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Click the picture to download the PDF.

Follow this link to add the Happiness Calendar to your Outlook: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/happiness_calendar/ics

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Self-Care During COVID-19 for student support professionals

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Self-Care During COVID-19 for student support professionals

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This came out April 2020, but it still has some really good information.
https://storage.trailstowellness.org/trails-2/covid-19-resources/self-care-during-covid-19-for-student-support-professionals.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3IlpxuWPD5PB5xccXBFSoxMJkLm4ZmCwYc6si_ACoIGn5ZylGyAk_f4Jo

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Article: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain

Research: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10503307.2016.1169332?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=tpsr20

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https://www.amazon.com/Gratitude-Project-Cultivating-Thankfulness-Resilience/dp/1684034612?scrlybrkr=8aba3d78

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https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/gratitude_journal

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https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/mindful_breathing

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https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#exercises

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https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/body_scan_meditation

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https://ggie.berkeley.edu/practice/positivity-journals-for-teachers/#tab__3

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https://ggie.berkeley.edu/collection/stress-management-for-educators/

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captioned video / transcript available

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Research suggests experiencing awe can make us happier and healthier.

But how can we find awe in our everyday lives?

Iraq War veteran and outdoors educator Stacy Bare tried these steps.

Step 1

When you're outside, look around for nature and look around for beautiful moments.

Step 2

Take the time to stop and take a photo.

Step 3

And if you can write about it what you're thinking about in that moment or why, that's beautiful.

I wrote that, "I never would have done this hike, pre-kid. It was the longest, most grueling 0.8 miles ever. But the reward was sweet. Wilder felt on top of the world and surprised she could hike this far and this high."

My wife and I never would've been like, let's go do the 0.8 mile trail. You know, where I was like, you want to do 5 miles or 20 miles or what are we going to do? And that's how we used to be. And now here we are like 0.8 miles, can we do it?

We were lucky we made it all the way to this amazing waterfall. MacKenzie and I thought that waterfall was so cool. And Wilder found this really cool leaf right there. And she looked at the waterfall for all of two seconds and then wanted us all to spend a few minutes staring at this crazy leaf.

And that's a constant reminder, I think living with a toddler, that the destination is the journey.

A reminder that you don't have to do these big, huge adventures to find nature and to find awe and to find healing.

What this really did was force me to recognize how beautiful the world is everywhere we go, even if it's just driving down a four-lane road in the middle of Los Angeles, right.

Like find the beauty, see the beauty.

It strips us away to our basic humanity.

And that's what's driven a lot of my work is wanting people to feel human and how good that can be.

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Iraq War veteran and outdoors educator Stacy Bare learns to find wonder and beauty in the small things. Tune in to the Science of Happiness podcast to hear Stacy Bare's full story.

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https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-love-and-war/201510/10-ways-increase-work-life-balance

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https://lifeatlascoaching.com/five-tips-to-improve-your-work-life-balance/

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Free on TpT!

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First 5 is a community building activity that I use in the first five minutes of every class period. I pose a question and students answer, then we practice debating and accountable talk skills. It has helped me get to know my students better than ever, and I hope it will help you get to know yours too! Included in this file are a list of questions to get you started.

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First 5 is a community building activity that I use in the first five minutes of every class period. I pose a question and students answer, then we practice debating and accountable talk skills. It has helped me get to know my students better than ever, and I hope it will help you get to know yours ...

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https://bucketfillers101.com/free-resources/

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bucket-Filler-Freebie-2495067

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I Wish My Teacher Knew - Classroom Activity

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I Wish My Teacher Knew - Classroom Activity

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Free resources from TpT: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Wish-My-Teacher-Knew-No-Prep-Lesson-2772744?st=b258e6f60b43fdca7e573ab05e5ee0bb

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Wish-My-Teacher-Knew-Now-Your-Teacher-Knows-1819492?st=b258e6f60b43fdca7e573ab05e5ee0bb

Teacher blog talking about how they did the activity with their students: http://www.sarahplumitallo.com/2015/08/every-child-deserves-to-be-heard.html

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How to Print on Post-Its, Plus Free Templates for Rubrics, Observations and More

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Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Reading List (Published 2019)

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Ibram X. Kendi on books to help America transcend its racist heritage.

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Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection, and Action

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Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection, and Action

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social science / discrimination & race relations

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personal development and practical advice

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social discrimination and equal treatment

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social justice; sociology; political science; journaling; injustice; self help books; journals; self development books; guided journal; motivational books; guided journals; racist; activism; inspirational journal; inspirational books; social science; discrimination; writing prompts journal; journal prompts; inspirational gifts; journals to write in for women; mindfulness journal; journal; ibram x. kendi; ibram x kendi; books on racism; books about racism; civil rights books; be antiracist; racism; race; antiracist; antiracism

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social science / discrimination & race relations

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personal development and practical advice

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social discrimination and equal treatment

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Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection, and Action

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Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection, and Action [Kendi, Ibram X.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection, and Action

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21 Free Resources for Teaching Social Justice in the Classroom

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21 Free Resources for Teaching Social Justice in the Classroom

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With no federal standards for the topic in place, teachers are left to their own devices for creating or finding social justice lesson plans. Our country's history is rich with resistance, organizing, and civil rights campaigning-but for many teachers, these movements seem new.

If you want to guide your students through conversations about inclusion, diversity, and equity, it's important to both teach the history and build upon the work of the countless people who contributed to social justice movements throughout the years.

From habeus corpus for Native Americans, to women's suffrage, to civil rights, none of these freedoms were granted without collective organizing. Unfortunately, many of these stories are invisible. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Make 2019 the year you stretch yourself. Here are 22 free resources for social justice lesson plans.

Take a deep dive with these curriculum planning resources:

We love this website from the Southern Poverty Law Center. It provides free lesson-building materials for teachers of kindergarten through high school. These award-winning resources include everything from a simple weekly newsletter, to magazine articles, to an in-depth lesson-plan builder. With the tool, you can share your learning plan with colleagues for collaborative projects and units. And it doesn't stop there. Teaching Tolerance also offers both self-guided and facilitated professional developments, in person and via webinars.

Okay, we'll stop gushing now and share how this teacher helped destigmatize menstruation at her school -just in time for Women's History Month! Consider building a lesson from staff writer Coshandra Dillard's amazing article.

You might not think about poetry when you think of social justice. But Poets.org has been assisting teachers in teaching historical & contemporary issues through poetry since 1960. Enjoy a monthly curriculum calendar, plus a database of poems filtered by issue and era, and lesson plans designed to teach students about social issues through poetry. BONUS: Sign up for the convenient poem-a-day newsletter for poems and commentary delivered to your inbox.

6 Lessons Plans We Love for Creating Inclusive Communities and Combatting Racism

We are so excited to share these free lesson plans from the Islamic Networks Group (ING) on addressing racism, creating inclusive communities, and building equity. What we love about this unit is how it centers on narratives. Students have the opportunity to look at the origins and history of narratives about people across ethnicities and racialized religious groups and consider their relationship to implicit bias and racism. It also offers young people powerful counter-narratives and ways they can act to counter racism.

These lessons are designed for middle and high school. They would be a great complement to your U.S. history, world history, current events, or ethnic studies course. And ING's work focuses on developing an understanding not just of Muslims, but of all marginalized groups.

These lesson plans are so good they won the 2018 Human and Civil Rights Award (sponsored by the National Education Association).

Created by various groups and individuals-including the Coeur d'Alene Tribe of present-day Idaho, DREAMer Daniel Rodriguez, and Writers in the Schools collaborator Susan Bartley-these K-12 lessons cover subjects related to English, art, and humanities. Links include handouts as well as Common Core equivalencies.

Hey all you data nerds! This three-part project plots open-source historical information into a timeline that looks at both freedom and confinement in the United States.

Use the online interactive experience, a free curriculum guide, and the website's media collection to help your students think critically about who has access to freedom and under which circumstances.

Stay current on evolving social justice issues and happenings. Add these social media influencers and hashtags to your feed:

Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit magazine and book publisher dedicated to strengthening public education through social justice teaching and education activism. While their books are fab, follow them and the hashtag #SoJustEdu to stay in the loop when you don't have time for extra reading. Their feed helps teachers remember significant but underpublicized historical events and stay current on current events like the #Unite4OaklandKids teachers' strike.

If you are looking for monthly chats on language, culture, self-care, and equity, then be sure to follow this hashtag. Organized by a collective of activists of color, EduColor is here to promote intersectional diversity and provide expert resources that help teachers do their part in deconstructing the oppression that lives within the school system.

#DisruptTexts is a Twitter chat founded by Tricia Ebarvia , Lorena German , Dr. Kim Parker , and Julia Torres . The goal is to challenge the traditional language arts canon and create a more inclusive curriculum. Here's how to participate in #DisruptTexts .

This Instagram account discusses parenting and educating through a race-critical lens. You'll love this account for the book recommendations, social commentaries, and critical articles it shares. Click follow and prepare for an elevated consciousness! Be prepared to think twice when selecting books for your class library, but fear not because this influencer provides a variety of equitable alternatives.

Liz Kleinrock is a 2018 Teaching Tolerance Award Winner and TED Talk presenter. @teachandtransform is her anti-bias education platform, where she offers simple and practical shifts for teachers to make their classrooms more inclusive and equitable. Enjoy real-life snapshots of Liz's whiteboard and learn as she learns along the way!

Listen up! Stream these helpful podcasts on your morning commute:

You can find this St. Louis-based, grassroots, teacher-led podcast on iTunes, and it covers issues on race, gender, sexuality, language, and more. Its presence was short but sweet. Listen to the final episode about how to unconditionally support LGBTQ+ youth.

We'll be honest: We love all of the resources from Cult of Pedagogy! But the podcast is extra helpful for the self-proclaimed teacher nerds (like us) who want to hear about teaching strategies, classroom management, education reform, and educational technology-many with a social justice lens. Listen to this recent episode with Pedro Noguera about 10 ways educators can take action in pursuit of equity.

Another resource for more than social justice, the Truth for Teachers podcast is a top-ten podcast for K-12 educators. In this episode, Angela Watson speaks with Dr. Travis Bristol, a former teacher now researching at UC Berkeley. Travis is also the principal investigator for the NYC Young Men's Initiative, which focuses on recruiting and supporting 1,000 male teachers of color. Listen to this episode about why most teachers are white women and how schools can support more diverse faculties. What do you think?

You can rely on these done-for-you activities to promote critical discussion:

This beautiful collection of multimedia includes films, essays, and photography highlighting the universal themes of humanity. Special collections include hot topics like climate change, migration, and endangered cultures. The artwork within all the collections is beautiful, but the bonus is that the webpage offers lesson plans for teachers! Help "bring the world to your classroom" and have a look today.

The Critical Media Project (CMP) is a free media-literacy web resource for educators and students ages 8-21.

CMP provides relevant media clips and follow-up discussion questions based on Common Core Standards that engage with students' capacity to think critically about identity politics and advocate for social change. CMP is founded on the notion that media literacy and analysis are fundamental to all education, and in today's complex political landscape, we agree!

Use the power of gaming to teach your students about civics! This fun and interactive site provides full lesson plans and online games that put your students in the roles of lawmakers and civic servants.

BONUS: Follow @iCivics on Twitter to stay up to date on policy and legislation news, plus see how other teachers are using iCivics in their classrooms!

Explore survivor testimonies with this well-organized activity library for educators. Select your language preferences and choose from a database of powerful videos and Common Core lessons that help your students unpack hatred. BONUS: Check out their completely free professional development webinars.

This extensive searchable database is your one stop shop for accessing constitutions from governments all over the world. Have your students search, read, and compare the laws of cultures around the globe. Filter by country, topic, date adopted, and status. Though there are no lesson plans here, this site is sure to catalyze high-level classroom discussion for high school students.

Mobilize your students to bring about change that they believe in by using these programs as your guide:

Plan your next service project with DoSomething.org! Survey your students to learn what they are passionate about, then help them browse a big list of campaigns to conceptualize a project they can launch in your community. The class can then submit a photo or video of their completed campaign and enter to win prizes, including scholarships.

This Oakland-based organization amplifies the voices of young journalists and artists. Empower your high school students to become reporters, too! Watch videos by YR Media journalists and set your young broadcasters out to find the stories in their communities.

Transform your school culture with these administrative-level resources and professional development trainings:

This organization offers school-wide trainings, a partner school network, and professional development for teachers and administrators. From pedagogical theory to subject-specific content, Facing History tailors their programs to the needs of your school community. Here's how to bring them to your school.

22. The Zinn Education Project

This social justice resource list would not be complete without the Zinn Education Project. This group offers workshops for teachers and administrators on how to teach people's history. By last year, a total of 87,000 teachers had enrolled in Zinn Education trainings and learned about topics like climate change, Islamophobia, the labor movement, the New Deal, antiwar movements, and how to write curriculum and articles for publication.

Whew! What a list-and it barely scratches the surface. We'd love to hear from you-what have been your challenges and successes when planning social justice lessons? Come and share your experiences in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, Own Voices books to add to your classroom library.

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Here Are 22 Free Resources for Teaching Social Justice in the Classroom

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With no federal standards for the topic in place, teachers are left to their own devices for creating or finding social justice lesson plans. Our country's history is rich with resistance, organizing, and civil rights campaigning-but for many teachers, these movements seem new.

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A Collection of Resources for Teaching Social Justice

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A Collection of Resources for Teaching Social Justice

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Ask teachers to describe the impact they hope to have on their students, and most will eventually say something along these lines: I want my students to grow into responsible citizens. I want my students to participate in society in an active, productive way.

And maybe: I want my students to change the world.

But how many of us know how to make that happen, really? Can we explicitly teach students how to change the world? If this question has been whispering in the back of your mind, the resources in this collection will help.

What is social justice, and how does it fit into the curriculum?

The National Association of Social Workers defines social justice as "the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities." To study social justice is to learn about the problems that dramatically impact quality of life for certain populations, and how people have worked to solve those problems.

If you teach social studies, you'll have no trouble finding direct curricular links to social justice. The National Curriculum Standards for the Social Studies includes Civic Ideals and Practices as one of its 10 Themes of Social Studies, and this includes an emphasis on learning how to get involved in influencing public policy. In history and social studies class, social justice teaching is a natural fit.

In other content areas, teachers disagree over whether social justice has a place. We put ourselves in a vulnerable position by exploring issues that are seen as more controversial than others (a topic I will get into in the next section), and some teachers prefer to completely steer clear of those kinds of complications. For others, social justice was a driving force in why they became teachers, and they weave it into whatever content they are teaching. If you choose to address some or all of these issues in your classroom, the next section offers some tips for doing it effectively.

Some Advice for Teaching Social Justice

As an undergraduate, I served as a student counselor for three years and a resident assistant (RA) for one. I regularly delivered workshops on social justice topics, and I learned a few important lessons along the way. Here are some things to keep in mind when studying social justice issues with your students:

Make getting to know students a key component of any social justice teaching. If you and your students don't spend time examining your own backgrounds, biases, and beliefs, you will be missing an essential component of any social justice curriculum. We all view every social justice issue through the lens of our own experience, and these different lenses can block our growth and learning if we aren't aware of them. If we fine-tune our self-awareness, our individual lenses can richly inform classroom conversations and help us understand issues on a much deeper level, directly from each other.

Know that not all students feel the same way about these issues. Most, if not all, of these resources have been created from a pretty liberal, progressive viewpoint. For example, one of the lessons in the Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) series described below is on Confronting Unjust Laws. The lesson uses California's Proposition 8 as an example of an unjust law. But not all of your students (or their families) will see a law like Prop 8 as unjust. In fact, some may strongly oppose same-sex marriage. That doesn't mean you can't talk about controversial issues; in fact, teaching students how to respectfully discuss an issue with people who don't see things the same way is a lesson that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

Familiarize yourself with the material before teaching. Sometimes we just skim materials before we teach. With social justice topics, this would be a mistake. Not knowing exactly what's in all of your teaching materials, including the texts or videos you and your students will be looking at, can leave you vulnerable to problems when unexpected content pops up.

Keep your administrator in the loop. As with any potentially controversial lesson, it is essential that you talk to your administrator about it ahead of time. Show the curricular connections between your planned lessons and the standards you're teaching. Talk about potential problems or objections that may come up and how you both plan to address them. That way, if your administrator gets a phone call from a concerned parent, she or he won't be blindsided.

Featured Resources

When I set out to find good resources for social justice teaching, I was looking for classroom-ready materials, lesson plans with supplementary texts or videos that would prompt students to learn about, think about, and talk about social justice issues. I also hoped to find some that would actually teach students about activism, about how a citizen zeroes in on a problem, formulates a solution, then does the grassroots work necessary to see that solution come to life.

Some of these resources fit the bill perfectly, especially the first one on the list. Others do not include lesson plans at all, but serve such an important and innovative role in social justice education, I thought they were essential to include here.

Learning for Justice

This award-winning organization (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) comes up most often any time social justice teaching is discussed. There's lots to explore on their site, including the Classroom Resources section, which is loaded with lesson plans and other resources teachers can use for free in their classrooms. One of these lessons is Confronting Unjust Practices, where students learn about the anti-segregation actions taken by the Freedom Riders and the attack on one of these buses in Anniston, Alabama (pictured above).

Other lessons from this library include What is Ageism?, Unequal Unemployment, and What Makes a Family? Lessons are available for elementary, middle, and high school students.

DoSomething.org

No lesson plans here: DoSomething.org is an outstanding organization whose goal is to support the work of young people who want to make a difference in their world. Students browse through a big list of campaigns, public education and activism projects students can launch right in their own communities, and choose one or more that they'd like to participate in. Once they have finished a campaign, students submit a photo or video to prove they completed the required steps. This entry makes them eligible to win prizes, including scholarships. Currently, only U.S. students are eligible for these scholarships, but DoSomething.org is expanding into other countries as well.

Although this site will not help you do any direct instruction about social justice, it provides incredible opportunities for students to actively participate in social justice projects. Most campaigns are just right for high school students, and some would be appropriate for middle schoolers as well. Some topics may be considered risque, so review the content before introducing it to students.

On a related note, DoSomething.org is the organization where Katia Gomez, the college student who started her own school in Honduras (featured in the first Cult of Pedagogy documentary last year), got her start. One more bit of trivia that totally doesn't matter but might if you are a Melrose Place fan: DoSomething.org was co-founded by 90's heartthrob Andrew Shue. Squeee!!

The Global Oneness Project

The Global Oneness Project offers a beautiful collection of multicultural films, photo essays, and articles that "explore cultural, social, and environmental issues with a humanistic lens." Many of the featured stories are paired with a lesson plan for high school or college classrooms, aligned with Common Core and national standards.

One such pairing starts with the film Amar, which follows a young Indian boy living in a high-poverty neighborhood through a typical day that includes rising before dawn to do one of his two jobs and attending school. The accompanying lesson plan is called A Day in the Life, which has students examine the film and other resources related to the economic situation in India.

The films are truly stunning. This collection doesn't include explicit teachings in any kind of civics or grassroots activism, but it will provide students with a deep understanding of lives completely unlike their own. And that kind of empathy is one of the most important building blocks for any kind of social justice action.

Pushing the Edge: Social Justice Resources Collection

Educator Greg Curran's podcast covers a range of educational topics, but quite a few episodes circle around issues of social justice. Recently, he curated these resources into a Social Justice Resources Collection. These episodes will be mainly useful for teachers to educate themselves about social justice education: what complications and questions come up, helpful do's and don'ts, and why it's worth it. He interviews practicing teachers and administrators who are walking the walk with social justice teaching. Listening to them will give you a template from which to build your own practice.

Here's an example of one episode, where Curran interviews Nakisha Hobbs, principal of the Village Leadership Academy, a k-8 social justice school in Chicago.

GLSEN: Educator Resources

For teachers who want to include consideration of LGBT issues in their study of social justice, a great source for materials is GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network. offers a nice collection of educator guides and lesson plans.

Here are a few examples: The ThinkB4YouSpeak Guide for Educators includes lesson plans, resources, and tips for teachers for addressing anti-LGBT language in the 6-12 classroom. Unheard Voices is a collection of audio interviews with "individuals who bore witness to or helped shape LGBT history in some way." And the Day of Silence Guide shows educators how to run a Day of Silence awareness campaign in their schools.

Educational Video Center

I love this idea: The Educational Video Center teaches students the skills of documentary filmmaking, telling important stories in the name of social justice. Although the EVC holds after-school workshops only for students in New York City, they do offer professional development for teachers anywhere who want to learn how to teach these skills to their own students.

Alumni of the EVC have created documentaries on everything from criminal justice to domestic violence to mental health. You can view a collection of trailers for student-created documentaries here.

The Two Dollar Challenge

The Two Dollar Challenge is a challenge issued to people who want to make an impact on poverty. The challenge is simple: For 5 days, live on just $2 per day, publicizing the complexities of global poverty and helping to raise funds for a partner organization.

What's most striking about this organization is their emphasis on cultivating a deep respect for people affected by poverty and raising participants' awareness of their own privilege. One look at the project's code of conduct shows just how serious they are about that mission: "At all times participants must respect those nearby who are truly in need. If at any time those taking the Challenge are using resources which are valuable for indigent residents in the area this action must be re-evaluated."

Anti-Defamation League

The ADL's collection of lesson plans explore topics in categories like gender issues, sexism, ableism, religious bigotry, and racism. For example, What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?, a lesson for high school students, has students study and discuss the impact of zero-tolerance policies in schools, statistics on the connection between school suspensions and the juvenile justice system, and their own school discipline policy. The end of the lesson offers students a choice of next steps for taking action on this issue. Lessons are available for preschool through high school.

Update: Since publishing this post, a few readers have pointed out that some of ADL's other website content (separate from this curriculum) takes a strong stance on issues relating to Israel and may offend some users. I still feel that this curriculum contains incredibly valuable lessons on very recent events that you won't find anywhere else, but this reinforces my second and third points above: Know your audience, and read through the materials carefully. For more details on this issue, please read the comments below. This article may also shed some light on the topic.

Further Reading

Stirring Up Justice
Laurel Schmidt, Education Leadership, May 2009
Explores the value and process of teaching students about activism. Offers a template for how to engage students in authentic conversations about difficult issues, ask themselves what they can do about social justice issues, consider ways they have already acted in the past, study how other kids and young adults have successfully solved problems, and participate in their own social justice projects.

Turning Current Events Into Social Justice Teaching
Jinnie Spiegler, Edutopia, January 6, 2016
Spiegler, the curriculum director for the Anti-Defamation League (the first resource in this post) offers advice on teaching social justice topics in a way that's both sensitive and productive.

Educolor Resources
Educolor, an organization dedicated to an equitable, just education for everyone, maintains this list of books, movies, articles, and websites that will educate teachers and students on issues of social justice, especially as it pertains to educational equity.

The Best Teacher Resources Sites for Social Justice
Larry Ferlazzo, Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day, July 1, 2008
A big list of resources related to social justice education.
What Are Your Favorite Social Justice Resources?
This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you have a resource you like to use for teaching about social justice, please share it in the comments below. ♦

Keep in touch.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading!

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A Collection of Resources for Teaching Social Justice

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Want your students to actively engage in addressing inequality? Explore this annotated bibliography of resources for teaching students about social justice.

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How to Be an Antiracist Educator: An Interview With Ibram X. Kendi

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How to Be an Antiracist Educator: An Interview With Ibram X. Kendi

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In education, nothing is "neutral" when it comes to race. Lesson plans, edtech tools and learning environments either create more equity among students of different races, or more inequity.

That's what scholar Ibram X. Kendi told EdSurge in an interview Nov. 30 during the 2020 virtual conference of the International Society for Technology in Education. (ISTE is the parent organization of EdSurge.)

Kendi, the bestselling author of books including "How to Be an Antiracist" and "Stamped from the Beginning," is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, as well as the founder and director of the institution's new Center for Antiracist Research.

During the conversation with EdSurge, Kendi shared his perspective about inequitable education outcomes and how antiracist policy changes could benefit the students who grow up with the least access to resources in their homes and schools.

"I think it's a national crime year in and year out that we are not investing in our children and investing in the people who are taking care of our children," he said.

He also discussed his teaching style and why it's important for educators to share vulnerability with their students. Read the lightly edited transcript of the interview here.
EdSurge: Your book, "How to Be an Antiracist," offers many helpful definitions, and I thought that we could start with one of those to lay a foundation for our conversation. You define an antiracist as "one who is expressing the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing, and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity." Why do we need this concept of antiracist, and how is it different from the concept of being neutral or just simply being "not racist"?
Ibram X. Kendi: Well, first, I think it's important for us to realize that the term antiracist, like the term racist, is a descriptive term. Meaning, it describes what a person is being in any given moment. And so what that means is if in one moment a person is expressing that the racial groups are equals, in that moment they're being antiracist. If in the next moment they're saying that this is what's wrong with Black people, then in that moment, they're being racist. The reason why that's critical is because we've been taught something different. We've been taught that racist is essential to who a person is. It's a fixed category. It's in someone's heart.

That's one of the reasons why people are unwilling or unable to admit the times in which they're being racist, because it's not just admitting, "I was being racist in that moment." Basically we're tattooing racist on our forehead for the rest of our lives. Because of people's conception that racist is this fixed category-this fixed, horrible, evil person-people are unwilling to admit the times in which they're being racist.

And so instead they say, "No, no, I'm not racist." So no matter what they say or do, no matter what policies they support, they typically self-identify as not racist. They typically identify policies that are leading to inequities as neutral, as opposed to admitting and reflecting and even seeking to change, as antiracists seek to do.
One of the concepts from your work that I find most powerful is the way you call on us all to re-examine our understanding of cause and effect. You write that "racist policies are the cause of racial inequities" and that "policies determine the success of groups." What does that mean for education? Where, for example, people talk about a racial "academic achievement gap" or disparate discipline rates for Black students?
So let's say for instance, if you're a wealthier parent-and most people of wealth are disproportionately white-and let's say in your city, a single test determines who gets into a prestigious public high school. And let's say you have the resources to hire a personal tutor for your child, which will boost their score on that test, and make it easier, obviously, for them to get into that school. And then somebody comes along and says, "Hey, it's a problem that Black and Latinx kids are underrepresented in that school. And maybe it's because of the test." You have a built-in advantage. And so you are going to-many people, unfortunately-are going to support that policy that benefits their children.

And then they're going to argue that, well, "If only those Black and Latinx kids would work harder"-in other words, they're going to articulate racist ideas to defend that racist policy. And that's typically how racist policies and the defense of those policies lead to racist ideas.
You've written about your experiences in classrooms and at education institutions where teachers and the broader learning environment and the culture of the community either affirmed or racially abused students. What message do you have for teachers and education leaders about how to appropriately teach students of all races and avoid inflicting harm?
I would urge educators to realize that we are either being racist or antiracist educators. When I say "we," I'm an educator too, as a professor. And then also, we are either teaching our children to be racist or antiracist, in our students. And so what that means is, how can we go about ensuring that we are being antiracist in the classroom, and we are teaching an antiracist educational curriculum, or creating an antiracist learning environment where the cultures and the ways of life of different groups of people are valued and taught and understood equally? A learning environment where Black doesn't mean "misbehaving."

I would say the most efficient way we can do that is making sure we ourselves are striving to be antiracist. Because if we as individuals are really ensuring that we are being antiracist as individuals, then that's going to come across in how we act as an educator. That's going to come across in how we teach our students.
Technology can be used in ways that help and support underserved students. But if we're not careful, it can be used in ways that reinforce discrimination. What advice do you have for educators when it comes to using technology and data in ways that are effective and maybe even, hopefully, antiracist?
I don't think we should just assume that anything is, quote, "neutral." If we start from there-that we eliminate the construct-even AI is not neutral. And why is it not neutral? Because humans create it.

And I think if we start there, then that allows us to assess: Is this new technology creating more inequity or equity? Is this new technology allowing me to create, or spread, or build an antiracist learning environment? Those are the types of questions. We shouldn't assume that a new technology is going to do that, because chances are if we make that assumption, then it won't.
And to your point about nothing being neutral, if technology is merely sustaining the status quo, and that status quo is better for some students than others, it seems like that's something worth looking into and questioning as well.
Yes. For instance, the current status quo within our educational system is better for, on average, white students than it is for Black and brown students. And so you then have some white Americans say, "Well, why should I change the status quo? It's benefiting people like me."

But I think what's important for white Americans to think about is to not necessarily compare their lot within the educational system and even outside of it with Black and brown students and people. They should be comparing their lot with white folks in Canada, white folks in France, in Germany, in England. Compare our educational system and what is provided to those students to what on average is provided to students here. They should not be thinking about, "OK I'm in first class. My educational system is in first class." They should realize that there are actually people who are riding in educational systems that are like private jets. And why can't my kid have an educational system that is like a private jet? Why can't every kid? And I think that's what we need to be thinking about.
In "How to Be an Antiracist," you trace the evolution of your own thinking about race. And the lessons that you cite seemed to come not so much from formal school curricula, but often from your experiences and your relationships. What might that mean about the potential or the responsibility of formal education to change how people think about race? And whether interpersonal learning might be more powerful, as it seemed for you.
All of the above is absolutely sort of critical. And indeed, my experiences had to do with different colleagues, and different students and even things that I experienced outside of the classroom. But certainly formal education assisted as well.

I think we should understand, as great educators do, that every place is a classroom. And how do we prepare our students to enter into different classrooms and learn to be better people?
Are there particular curricula or strategies that you're aware of that can help point us toward more-antiracist formal education?
Many people have talked about pedagogy that's culturally relevant, and acknowledging we live in a multicultural country, and ensuring that different forms of pedagogy, different cultures and different histories and different forms of literature are exposed to all students.

But I would also say even at a more basic level, I don't consider intelligence [or] assess one's intelligence based on how much a person knows. I assess one's intelligence based on how much one has a desire to know. And so at the basis, we should be building learning environments that encourage students to want to know, that encourages critical thinking, that encourages students to realize when there is a problem of inequality, that it's not because there's something wrong or inferior about a group of people, but that there's something wrong and inferior about our society. That there's something bad about our policies, our conditions. And then that causes the mind to think, "Well, what are those problems?" as opposed to disparage other groups of people.
In "How to Be an Antiracist," you invited us into your life story to show how your own ideas have developed-and therefore, how ours might develop, too. Does the book reflect your own teaching style or teaching philosophy? There is a lot of history and lots of factual information in the book as well, but it feels very personal. Is that how you teach?
I've learned to teach more in that way. Because what I'm finding is even the students that I teach, it's hard for students, it's hard for people, to separate their own emotionality, to separate themselves, and to really think about race and racism. And so this is a deeply personal affair.

I think people are not taught to be vulnerable. We're not taught to really reflect and challenge and admit the times in which we're being racist so we can strive to be antiracist. We're taught to deny it. And so I think part of the teaching, part of the education, is serving as that model of vulnerability, of self-criticism, that I think is incredibly important for educators to do.
Your work highlights the importance of outcomes, rather than just the intent, of policies and actions and ideas. Are there particular outcomes in education that you see as critical for us to work to change? And are there specific actions that you think could help get us there?
I think that there are many students in this country whose parents have more, and those students typically have more in their schools. And I don't think we should take anything away from what those students are provided.

But what I also think we should do is, those students who currently have the least in their homes and also have the least in their schools-those students should have the most in their schools. And so that obviously means completely transforming how we fund and finance our schools. That calls for how we fund and finance educators. To give an example, when I say the least, I'm not just talking about the resources, but even the teachers who have the least amount of experience tend to be in the schools where students who have the least amount in their homes [are].

So how do we change the incentive structure such that the teachers with the most amount of experience are going to the schools in which they may be the most needed? How do we change? It's so many different structures based on how we're funding schools, how we're incentivizing teachers, how we're preparing educators and principals.

But ultimately it's about investing in our children. And I think it's a national crime year in and year out that we are not investing in our children and investing in the people who are taking care of our children.

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How to Be an Antiracist Educator: An Interview With Ibram X. Kendi - EdSurge News

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In education, nothing is "neutral" when it comes to race. Lesson plans, edtech tools and learning environments either create more equity among students of different races, or more inequity. That's what scholar Ibram X. Kendi told EdSurge in an interview Nov. 30 during the 2020 virtual conference of the International Society for Technology in Education.

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How to be an Antiracist - Discussion Questions

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How to be an Antiracist - Discussion Questions

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White Fragility - Discussion Guide for Educators

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White Fragility - Discussion Guide for Educators