," according to former director of Project WHAT! Anna Wong. "Maybe they witnessed someone in their family getting arrested. Maybe they went to visit a sibling in jail and were denied a visit. You never know if you don't ask."

Mailee Wang is the current program and policy director. Both of her parents were arrested and incarcerated when she was a teenager. "In my case, it was in the newspapers, so everyone knew, but no one talked to me about it. I felt like an outcast. The teachers were judging me, but no one acknowledged that I was going through really tough times." She ended up being expelled from school. But, Wang says, supportive teachers and other adults can make an enormous difference. Participant Brynesha Williams explains:

I was at school talking to a friend in the lunchroom about how I found out my mom went back to jail. I started crying and right then a lady who was walking by noticed me and stopped. Most teachers wouldn't stop if they saw a student crying, but she did. I didn't know her at all. I just saw a very tall, light-skinned woman in her 40s with a kind face. "Why are you crying?" she said. I told her, "My mom's back in jail." She introduced herself as Ms. Boone, the health coordinator, and asked if I wanted to come talk to her. I could tell she had a good spirit, so I went and told her about the whole situation.

Ms. Boone made herself available to talk whenever Brynesha was upset, found her a girls' group and tutoring, and eventually helped her re-establish contact with her mother inside.
'Felon' Is Not an Identity
The relationship to loved ones in prison is a central and vulnerable issue for many of these students. One of the most important lessons Haniyah teaches us lies in her description of her father. He emerges as a complex person-someone with enormous strengths and gifts as well as weaknesses, someone whose own initial contact with the criminal justice system happened when he was far too young and far too vulnerable.

Haniyah loves and admires her father while recognizing how his mistakes have affected her life. The same is true for many of our students whose parents are incarcerated. They need our support in recognizing the significance of their parents in their lives. The mass incarceration that is destroying the fabric of our society rests on stereotyping those in prison as worthless, as if "felon" were a fullblown character description. This puts children with incarcerated parents or siblings in a terrible psychological bind. That bind is exacerbated by the silence, even in the most affected communities, about how many people are locked up. Michelle Alexander explains:

Mass incarceration, far from reducing the stigma associated with criminality, actually creates a deep silence in communities of color, one rooted in shame. Imprisonment is considered so shameful that many people avoid talking about it, even within their own families. . . . Even in communities devastated by mass incarceration, many people struggling to cope with the stigma of imprisonment have no idea that their neighbors are struggling with the same grief, shame, and isolation. . . . Even in church, a place where many people seek solace in times of grief and sorrow, families of prisoners often keep secret the imprisonment of their children or relatives. As one woman responded when asked if she could turn to church members for support, "Church? I wouldn't dare tell anyone at church." (161)

What Can Teachers Do?
When my daughter was in elementary school, a friend of ours, Donna Wilmott, was in federal prison for several years, and her daughter Zoe and husband lived with us. When Zoe's teacher, Marilyn Garcia, found out that Donna was at a prison an hour away, she applied to be on Donna's visiting list. Then she went to the prison to have a parent/teacher conference in person. She corresponded with Donna, sending her a class photo and examples of Zoe's work. Not everyone has the time, resources, and generosity of spirit to do all of that, but the impact on both Donna and Zoe was immeasurable.

The first step is to break the silence. Each fall I teach, I look for a way tomention that people I love have been in prison for many years, and that I visit them regularly. Other teachers will have different ways of opening up the subject, using poetry, fiction, news articles, or videos.

Wang offers some guidelines for teachers:

Don't judge, blame, or label the child because their family member is incarcerated.

Don't treat the child as though their parent's incarceration is a reflection on them.

Don't project any feelings you have about incarcerated people onto the child.

Don't ask why their family member is incarcerated. The details aren't important.

Don't assume that the child thinks poorly of their incarcerated parent.

Treat them as you do every other student, believe in them, and let them know they are worthy of success.

The next step is to develop and teach curriculum about the criminal justice system that supports all our students in thinking critically and deeply. In the same way that there are developmentally appropriate ways to engage even young children in discussions of war, immigration, and other critical current issues, we need to create the context and support for our students to grapple with the realities of "law and order." Mass incarceration is affecting many, many of our students, and we need to shine the light of social justice teaching and critical thinking on the issues.

The final and most important step is to fight-in our schools, neighborhoods, states, and nation-to stop the criminalization and incarceration of our students and their families.

References
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2010.
Project WHAT! Resource Guide for Teens with a Parent in Prison or Jail. Berkeley, Calif.: Communityworks, 2008.

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Several years ago, I taught a unit on power in my 9th-grade social studies classes at Berkeley High School in California's Bay Area. It's a diverse school-rich folks from the [...]

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By Aparna Lakshmi

Illustrator: Ethan Heitner

Illustration: Ethan Heitner

"Harm comes from prior harm." As Deandra says this, I am sitting in the back of my classroom, taking notes. My students are sitting in a circle in the middle of the room, talking to each other about the questions on the board: "What is the purpose of prison? Do prisons work?" In front of them are annotated readings, lecture notes, and typed response papers. They seem to have forgotten that I am there.

Deandra and Lee are discussing what would happen if there were no prisons. Deandra has just finished telling the story of a boy who, fearful of his abusive father, suffocates a girl rather than get in trouble for having a guest over when he is not supposed to. In this case, who should be punished? The boy who is clearly old enough to know his actions are wrong? The father who has instilled such tremendous fear in his son?

If there were no prisons, how would human beings respond to harm like this? Deandra and Lee wrestle with what Deandra has raised: "Harm comes from prior harm." People harm others when they have been harmed themselves-by abuse, poverty, trauma-but prison does not address this prior harm. According to Deandra, it only adds a new layer of trauma to that individual, their family, and their community. As Roberto points out, "When you hurt a person, you hurt a bunch of people connected to that person." Therefore, prison not only harms inmates, but their families and communities as well. But what response to harm is fair to victim, perpetrator, and community? What can stop the cycle of violence?

Conversations like these happened roughly once a week last year in my senior humanities class. I was teaching in an alternative school in Boston Public Schools and working with students who had dropped out, transferred, or been expelled from their previous schools. Many of my students struggled with reading complex texts and had never learned how to make and defend an argument through their writing. I was determined that they would leave my class confident about their research, reading, and writing skills, and the proud possessors of a portfolio that demonstrated those skills. But I was worried about how to engage students when their school careers had been marked by serious academic challenges.

Therefore, I decided to begin the year with a Freirean exercise I had read about in an article by a former teacher at El Puente High School in Brooklyn, NY. On the first day of class, my students walked in to see a large "problem tree" drawn on the board. We spent the whole period filling in the leaves of the tree with the problems we saw in our local communities, nation, and world. After an hour, the leaves were filled with words like racism, probation system, rape, and standardized testing. I explained to students that we would spend the year studying something on this tree and that what we studied was up to them.

For the next two weeks, the students and I worked to choose one problem to study together. First, I gave them cards that represented each of the tree leaves. In pairs, they organized these problems into categories, and soon we had filled in the branches of our tree with broader topics: education, poverty, government, violence, and prison. To give students a glimpse of what the year would be like if we studied any of these topics, I taught a mini-lesson about each one. Next, students interviewed someone in their family or community about the most serious problem that person faced. Most talked about the economy or violence in the community.

Finally, the students voted to study the U.S. prison system. At the end of the year, during a feedback circle, Shanell said: "The best thing about this class was we got to choose what we wanted to learn about. I did the reading and wrote the papers because I was interested in this topic."

Relevance in the classroom is a tricky thing. We may deeply believe that what we teach is relevant to students' lives, but they often experience school as disconnected from their daily realities. The things that students do experience may be outside of our interests, expertise, or comfort zone. When I first started teaching in Boston, I couldn't have imagined spending a year studying the prison industrial complex. I needed to listen deeply to students' voices about what was relevant to their lived experience before I began to make connections between what I thought was important to study and what they thought mattered. High student interest in a theme they had chosen themselves allowed us to delve into historical content more deeply and facilitated engagement in the academic writing process.
'Neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude, Except as a Punishment for Crime . . .'
During the first half of the year, our class looked at the origins of today's skyrocketing incarceration rate. We began by looking at slavery and emancipation and closely analyzing the text of the 13th Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction" (emphasis added). We investigated the Slave Codes and Black Codes, as well as the convict lease system and the county chain gang.

This historical context enabled students to engage with an excerpt from Angela Davis' Are Prisons Obsolete? Davis makes the argument that today's prison system is a reincarnation of slavery, and she calls for the abolition of prisons as necessary in order to truly bring about the final abolition of slavery.

Are Prisons Obsolete? is a dense text and one that challenges even highly skilled readers. Interest alone will not support students' understanding of a text that is well above their reading level, and many of my students struggled with even grade-level reading comprehension. Therefore, I modeled how to actively read a text using simple reading strategies: pre-reading, annotation, and rereading. As we read Davis' words aloud, we paused frequently to highlight questions such as "Are prisons racist institutions?" and "Is racism so deeply entrenched in the institution of the prison that it is not possible to eliminate one without eliminating the other?" (26). Students wrote notes in the margin when we read that both chattel slavery and the penitentiary "subordinated their subjects to the will of others" (27). Many students were shocked when they read that officials who enforced the Mississippi Black Codes often prescribed the convict lease system or county chain gang as punishment for the crime of "vagrancy"; the Black Codes "declared vagrant 'anyone who was guilty of theft, had run away [from a job], was drunk, was wanton in conduct or speech, had neglected job or family and . . . all other idle and disorderly persons'" (29).

When students were assigned to finish the excerpt for homework, I supported their reading by including vocabulary, background on Davis, and two questions to consider:

What is the connection between slavery and prison?

Who benefits from slavery? Who benefits from prison?

Over the year, I scaffolded access to a variety of texts. Students read memoirs (the autobiography of Assata Shakur), newspaper articles ("A Mother's Day Plea for Justice" by Johnna Paradis), and comics ( The Real Cost of Prisons Comix), as well as academic texts. I invited students to come after school every Monday to actively read that week's text, and many students would join me to do that week's reading together.

Over the course of the first half of the year, we explored a variety of topics: the legacy of slavery, prison economics, wealth inequality in the United States, the war on drugs, motives for incarceration, inmate rights, resistance movements, and alternatives to incarceration. Every week we explored two open-ended questions together. For example, when studying the war on drugs, we considered:

Are prisons racist institutions? If yes, how so? If not, why not?

From 1970 to 2010, the number of people incarcerated in the United States went from about 325,000 to more than 2 million. How and why did this happen?

The structure of each week reflected my philosophy that it is important for students to have a balance of receptive and expressive experiences. Receptive experiences included listening and reading, while expressive experiences included speaking and writing. For example, when we studied the war on drugs, students took notes on a lecture that included information on Nixon's declaration of war on drugs in 1971, Reagan's decision to fund this "war" with $1.7 billion, and the wave of legal changes that swept the country (including New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws, California's three strikes laws, and the increases in mandatory minimum sentences).

Then we played a game that helped students understand that race and class are key determinants in what happens when someone is arrested for drug use. Each student received an index card stating a defendant's race, class, occupation, drug possession charge, offense number (first, second or third), and whether the defendant had representation from a private lawyer or a public defender. Students stood in a straight line and listened to the statements I read out loud: "Take one step back if your defendant is represented by a private lawyer." "Take one step forward if your defendant is below the poverty line." The closer you were to the front of the room, the closer your defendant was to prison.

At the end, students were shocked. The game revealed that race and class were much stronger determinants in sentencing than the substance the defendant was using or selling. Students learned that African American, Native American, Latina/o, Southeast Asian, and poor and working-class communities are dramatically overrepresented in prison. In Rafael's words, it was "just crazy" to see that middle-class college students could use heroin and receive community service, but people with less privilege could receive a lengthy prison sentence for the same offense. Students linked the game to the reading they had done that week and noted that, according to "Prisoners of the War on Drugs," one of the comics in The Real Cost of Prisons, although African Americans are 13 percent of the U.S. population and 13 percent of drug users, they comprise "35 percent of drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions, [and] 74 percent of those sentenced to prison for drugs."
Moving Toward Research and Writing
At the beginning of every year, I survey students about their experiences with reading and writing. Based on their responses, I learned that many of my students had never learned how to craft an argumentative thesis, defend an argument in depth using cited sources, or create a bibliography. Some were used to handwriting all of their assignments. Walking into my class, they were shocked to hear that they had to write eight two-paged papers and a 10- to 12-paged researched thesis.

Writing is a creative act, an act of communication that can be both deeply personal and deeply public. I hoped that my students' engagement in the ideas we were discussing would result in a commitment to working on their writing about those ideas. However, as with reading, high student interest is not a guarantor of clear and thoughtful writing, nor is it a substitute for direct and explicit writing instruction or structures such as writers' workshops, teacher and peer feedback, and public forums to exhibit work.

To scaffold students' research and writing skills, the requirements for writing a paper progressed from simple responses to more structured response papers. Students began the year by choosing quotations to respond to and freewriting their responses. Once students had chosen three quotations and briefly written about them, I asked them to craft three arguments-each based on the evidence (quotation) from the text they had selected. We used the metaphor of a detective who makes an argument about what occurred based on the evidence that she finds. This metaphor helped my students make arguments, which we defined as debatable, defendable statements that are not facts and not opinions, but assertions that can be proven using evidence and analysis. The structure of argument, evidence, and analysis helped students craft well-organized paragraphs that communicated something meaningful to their readers.

For example, here is a paragraph from one of Crystal's early papers responding to Are Prisons Obsolete?

Prisoners back then were not treated like they were human beings. "The prisoners ate and slept on bare ground, without blankets or mattresses, and often without clothes" (33). Although they were in jail they were not provided the proper shelter. They also would get whipped if they would try to run away. If these examples don't scream out slavery then I don't know what does. Slavery was abolished but the prisoners were still being treated as if they were slaves. I think that it was unfair that the prison guards got to break the law when it comes down to prisoners.

Once students had mastered finding evidence and making an argument based on that evidence, I gradually pushed them to start proving their arguments. For each paper students wrote, I gave them extensive feedback on the strength of their arguments ("This is a fact, not an argument"), the strength of their evidence ("Why did you choose this quotation? I don't see how it helps prove your assertion"), and the strength of their analysis ("This is very convincing writing. The examples you use really work to prove your point"). After writing eight short papers in the first term, most students were able to write a cohesive, well-structured short response paper. Most importantly, they were able to make an argument in their writing and defend that argument through evidence and analysis. They were now ready to tackle the challenge of researching and writing a thesis.

I gave the students a list of 40 topics that connected in some way to the U.S. criminal justice system, and they brainstormed more on their own. We took a trip to the Copley branch of the Boston Public Library, where students were able to see which topics they had chosen had the strongest sources available. Some of their final topics included U.S. practices of extraordinary rendition, the constitutionality of the death penalty, responses to drug trafficking, and the experiences of women in prison. After choosing a final topic and selecting six sources, students began actively reading their sources in preparation for their thesis. They typed 25 quotations from their sources to build a body of evidence for their paper and organized their arguments and evidence into an outline.

When students were ready to construct their thesis statements, I invited guest teachers into the classroom for a writing workshop so that each student was able to spend 20 minutes with a teacher developing a strong, clear thesis statement. By then the students had had significant experience in crafting arguments, so they were able to construct strong thesis statements by developing and refining the larger argument they wanted to make in their papers based on the smaller, more specific arguments they were making in each section. Examples of students' thesis statements included:

Prison harms women, manipulates them, and makes them less healthy.

In theory, the Stanford Prison Experiment was ethical, but the real things that happened during the experiment were unethical.

The U.S. government targeted Puerto Rican independence movements with surveillance and violence because the government sees the movement as a threat to U.S. colonialism.

After five weeks of outlining, drafting, revising, and editing, students turned in their final papers and exhibited them in small peer review circles that were observed by other students as well as outside teachers and guests.

Here is an excerpt from Crystal's thesis, comparing prison labor in the 19th-century Deep South and prison labor in U.S. prisons today:

Between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, prison labor was used as a replacement for slavery. Prisoners worked on state-operated chain gangs, and they were also leased to private companies and plantations. Under this new convict lease system, "Blacks suffered far more than whites, who rarely left the penitentiary walls. In 1882, for example, 126 of 735 black state convicts perished, as opposed to 2 of 83 whites" (Oshinsky 46). "The leasing act was designed for black, not white convicts" (Oshinsky 41). This act was designed to keep blacks enslaved even though slavery was abolished. The prison system back then was a racialized system, just as slavery had been. The white men in the prisons rarely left the prison, so they never had to do the type of labor that the African Americans were doing.

It is clear from these two excerpts of her writing that Crystal grew significantly over the course of the year in her ability to make an argument, use evidence, and analyze her evidence to prove her assertions. When I spoke with her on the day she turned her thesis in, she couldn't quite believe she had written it.

At the end of the year, most students agreed that researching and writing the thesis was their most rewarding experience in the class, and all of them felt a keen sense of accomplishment. For me, the most powerful moment of the year came during one of the peer review circles.

Five students and I were sitting around a table in the middle of the classroom, while other students and guests watched from an outer circle. Each of the five had written a paper about the experiences of incarcerated women or incarcerated parents. Some had chosen to focus on the perspective of the incarcerated adults ("Moms in Orange Jumpsuits"), while others had chosen to focus on the perspectives of children whose parents are incarcerated ("One Child at a Time"). Shauntae was speaking about the experiences of these children, and her sources included Children with Parents in Prison, edited by Cynthia Seymour and Creasie Finney Hairston; "Prisoners of a Hard Life," one of the comics in The Real Cost of Prisons; and Tenacious, a publication by women in prison for women. Shauntae explained that children of incarcerated parents "may have lower levels of self-esteem and [may] be more likely to believe what others say about them and their parents. They are also more likely to live with a nonparent caregiver and are therefore at higher risk for abuse or neglect." She suggested possible solutions for the care and well-being of these children, proposing increased contact between incarcerated parents and their children, as well as increased contact between these parents and the adults in their children's lives, such as teachers, caregivers, and social workers.

Finally, Shauntae shared that she herself had experienced the incarceration of a parent: "From my personal experience, having an incarcerated parent . . . has not been easy, and while [my father] was gone I have never seen such change in my little brother and myself. . . . However, I do know that if we had gotten the help and support we needed, it would have been much easier than what it was for all of us during that time."

I was moved that she felt comfortable enough to share this very personal experience in the context of our classroom, and I was even more moved that the process of writing something for school had served as an opportunity to process and respond to her own experience. Moments like these taught me that studying the prison industrial complex was valuable for students on a personal, political, and academic level. The class offered students the opportunity to move beyond pathologizing their own lives, families, and communities by helping them put their experiences in a broader social context-an experience that was deeply strengthening for both the students and myself.
Resources
Ahrens, Lois, ed. The Real Cost of Prisons Comix. Oakland, Calif.: PM Press, 2008.

Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003.

Hampton, Henry, dir. "A Nation of Law?" in Eyes on the Prize video documentary, Public Broadcasting System, 1987.

Gordon, Ruth. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. University of California Press, 2007.

James, Joy, ed. The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings. New York: SUNY Press, 2005.

Paradis, Johnna. "A Mother's Day Plea for Justice," The Norwalk Hour, Nov. 28, 2010. raisetheagect.org/paradis.html.

Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1987.
Websites
www.curbprisonspending.org.
http://www.resistancebehindbars.org/node/19.

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"Harm comes from prior harm." As Deandra says this, I am sitting in the back of my classroom, taking notes. My students are sitting in a circle in the middle [...]

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What it is and is not

By The editors of Rethinking Schools

Illustrator: Erik Ruin

Erik Ruin

Misbehave, get punished. That pretty much sums up the approach to "disciplining" students that educators through the decades have taken in schools and classrooms. The most extreme form of this law-and-order strategy is zero tolerance, described in Rethinking Schools by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn back in 2000, as these policies gained popularity:

Schools everywhere-public, private, urban, suburban, rural, and parochial-are turning into fortresses where electronic searches, locked doors, armed police, surveillance cameras, patrolled cafeterias, and weighty rule books define the landscape.

In schools today, educators still respond to what they perceive as student misbehavior with punishment. However, schools and school districts appear to be abandoning the language of zero tolerance and in many places are introducing what is often called "restorative justice." This represents an enormous victory for the activists and organizations that for years have fought the school-to-prison pipeline. Zero tolerance puts school resources toward policing and push-out instead of toward teaching and support. The number of youth-overwhelmingly youth of color-out of school and incarcerated has skyrocketed; LGBTQ and disabled youth are also targeted.

So we welcome the abandonment of zero tolerance.

But simply announcing a commitment to "restorative justice" doesn't make it so. Restorative justice doesn't work as an add-on. It requires us to address the roots of student "misbehavior" and a willingness to rethink and rework our classrooms, schools, and school districts. Meaningful alternatives to punitive approaches take time and trust. They must be built on schoolwide and districtwide participation. They are collaborative and creative, empowering students, teachers, and parents. They rely on social justice curriculum, strong ties among teachers and with families, continuity of leadership, and progress toward building genuine communities of learning.

Too often, this is not what we see in places that tout a focus on restorative justice. At far too many schools, commitments to implement restorative justice occur amid relentless high-stakes "test and punish" regimens-amid scripted curriculum, numbing test-prep drills, budget cutbacks, school closures, the constant shuffling from school to school of students, teachers, and principals.

Meaningful restorative justice also requires robust funding. It can't mean a high school teacher released for one class period to "run the program" or a mandated once-a-year day of staff development training. Under these circumstances, announcing one's embrace of "restorative justice" is hypocritical window dressing.

What Is Restorative Justice?

The concepts of restorative justice are based largely on indigenous approaches. The Navajo system is a good place to start, described by Robert Yazzie in "'Life Comes from It': Navajo Justice Concepts":

Navajo justice is a sophisticated system of egalitarian relationships, where group solidarity takes the place of force and coercion. In it, humans are not in ranks or status classifications from top to bottom. Instead, all humans are equals and make decisions as a group. . . .

There is no precise term for "guilty" in the Navajo language. The word "guilt" implies a moral fault that commands retribution. It is a nonsense word in Navajo law due to the focus on healing, integration with the group, and the end goal of nourishing ongoing relationship with the immediate and extended family, relatives, neighbors, and community.

So what might this look like in public schools? Cedric, a thin African American teenager in a red shirt, sits in a circle with his parents, other students, teachers, counselors, the principal-about two dozen people. Cedric is returning to Ralph J. Bunche High School in Oakland, California, after being incarcerated, and this is his welcome and re-entry circle.

Eric Butler, from Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), explains the goal: to provide support for Cedric's return to school. The circle starts with a relationship-building round: Everyone says what they, as children, hoped for in adulthood.

The next round is on values necessary to have the discussion: speak your truth, compassion, commitment. Then a round on what everyone commits to doing for Cedric. The principal says, "I am the person who will ensure you get your high school diploma and get on with your life."

"You're making me blush," Cedric says, covering his face with his hands. Later he explains: "That touched me. . . . At first I couldn't trust them, but then they all looked me in the eye and told me what they could do to help me, so I felt like I could give them a chance."

Butler asks Cedric's mom what kind of help she needs from the group. "I need you to support my son," she says.

After repeated times around the circle, they make a concrete plan, decide who will do what, and agree to meet in 30 days. At the end, everyone shakes Cedric's hand or gives him a hug.

The circle for Cedric (made into a short video by RJOY) highlights what restorative justice can offer-healing harm rather than continuing a cycle of crime and punishment. There are a number of models of restorative practices, but they always start with building community. Then, when a problem arises, everyone involved is part of the process. As in Cedric's healing circle, shared values are agreed on. Then questions like these are asked: What is the harm caused and to whom? What are the needs and obligations that have arisen? How can everyone present contribute to addressing the needs, repairing the harm, and restoring relationships? Additional questions can probe the roots of the conflict and make broader connections: What social circumstances promoted the harm? What similarities can we see with other incidents? What structures need to change?

A commitment to restorative justice has to be built over time; it can't be mandated or compelled. For example, Rita Renjitham Alfred was hired in 2005 as case manager in a pilot program to reduce expulsions, suspensions, and fights at Cole Middle School in Oakland. She started with a support group for teachers. The next year, Alfred and a colleague offered five days of training in restorative justice spread out over the year. They also got a commitment from the principal to conduct one staff meeting a month on restorative justice principles.

Soon the teachers suggested that the students get involved. Alfred went class to class, explaining restorative practices and starting discussions. The following year there was an elective in restorative justice and it became an accepted approach for dealing with school problems. By the program's third year, suspensions had dropped 87 percent.

Alfred tells a story that illuminates the program's impact and how it reaches into the school curriculum:

One day, two middle school students at Cole came to me in tears. "We need an RJ circle on teaching slavery," they said. They asked for my help talking to their teacher, a wonderful teacher who had been an active participant in our RJ trainings, about how she was teaching a unit on slavery in U.S. history. She agreed and we set up the circle.

"We love you," the students said, "but we have to tell you what this unit is doing to us. This is our identity, and the way you're teaching slavery is making us feel terrible." After a long discussion, with tears on all sides, the teacher suggested a strategy: She would reconstruct the unit, putting it in the context of African history overall, and as an international struggle over power, resources, and economic systems-looking at slavery in the context of conquest and resistance all over the world rather than isolating a specific group as victims. She still teaches the unit that way.

What Isn't Restorative Justice?

Given the strengths of restorative justice, doesn't it make sense to charge full steam ahead? Of course, but restorative justice depends on building community, rooting it in social justice curriculum, and integrating classroom practices with schoolwide practices.

Restorative justice is not a set of prompts. The switch from seeing offenders and victims to looking for harm (when everyone involved may well have been harmed) is an enormous one. It's also not a quick fix to change suspension statistics.

Kathy Evans, from Eastern Mennonite University, worries that

in our haste to implement RJ in schools, we don't lose our way. Not all programs that call themselves restorative are indeed restorative. Many are restorative-ish; others have been completely co-opted so that restorative terminology is used to rename the detrimental programs they are meant to replace. For example, having kids wash the cafeteria tables in lieu of suspension may be a better option, but it isn't necessarily restorative. . . . Implementing restorative justice to address behavior without critically reflecting on how curriculum content or pedagogy perpetuates aggression is limiting.

Restorative Justice as the Finger in the Dike

Several years ago, at a workshop on restorative practices at the national Free Minds, Free People conference, teachers spoke up during the discussion period. "We spent three years getting buy-in from the administration and the staff for restorative justice, and we were starting to work with the kids. Then our school got 'turned around,' and we lost our principal and most of our staff. Now we're starting over." "I've started over three times," one New York teacher said. "I can't do it again."

Restorative justice won't work as a band-aid when schools are being torn to shreds. Look at Philadelphia. The schools have faced years of devastating cuts. Last year at Bartram High School, there were two counselors for more than 1,000 students, 91 percent low-income. Bartram has lost more than a third of its total staff over the last three years, including its only librarian, assistant principals, aides, and a third of its teachers. Dozens of new students came to Bartram as a result of 24 city school closings in 2013. Violence increased, including an assault on a conflict resolution specialist. The administrative response: four more police officers, stricter enforcement of the uniform policy and rules against cellphones and tardiness-and "a commitment to restorative practices." Under such circumstances, what real meaning does that commitment have?

And, as the students at Cole understood, there is a strong relationship among curriculum, pedagogy, and restorative practices. Restorative justice can't grow in the margins of scripted, test-driven curriculum; it's based on teachers hearing, understanding, and responding to the academic, social, and emotional needs of students.

Don't get us wrong. Rejecting zero tolerance is huge. "Restorative-ish" programs are a vast improvement over zero tolerance. But we need to advocate the essential values of restorative practices. That includes fighting for schools that meet the needs of all our students and the communities they serve. The healing that lies at the heart of restorative practices must include healing the wounds from the kinds of miseducation that oppress children and teachers alike.

Endnotes

Ayers, Bill, and Bernardine Dohrn. 2000. "Resisting Zero Tolerance," in Rethinking Schools, Vol. 14, No. 3.

Evans, Kathy. 2014. "Restorative Justice-Possibilities, but Also Concerns," Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice Blog. June 26. Available at emu.edu/now/restorative-justice/2014/06/26/restorative-justice-in-education-possibilities-but-also-concerns.

Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth and Oakland Unified School District. 2013. Restorative Welcome and Re-Entry Circle. Filmed by Cassidy Friedman. Available at YouTube.com.

Yazzie, Robert. 2005. "'Life Comes from It': Navajo Justice Concepts," in Nielsen, Marianne and James Zion, eds. Navajo Nation Peacemaking: Living Traditional Justice. University of Arizona Press.

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Misbehave, get punished. That pretty much sums up the approach to "disciplining" students that educators through the decades have taken in schools and classrooms. The most extreme form of this [...]

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A middle school teacher tries to implement restorative practices in her classroom. It’s harder than she thought.

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Baby Steps Toward Restorative Justice

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What does James Baldwin mean when he states:

P.287 “The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.”

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A Talk to Teachers - Zinn Education Project.pdf

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P.296

“There was a shame that came with owning up to the parts of me that fit the stereotypes and assumptions of what people expected Black children to be like. In middle school, I learned that some adults saw me as an “exception to the rule.”

Think back to a time when you may have experienced something similar. What happened? How can we ensure children don’t ever have to feel this way?

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When I was in middle school, I was bused to the other side of town for my education. Portland Public Schools wanted to integrate middle schools in Southeast Portland. This meant that a handful of black students-most of us from Northeast Portland who had attended elementary school together-boarded a yellow school bus before sunrise to ride across town. We sat at the back of the bus laughing at the boys stinging on each other with yo momma jokes. My best friend and I shared the headphones to her Walkman so that we both could sing along to Bell Biv DeVoe and Mariah Carey. For the 30-minute ride we were ourselves and there was no shame in the way we talked or related to each other. No one made a big deal about seeing my hair in braids one day and straightened the next. We bragged about how well our mommas cooked and shared our leftovers with each other at lunchtime, even though one day a white girl loudly whispered to her friend that "black food smells bad."

We had pride and there was a care we took with each other. Though there were normal middle school cliques and dramas, there was also a strength and loyalty among us. On that bus, we were family. I felt like I belonged.

But when I got to school, I felt invisible. Which is ironic because I was a plump dark-skinned girl with hair that would kink and curl at one drop of rain.

I stood out.

So how is it that I felt no one saw me?

Being seen-truly seen-is to feel that all parts of who I am are recognized not as compartmentalized pieces of myself, but blended truths of my identity. So when my white friends told me they didn't see me as a black girl that meant they didn't see me. When white teachers seemed shocked to hear me speak black vernacular in the hallway with my friends when I "spoke so well in class," what they didn't understand is that code-switching came natural to me-I talked both ways and I wasn't trying to fit in with my friends or impress my teachers. I was being myself.

One day, on our way to a field trip to see the Oregon Symphony, a teacher tried to assure me that if I "gave the music a try" I might really find that I liked it. I told her that I loved classical music. That I loved jazz, too. Her smile told me that she thought this was a good thing. When she said, "Well, that's good because that rap stuff is not music," I told her that I loved hip-hop and R&B and gospel and country, too. My family was a musical family. We had a collection of records that included Tennessee Ernie Ford, Mahalia Jackson, Marvin Gaye, and the Jackson 5. My sister played in a jazz ensemble that traveled to Europe. My grandfather played the piano at church.

She didn't seem to value the variety of music I enjoyed. There was clearly one that was better than the others and I took this to mean that the black parts of me were better off hidden. There was a shame that came with owning up to the parts of me that fit the stereotypes and assumptions of what people expected black children to be like.

In middle school I learned that some adults saw me as an "exception to the rule." To be called confident for an overweight, dark-skinned black girl was to say that overweight, dark-skinned black girls had low self-esteem. If I was smart for a black girl that meant the rule was black children weren't normally smart.

It was one thing to feel different, to be different. It was another thing to be judged on those differences. To realize that people had expectations of me because of what I looked like or the neighborhood I was from.

I often excused racist or insensitive remarks and actions, and instead blamed myself or thought that maybe I was taking it the wrong way.

But there was no excusing away what my 7th-grade science teacher said the day she passed out the tests we had taken a few days before. She walked to the front of the room and yelled, "I am so disappointed in all of you!" She paced the floor, walking between our desks. "None of you passed the test. You will be taking it again. Right. Now."

I looked down at my paper. Saw the capital A scribbled in red ink across the top of the page.

"I will give you a chance to look through your notes and then you will retake the test."

I looked back at my paper. "But I have an A," I said. First to myself and then out loud when I raised my hand and asked, "Do I have to retake the test?"

"Oh, that's right," my teacher said. "You got an A." She turned her back to me and addressed the rest of the class. "And this is why I am so disappointed in all of you. You let Renée Watson come all the way over here from Northeast Portland and get a better grade than you in science!"

I have often replayed that day in my mind. I have thought of new endings where I stand up for myself and walk out of class refusing to be humiliated. I have wondered what would have happened if she asked me to be a tutor for the other students in class. What if she taught me-and the rest of the class-about black scientists and their revolutionary discoveries? What if she had allowed space in her narrative for black children from Northeast Portland to be capable of meeting high expectations, of achieving academic success?

What if she really saw me?

As an educator, I try to see my students. I encourage them to embrace all parts of their culture-where they come from, what they eat, the music they enjoy, the joyous and disastrous parts of their neighborhoods and families. I strive to learn their individual and collective histories. I share my stories with them, and we grow and heal together. We laugh at ourselves for sometimes being the stereotype. We proudly proclaim that we are more than the stereotype. We mourn and rejoice over our ancestors-their struggles and victories, their shortcomings and strengths. We commit to sharing our true selves. We commit to seeing each other.

black like me

and suddenly everyone would see

how black i am.

black like collard greens & salted meat simmering on a stove.
black like hot water cornbread & iron skillets, like juke joints & fish frys
black like soul train lines & the electric slide at weddings and birthdays
black like vaseline on ashy knees, like beads decorating braids
black like cotton fields & soul-cried spirituals.

my skin is black

like red kool-aid, red soda, the red blood
of the lynched and assassinated and the african man
those skinheads killed with a baseball bat when i was in the fifth grade.

i am as black as he was.
my science teacher knows this. she sees
my black and is blind to my brilliance.
can't believe i passed the test with an a
when all the white kids failed.

and when she says to the white students,
"you ought to be ashamed of yourselves . . ."
what she really wants to say is, "i can't believe this black girl is as smart as you."

all the white kids look at me
and this is when we learn that the color of our shells
come with expectations.

i stop being good
at science and math.

my english teacher gives me books and journals
and i read and write the world
as it is, as i want it to be.
i read past my black blues, discover that i am black
like benjamin banneker and george washington carver
black like margaret walker and fannie lou hamer

i am not just slave and despair.
i am struggle and triumph. i learn
to live my life in the searching, in the quest:

can i be black and brilliant?
can i be jazz and gospel, hip hop and classical?
can i be christian and accepting?
can i be big and beautiful?

can i be black like me?
can anyone see me?

-Renée Watson

Renée Watson ( reneewatson.net) is an author, performer, and educator. Her children's books have received several honors, including an NAACP Image Award nomination. She teaches poetry at DreamYard in New York City.

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A poem-and the history behind it-about being invisible, yet stereotyped, as an African American student bused to a predominantly white school.

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Black Boys in White Spaces By: Dyan Watson

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Black Boys in White Spaces By: Dyan Watson

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P.308

“I wish his teacher told him about allies, about the various people of all races committing to stand up against injustice. I wish the teacher had noticed everyone staring at my son. I wish she had explicitly prepared the class for an age-appropriate conversation about difference.”

Suggestion Given: “They deserve teachers who will hold the learning space as sacred in all aspects and think through who their students are as they plan lessons and activities.

How do we prepare teachers to do this?  What can we put in place so this happens in every classroom? What does her experience in school and her wishes for her son reveal about the responsibilities of educators of Black children?

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One Mom's Reflection

By Dyan Watson

Illustrator: Erin Robinson

Erin Robinson

Right away I recognized her. Ruby Bridges. The courageous girl who defied white racists and became the first to integrate an all-white elementary school. My 7-year-old son pulled a handout out of his backpack with her face on it. He is in a bilingual, two-way immersion program at our local elementary school. As is our custom on Friday, we emptied his backpack and sorted the contents. We determined what needed to be recycled, what would be hung on our whiteboard, and what needed to be stored in my Things-to-take-care-of box by the fridge. I smiled, because as a former history teacher and lover of Black history, I was happy to see my son learning about this important historical moment. And then, I took a closer look and saw that it was in Spanish. I was elated as it dawned on me that my son truly is emergent bilingual. "Caleb, what's this about? Did you read this in school?"

I frowned and looked him in his eyes "Why not? What do you mean?"

"Everyone stared at me when we read it because I'm the only Black kid in my class."

"Oh sweetie. I'm so sorry. What did the teacher do? What did she say?"

"Nothing."

"Did anybody say anything to you?"

"No, they just stared at me. I didn't like it."

I didn't know what to say. My eyes welled up with tears. I put my arm around him as I tried to figure out what reaction would best serve him. Should I show him my anger? Do I simply weep and say nothing? Should I offer him a snack and ignore it altogether?

I was so disappointed in my lack of words and that I didn't know what to do in that moment. It wasn't a secret to Caleb that we're Black and that on some level that makes us different from most of the people around us. We attend a white church. We live in a white neighborhood. We shop in white stores. And even though his bilingual class is 40 to 50 percent Latino, most of their faces are white or light-skinned. So far, I haven't had any planned conversations about race with my boys. Not sure what I'm waiting for or even that I am waiting. Race is funny that way. As a reality, it's ever present; as a topic it slips in and out of our lives, attaching to everyday things like hair and clothes, to speaking, to how my boys comport themselves in a grocery store. And like many difficult topics about life, the explicit conversations and lessons often come in reactionary waves.

Once I was really angry with both of my sons. Can't remember what it was exactly but I remember having this colossal adult tantrum yelling at them about not listening to me. Through tears I shouted, "Don't you get it? Do you think these white people are going to care that you're good kids or that I love you? They will shoot you without even thinking!"

Then there was the time that Caleb came home and reported that two kids were making fun of his skin color in the lunchroom. Teasing him that he must eat a lot of chocolate and that's why his skin is black. As soon as my son told me, I ran upstairs and emailed his teacher:

Caleb came home today and told me that Santiago and Matt were teasing him about being Black. Santiago and he seem to have had trouble all year long. I haven't said anything to you because I was encouraging Caleb to learn to problem-solve and to speak up for himself but clearly it hasn't worked and this time it's gone too far. It happened in the lunchroom and Caleb said he raised his hand to tell the teacher but she never called on him. I asked Caleb to talk to you about it tomorrow. It has been tough being the only Black kid in his class. I am trying to prepare him for this life since he lives in Oregon and this will be a regular occurrence. But I also want others to be accountable for their actions. If you could please check in with the boys about this and let me know what you find out and decide to do, I would really appreciate it.

Turns out the kid who "said it first" was from a different class. Caleb's teacher followed up with the boys to find this out and spoke to the other teacher, who subsequently had a class meeting. I don't know the details of this meeting but am glad she acted. She also spoke with Santiago and two other kids who were there when it happened. I applaud her for not letting this go and dismissing it as "boys will be boys," or "good-natured teasing," or "I'm sure they were just joking around." All of which are responses I have heard over the years.

So yes, race is not a stranger to us and we talk about it. But in this moment, with my little boy expressing his sadness and feeling invisible yet overly seen, I was speechless. And then I was sad. And then I was angry.

Here's what I wished would have happened instead.

I wish Caleb's response to my enthusiasm about him learning a moment in Black history would have been him saying, in his own excited voice, "And you know what else we learned? We learned that even though there were white people who didn't want Ruby Bridges in that school, there were some who did." I wish his teacher told him about allies, about the various people of all races committing to stand up against injustice. I wish the teacher noticed everyone staring at my son. I wish that she would have explicitly prepared the class for an age-appropriate conversation about difference.

I wish I felt comfortable asking him my customary "And how did that make you feel?" But I was afraid of his response. And my reaction.

If the teacher had been more thoughtful about the implementation of the lesson, maybe his answer would have been that he felt good. Maybe he would have felt validated if she had talked with him prior to the lesson and explained that sometimes when we're the only one, it can feel lonely and embarrassing, but she was there. That she cared about him. That she would protect him.

Don't misunderstand me. This teacher is thoughtful and definitely cares about my son. But she was not skillful in this circumstance. Part of me wants to be quick to forgive. Here I was, also not knowing what to do. Is it OK for me to criticize the actions of a teacher who has too many students and has perhaps been undertrained in how race mediates teaching and learning?

I choose to forgive her.

But I will also hold her accountable for the learning that took place that day. And the learning that should have taken place.

I wish that later that evening, when he was in bed closing his eyes to sleep, he was fantasizing about wildly unrealistic adventures he and his brother would have with the Six Million Dollar Man, how maybe they'd be social justice superheroes righting the wrongs of racism. He could have imagined what he'd do the next day, what he'd get to eat for snack, or if he'd be able to go over Uncle Kevin's house and play on his old Wii. But instead, I have a feeling that he thought about how he didn't want to go to school the next day. How he "shouldn't have been there."

I want Nehemiah and Caleb, my Black sons, to be free to dream, to go to bed with nothing on their minds but how much they are loved and cared for. Black boys deserve to be boys - to be young, carefree, and nurtured.

To be seen as human - capable of being hurt, bullied, and afraid. They deserve a school system that will educate them with intentional love. They deserve teachers who will hold the learning space as sacred in all aspects and think through who their students are as they plan lessons and activities. We all deserve schools that will think about how race plays with learning - everyone's learning. White students, especially, deserve to have teachers who will empower them as white allies.

Every neighbor, every teacher, all of the church members and friends of our family have a role in my boys' development. As I think about the conversations I am having with my sons, I wonder what conversations white mothers are having with their sons and daughters. What are they saying - or not saying - that results in their children staring at someone who looks different from them, or teasing a Brown boy's chocolate skin, or accent, or hair texture.

When I asked Caleb how his day went, at some point he answered, "I shouldn't have been there that day." The truth is, son, no one should have been there. No student - Latinx, white, or Black - was served well that day. At the same time, he should have been there; I just wish he was better served and felt like he belonged.

Dyan Watson, an editor for Rethinking Schools, is an associate professor in teacher education at the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling. She is also co-editor of Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice and Teaching for Black Lives, from which this article is excerpted.

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Black Boys in White Spaces - Rethinking Schools

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Right away I recognized her. Ruby Bridges. The courageous girl who defied white racists and became the first to integrate an all-white elementary school. My 7-year-old son pulled a handout out of his backpack with her face on it. He is in a bilingual, two-way immersion program at our local elementary school.

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Who Were You Raised By?

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Building relationships through poetry

By Linda Christensen

Illustrator: Katherine Streeter

Illustration: Katherine Streeter

When I first read "Raised by Women" by Kelly Norman Ellis, I knew the poem would be a hit with my students. I love Ellis' celebration of the women in her life, her use of home language, and the wit and wisdom of her rhythmic lines. And from reading student tributes to their mothers over the years, I knew most of my students - predominantly African-American, in an 11th-grade African-American literature class at Grant High School in Portland, Ore. - would relate to the topic. "Raised by Women" also had the qualities I look for in poems I use to build community and teach poetic traits: A repeating line that lays down a heartbeat for the students to follow, delicious details from the writer's life that could evoke delicious details from my students' lives, and a rhythm so alive, I want to dance when I read it.

Part of my job as a teacher is to awaken students to the joy and love that they may take for granted, so I use poetry and narrative prompts that help them "see" daily gifts, to celebrate their homes and heritages. Ellis' poetry provides a perfect example. As she wrote, "I was just lucky enough to have been born into a loving southern, black family. I want these poems to stand as witness to the beauty and abundance of that life: a black southern woman's life, a good life, a proud life, a life as rich and sweet as the pies I bake with Mississippi pecans. There are others like me, folks raised in the brown loving arms of family."

I also use poetry to build relationships with students and between students. Ellis' smart and sassy poem helped launch our year-long journey to establish relationships as the students and I learned about each other.

In each stanza of the poem, Ellis lists the kinds of women who raised her - from "chitterling eating" to "some PhD toten" kind of women. Ellis' poem follows a repeating, but changing pattern. She writes that she was raised by women, sisters, and queens. She includes both description and dialogue in most stanzas:

I was raised by
Chitterling eating,
Vegetarian cooking,
Cornbread so good you want to lay
down and die baking
"Go on baby, get yo'self a plate"
Kind of Women.

The full poem, as well as a video clip of Ellis reading the poem, can be found at the Coal Black Voices website, which was developed by Media Working Group to "honor contemporary African-American culture and celebrate regional expressions of the African Diaspora through the works of the Affrilachian Poets"

Filling the Bucket with Delicious Details and Style

After reading "Raised by Women" twice, I asked students, "Who were you raised by?" Although Ellis discusses only women, I wanted to open other possibilities. I salted the pot by generating a few: mother, father, coaches, church. But I also wanted them to reach out beyond the traditional, so I encouraged them to think about neighbors, neighborhoods, musicians, novelists, civil rights activists, the halls at Grant. After students wrote their lists, we shared them out loud so they could "steal" more ideas from each other. I pushed students to get more specific as they shared. For example, when Melvin said, "Coaches," I asked which coaches raised him - all of them? What did his football coach say or do that helped raise him? When Alex said the men at the barbershop, I asked which men and what did they contribute. Because the best poetry - and writing in general - resides in specific details, I pushed students to move beyond their first response and get deeper.

We also looked at other verbs they could use besides "raised." Students generated a list: brought up, taught, educated, nurtured. I wanted them to see that they weren't limited by the original verb, raised.

When we completed our initial brainstorming about the repeating line, we went back to the poem and noticed the specific kinds of details that Ellis included: The first stanza was about food, the second stanza focused on hair, the third was about physical appearance - skin color and clothes - the fourth about choices, the fifth about music, the sixth about attitude, and the seventh about professions. Because I didn't want each poem to turn out the same, I used those as potential categories. We also brainstormed others: cars, songs, languages. I encouraged them to create a list of categories like Ellis' - food, clothes, music - and to fill in each category with specific details. After they brainstormed, we returned to the form - looking at the repeating, but changing line - and the use of dialogue that gives Ellis' poem so much flavor. We also noted that she named specific people - Angela Davis and James Brown - which was something they could do in their poems. Students pointed out that Ellis used home language rather than standard English. Because I knew that some students' home language was Spanish, I encouraged students to experiment with language in their poems. Students started their poems in class and completed them at home.

The Read-around:
Structuring Response

Before the students read their poems, we arranged the desks in a circle, so students could see and hear the reader. I asked students to pull out a piece of paper to take notes on what they learned about each classmate through their poem: "Who raised them? What's important to them? Who's important to them?" I discovered that students pay more attention during the read-around if I give them a specific task. For the most part, student poems were stellar, and even those that lacked the style and sassiness of their classmates' gave us a glimpse into their lives.

Students found their own ways into the poems by celebrating more than one person. Anaiah Rhodes, for example, wrote a stanza each for her mother and father, grandmother and grandfather, church folk, music, cousins, and track. Her classmates loved how she used language and details to capture each one in turn, but they especially loved how Anaiah wrote about her church:

I was taught by a tongue talkin'
Sanctified, holy ghost filled, fire baptized, shoutin'
"'Member to keep God first, Baby!"
Kinda church folk

Some aisle runnin', teary-eyed, joy jumpin',
Devil rebukin', seed sowin'
"How you doin, Baby?"
Type of church folk

Ellis' poem provided an opportunity for us to celebrate the brilliance and linguistic richness of my students' cultures. Destinee Sanders, who also chose to write about a variety of people in her family - mother, aunts, sisters, and "abuelita" - switched languages throughout her poem:

I was raised by Mi Abuelita,
Es mi abuela favorita,
Ella es mi corazón, mi amor, mi amiga
Mi noche, mi todos los días, mi siempre.
Yo amo a mi abuelita

[I was raised by my Grandma,
My favorite grandmother
She is my heart, my love, my friend
My night, my everyday, my always.
I love my grandma]

Like Destinee, students shared information in the poem that helped us know their family and backgrounds. Jessica Chavez wrote about her "tortilla making/Grease usin'/cumbia dancin'" family. Adiana Wilmot wrote, "I was raised by that/curry goat and chicken cookin'/ 'Eat your vegetables, pickney,'/type of Jamaican woman." Kirk Allen wrote about his family - the Allens - rather than selecting out individuals:

I was raised by the gas, brake dipp'n,
Cadillac whip'n, Wood grain grip'n,
Old school, big body, pimp'n,
Ain't you bullshit'n Allens

I was raised by the show stopp'n,
Calla poll'l
Hater droppin',
Hat tilted to the side,
Look like a bad mutha,
Shut yo mouth Allens

In this and all class writing, I encouraged students to abandon the prompt and my suggestions and find their own passion and their own way into the assignment. Shona Curtis did that and forged her way to a poem about music instead of people:

I was raised by smooth jazz
Make you want to sit down and
Cry kind of music

Some move your feet and shake
Those hips feel like you dancin'
Down the streets of Argentina
Kind of music

When students wrote at the end of the assignment, many pointed to Shona's straying from the prompt as a strength in her poem.

Details from poems brought shouts of laughter or nods as students recognized their own family in Destiny Spruill's description of her family's "Found Jesus/Church goin'/You mouth can get you in trouble" and "Gumbo makin'/Hat wearin'/Mother of the church/Kinda grandmothers." They understood Ebony Ross' "I was raised to get the belt/If I was talking that lip." But it was Jessica's repeating line, "I wasn't raised by my daddy" that brought the most affirmations from other students.

Framing Reflection:
Milking the Learning

After students shared, I handed out 3×5 cards and asked them to look back over their notes and write about what they learned about each other and poetry through our lesson. Kayla Anderson wrote that she learned "that you can completely change a poem but still keep the meaning. Shona made her poem fun by using words like 'hip-hoppin,' pop lockin', shake your dreads.'" She noted that many students used strong verbs and imagery. Shona pointed out that "when you say your poem with attitude it sounds better."

But it was students' revelations about each other that made me realize this poetry assignment is a keeper. Students wrote about how much they learned about each other in a short amount of time. "I learned that Adiana is from Jamaica, that Bree was raised by foster parents, and that a lot of us have been let down by our fathers." Destinee wrote:

I learned that I have something in common with every single person in this room. I realize that we have all been through a lot of the same things. I learned that most of us weren't raised by our dads. I learned that Shaquala loves soul food. I learned that although Bree is Latino like me, she was raised by different types of Latinos, and I can relate to that... I learned that we're different... yet we're the same.

Out of the 30 students in the class, the majority were raised without fathers. This became a repeating "aha" for most of the class. Virginia Hankins, for example, wrote that she "learned a lot about my classmates that I would have never known. I was surprised that so many of us were raised without our fathers."

One lesson isn't enough to build the kind and caring classroom I'm striving for, but knitting together poetry that teaches about our lives as well as the craft of writing starts to build the kind of caring, risk-taking community I hope to create by the end of the year.

Raised by Women
By Kelly Norman Ellis

I was raised by
Chitterling eating
Vegetarian cooking
Cornbread so good you want to lay
down and die baking
"Go on baby, get yo'self a plate"
Kind of Women.

Some thick haired
Angela Davis afro styling
"Girl, lay back
and let me scratch yo head"
Sorta Women.

Some big legged
High yellow, mocha brown
Hip shaking
Miniskirt wearing
Hip huggers hugging
Daring debutantes
Groovin
"I know I look good"
Type of Women.

Some tea sipping
White glove wearing
Got married too soon
Divorced
in just the nick of time
"Better say yes ma'am to me"
Type of sisters.

Some fingerpopping
Boogaloo dancing
Say it loud
I'm black and I'm proud
James Brown listening
"Go on girl shake that thing"
Kind of Sisters.

Some PhD toten
Poetry writing
Portrait painting
"I'll see you in court"
World traveling
Stand back, I'm creating
Type of queens

I was raised by women

Reprinted by permission of the author.

Raised
By Anaiah Rhodes

I was raised by a lovin'
Church goin', home cookin', belt whoppin',
Non-stop children bearin'
Money arguin',
"You're going to be something great one day,"
Mom and Dad

I was raised by a Jesus lovin', behind tearin'
Bomb cookin', hair pressin', garage sale givin'
Grandma

I was brought up with that hold on,
Wait on God, don't give up,
Weepin' may endure for the night,
But joy comes in the mornin'
What a friend we have in Jesus, music

Raised.

Some jump up and down slam to
The beat of the rock
Kind of music

I was raised by music

I Was Raised by Video Games
By Seth Lee

Some x tappin'
Joystick swirlin'
"Drive me crazy til I
throw my controller"
type of videogames.

I was raised by cuts and bruises.

Some knee scrapin'
bone breakin'
fallin' out of trees
and landing on my head
kinds of cuts and bruises.

I was raised by roughnecks.

Those country music listenin'
playing football on the gravel road
pickin' blackberries from the neighbors
wrestlin' in the mud 'til dinner's ready
kind of roughnecks.

I was raised by transformers.

I was raised by sports.

Those ball kickin'
ball throwin'
ball hittin'
stick fools so hard they cry
for their mamas sort of sports.

I was raised by martial arts

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By Linda Christensen Illustrator: Katherine Streeter When I first read "Raised by Women" by Kelly Norman Ellis, I knew the poem would be a hit with my students. I love Ellis' celebration of the women in her life, her use of home language, and the wit and wisdom of her rhythmic lines.

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Dear White Teacher By: Chrysanthius Lathan

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Dear White Teacher By: Chrysanthius Lathan

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By Chrysanthius Lathan

Illustrator: Richie Pope

Sending kids of color to the classrooms of teachers of color for timeouts on a continual basis is hurting everyone, including the teachers who send them away.

As a black, female, no-nonsense middle school teacher, dating back to the days of my student teaching, white teachers in the building have asked if I wanted to be in on a "difficult" phone call, if I would "talk" to a black boy who was "acting out" or a black girl who "needed a mentor." I've gotten used to responding with professional, helpful words, though at times I'd like to choose otherwise: "Baby Boy spends more time in your class than anywhere else. He is looking for praise and mentorship from you. It's phony coming from me. You can call home. His mother doesn't want him acting up, but she wants you to do your job too. So, sorry-no, he cannot come to me for timeout."

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate when teachers come to me for advice and understanding regarding students and families of color, but using me solely for repeat timeouts and phone calls does not help anyone involved.

A couple of Januaries ago, I was called into my building administrator's office. I had assumed that I would be asked to do something, write something, lead something. Instead, I was informed that my child's teacher had written her a referral.

I spent six years teaching at the same school that my children attended, which also happened to be statistically the blackest school in the city. The school was full of amazing, unique educators who had a good grasp on cultural competence. My child's teacher was a white man who taught on the same floor as I did. I sat with this man through many good and not-so-good staff meetings and trainings. He asked me for writing lessons, which I shared. So how is it that I could share my expertise with him and simultaneously have no idea that my child was having trouble behaving herself in class-until it was crammed into one discipline referral at the end of the fifth month of school? The discipline referral went nowhere, but the confusion remained. I confronted her teacher to clear it up. "Why did you not tell me anything if he'd been doing this since September?"

I was met with a wheelbarrow full of excuses. "I don't want to interrupt your teaching or use you as a crutch," he said.

"Interrupt my life? That's my child."

It was my suspicion that his fear of the situation crippled his feet and his dialing fingers, just as fear has defeated many well-meaning white teachers of black and brown students. I tell my students, "Don't go running your mouth unless you have multiple reliable sources on which to draw your conclusion." So one day I sent out a special focus group invitation to the students who frequented my classroom timeout leather couch. I grabbed the envelope where I had collected the students' timeout slips (I claimed to have lost them, but was secretly stockpiling them) and began writing invitations.

While most of the class was snuggled into silent reading and Jake had finally succumbed to the quiet, warm, dark room and put his head down, I scribbled out 13 invitations. One was for Jake, but I'd wake him later. They read:

You're invited

A big bucket of Red Vines in exchange for your honest opinions today at lunch

Use this invitation as a hall pass

Don't tell other students-they'll eat up our candy

Some of these kids were sent by other teachers for a timeout, and some decided to come for their own timeouts; nevertheless, my room was a revolving door with these same students of color, constantly in and out. Some were in my class at least one period a day; others weren't on my class rosters at all. Some were girls, most were boys. All of them were black or brown, except Jake, a white boy who had attended this school since kindergarten and was now in 8th grade.

What I wanted to know from these kids was: What makes my class so different from their other classes? Why do they behave while they're here but misbehave elsewhere, always get busted, and always get sent to me? I knew that the entire middle school team wanted students to be successful. Some can be sarcastic, but I am the queen of sarcasm. Some yell at times, but so do I . . . a little . . . OK, maybe a lot. So what makes Mrs. Lathan's class different? Why were they always circling back to me?

The lunch bell rang and I quickly pushed my class along to get out of the room and get their coats for lunch and recess. I discreetly handed out the invitations to some students. Kids who didn't get one begged to see what they said while I marched the line down to the cafeteria, and drank my soup before I got back upstairs. I set the bucket of licorice in the middle of the hexagonal table, grabbed my flower journal to take notes, and sat. Five minutes later, three kids were escorted in by another teacher, followed by 10 other kids filtering in with their lunches.

I started with my reasoning for asking them to this forum. "Y'all," I said, "I've been teaching for a while, but not long enough. I come to school to learn too. What I learn from you helps me to be a better teacher, for you and for the next year's class. Most of you are in my class at some point in the day, and a few of you aren't. But you guys always come to me for timeout. Look, I counted your timeout slips-"

"Who has the most?" Deshawn butted in. He had a quick wit, but mine traveled faster than light.

"You," I said, looking over the top of my glasses at him.

The table laughed and grabbed another Red Vine.

"Anyway, I counted your timeout slips. That's why you were invited. And I really need you guys."

"You need us?" Jake asked.

"Yes, Jakey. I need all of you to answer this perplexing question. Right now I'm like the Godzilla meme, with his finger to his brain, thinking, because I can't answer this question: Why y'all always comin' to me for timeout?"

The room fell silent, except for a few munches of licorice.

So far, Maya had sat with her head down, picking at an overcooked grilled cheese sandwich, silent. This was common for Maya; she rarely spoke to teachers. She came to me for timeout once and I asked her if she was ready to return-and she growled. Today would be different.

"You really want to know the truth, Mrs. Lathan?" she asked, never looking up. "You're not scared."

"Scared of what? Who? Tell me more, Maya."

"Mrs. Lathan, you know they're scared of us and our parents, too. That's why they don't be calling home. They just send us to you."

Maya's words prompted a firestorm of responses, some funny, some serious, coming so fast and hard that finally I had to conduct this small lunch group as a class. "One at a time-raise your hand-I can't write that fast."

"It's because he ain't got no control of the classroom, Mrs. Lathan!"

"Because we can still do our work in here and go back knowing how to avoid getting picked on by the teacher."

"My mom don't like her because she gave me an F without once calling my mom and telling her I wasn't doing my work."

"Because everybody in here knows Mrs. Lathan does not play."

"You talk to us like our moms and aunts; you expect us to do right, and if we don't, you make us tell our parents what we're not doing."

"They send us here when they get tired of us."

"Only certain kids get sent out, for doing the same things white kids do, maybe just a little louder or bolder, so we get caught."

"I think they be watching us as soon as we come in the building."

"You know why, Mrs. Lathan, we ain't gotta tell you why we always get sent to you for timeout. It's because you're black."

"They don't just send us to you. They send us to the other black teachers and aides too, Mr. Jones, Ms. James . . ."

"You're not scared of us. We're scared of you, though. Just kidding. I mean, scared in a good way. We're scared to disappoint you. We're scared to go into other classes because we know they're gonna start out talking crazy before we even sit down."

Students spoke of my familiar demeanor and tone, my classroom routines, my allowance of personal space when needed, my low tolerance for work avoidance or refusal, my refusal to kick students out but instead expecting them to work hard, my classroom environment of respect for one another, and so on. All of this sounded like what any good teacher would do.

The "it" factor that lingered was fear. There were two types of fear that the students spoke of: the teachers' fear of them and their fear of the teacher.

As an adult and a professional, there were clearly some issues that I dared not discuss with the group of kids. One is the fact that I'm basically doing another adult's job by doing out-of-class disciplinary work. I work hard, but I have a small lazy bone. I don't want to do portions of other people's jobs, as I'm sure no one else wants to do part of mine.

Another issue is that I am teaching students of color how to navigate a classroom with routines and rules centered in ideals of whiteness, where there is only one "right" way to be a successful student: show in ways recognized by white culture that you respect authority, work to a standard, don't challenge, don't make waves, apologize when you do. I question my own ethics every time I tell a student: "I understand you, your teacher may not. That is a reason to follow their rules." And then I push them right back into that room.

The main issue, though, is the time I spend putting out the fires burning in kids, cooling the burns of the previous classroom mishaps, bandaging them up, and telling them not to play with fire, when I know full well that they aren't playing with fire at all. They are walking into a furnace every time they step into the classroom. That furnace is failure, and it is fueled by fear.

"I don't want to be called racist."

Based on conversations with colleagues and my observations, I think that many whites live in fear of their good faith actions being labeled as racist. Rather than facing that fear and seeing what they can learn about themselves from the process, many white teachers seem to believe that a better alternative would be to pair students with teachers who look and sound like them, or like people in their families, in the name of having a positive role model or mentor. There's no doubt that we need more teachers of color in our schools, but we also have to deal with the situation that exists today. Many white teachers are discouraged, believing that they are ill-equipped to meet the needs of students of color simply because they don't have the same experiences as them. In response, they freeze.

They freeze when students like Maya are disengaged and not doing work. She may have issues going on that they can't identify with, and she's probably not going to open up to them anyway because she knows that, too. Does that make it OK to ignore what is clearly work avoidance and instead go to help students who have eager hands in the air? They freeze when students like Isaac storm out and say that they hate the school and every brick in it. Does that justify punt-kicking Isaac to Mr. Jones, because Mr. Jones goes to church with his family? They freeze when Shauna is watching twerk videos on her phone during science class. Sure, there are rules about phones in school, but do we tell her to put away her personal property and risk a class-melting blowout? They freeze when it's time to call Julius' father because Julius needs a tutor. Julius' father just got out of jail. Does that justify letting Julius fall by the wayside? Or deflecting Julius directly to the principal because his father has a record?

"Phone conversations with parents don't go well."

I've had my share of literal and metaphorical hang-ups when it comes to calling parents, but most conversations have been helpful. When I call parents or guardians, I follow these guidelines.

1. Address them as Mr., Ms. or Mrs., followed by their name on record. No assumptions. If needed, I ask how to say their name properly-and remember it.

2. Refer to their child by their given name.

3. Talk to the parents. Highlight the positive, academically and socially.

4. When explaining the issue to parents, have concrete evidence without interpretation, and give the parent a chance to respond. For example, "Today when James was with another student, he pulled her chair out, and the student fell," instead of "James hurt another student at his table and caused disruption to my lesson."

5. Ask for the parent's help. The student is their child forever, I am their teacher for one year. Look to the parent as an expert.

6. Make a deal among parent, student, and yourself as to how all three will help the child be successful in the area of concern.

7. Call back in two weeks to update and thank the parent.

"I'm giving them someone positive to identify with. What's wrong with that?"

Although white teachers may feel that they are doing a service to children by sending them to someone identifiable, it's actually a backfire. Each time a child is sent to another adult in the building to manage behavior, the teacher loses a little power, no matter what race the child or teacher is. However, there's a subliminal message that many white teachers are blind to, yet it's a bold, glaring truth to parents and students of color: This teacher does not care. Today, I implore you to care. Care enough about this student to build and fortify your own special relationship with them. Care enough about this student to work at figuring out where communication breaks down between you. Care enough about this student to make them pull their weight and work when it's time to work. Care enough about this student to see if there are academic, health, social, or emotional reasons for their work avoidance. Care enough about this student to call on their parents for help, knowing that a parent is more of an influential teacher than you are. And care enough about your colleagues of color to stop using them to clean up your mess.

Clearly, being uncaring is not the message that any teacher is trying to send. It is inherent that teachers care about the people in their schools. Otherwise, they'd look for jobs that pay more and do less. And just like I don't know of parents who condone misbehavior, I don't know of teachers of any race who intentionally seek to send a message that they don't care.

"I can't control that I am white. How can I show my students of color that I care?"

Allowing fear to cripple your ability to develop relationships in your personal life would have devastating emotional effects, so why allow fear to shroud your intelligence as a compassionate educator? The fear of a race of people fuels the furnace of failure for students of color. Just because you are a white teacher and do not experience life through the same lens as your students of color, it doesn't mean you can't build an environment where realness, rigor, and relationships abound in your classroom.

If you are a teacher of a student of color, and you have ever asked a co-worker of color to "help," "guide," "mentor," or "just talk to" a student of color that you've had difficulty working with, it's time for you to wake up. Trust me, there's a time in every classroom where a kid needs to go so that either she-or you-can cool off. The revolving door of kids of color, however, needs to stop.

When you send your students to teachers like me, you are inadvertently forcing me to contribute to a racist system, asking me to tell kids how to behave within your four walls and sending them back. That is not fair to them, and it's not fair to me. You need to find that bone in your body that tends to recoil when it comes time to deal with people of color-and purposely straighten it back out. You must confront your own discomfort at all costs. Find out why you really don't want to call home, hold the child after school, tell him to sit down, or tell her to finish that essay.

To effectively teach children of color, you need to understand this: I know that you don't look or sound like me, but that doesn't mean that you have no power. My strength in the classroom does not come from my racial identity, and neither does yours. It comes from the way we treat-and what we expect from-kids and families. It is time for you to take back the power in your classroom. By all means, seek out the advice of colleagues of color, but don't send your students to us without first examining the patchwork needing to be done in your teacher practice.

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By Chrysanthius Lathan Illustrator: Richie Pope Sending kids of color to the classrooms of teachers of color for timeouts on a continual basis is hurting everyone, including the teachers who send them away.

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#METOO and The Color Purple By: Linda Christensen

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#METOO and The Color Purple By: Linda Christensen

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By Linda Christensen

Illustrator: Hanna Barczyk

During a recent conversation, a former high school classmate said, "I always wondered why you left Eureka. I heard that something shameful happened, but I never knew what it was."

Yes, something shameful happened. My former husband beat me in front of the Catholic Church in downtown Eureka. He tore hunks of hair from my scalp, broke my nose, and battered my body. It wasn't the first time during the nine months of our marriage. When he fell into a drunken sleep, I found the keys he used to keep me locked inside and I fled, wearing a bikini and a bloodied white fisherman's sweater. For those nine months I had lived in fear of his hands, of drives into the country where he might kill me and bury my body. I lived in fear that if I fled, he might harm my mother or my sister.

I carried that fear and shame around for years. Because even though I left the marriage and the abuse, people said things like "I'd never let some man beat me." There was no way to tell them the whole story: How growing up and "getting a man" was the goal, how making a marriage work was my responsibility, how failure was a stigma I couldn't bear.

The #MeToo movement has highlighted the breadth of sexual assault and violence against women in this country, and how we might challenge it in every aspect of our lives, including in our schools and our curriculum.

One powerful antidote is literature. Celie, Shug, Sofia, Nettie, and Mary Agnes from The Color Purple taught me that the shame I carried wasn't mine, that the fear was real and necessary for survival, but they also taught me to question the roles and rules about womanhood that I learned at my mother's knee. And they taught me about solidarity with other women, about finding my voice and using it.

As I write this article four decades after that foggy night, 120 students sit in a restorative justice circle in the hallways at Madison High School in Portland, Oregon (see page 8), talking about the sexual harassment they've experienced at school and demanding that the school create and enforce sexual harassment policies.

Hallelujah! What I experienced wasn't unique - from catcalls to unwanted attention to my body to forced sex to physical and emotional abuse - but because schools refuse to acknowledge these issues, too many of us who experienced it covered our bruises and believed it was our fault.

At this #MeToo moment of history, this wake-up call for the women - and children and LGBTQ people - who have been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused and harassed, language arts teachers must be courageous enough to teach novels like The Color Purple.

I say courageous because The Color Purple has been banned across the country. The reasons vary: explicit sex, rape, "vulgar" language, and homosexuality. Novels with sexual abuse, violence, and gay characters are often deemed "inappropriate" for classroom use. What the #MeToo moment demonstrates is that the attempt to protect high school students from literature that exposes them to sexual abuse and sexual harassment has not protected them from experiencing it. Many students in our classrooms have already been abused, watched their fathers berate or beat their mothers, been ogled or touched without their consent, learned that girls need a boy to be OK, that boys can have sex and enjoy it, but girls who enjoy sex are sluts.

In order to teach students how to act differently, we must use our educational space to work for change. The issues most critical in our students' lives are not taught in our curriculum: How to love yourself, how to select a partner who respects you, how to reject social boxes that perpetuate fixed gender roles, how to reject social and familial words and actions that promote harm, how to report sexual abuse.

As teachers we need to ask which systems in our schools and classrooms create conditions for these actions and perspectives to flourish and how can we fashion a different kind of classroom. When we look at our syllabus we need to ask, "Whose voices are heard and what stories are told? How are students nurtured to be their better selves?" If we want schools to prefigure the kind of society we want to live in, we need to change the syllabus.

In my work with a number of school districts in our area, I have asked members of high school language arts communities to make a list of each book they teach by grade level and then to note the gender and race of the main characters and authors. Every single district discovered that during their four years of high school language arts, students rarely encountered main characters or novels by women, writers of color, or LGBTQ authors. The novels most frequently taught: The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, The Scarlet Letter, and Lord of the Flies - all books with mostly male protagonists, written by men, deal with male issues, where women are objects of desire, absent, befuddled, or stoic.

To their credit, these school districts have spent the last decade updating their bookrooms with novels by authors of color and women. But as language arts teachers, we have to do more than weave women, queer folks, and authors of color into our classes. We have to consciously construct a curriculum that talks back to a society that allows sexual harassment to flourish like a virus in a hothouse. We need to fill the curriculum with issues most critical in our students' lives. We need books that teach students about healthy relationships, finding their voices, and understanding their sexuality, and we need to teach them in a way that allows students to wrestle with these issues in literature and in their lives instead of building quizzes and tests about quotes and literary motifs. How else will young men learn to be empathetic partners in relationships? Where else will they learn that kindness and masculinity are not opposites? Where else will they understand how much harm their hands, bodies, and words can inflict?

We need to construct writing assignments that promote passageways into our students' lives, and we need to provide safe spaces for students to share their stories - including ones like mine, filled with fear and shame - because those stories teach that we all are vulnerable and need caring communities to support us.

Our curricular choices demonstrate who we believe counts and what beliefs about society we promote. I want us to create curriculum that would have educated me enough to trust my first inklings of fear that said "This isn't right," instead of a curriculum that taught me that my job was to find, save, serve, or satisfy a man.

The Color Purple is the perfect vehicle for this re-education because the women in the novel suffer abuse and rejection, rise together in strength, and the men learn that instead of using their power to beat women, they can find courage to discover their humanity. Every character in the book teaches students how to overcome their past in order to become stronger human beings.

From Celie's first letters to God, students learn that sexual abuse is about brutality, force, oppression; it is not about pleasure. Celie also teaches that women have the right to love and passion. When Celie and Shug find sexual pleasure with each other, they teach queer kids coming into their own sexuality that queer love is just as natural and beautiful as heterosexual love. And they teach straight kids that lesson too.

When Celie stands up to Mr._____, fueled by anger and her growing sense of her right to be in the world as a woman, Mr._____ is taken aback, as if a rug found a backbone and waved goodbye. Celie says, "I'm poor, I'm Black, I may even be ugly, but, dear God, I'm here, I'm here! . . . Time for me to get away from you, and enter into Creation." Celie's transformation telegraphs that when we assert our right to be in the world, to be seen and heard for who we are, we find our strength - strength enough to walk away from the fear and abuse and lies told about us.

Recently, one of my former students reached out, telling me that she has been in a relationship with a partner who physically and emotionally abused her. I helped her locate a program that finds housing and support for women and children experiencing abuse. If I hadn't taught this book and told my story, would she have stayed?

When Sofia fights back against Harpo's repeated attempts to rule over her, students learn how to refuse to bow to anyone's fists:

All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.

In this scene, Sofia also teaches Celie - and us - about solidarity by confronting Celie for telling Harpo to beat Sofia into submission. When the two women finish their conversation, they take the pieces of Celie's curtain that Sofia has cut up in her anger at Celie's betrayal and they make a quilt. This is how we learn to confront injustice and use it as a tool to move forward.

The Color Purple also shows that people aren't beyond redemption. Mr._____ learned abuse from his father and he handed it to his son Harpo. At one point in the novel he tells Harpo, "Well how you spect to make her mind? Wives is like children. You have to let 'em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do that better than a good sound beating." But Mr. _____, like Celie, is transformed. He comes to learn the error of his ways, to find pleasure in the conversation of women, and joy in sewing and cooking, traditionally women's work.

Let's teach The Color Purple and other content that helps our students critique oppressive patterns of gender and sex. Let's open our classrooms to discuss all of the topics that book-banners want us to lock away and look away from. Let's teach students to name harassment and rape, and to call out actions that belittle, shame, or hurt others. Let's teach them to start a movement toward healing, through stories, through action, like the 120 students at Madison High School who sat in a hallway and called out for a different future.

Linda Christensen (lmc@lclark.edu) is director of the Oregon Writing Project at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and a Rethinking Schools editor. She is author, most recently, of Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word (2nd edition).
Hanna Barczyk's work can be found at hannabarczyk.com.

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#MeToo and The Color Purple - Rethinking Schools

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During a recent conversation, a former high school classmate said, "I always wondered why you left Eureka. I heard that something shameful happened, but I never knew what it was." Yes, something shameful happened. My former husband beat me in front of the Catholic Church in downtown Eureka.

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Queering Black History and Getting Free By: Dominique Hazzard

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Queering Black History and Getting Free By: Dominique Hazzard

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By Dominique Hazzard

Illustrator: Micah Bazant

Micah Bazant

I am a queer Black woman. By this I mean that my sexuality exists outside the margins, between the approved boundaries, beyond the limits of most imaginations. A queer thing is a thing that existing words cannot yet adequately describe, a thing that our language and our boxes have not yet evolved to capture. So, what does queering something mean? To me it means turning the thing on its head: questioning its assumed narratives, reworking its categories, and upending its status quo.

Let's queer Black history.
Lifting Up the Stories of Black LGBTQ People
Queering Black history means lifting up the stories of Black LGBTQ people. It means resolving that not one more student learns about the "I Have a Dream" speech without learning about Bayard Rustin, the man who led the planning of the March on Washington - at least not on our watch. It means really learning about him: knowing his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, reading Time on Two Crosses right next to The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., having discussions in our classrooms and on our social media about "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" while also discussing why Bayard Rustin too was arrested, how he was relegated to the background by his peers, and what we must do to prevent that from ever again happening in the Black freedom movement.

Queering Black history means canonizing Marsha P. Johnson as a matriarch of Black America. Putting her face on those calendars and poster collages right next to Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Coretta Scott King, and Michelle Obama. It means studying her ACT UP campaigns in high school classrooms. It means mourning her too-early death just as we mourn the deaths of cisgender men like Malcolm and Medgar. It means examining why it took 20 years for the NYPD to investigate that death as a murder, and having conversations about the role of the Black freedom movement in bringing about trans liberation today.
Complicating the Stories of the Historical Figures We Know
Queering Black history goes wider and deeper than the inclusion and re-centering of queer folks. Remember that "queering" also means reworking. We must rework and complicate the stories we tell about the Black figures we are familiar with.

Rosa Parks, for example, was not only told to get to the back of the bus. She was also told by Montgomery NAACP president E. D. Nixon, with whom she served as chapter secretary, that women should stay in the kitchen. As we study her resistance against both attacks on her Black womanhood (and her organizing against sexual violence), a queering of Black history requires us to ask why we leave out that piece of the story, and how we can ensure that our contemporary movements are safe spaces for people living at the intersections.

Billie Holiday was a prolific jazz singer. She was also addicted to heroin, and the first major target of the federal government's war on drugs. Harry Anslinger, virulent racist and first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, intentionally turned a blind eye to the addictions of prominent white entertainers while obsessing over Holiday and his dream of bringing the full force of the federal government down upon her head. She died shackled to a hospital bed, denied appropriate treatment by the federal government, with police officers at her door. Billie Holiday has an important place not only in the history of Black music, but also in the history of Black people, the police state, and resistance.
Seeking Out New Stories
But if we are to queer Black history then we must dig deeper, do more than adding nuance to the narratives of those we already know and love. We also have to study and celebrate the Black people who have been erased, hidden from our collective memories. We have to move beyond the shiny Negroes - the astronauts, entrepreneurs, athletes, entertainers, and organizers who have been deemed respectable enough to be worthy of our memory. We have to look between the cracks and find our incarcerated heroes, our undocumented leaders, our luminary sex workers, the people who systems of oppression most desperately want us to forget. And we have to teach those stories to each other.

We have to do the work of intentionally remembering people like Carol Crooks. I learned her name while doing research for this essay. She doesn't have a Wikipedia page. But she is worth remembering. Crooks was a woman who became an organizer while incarcerated at Bedford Hills, a maximum security prison in New York.

In February of 1974, Crooks had a severe migraine and asked to be taken to see the prison nurse. When her guard denied her request, she tried to push past her and get to the nurse anyway. In response to this incident, Crooks was beaten, stripped naked, and placed into a solitary confinement cell for three days. Crooks later filed a lawsuit challenging the practice of sentencing inmates to solitary confinement with no trial or formal charges. She won her case, and the warden was found guilty of unconstitutional treatment of a prisoner.

That August, Crooks was returned to solitary with no formal charges. The next morning, a group of women went to the warden and demanded Crooks' release, alleging that the solitary confinement of Crooks was retaliatory. The women were ignored and told to go to bed three hours earlier than usual. They refused to comply. The guards began to assault the women in response to the insubordination. The women seized the guards' weapons and fought back. They took over the prison in what is now known as the August Rebellion, until state troopers subdued them about four hours later.

Carol Crooks is part of a queered Black history.
Disrupting the Centralized, Charismatic Leader Narrative
Next we must question the very ideal of Black history through the lens of the individual. We must ask ourselves: Why does the history we choose to remember so often come in the form of charismatic and solitary pioneers, centralized leadership, and the folks out front?

Queering Black history means remembering everyday people, the struggles they faced, and the work they did. It means recognizing ordinary Black people who were told their lives didn't matter, but who still contained a fierce will to live, and love, and fight for freedom. It means valuing all different types of Black leadership - the folks who were behind the scenes, who were quiet, who were less than charming, who didn't win but set the stage for those who later would, who rose to the occasion because they had to and then went back to their regularly scheduled lives. It means celebrating collectives, and group efforts, and conglomerations of movers, shakers, and neighbors whose names we won't ever know.

I want us to upend the status quo by including the Contract Buyers League in our Civil Rights Movement narrative. The Contract Buyers League was a group of more than 500 people living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1960s who had bought their homes through predatory loans after being shut out of the mainstream home loan market by racist laws. They banded together, filed suit against the speculators who were cheating them, and demanded their money back. They lost. But the Contract Buyers League is part of a queered Black history.

I want us to queer Black history by teaching about the residents of the Arthur Capper public housing community in Washington, D.C. These residents saw businesses, and particularly grocery stores, disinvest from their Southeast community in the 1970s. They decided to take matters into their own hands. As the mythology of entitled Black welfare queens and lazy project thugs was gaining steam across the country, the residents worked together to start a community-owned small business. They built the Martin Luther King Jr. Co-Op Food Store and harnessed the power of cooperative economics to nourish a Black community trying to survive in a hostile white world. We don't know the names of everyone who accomplished this feat, but the residents of the now-demolished Arthur Capper public housing project are part of a queered Black history.
Acknowledging Our Dirt, Holding Our Pain
A queered Black history cannot be sanitized. Filing down Black history's sharp edges would make sense if the only point of studying it was to make ourselves feel good. Sweeping the flaws of our Black icons under the rug would be reasonable if the goal of Black history was to convince a white society that Black people are good and smart, that we can be honorable too, that our lives matter. But I don't believe that either of these goals are what Black history is about.

I believe that we learn Black history because doing so will help us to get free. And in order to accomplish this goal, to be able to learn from the fullness of our past, we have to approach it with a queer lens. We have to bring to Black history a quality that the Black queer community embodies at its best - the unconditional acceptance of people's full and real selves.

Our history is what it is. Sometimes we didn't overcome. Sometimes our faves were misogynists. Sometimes our idols were reckless and led movements into the ground. Sometimes effective and powerful Black leaders were on crack. Sometimes our stories are not glistening tales of hope and triumph and movin' on up, but stories of mistakes made. Sometimes they are stories of pain and loss, death, and things being taken from us. But they are stories that have something to teach us nonetheless.

Let's queer Black history. Let's re-imagine it as an opportunity to celebrate Black heroes, leaders, and everyday people. Let's use it to remember and mourn the Black lives that white supremacy has ripped from our arms. Let's use it as a chance to learn from the lives of Black people at all different intersections, Black people whose sweat and tears, laughter and joy, victories and mistakes have brought us to where we are today. Let's make learning Black history about getting free.

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By Dominique Hazzard Illustrator: Micah Bazant I am a queer Black woman. By this I mean that my sexuality exists outside the margins, between the approved boundaries, beyond the limits of most imaginations. A queer thing is a thing that existing words cannot yet adequately describe, a thing that our language and our boxes have not yet evolved to capture.

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Rethinking Islamophobia By: Alison Kysia

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Rethinking Islamophobia By: Alison Kysia

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A Muslim educator and curriculum developer questions whether religious literacy is an effective antidote to combat bigotries rooted in American history

By Alison Kysia

Illustrator: Khalid Albaih (@khalidalbaih and www.facebook.com/KhalidAlbaih)

The increasing violence against Muslims, Sikhs, South Asians, and others targeted as Muslim, suggests we, as Americans, are becoming less tolerant and need educational interventions that move beyond post-9/11 teaching strategies that emphasize our peacefulness or oversimplify our histories, beliefs, and rituals in ways that often lead to further stereotyping. Although I support religious literacy - increasing our knowledge of religious texts, beliefs, and rituals - as a common good and believe increasing religious literacy in schools challenges stereotypes, my experience teaching Islam makes me question whether it is an effective antidote to Islamophobia.

Hate crimes against Muslims increased 67 percent from 2014 to 2015 and were also up a frightening 91 percent in the first half of 2017 compared to the first half of 2016, according to the FBI and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. And in a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), 42 percent of Muslims reported bullying of their school-aged children, and even more disturbingly, 25 percent of those cases involved a teacher.

In reviewing current pedagogies around Islam, I haven't seen many lessons that address the historical connections between Islamophobia and anti-Black and anti-immigrant racism, yet through my own study of U.S. history those connections are clear and relevant. Instead, the teaching strategies and content I see reproduced most often in textbooks, teacher workshops, online teaching lessons, and even in graduate lectures is what I call the "Five Pillars of Islam" teaching approach, which represents Islam as a religion that can be summed up in a memorizable list of beliefs and rituals. This approach reduces Muslims to a set of stereotypes that reinforce media caricatures of Islam as foreign and unidimensional and Muslims as automatons who blindly follow an inflexible faith. It also does not allow students to make critical connections between Islamophobia and racism.

There is a set script with certain narrative threads that the Five Pillars of Islam teaching approach follows and it comes with a number of profound weaknesses. The story often contains references to violence without providing examples or any real context, making it easy for readers to assume Islam is a foreign religion from a foreign land that is inherently violent. For example, under the heading "The Homeland of Islam," Ways of the World, a popular high school and college world history textbook published by Bedford/St. Martin's, explains that "The central region of the Arabian Peninsula had long been inhabited by nomadic Arabs. . . . These peoples lived in fiercely independent clans and tribes, which often engaged in bitter blood feuds with one another." After describing Muhammad's 22-year prophecy from 610-632 CE, which is collected in the Quran, the textbook says, "The message of the Quran challenged not only the ancient polytheism of the Arab religion and the social injustices of Mecca but also the entire tribal and clan structure of Arab society, which was so prone to war, feuding, and violence."

How are students supposed to make sense out of these statements? Free from examples and context, readers can assume that there is something fundamentally violent about the place and people, reinforcing the terrorist stereotype. Nor are these descriptions ever followed by an explanation of the differences between Muslims and Arabs, mimicking the way they are often confused as identical (the majority of Arabs are Muslim; the majority of Muslims are not Arabs).

The Ways of the World textbook then launches into a description of this new religion: The Five Pillars of Islam. A quick Google search for "teaching lessons on Islam" or "teaching lessons on Muslims" illustrates the dominance of the Five Pillar teaching approach. For example, a PBS lesson states that "students explore and understand the basic beliefs of Islam as well as the Five Pillars that guide Muslims in their daily life: belief, worship, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage. They will view segments from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly and information from Internet sources to look closely at each pillar. Then, as a culminating activity in groups, students will create posters about the Five Pillars for classroom display."

In this lesson, "Muslims" are represented as all one people and Islam is a fixed set of beliefs dating to 7th-century Arabia. It is instructive to think about what the lesson does not teach. It doesn't teach us the names of diverse identities that fall under the category of Muslim (Ithna'ashari, Ahmadiyya, Ismaili, or Druze, to name a few). It doesn't talk about the Muslims who don't follow all Five Pillars or add a few more to the list. It doesn't talk about the mind-boggling diversity of rituals and beliefs and texts that have been in continuous flux for 1,500 years across the entire world. Suspiciously, the Five Pillar script sounds a lot like the sanitized Saudi-sponsored version of Islam that is as popular in academic institutions as it is in the halls of government and missionary venues.

These simplistic descriptions have consequences. While describing the legal system that formed in the "Islamic empire" after the death of Muhammad in 632 CE, Ways of the World claims that there was "no distinction between religious law and civil law, so important in the Christian world, existed within the realm of Islam. One law, known as the sharia, regulated every aspect of life." This is incorrect. There was never a singular Islamic empire but rather multiple centers of power ruled by different leaders. Rulers used a variety of legal codes other than the sharia, like in the Ottoman Empire for example, where they included a secular code known as Kanun. There were no polities that exclusively used sharia in their legal systems. This kind of misinformation reinforces popular beliefs that sharia is an all-or-nothing totalitarian ideology that is intent on overthrowing the U.S. government - and it can lead to absurd, and racist, public policy. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 120 anti-Sharia law bills have been introduced in 42 states since 2010 and 15 of those bills have been enacted. One of the chief architects of such legislation, David Yerushalmi, noted the functional purpose of the laws "was heuristic - to get people asking this question, 'What is Sharia?'"

Even when I search for lessons on Islamophobia, I either get Five Pillar results or the lessons take the conversation out of the United States. For example, in a Teaching Tolerance article called "In a Time of Islamophobia, Teach with Complexity," the introductory paragraph says, "When teaching about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), U.S. teachers are often confronted with a dearth of accurate and nuanced material about the history, politics, and people of the region." The authors suggest lessons about the MENA, which is great if you are teaching about the region. If the goal is to challenge Islamophobia, these lessons won't be as effective because they communicate that Islam, Muslims, and Islamophobia are from somewhere else rather than from here and that Islamophobia is not also rooted in U.S. history. Rather, I am looking for teaching resources that make Islamophobia personal by connecting it to shared American histories before taking the story global.

Disappointingly, some curricula on Islamophobia includes discussion of violent extremism, a choice that keeps terrorism central to any discussion of Muslims. In an article from Teaching Tolerance called "Expelling Islamophobia," the authors suggest "integrating Islam" more fully into the curriculum. One teacher explains that "We look at Islam from three different perspectives: history, violent extremism, and Islamophobia. . . . The history of Islam acts as the introduction . . . helping students get a handle on vocabulary and context. The course then pivots to violent extremism - who and where such groups are, their motivations, and how they compare to extremists in other major religions, including Christianity."

The coupling of Muslims and extremism is troubling because it is a consequence of Islamophobia and fuels further pairing. We must talk about terrorism more, not less, but we need to do it in a way that acknowledges multiple relationships between Islamophobia and terrorism, like U.S. military interventions (it has been 27 years since the first Gulf War), drone warfare, and financial imperialism. And we also need to contextualize any terrorism committed by Muslims with the fact that among the more than 1,600 extremist groups being tracked by the SPLC, the majority are white supremacists and anti-government militias. Regardless, these lessons still don't give students the opportunity to make connections between Islamophobia and racism nor do they reinforce the fact that Muslims have been part of U.S. history since colonization.

I have seen how common it is to walk away from these Five Pillar recitations thinking that Islam can be summed up in a set of bullet points easily regurgitated on a test. Yet Muslims are complicated people who have rich and varied relationships with their religious identity. The caricatures we see in the media become all that more believable when we are taught that 1,500-year-old traditions can be summed up in neat, formulaic ways. I'm not suggesting these caricatures are used intentionally on the part of educators; quite the opposite, I sympathize with these educators. I taught this way myself in my early years in a community college because the Five Pillar teaching strategy is how I was taught about Islam academically.

Through my teaching experience, I began to ask myself: Will learning about rituals I practice (or don't) with different levels of dedication over my life span effectively help students make connections between dehumanization and violence? Maybe we should begin our inquiry into Muslims and Islam and Islamophobia in the place where we live rather than in some other place. How does that choice shift our perception about what Islamophobia is and where it comes from? If Islamophobia is a process of dehumanization, who else has been demonized this way in U.S. history? Is there something we could learn from connecting those experiences that will aid our fight against Islamophobia?

After coming to the conclusion that religious literacy does not produce the outcomes I want to achieve in fighting Islamophobia, I decided to write a lesson I could share with other educators who want to teach about Muslims and Islam but don't want to teach from a religious studies perspective. I work in a variety of educational settings so I wanted the lesson to be effective in middle and high school classrooms and in activist or nonprofit professional development workshops. I wanted to share some of the stories I read in academic texts like Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas by Michael Gomez, African Muslims in Antebellum America by Allan Austin, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas by Sylviane Diouf, Islam in Black America by Edward Curtis IV, A History of Islam in America by Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Inside the Gender Jihad by Amina Wadud, and others that have enriched my thinking about the stories we use to teach about Muslims, Islam, and Islamophobia. In addition to narrative-changing content, I wanted to use a teaching strategy that reflects an active inclusivity rather than a passive authoritarianism between teacher and students. I wanted everyone to be part of the conversation. I wanted a lesson that would give all of us, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the opportunity to think differently about our shared history as Americans. I wanted the lesson to blur the lines between who "us" and "them" are, since this is one of the steps of dehumanization we want to interrupt.

Taking all these goals into consideration, I developed a Black Muslim meet-and-greet teaching activity. The lesson empowers participants to fight Islamophobia by raising up voices we rarely hear in the media when we talk about Islam and Muslims - Black Muslims. The personalities included in the lesson are all Black, which not only teaches us about Islam in America but also advances themes in Black history.

Why Black Muslims and not all Muslims? I envisioned this lesson as the first in a series that help students see Islamophobia as a consequence of racism. American racism is an ideology borne out of white supremacy and of the need to steal land, resources, and labor. Islamophobia, like racism, is used to justify American imperialism or the stealing of land, resources, and labor in Muslim-majority countries. I want students to make connections between the abuse of power at home and abroad. There are a lot of heavy topics to cover if we want to empower students to make these connections that must include lessons in both U.S. and global history. I wanted this first lesson to introduce students to a new way of learning about Islam and Muslims that raises awareness of stories most Americans have not heard, setting the stage for deeper inquiry.

I wrote half-page biographies of 25 Black Muslims who lived in the United States from colonization to the present. When identifying the characters who would populate my lesson, I soon discovered that there were too many examples to choose from. In order to remedy this, I defined three time periods - colonization to the Civil War, Reconstruction to 1970s, and 1970s to the present - and then tried to balance out the names according to each time period. The earliest time period contained, predictably, almost exclusively male biographies. For this reason, I overrepresented women in the 1970s-present period, allowing me to also highlight the accomplishments of contemporary women. I chose to tell the story of Betty Shabazz rather than her husband, Malcolm X/Malik el-Shabazz, as I did for Clara and Elijah Muhammad. (Elijah led the Nation of Islam from 1934 to 1975.) These women were fierce activists and educators in their own right but their stories are almost always told in relation to their husbands. I mined a variety of sources - academic texts, documentaries, interviews Ñ for the major events in their lives and then wrote about those experiences in a conversational first-person voice.

I reached out to a friend, Neha Singhal, who teaches social studies at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, which serves the suburban communities within short commuting distance to Washington, D.C. The school is racially, ethnically, and financially diverse, and provided a welcoming setting for piloting the lesson among 25 juniors and seniors.

I introduced myself to the class and asked, "Do you know any Black Muslims?" One of the students, Fatima, said, "I am a Black Muslim. I was born here but my parents emigrated from Senegal." Nino said there was a Muslim woman in the 2016 Summer Olympics, but no one could give me her name. Derrick offered Elijah Muhammad and told me he started the Nation of Islam. I corrected him that technically, Fard Muhammad started the Nation, but Elijah was the leader for many years. They couldn't list any other names. I explained to them, "I want to remedy this problem. Black Muslims have been in the United States for 400 years. Why can't we name more of them?"

I gave each student a half-sheet biography of one Black Muslim and asked them to take two minutes to read the descriptions quietly. I also told them that the names can be difficult for some students to pronounce and they should ask me if they needed help. While they read, I circulated around the room and said the name of the character for each student. I asked them to think quietly about which pieces of information were most important to share with someone who has never heard of their character. This was more challenging than I thought it would be for them. Later, I changed the instructions for the lesson, asking students to flip over their half-sheet biography and create this list in five bullet points. The content in this activity is unfamiliar to most students, so they need an extra minute to absorb the story, summarize the main ideas, and ask for clarification.

I then explained to the class, "In a minute, you will all get out of your chairs and meet and greet one another. How do you do that? You introduce yourself just like you would at a party, but instead of introducing the real you, you will introduce yourself as your Black Muslim character." Neha and I stood in the front of the room and briefly role-played for them. "Hello, who are you?" Neha answered, "I am Aisha al-Adawiya. I was born in 1944 and grew up in the Black church but I converted to Islam after reading the Quran in the early 1960s. I am the founder and president of Women in Islam, Inc., an organization of Muslim women that focuses on human rights and social justice. I represent Muslim women at the United Nations. I make sure the stories of Muslims are included in Black history through my work at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library." I explained that I would then introduce myself to Neha, and we could follow up with additional questions, particularly those listed on the worksheet.

I gave students the worksheet and explained, "These are questions to help guide your conversations and collect information we can use later in our discussion." I asked individual students to read them out loud: Find one person who was enslaved. Where were they from? Where did they end up? How did they resist? Find one person who experienced discrimination based on their race or religion. Describe their experience. Find two women. Describe some of their achievements. Find two people who worked for justice. Explain how they do/did that.

Some of the students got up and immediately launched into introductions. "Hi, I am Carolyn Walker-Diallo. . ." "I am Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua. . ." "Were you discriminated against because of your race or religion?" Others needed to be coaxed to get up. Sure, it was one of the last days of school before summer break. But as Neha noted in our post-activity feedback session, some students find it intimidating and uncomfortable when asked to take more responsibility for teaching one another, making it hard to get some of them to take their attention off the teacher. As the lesson progressed, we could see the students becoming more comfortable with the format and it made clear to Neha and me the way that inclusive pedagogies can help students more actively engage in their learning.

The students continued to meet one another for about 25 minutes. After we finished, I asked them to take a seat. I gave them each a handout and said, "At the top of the paper, please list three things you learned about Muslims from this activity."

After giving them one minute, I asked them to share their answers with the group. Melanie said, "I was shocked to find out that Muslims were enslaved in the U.S. I never heard that before." Joon quickly added, "I like learning about the successes of Muslim women, so many of them are scholars." I asked her, "What do you hear about Muslim women in the media?" She looked up in the air inquisitively and said, "I don't really hear about them." I said, "OK, what comes to your mind when you think of a Muslim woman?" Another student, Carrie, yelled out, "They are oppressed." Joon added, "Yeah, I see that, but the women I learned about today, they are a strong group of people." Other students found it surprising that so many Black Muslims were from West Africa. When I asked why that is important, Nicole said, "We never hear anything about Black people before slavery. They were kidnapped and then end up picking cotton in the South." Mika said, "I didn't know Mos Def was Muslim, he changed his name to Yasiin Bey and his music uses Islamic principles." I asked, "What kind of Islamic principles are reflected in hip-hop?" She had to look at her biography again but then answered, "like being worried about poor people and people who have to deal with discrimination."

On the same handout, there is a list of questions for students to discuss in small groups. Because we got started a little late, we decided to keep the group whole for the entire discussion, but given the full class period, I would have let the students discuss the questions in small groups before we debriefed together since this will maximize student participation.

I asked the class to give me a few examples of the first Muslims to come to the United States. Fatima offered, "Ayuba Suleiman Diallo was born in West Africa, he was enslaved and ended up in Maryland, on an island off the Chesapeake Bay. He eventually made it back to Africa." I quickly followed, "Where in Africa? It is a continent, not a country." She scanned her paper and replied, "Gambia."

Lydia relayed the story of Margaret Bilali, who we know about because her granddaughter, Katie Brown, was interviewed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA, the largest New Deal agency during the Great Depression, employed millions of Americans for public works projects, including the construction of buildings and roads, but they also supported art, music, and theater projects. Fortunately, they chose to collect oral histories of enslaved people and their descendants. It is from these interviews that we get Margaret's story. "Margaret's dad was enslaved on Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia. She remembers seeing her dad and his wife praying on the bead and kneeling on a mat to pray," Lydia explained. "What does that mean - praying on the bead and kneeling on mat? Why would they do that?" I asked. One of the Muslim students explained that some Muslims use a string of beads to pray, called a tasbih or misbaha, that is similar to a rosary, japa mala, or other prayer beads. Muslims often use a small carpet or mat when praying because they fully prostrate by putting their forehead, knees, and hands on the floor. The prayer mat ensures you are praying on something clean. What's nice about this lesson is that it makes the connection between Muslims and Black history, and within those biographies, the stories can include religious literacy lessons without religion being the central focus.

We also talked about the ways Muslims fight injustice. Neha offered, "Kenneth Gamble fought injustice. He is the guy in Philadelphia who was a musician and then started a nonprofit to help fix houses in the South Philly community and then sell them to people who are from those neighborhoods. With gentrification taking over entire neighborhoods right now, this is important work." Sandra offered the story of Clara Muhammad, who started her own schools so they could teach their kids about their religion. "Her husband, Elijah, was put in jail because he wouldn't fight in WWII," she added. Marcus said, "Keith Ellison is a Muslim in the U.S. House of Representatives." I asked, "How does he fight injustice?" Marcus replied, "Being there is important so that when people have questions about Muslims, he can answer them." Lydia, who played Keith in the activity, added, "He also worked on police brutality issues before he came to Washington." As we were waiting for the bell to ring, a couple students pulled out their cell phones and started looking up photos of the Muslim characters they learned about. Once they saw Ibtihaj Muhammad's picture, for example, they made the connection between the face and the story about her shared in the meet-and-greet. After seeing how effective it was at grabbing their attention and making them continue talking about the lesson, I decided to add a PowerPoint presentation with as many open-source pictures of the characters as possible that teachers can use after the discussion.

After working with Neha and her students, I decided to add some questions to emphasize the fact that many of the characters in the activity are still alive. It is important that students be asked to connect the past to the present. In the worksheet, I included the prompt "Find at least one person who has been active during your lifetime. Describe some of their experiences." In the discussion, I added, "Who would you want to meet or research more? Why?" This last question gives the student a chance to make the story more personal and the character more relatable by thinking about who they admire and why.

In June 2017, a Somali American Muslim woman living outside of Columbus, Ohio, Rahma Warsame, was beaten unconscious and sustained facial fractures and the loss of teeth by a white man who screamed, "You will be shipped back to Africa" before he attacked her. As educators committed to pedagogies of equity and inclusion, we have to help students make connections between race, religion, and the racialization of Muslims.

Our students are bombarded with violent images of Black men and women being killed by the police, immigrants being forcibly removed from their communities, and increasing hate crimes against Muslims. We cannot allow our students to think these are discrete events. The Movement for Black Lives platform reads, "We believe in elevating the experiences and leadership of the most marginalized Black people, including but not limited to those who are women, queer, trans, femmes, gender nonconforming, Muslim, formerly and currently incarcerated, cash poor and working class, disabled, undocumented, and immigrant." Lessons like the Black Muslim meet-and-greet help students build vocabularies that increase their ability to talk about racism in ways that capture these intersections of oppression. We have to give them new ways of understanding racism if we want them to create solutions in the present and future that humanize all of us.

RESOURCES
For Alison Kysia's Black Muslim meet-and-greet, go here: http://www.teachingforchange.org/black-muslims
Alison Kysia has been an educator for 20 years. She is the project director of "Islamophobia: a people's history teaching guide" at Teaching for Change. She wants to offer special thanks to Margari Aziza Hill, co-founder and co-director of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, for her thoughtful feedback on this lesson.

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Rethinking Islamophobia - Rethinking Schools

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The increasing violence against Muslims, Sikhs, South Asians, and others targeted as Muslim, suggests we, as Americans, are becoming less tolerant and need educational interventions that move beyond post-9/11 teaching strategies that emphasize our peacefulness or oversimplify our histories, beliefs, and rituals in ways that often lead to further stereotyping.

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By Michelle Nicola

Illustrator: José Agustín Arrieta (1802-1879)

El Costeño by José Agustín Arrieta (1802-1879).

"This is the country of my ancestors. It includes the fandango-music that takes Spanish instruments and plays them with African style, songs like 'La Bamba' that trace their way back to slavery and still influence music today, and a Mexican president with both Spanish and African ancestry. This is my history, but no one is talking to us about it," wrote Daniel as he reflected on the Afro-Mexican unit our class had just completed.

Several months earlier, I was searching for a way that my Spanish speakers class could support African American Heritage Month activities at our school. At De La Salle North in Portland, Oregon, students organize month-long activities to celebrate and critically consider the histories of the many heritages represented in the student body. I wanted to support these student-led projects with lessons in my classroom, but how? Driving home one night, the solution hit me: Nicholas Marshall.

Nicholas was a memorable student from my first year of teaching. One day he looked at me, eyes wide, and said: "Wait, Señorita! There are Black people who speak Spanish?"

"Yes," I had said. "There most definitely are." I developed a whole unit for my Spanish World Language class based on Nicholas' question. I decided to adapt that unit to meet the needs of my current students. I hoped that, by the end of the unit, they would be able to identify ways that enslaved Africans and their descendants shaped Mexican culture, and describe the historical and political forces that led to Afro-Mexican invisibility. I wanted students to complicate their narratives about Mexican identity and realize that Afro-Mexican resistance weaves through the fabric of that heritage.

My students at De La Salle were heritage language speakers. Heritage students have both a cultural and a linguistic connection to a language other than English. Our class of 23 juniors and two seniors each shaped the definition of heritage Spanish speaker in their own way. For example, Marta didn't consider Spanish her native language-she favored English, although she spoke Spanish with her parents. Ana Maria emigrated from Mexico at the age of 10. She learned to read and write in Spanish, and then learned to do the same in English. Daniel grew up in the United States but spoke Spanish at home and often with his friends. Itzel was from Guatemala and English was her third language, after Mayan and Spanish. Alex's father was from Ecuador and his mother from Chile, so his Spanish was peppered with words that differed from those of his peers.

They all spoke, read, and wrote with high levels of fluency in Spanish, yet they weren't "native" Spanish speakers because most of their formal schooling had been in English. They switched between cultures and languages and, in Daniel's words, sometimes felt "stuck between two countries I'm not wanted in." In that sense, the definition of a heritage speaker is not just about language; it also includes socio-emotional factors.

Where Did the Africans Go?

On our first day, I announced that we would be uncovering the history of Black Mexicans. "Does anyone already know anything about this topic?"

My students' faces were blank.

"When I was preparing this unit for you, I found out that many people believe the first Africans arrived with the first conquistadores. By the 16th and 17th centuries, one out of every two Africans who were enslaved and taken to the so-called "New World" was sold in Mexico. In fact, until 1650, the number of African-heritage Mexicans equaled the number of Spanish-heritage Mexicans. Yet today, no one seems to know much about the story of Afro-Mexicans and their descendants. So where did they all go? How did they become invisible?"

"Maybe they left the country," Josué called out.

"It's possible," I replied. "Any other ideas?"

"Maybe they got kind of mixed," Lalo ventured.

I pulled out my trusty teacher phrase: "Tell me more."

"You know, Ms. Nicola, the birds and the bees, and then the kids got lighter skin or something." The class laughed.

"You may be on to something, Lalo. I want you to keep these ideas in the back of your minds throughout the unit. Keep asking the question: How does a history, a culture, and a people become invisible? I want you to collect stories of things you didn't realize had a connection to Africa, but that are deeply rooted in African cultures and that have shaped what we think of as 'Mexican.'

"Now grab your bags," I said. "We're going to the computer lab."

Once in the computer lab, I gave my students a piece of paper with the URL for the Afropop Worldwide website "La Bamba: The Afro-Mexican Story" (see Resources). "Chicos," I called out, moving to the center of the lab. "Remember that even though the website is in inglés, your notes need to be en español." Although I wanted our class to read, write, think, and speak in Spanish 100 percent of the time, the reality was that my students don't live in a 24/7 Spanish-speaking world. Too often, I ended up resorting to English-language resources.

The website contained a wealth of information, and I wanted to give students the autonomy to explore what they found interesting. So the only instruction I gave them was to spend time reading and writing down what they found interesting. At the end of the unit, students would need their notes for their essays, but I didn't bother them with that detail for the moment. Instead, I gave them time to let their curiosity lead the exploration. As they clicked from page to page, I wandered around the room, checking on their notes and gathering snippets of their conversations.

"Whaat? The fandango is African?" I heard Eduardo exclaim.

"Eduardo, don't forget to write down what you are learning," I reminded him.

" Estamos hablando de cómo el son jarocho tiene raices africanas (We're talking about how son jarocho music has African roots)," Evelyn commented to me as I walked by.

" Maestra, what is this about the 'third root'?"

" Bueno, Alex, read it and you will see. That part is important, so write it down."

Alex jotted notes on la tercera raíz (the third root). In 1992, as part of the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas, the Mexican government officially acknowledged that African culture in the country represented la tercera raíz of Mexican culture, along with Spanish and Indigenous peoples. Since then, many Mexicans (especially those living on the west coast) have reconnected with their African heritage through dance, theater, radio, and political mobilizations.

Daniel called out to me. "I'm interested in this guy Vicente Guerrero. He was a hero in the war for independence, and it says here that he was Mexico's first Afro-Mexican president-the Barack Obama of 1829!"

I smiled. My students were already rethinking some of their ideas about Mexico. They were collecting stories of things that they had taken for granted as "just Mexican" and uncovering a more complex version of those stories.

By the time we had finished our first lesson exploring the Afropop site, students were hooked and energy was high. It was a good launching pad for our next question: If Afro-Mexicans have been living in Mexico since the days of the slave trade, why wasn't anyone talking about it?

The Black Grandma in the Closet

If the goal for the first part of the unit was to challenge students to rethink Mexican identity, and specifically Black Mexican identity, parts two and three were about discovering the historical and political forces that led to the invisibility of Afro-Mexican roots, and the activism and resistance that occurred throughout history and into the present.

I decided to show an episode from the Henry Louis Gates series Black in Latin America titled "Mexico & Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet." Gates documents the ways that Black Mexicans were oppressed and made invisible, and how they have fought against Spanish oppressors and modern-day discrimination. I gave students lots of freedom to explore the Afropop Worldwide website however they wished, but I took a different tack for this next activity.

"Mexico & Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet" is full of information about why we don't often hear about Black Mexicans. Before students viewed the documentary, I created a note-taking template so they could work together to capture the relevant facts. I listed important names, dates, and ideas in the order they were mentioned in the documentary. Then I chose four items for each 15-minute segment of the documentary. I made a copy of the note-taking template for each student, and had students get into groups of four.

" OK, clase, vamos a ver el documental, " I said, moving about the room. "We've already discussed some ideas about why no one knew the African roots of the fandango, or that Mexico had important military and political leaders who were Black. Josué suggested maybe all the Afro-Mexicans left the country, and Lalo talked about interracial relationships. Now we're going to dig a little deeper and see what Mexican anthropologists and historians have to say. You can see on your papers that important terms from the documentary are divided into sets of four. Each person in your group will be responsible for taking notes on just one term. When we've heard all four terms, I'll stop the documentary and as a group you will write one summary that includes all of those terms. OK?"

Students decided how they wanted to divide the terms and ideas among themselves, and I hit play. By the time we finished, I was happy with my decision to have students share the work of understanding and synthesizing the reasons behind Mexico's hidden Black culture. They collectively gathered and analyzed more information than students working on their own. And, because each person was responsible for one term per video segment, everyone had a responsibility to listen and share.

In one of their summaries, Lalo, Ana Maria, Itzel, and Evelyn wrote: "Tlacotepec is the city where the documentary opens. They say that if the 'one-drop' rule were applied to this city, everyone would be Black! The fandango uses Spanish instruments but played in an African way. The documentary says that slaves were singing 'La Bamba' in 1683!!! (So, does that mean that Ritchie Valens broke copyright? LOL)"

Marta, Alex, Daniel, and Miguel wrote: "Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's first Black president (1830), said, 'The country comes first,' a common saying in Mexico. After that, they abolished racial categories on birth certificates and other official documents."

This act, though progressive in purpose, contributed to the systematic erasure of Afro-Mexican history. The simple act of eliminating racial categories did not eliminate racism, and some present-day activists are seeking to reinstate racial categories into the Mexican census so that Afro-Mexicans can benefit from public policy. Miguel in particular was uncomfortable with the idea that a reintroduction of racial categories would fix the problem: "Father Hidalgo started our nation's independence with El Grito de Dolores, and he believed that we should not have racial categories. Activists like Israel Reyes, a teacher in Mexico, are trying to boost Afro-Mexican pride with their radio shows and activism to reintroduce racial categories. I think the radio show is a good idea, but new census categories will divide the people."

Eduardo's group focused on the story of Sagrario Cruz Carretero, professor of anthropology at the University of Veracruz. Cruz Carretero did not discover that she was Black until she was 19, when she traveled to Cuba and started recognizing herself and her family in the faces of the Cubans she met. The foods they made were the same foods-like fufú-that Cruz Carretero's grandma made, foods that can be traced back to Africa. When she returned to Mexico, she asked her grandfather why he had not told the family that they were Black. Her grandfather responded that they were not Black, they were moreno. According to Cruz Carretero, "This happens in most families-you hide the Black grandma in the closet."

Camila, Sofia, and Adán wrote: "Yanga is a town and a man. The town of Yanga is named after a slave who freed himself and lived for 30 years in the mountains fighting off the Spanish and defending his community. If the TV show Survivor had existed in the 16th century, he definitely would have won. And he did win against the Spanish-in 1609 they finally grew tired of fighting him and gave him the land. Yanga became one of the first towns in Mexico where Blacks could live free!"

Lalo snapped to attention when the film started talking about interracial relationships. The Catholic Church allowed marriage between races and so, from early on, Africans, Europeans, and Indigenous Mexicans mixed bloodlines. The Spanish already had a heritage that was more open to interracial relationships than other European countries, thanks to the centuries-long dominance of the Moors in Spain, so those relationships weren't as taboo as they were in the United States. Interracial marriages continued over time, to the point that one's African roots could only be heard in the dropped d from the word helado, a certain hue in skin tone, or the taste of an old family recipe. "See?" Lalo said with a smug smile. "I told you they were making babies."

Pros and Cons of Racial Statistics

By now, I had a degree of guilt about the resources I was providing them with-our two main sources had been in English. I needed to get my students back to reading in Spanish. So next we looked at Afrodescendientes en México, by the Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación (National Council for Preventing Discrimination).

This document describes the problems, including the difficulties connected with the lack of racial statistics in Mexico, and offers concrete actions that both the Mexican government and its citizens should take to counteract this history of invisibility and oppression. Specifically, it calls for more research and a way to document the numbers and experiences of Afro-Mexicans.

Once again, I had a resource full of important information that I wanted my students to capture. Therefore, I annotated the text before making copies for my students. I starred main ideas, wrote definitions and synonyms for high-level vocabulary in the margins, added footnotes with questions for students to consider. I noted a few questions that I had while reading. Some students did not need this extra support, and for easier texts students would do this annotation work themselves. However, because this was a complicated government document, I wanted to make sure all my students had access to the information presented.

Then I divided the class into heterogeneous groups so that students could help each other as needed. I told them that each group would decide who would be the reader, summarizer, director, and question-asker.

"One person is going to read aloud," I explained. "Another is going to write a summary of the main ideas from the text. The director is in charge of watching the clock, and also making sure that everyone speaks and no one dominates the conversation. The question-asker will jot down questions that the group has while reading."

Students got busy reading and writing, and I walked around the classroom, listening in and answering questions.

Questions such as " Maestra, ¿qué es el racismo interiorizado? (Teacher, what's internalized racism?)" were an indication that students were being exposed to a broader understanding of systems of oppression.

The text did not have hard data in the form of statistics on achievement gaps, poverty, or access to services-how could they provide this when the Mexican census had no system for identifying those of African heritage? But the authors described the myriad ways that the ideology of racial superiority has spread into the language, education policy, and throughout Mexican society.

Mateo focused in on Memín Pinguín, a popular cartoon from the 1940s based on racist caricatures that could be compared to Sambo in the United States. The text reinforced information we had learned in the documentary. Mateo took notes on how the government had issued a commemorative stamp featuring Memín Pinguín in 2005 that had caused such an international stir that Jesse Jackson flew to Mexico City to speak with then-President Vicente Fox. Mateo told me that he wanted to write his final essay on this character.

Sofia and Camila were curious about the experience of Afro-Mexican women. They began to write down questions about how basing beauty standards on lo blanco (whiteness) affected women. They were also struck by the information that Afro-Mexican women are the most vulnerable targets of racism in Mexico, to the point that many of them leave the country, primarily heading to the United States.

Miguel called me over. "They're saying that they want to reintroduce racial categories in Mexico. I think that will divide the people more." He shook his head. Miguel, a senior, had often encouraged the juniors to step out of their comfort zone and hang out with students of other races at our school. I admired his willingness to challenge his peers and the text. I also wanted him to consider multiple perspectives before solidifying his view.

"Miguel, I hear your concern about dividing people, but can you think of any ways that Black Mexicans would benefit from reintroducing racial categories? What does the article say?" Miguel returned to the text, searching the document for answers.

My students were asking important questions, and it was time for them to give voice to what they were learning. For their end-of-unit project, I asked them to write an explanatory essay, either highlighting an unsung Afro-Mexican historical figure or explaining how African ancestry has shaped the Mexico of today.

Eyes Wide Open

Before this unit, my students had little to no knowledge of the African presence in Mexico. By the end of the unit, students were asking important questions about race, defining racial categories, and what it really means to be Mexican. Many walked away with a different view of their family's country of origin, one whose history and cultural identity was infinitely more complex than they had previously imagined. Their final essays demonstrated that we had met our goals of rethinking identity, identifying ways that Afro-Mexicans helped shape the nation, and reflecting on the present-day implications of Afro-Mexican invisibility.

"Many people do not know the history of Afro-Mexicans," wrote Ana Maria, "but it's thanks to them that we have various walls, cities, food, and dance. It may be that you have to look with eyes wide open to see it, but their presence is there for those who wish to see it."

Miguel's paper was a response to the position of Afrodescendientes en MŽxico. He decided to stay true to his original stance: "I fear that reintroducing racial categories in Mexico will have the opposite effect of what they want. I don't think that they should divide people in this way because they may start to divide the country."

As sometimes happens, this six-week unit evolved into about 10 weeks of learning. There were a few things that I ended up cutting, and others that I will do differently next time. For example, I'll build in more time for small group discussion, and plan for students to struggle with the questions present-day activists are facing: how to undo the legacy of invisibility and oppression. In addition, I would provide some more journaling time for students to self-reflect. For high school students deep in the throes of identity development, extra time for journaling may have allowed them to question assumptions they had about themselves, and the groups they identify with.

There is more work to do-more counter-stories to offer, more questions to ask, Afro-Latina/o history from countries other than Mexico to explore. Yet, my students began to understand that national identity is something we construct together and that, just like in our classroom, everyone has something to contribute.

Resources

Afropop Worldwide. 2013. "La Bamba: The Afro-Mexican Story." Public Radio International. afropop.org.

Velázquez, María Elisa, and Gabriela Iturralde Nieto. 2012. Afrodescendientes en México: Una historia de silencio y discriminación. Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación.

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By Michelle Nicola Illustrator: José Agustín Arrieta (1802-1879) "This is the country of my ancestors. It includes the fandango-music that takes Spanish instruments and plays them with African style, songs like 'La Bamba' that trace their way back to slavery and still influence music today, and a Mexican president with both Spanish and African ancestry.

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Brown Kids Can’t Be in Our Club By: Rita Tenorio 

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Brown Kids Can’t Be in Our Club By: Rita Tenorio 

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By Rita Tenorio

Illustrator: Peter Zuzga

I sat down one day with seven of the children in my first-grade class. It was early in the year and we were getting to know each other. We talked about how we were alike, how we were different. "Our skin is different," one of the children said. I asked everyone to put their hands together on the table, so we could see all the different colors.

One of my African-American students, LaRhonda*, simply would not. Scowling, she slid her hands beneath the table top, unwilling to have her color compared to the others.

It was a reaction I had seen before. I teach at La Escuela Fratney, an ethnically diverse school in a racially mixed working-class Milwaukee neighborhood. My students typically include black kids, white kids, and Latinos. They have many things in common. Recess is their favorite time of day. Friendships are a priority. They want to "belong" to a group and they are very conscious of where they fit in a social sense.

And they all "know" that it is better to be light-skinned than dark-skinned.

Even though my students have only six or seven years of life experience by the time they reach my classroom, the centuries-old legacies of bias and racism in our country have already made an impact on their lives. I have seen fair-skinned children deliberately change places in a circle if African-American children sit down next to them. An English speaker won't play with a Latino child because, he says, "He talks funny." On the playground, a group of white girls won't let their darker-skinned peers join in their games, explaining matter-of-factly: "Brown kids can't be in our club."

As teachers, we have to acknowledge that we live in a racist society and that children typically mirror the attitudes of that society. Between the ages of two and five, children not only become aware of racial differences, but begin to make judgments based on that awareness. They do this even though they may not be able to understand, in an intellectual way, the complexities of race and bias as issues.

Teachers have a responsibility to recognize the influence of racism on themselves and their students. And we can help children learn the skills and strategies they will need to counteract it in their lives. At Fratney, our first-grade teaching teams have put those ideas at the center of our practice.

Are They Too Young for This?

Many people would say that children at this age are too young to deal with these serious issues. I too had real questions at first about what was actually possible with young children. Can you have "real" conversations with six-year-olds about power, privilege, and racism in our society? Can you make them aware of the effects that racism and injustice have in our lives? Can they really understand their role in the classroom community?

The answer to all of these questions is "yes." Even very young children can explore and understand the attitudes they and their classmates bring to school each day. They have real issues and opinions to share, and many, many questions of their own to ask. In this way they can begin to challenge some of the assumptions that influence their behavior toward classmates who don't look or talk the same way they do.

Children at this age can explore rules and learn about collecting data, making inferences, and forming conclusions. They can compare and contrast the experiences of people and think about what it means. They can, that is, if they are given the opportunity.

At Fratney, which serves 400 students from kindergarten through fifth grade, we discuss issues of social justice with all of our students. During the past several years, those of us teaching first grade have developed a series of activities and projects that help us to discuss issues of race and social justice in a meaningful, age-appropriate way.

We strive to build classroom community by learning about each other's lives and families. We ask our students to collect and share information about their families and ancestry. For example, we might talk about how they got their names, how their families came to live in Milwaukee, which holidays they celebrate and how. And at every step we help the children to explore the nature of racial and cultural differences and to overcome simplistic notions of "who's better" or who is "like us" and who isn't.

These activities include:

Me Pockets

This is always a class favorite. Each child takes home a letter-sized clear plastic sleeve, the kind used to display baseball cards. We ask students to fill the pockets with photos, pictures, drawings, or anything else that will help us know more about them and the things that are important in their lives. They return the pockets within a week and put them into a three-ring binder that becomes the favorite classroom book to read and re-read.

The individual pockets reflect the cultural and socioeconomic diversity of the families. Some students put lots of photos or computer images in their pockets. Others cut pictures out of magazines or make drawings. Our experience is that every family is anxious to share in some way, and family members take time to help their children develop the project.

If someone doesn't bring their Me Pocket sheet back, the teachers step in to help them find pictures or make the drawings they need to add their page to the binder.

I'm always amazed at how quickly the children learn the details about each other's lives from this project: who has a pet, who takes dance classes, who likes to eat macaroni and cheese. The children know there are differences among them, but they also love to share the things that are alike.

"Look, Rachel has two brothers, just like me."

"I didn't know that Jamal's family likes to camp. We do too!"

Each of the teachers also completes a Me Pocket sheet. The students love looking at the picture of me as a first grader, seeing my husband and children, and learning that chocolate cake is my favorite food.

Partner Questions

Each day we take time to teach the social skills of communicating ideas with others and listening to another person's perspective. We use this time to "practice" those skills with role-playing activities and problem-solving situations they or we bring to the group.

For example, we might ask such questions as: What is the meanest thing anyone has ever said to you? Why do you think some people like to use put-downs? The children take a few minutes to talk about this with a partner. Afterwards some are willing to share with the whole group.

We might then role-play the situation as a group and look for ways to respond, such as speaking back to insults.

"Someone Special"

By the end of October, during the time of Halloween, Día de los Muertos, and All Souls' Day, we learn about how people remember their ancestors and others who have died or who are far away. We set up a table and students are encouraged to bring in pictures or artifacts to display. They bring a remarkable variety of things: jewelry, a trophy won by a departed relative, a postcard that person sent them, or perhaps the program from a funeral. And they bring many, many stories. Again, the teachers also participate and share stories of those who have gone before us. We get great responses from our students, and from their families.

Let's Talk About Skin

Another important conversation I have with my students focuses on the varieties of skin color we have in our group. Usually when we begin this discussion, some children are uncomfortable about saying "what they are" or describing the color of their skin. In particular, children with very dark skin-like LaRhonda, who would not even put her hands on the table-are often reluctant to join in. Meanwhile, the white kids often boast about being "pink." Though we've never talked about this in class before, there is definitely a strong implication that it is better to be lighter.

Many children are amazed that this topic is put out on the table for discussion. The looks in their eyes, their frequent reluctance to begin the discussion, tell me that this is a very personal topic.

As part of the lesson, we ask the students if they have ever heard anyone say something bad or mean about another person's skin color. The hands shoot up.

"My mom says that you can't trust black people."

"My sister won't talk to the Puerto Rican kids on the bus."

"Mara said that I couldn't play, that I was too black to be her friend."

They continue to raise their hands and this conversation goes on for a while. We talk about ways we've heard others use people's skin color to make fun of them or put them down. We talk about what to do in those situations.

As we continue to discuss issues of race, we teachers often introduce our personal experiences. I tell them about the first time I realized that black and white people were treated differently. I share my experience being one of the few Latinas in my school. And we try to ask questions that really intrigue the students, that invite them to try and look at things with a different perspective, to learn something new about the human experience and be open-minded to that idea: Do people choose their colors? Where do you get your skin color? Is it better to be one color than another? Lots of our conversations revolve around a story or a piece of literature. (See the sidebar, right, for suggested readings and classroom resources.)

With a little work, we can expand this discussion of skin color in ways that incorporate math lessons, map lessons, and other curricular areas. We've done surveys to see how many of our ancestors came from warm places or cold places. We ask children to interview their relatives to find out where the family came from. We create a bulletin board display that we use to compare and learn about the huge variety of places our students' relatives are from. We graph the data of whose family came from warm places, who from cold, who from both, or don't know.

Skin Color and Science

Our class discussions of skin color set the stage for lots of "scientific" observations.

For example, I bring in a large variety of paint chips from a local hardware store. The students love examining and sorting the many shades of beige and brown. It takes a while for them to find the one that is most like their own skin color.

In the story The Colors of Us, by Karen Katz, Lena learns from her mother that "brown" is a whole range of colors. Like the characters in the story, we take red, yellow, black, and white paint and mix them in various combinations until we've each found the color of our own skin. Then we display our "research" as part of our science fair project.

In another exercise, inspired by Sheila Hamanaka's All the Colors of the Earth, students are asked to find words to describe the color of their skin, and to find something at home that matches their skin color. Then we display the pieces of wood and fabric, the little bags of cinnamon and coffee, the dolls and ceramic pieces that "match" us.

As we continue these explorations, dealing concretely with a topic that so many have never heard discussed in such a manner, students begin to see past society's labels. It is always amazing to children that friends who call themselves "black," for example, can actually have very light skin. Or that children who perceive themselves as "Puerto Rican" can be darker than some of the African-American children.

Writing About Our Colors

As children begin to understand the idea of internalizing another's point of view, they can apply that understanding by examining different ideas and alternatives to their own experiences. As they learn to express themselves through reading and writing, they can learn to challenge stereotypes and speak back to unfair behavior and comments.

Once students have had a chance to reflect on skin color, they write about it. Annie wrote: "I like my skin color. It is like peachy cream." James wrote: "My color is the same as my dad's. I think the new baby will have this color too." And Keila wrote: "When I was born, my color was brown skin and white skin mixed together."

When LaRhonda wrote about mixing the colors to match her skin, she said: "We put black, white, red, and yellow [together]. I like the color of my skin." How far she had come since the day she would not show us her hands.

Tackling Issues

These activities have an impact. Parents have spoken to us about the positive impression that these activities have made on the children. Many children have taken their first steps toward awareness of race. They are not afraid to discuss it. They now have more ways in which to think about and describe themselves.

Yet these activities are no guarantee that children have internalized anti-racist ideas. So much depends on the other forces in their lives. We are still working on making these activities better: doing them sooner in the year, integrating them into other subjects, deepening the conversations, finding other stories or activities to support them. Each year's group is different, and we need to incorporate their experiences and understandings. I learn something new every time. They challenge my consciousness too.

We rely on our schools to be the place for a multicultural, multiracial experience for our children. We want to believe that learning together will help our students to become more understanding and respectful of differences. Yet so often we do not address these issues head-on. It is unlikely that sensitivity and tolerance will develop, that children will bridge the gaps they bring to school from their earliest days, without specific instruction.

Personally, I want to see more than tolerance developed. I want children to see themselves as the future citizens of this city. I want them to gain the knowledge to be successful in this society. Beyond that, though, I want them to understand that they have the power to transform society.

When students see connections between home and school, when lessons challenge them to look at the issue of race from multiple perspectives, we take the first steps in this process.

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How to effectively raise issues of race with young children.

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A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son By: Dyan Watson

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A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son By: Dyan Watson

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By Dyan Watson

Illustrator: Gregory Christie

Dear Caleb,

When you were almost 2, we would drop off your cousin, Sydney, at her K-8 elementary school. The ritual went something like this:

"OK, Syd, have a good day."

"OK," she'd groan as she grabbed her backpack. "Bye, Caleb."

"Bye," you'd wave and grin with your entire body.

"Bye," Sydney would say one last time as she shut the door. I'd roll down the car window.

"Byeeeee," you'd sing.

"Bye," Sydney would laugh as she caught up with friends.

I'd roll up the window as you said "bye" a few more times, then start to whimper. "It's OK, sweetie, she'll be back before you know it. And you'll be off joining her before I know it."

And it's true. Before I know it, Caleb, you will be throwing your backpack on and waving goodbye as you run off across the playground. I think about that moment often and wonder about the condition of schools you'll enter. I worry about sending you, my black son, to schools that over-enroll black boys into special ed, criminalize them at younger and younger ages, and view them as negative statistics on the dark side of the achievement gap.

Son, my hope for you is that your schooling experiences will be better than this, that they'll be better than most of mine.

For three years of my K-8 schooling, from 7:40 a.m. until 3:05 p.m., I was black and invisible. I was bused across town to integrate a white school in Southeast Portland, Ore. We arrived at school promptly at 7:30 and had 10 full minutes before the white children arrived. We spent that time roaming the halls-happy, free, normal. Once the white children arrived, we became black and invisible. We were separated, so that no more than two of us were in a class at a time. I never saw black people in our textbooks unless they were in shackles or standing with Martin Luther King Jr. Most of us rarely interacted with a black adult outside of the aide who rode the bus with us. I liked school and I loved learning. But I never quite felt right or good. I felt very black and obvious because I knew that my experience was different from that of my peers. But I also felt invisible because this was never acknowledged in any meaningful way. I became visible again at 3:05 when I got back on the bus with the other brown faces to make our journey home.

Caleb, I want your teachers to help you love being in your skin. I want them to make space for you in their curricula, so that you see yourself as integral to this country's history, to your classroom's community, to your peers' learning. I want your teachers to select materials where blacks are portrayed in ordinary and extraordinary ways that actively challenge stereotypes and biases. Most of all, Caleb, I want your teachers to know you so they can help you grow.

One day a teacher was trying to figure out why I was so angry since I was generally a calm, fun-loving kid. She said to me: "I know you, Dyan. You come from a good family." But did she know me? She knew that I lived on the other side of town and was bused in as part of the distorted way that Portland school authorities decided to "integrate" the schools. But did she know what that meant? My mom-your grandma-got us up at 6 a.m. in order for me to wash up, boil an egg just right, fix my toast the way I liked it, and watch the pan of milk so that it didn't boil over, so I could have something hot in my stomach before going to school. You know Grandma, she doesn't play. We had to eat a healthy breakfast before going to school, and we had to fix it ourselves. Maybe that's what that teacher meant by "good family." My teacher didn't know that we had to walk, by ourselves, four blocks to the bus stop and wait for the yellow bus to come pick us up and take us to school. It took us a half hour to get to school. Once there, I had to constantly code switch, learn how not to be overly black, and be better than my white counterparts.

Caleb, I want your teachers to know your journey to school-metaphorically and physically. I want them to see you and all of your peers as children from good families. I don't want you to have to earn credit because of whom you're related to or what your parents do for a living. And I don't want your teachers to think that you're special because you're black and have a family that cares about you and is involved in your life. I want them to know that all children are part of families-traditional or not-that help shape and form who they are.

The summer before beginning 4th grade, I started teaching myself how to play the clarinet. It was the family instrument in that both of my older sisters played it when they were younger. For years I wanted to be a musician. It was in my blood. My grandfather was a musician, all of my uncles can sing very well, and my dad-your grandfather-was a famous DJ in Jamaica once upon a time. At the end of 5th grade, my band director took each member aside to provide feedback on whether or not she or he should continue music in middle school. My teacher told me that I just didn't have it and should quit. I was devastated. I had dreams of becoming a conductor and I loved playing music. I learned to read music and text at the same time before entering kindergarten, so I couldn't understand what my teacher saw or heard that made him think that I, at the tender age of 11, didn't have what it took to pursue playing in a middle school band. He knew nothing about me. Had never asked any questions about me, our family, my aspirations. He didn't seek to make me a better musician.

Caleb, I hope that you will have teachers who realize they are gatekeepers. I hope they understand the power they hold and work to discover your talents, seek out your dreams and fan them, rather than smother them. I hope they will see you as part of a family, with gifts and rich histories that have been passed down to you. I hope they will strive to know you even when they think they already know you. I hope your teachers will approach you with humility and stay curious about who you are.

When I was in 4th grade, my elementary school held a back-to-school night that featured student work and allowed families to walk the halls and speak with teachers. In each classroom was a student leader, chosen by teachers. I'm not sure what my role was supposed to be. But at one point, a couple came in, desiring to speak with Mrs. S. She was busy, so I thought I'd chat with them while they waited. As I approached them, they recoiled in fear and, with panicked looks, turned away from me and said, "Mrs. S.?" My teacher looked away from the folks she was working with and said, "It's OK, she's not like the rest." I don't remember what happened next. All I remember is that this seemed to be one of the first in a long line of reassurances that I was special and not like other black boys and girls. For many years afterward, I was told on more than one occasion, "You're not like other blacks." This was supposed to be a compliment.

Caleb, I pray that your teachers will not look at you through hurtful racial preconceptions. I pray that they will do the work necessary to eliminate racist practices in themselves and in those around them. I pray that they stand up for you in ways that leave you feeling strong and capable. I pray that they will nurture your spirit, and that you, in turn, will desire to be a better you.

Son, I end this letter by sharing a story that Grandma has told me many times, that I hope will one day resonate with you. On the first day of kindergarten, many of the kids were crying and clinging to their parents. But not me. I was ready! I wanted to be like my three older siblings and go to school. So I gave my mom a hug, let go of her hand, waved goodbye, and found my teacher. And remember how I told you that my oldest sister taught me how to read before I went to school? The teacher found this out and used this skill, along with my desire to be at school, to teach the other kids the alphabet and help them learn how to read. I believe, in part, that is why I became a teacher. She saw something in me and encouraged me to develop my passion-even at this young, sweet age.

That, my son, is my hope for you. I hope your teachers will love you for who you are and the promise of what you'll be.

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A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son - Rethinking Schools

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By Dyan Watson Illustrator: Gregory Christie Dear Caleb, When you were almost 2, we would drop off your cousin, Sydney, at her K-8 elementary school. The ritual went something like this: "OK, Syd, have a good day." "OK," she'd groan as she grabbed her backpack. "Bye, Caleb."

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By Kara Hinderlie

Illustrator: Kesha Bruce

For years, I have struggled to find authentic ways of helping young children - kindergarteners and 1st graders - learn, remember, and appreciate Black history. Come January, the halls of my school are plastered with a variety of Martin Luther King Jr. tributes and artwork that conveniently find their way to being relabeled for February's Black History Month displays - and disappear in time for March's green living tips to save the planet.

But here is what my students need to know: Black is beautiful.

And here is why they need to know it...

Currently, in my predominantly white kindergarten class of 27, I see the few Black boys in my class targeted as the ones who did something wrong, as the kids who are called mean, as the kids who are not named as a friend. I see my one Black girl sad on the playground, or looking for a spot at the table with her white peers, unsure how to make space for herself. They are on the periphery of play, usually the "it" in tag, and it reminds me of my own story: In high school a teacher told us that, in our society, the color black symbolizes bad and evil, and white symbolizes good and pure.

I also remember when I was in a human development college class watching a video clip of children choosing a white baby doll instead of a brown one. I remember a little Black girl in the study saying the brown dolls were not as pretty, and the little white girls saying the brown dolls looked dirty. The video and the study itself made me sad for the little Brown girl I once was, trying to fit in and make friends in school.

One day I came across a stack of books the former librarian volunteer at my elementary school was going to throw out marked "Free books." In it were two copies of Black Is Beautiful. It was published in the '70s by Ann McGovern and made up of black-and-white photos of simple black subjects: a black bird, black jelly beans, black puppies, a black butterfly, a young Black girl in dress-up. The words in the book were written like a free verse poem. I loved the simplicity and took both copies to use in my classroom.

The students listened to me read aloud using a voice of wonderment and adoration - some pages I whispered in reverence. I stopped at the page of the Black girl playing dress-up in her mom's clothes, the only page mentioning black skin being beautiful:

Black lace, black face.
Black is beautiful.

"Do you see her wearing her mama's fancy clothes? So beautiful and fun," I said. When I finished, I asked what they noticed in the book.

"I notice the pictures only had black."

"I notice a black bird."

"I noticed beautiful."

"The horse was black!"

"I noticed the candy!"

"Yeah!" the class responds in a chorus of agreement.

I wrote down what they noticed on chart paper. Then I asked, "What can we add to this Black Is Beautiful book that the author didn't mention?"

"The tire swing!" Timothy said.

"Some people may not see a tire swing as beautiful. How can we convince them it is? I think about how some of you love to push it, and some of you love to ride on the tire swing. Hmm . . . what would some beautiful movement words be that you could say with tire swing?"

"It twirls!"

"It spins around and around!" said Chris, who was now on his knees, having popped up during his share out.

"Oooh! I can't wait to see how you write that!" I popped up too, and smiled.

I moved on, asking for more ideas. I framed their answers in the style and context of the book we read, modeling how to expand their list to sound like a poem. I wrote down their new ideas, and pointed to the ones already mentioned or from the original text: a kitten, a dog, sneakers, a witch.

"I notice the author wrote this like poetry to help us remember how beautiful the things in the book were. What words and descriptions can we add to our ideas to make people see the beauty and goodness of the color black?"

"My dress is soft and cozy," Lori gently patted her black fuzzy skirt, smiling into her own shoulder.

Nadira, who had been gazing away, raised her hand. "Black bird floating in the night sky."

I wrote what they said on the board and asked them to tell a friend three black things they are going to write about in a beautiful way. I know some will only get a picture or a word down while some will fill the page, but I want them all to start by telling someone three things. It gives them a goal and sets the expectation with a starting point.

I sent them off to write their ideas and have "Black is beautiful" written on sentence strips at each writing table for reference. I collected their work, went home, and typed them up.

The next day we reviewed: "Who remembers something that is black and beautiful?"

"Horses!"

"Birds!"

"Sneakers!"

"Rain clouds!"

"Yes!" I said. "Today we are going to look at a different kind of black is beautiful. We know that there are things that are black and beautiful, and people who are Black and beautiful. But it can be a little confusing because is people's skin the color of black paper or a black shirt? No! Black people are all different shades of brown. We just call it black sometimes. Today we are going to write about beautiful Black people and I have a few books to share with you to help give you ideas."

I started off by reading by Langston Hughes.

"Sunshines, I love this book," I told my students. "The words in this book are so simple and so powerful. This book is actually a short poem that was stretched across the pages so the photographs could illustrate each line of the poem. When I read this poem to you, I want you to study the pictures as you hear the words I say. Look at the faces and features of these Black people and notice their beauty. Notice what Langston compares the beauty to. In one place he compares me to the sun! I always feel so great when I read this poem."

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls
of my people.

I tell them to listen to ways Langston knows Black- and Brown-skinned people are beautiful. It's a slow book, with only a few words per page, which allows my students to study the sepia-toned photos. Using the same format from the last lesson, we try to translate the idea of black is beautiful to features of Black and Brown people. After I finished the book, I ask the students to tell me about beautiful Black people. "What did Langston say?"

"Beautiful like the sun."

"The stars are beautiful!"

I am explicit when I talk to the students about the metaphor in this poem. It is hard to understand when you are 5 years old and the world is a literal, concrete place. Some do not make the connections I want them to make, they are not thinking about the Black people of the poem but of their metaphors as the thing of beauty. So I make the connection for them and carry them with me through an example.

"Now you understand why I love this poem. Langston compares beautiful people with the sun and stars. Look at this page." I show them the page of an elderly man, face raised and smiling at something unseen to the reader. "When I look at this page, I see joy and happiness. I see lines around his mouth that say he smiles a lot. His skin looks soft to touch. That is why he looks beautiful to me, and I think that's why they chose this picture to go with the word 'also' in the poem. Sometimes we think of beauty one way and then discover, like in this book, there are other ways that we can see beauty!"

I re-read the poem and asked for "Black is beautiful" examples again. This time there are more accurate answers:

"Eyes are beautiful!"

"Brown skin is beautiful."

"Hands are beautiful."

Brandon, a Black boy who often sits quietly as if in meditation, raised his hand. "Souls are beautiful." He looks at me and we smile.

We also read Hair Dance! by Dinah Johnson, another book with photos of Black and Brown kids playing outside. There is so much visual movement in this book; kids are jumping and hair is swinging. This book is special because the children in the book are from our neighborhood, the author is a parent, the kids were previous students in our school. This interests the children and they study the pictures and recognize some of their playground in the artwork. This time around when kids answer what is beautiful, they move their heads as if flipping their own imaginary beaded braids. They are holding their own hair in the air to mimic the pictures they saw while I read the rhythmic words in the book. The resounding agreement is that Black hair is beautiful - and so is jumping! We spend two minutes trying to jump high and fast to get our own hair to dance.

But this time when I sent them to write, they were less confident. Maybe I moved too quickly, or maybe the metaphor was too big of a jump. They stuck pretty close to the examples given in the books: hands, hair, skin. They focused on the metaphor and less on the physical attributes of people as beautiful.

And this was what my students deserve to know: Black is beautiful.

I tell the kids why I think it's important to celebrate Black history. I tell them my story, of learning about history where no one looked like me or my family. "We have Black History Month as a reminder to teachers that there is not much written about all of the things that Black and Brown people have contributed to our lives. When I was a kid, I only learned about the ways white people changed our lives. There were no books or activities in our school that let us know who those Black people were, or how they affected the way we live. I will share inventors and leaders who paved the way, or made an important discovery through diligence and hard work." They seemed intrigued. Some looked surprised, some totally bored. Buy-in to the unknown is hard, so I gave them an example.

Fresh off the heels of a presidential election with an unexpected outcome, where girls were coming in wearing pussycat hats and pant suits, I told the class about Shirley Chisholm.

I then told them mostly about inventors or "real firsts," as opposed to firsts for Black people, because they are the most tangible for young learners to understand. It is a clear, concrete contribution to bettering our daily lives: refrigeration, open-heart surgery, stoplights, peanut butter. I want my students to have a basis for appreciating Black people. Later, when they learn about the more complex concepts of slavery, Jim Crow, and civil rights, somewhere in the back of their mind I hope they will remember the beauty of Black and the ways Black people made life better for them. And then maybe, in the front of their eyes, they will see the injustice for what it was and what it still is.

For the next writing exercise, to retain the feeling of reverence we stayed with the free verse poetry writing style of the first book I introduced by Langston Hughes. The tone of that piece set the mood for the beauty on the page, and allowed them to transition into that poetic mode of writing, thinking, and seeing their ideas in a different light. I had them talk in pairs and instructed them to tell each other who they remember learning about and liked. When I asked them to write, they quickly jotted down their choices: Stoplights speak to cars in colors, tasty peanut butter on sandwiches for lunch every day, open-heart surgery saving lives.

When writing with young children, I have to make publishing decisions. In this unit, I wanted the kids to see their ideas from these lessons typed up and put together as a collective piece. If I made them do the extra combining work it could make the unit drag on too long, its message losing potency. So, in this instance, I did it for them.

Once all the parts were typed into one poem, I brought in craft and scrapbook supplies all in black: pipe cleaners, pom-poms, feathers, beads, stickers, textured felt, and dozens of patterned papers; all glittery, soft, and shiny - the jewels of the crafting world. I cropped their poems and let them collage them into beautiful black works of art. I read the poems aloud as I handed them out one at a time, so they could hear each other's work as inspiration.

Resistance
Some years when I do this lesson, I get backlash in the form of parent emails to the principal, disengagement from students, or the fairness argument from both students and parents: "Why just black, why not all colors?" This year it was Andrew, a tall blue-eyed white boy, and a proficient reader and writer.

When he learned about Black inventor Lyda Newman's improved hairbrush, Andrew whispered to a friend, "That's not special."

When he saw the sentence strips with "Black is beautiful" written on them for a second day, he turned them face down on the tables and exclaimed, "We already did these!"

When Jasmin told her friends something Black was beautiful, he responded, "Black is not beautiful."

Andrew, whose humor sometimes runs in the center of insulting, who often finds delight in others' misfortune, exclusion, or embarrassment, was creating another opportunity for me to change his mind.

When he turned the sentence strips face down exclaiming their completion, I explained this project was going to last the entire month. "Sometimes we remember things better and learn more when we stick with it. It feels like we finished because we did finish one part, but there's more I want to show you and more I want you to try." Andrew said, "OK."

When he said Ms. Newman's invention wasn't special, I noted there is a difference between flashy and noteworthy. "Raise your hand if you have a brush like this one in your house. Raise your hand if you've seen one before. Isn't that cool you're learning about the person who made something we've all seen or used every day? That's why I wanted you to learn about Ms. Newman. She gave us things we use so much they seem boring, but every time someone uses or buys it, she is getting affirmation that what she created was needed, even still today!" I make eye contact with Andrew when I say this, and he nods in agreement.

When Jasmin came to me upset that Andrew told her Black wasn't beautiful, I took him aside and told him about the power of an ally.

"Why did you say Black isn't beautiful to Jasmin?"

"I was kidding. It is." He tries to get the early exit card by placating me.

"I'm spending a lot of time on Black is beautiful because I want you on my team, Andrew. I want you to be the person who stands up and defends Black when someone else tries to do what you just did, tries to make a joke about it, and tries to hurt someone's feelings about Black. Black isn't just a color of clothes, right?"

"No, it's people and brown skin."

"So when someone jokes about Black, it makes us, people with that skin, feel less important. But you have a chance to be a leader. Friends look to you to include them and they follow your lead. If you decide not to treat Black as a joke, if you tell a friend why it's not funny to joke like that, you'll be helping the unfairness that is all around us. You will be making this place a better place for more of us. Can you try to do that? Help us feel welcomed and proud of Black?"

Andrew nods, "OK, yeah! I'm sorry I hurt Jasmin's feelings, Ms. Kara."

"I know, Andrew. Thank you for apologizing. I'm glad you're on my team." Andrew smiles shyly and takes a big breath.

Then I take a big breath as he goes back to his seat.

Yeah, the work is weighty, little one. Deep breaths help.

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By Kara Hinderlie Illustrator: Kesha Bruce For years, I have struggled to find authentic ways of helping young children - kindergarteners and 1st graders - learn, remember, and appreciate Black history. Come January, the halls of my school are plastered with a variety of Martin Luther King Jr.

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Some Ideas Other Groups Have Done…

1. Practice a virtual mixer in the book using this guide to try different online pedagogical strategies.

2. Take turns leading lessons for the group you might try in your classroom.

3. Write a “Raised by . . .” poem based on examples in Linda Christensen’s “Raised by Women” or Renée Watson’s “Bearing Witness Through Poetry.”

4. Use and adapt the lesson “The Color Line” to predict laws and policies about a historical topic of interest to learn more about its history. For example, “The Hair Line” adaptation of the lesson examined policies and practices that perpetuate discrimination based on hair.

5. Create a lesson in your book club using a children’s book that celebrates the beauty of Blackness based on the “Black Is Beautiful” lesson. Social Justice Books has curated book lists and a guide for selecting anti-bias children’s books. Learn more at www.socialjusticebooks.org

6. Begin or end each study group session with community-building circle-keeping practices based on the information shared in the book.

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Multicultural and Social Justice Books - Social Justice Books

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Curated Booklists Teaching for Change has carefully selected the best multicultural and social justice books for children, YA, and educators on 50+ topics. Booklists Reviews of Children's Literature Critical reviews of children's books from a variety of sources, compiled by See What We See.

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1) Read Teaching for Black Lives 2) analyze what is happening right now in our classrooms across the district. 3) strategize ways to implement positive change that impact student empowerment right now this year. 4) come up with a 5 year plan that will lead to student and family empowerment and more agent of change groups.

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Educators need to instill in the students the belief that they are important, they are valued, they matter. Show students how they can change their mindset to do many more amazing things than our ancestors. We can treat all people with respect and dignity.