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Allow your students to generate, agree to, and hold each other accountable to, their own norms.

Since conversations about race can be difficult and divisive, establish some agreements before you begin the conversation. Allow your students to generate, agree to, and hold each other accountable to, their own norms. Display these agreements and refer back to them, as needed. Decide upfront on the goals and parameters of the conversation - what you are and are not going to address.

Example group norms are: honoring confidentiality, using "I" statements instead of "You" statements, focusing on actions and impacts rather than assumptions and intentions, participating fully but evenly, deeply listening, allowing disagreement, appreciating feedback instead of getting defensive, and always respecting each other.

Learning and using restorative justice practices, such as peace circles, can also be helpful for addressing harm or conflict. These practices can help bring real issues to the surface while also fostering healthy communication, conflict resolution and relationships.
< Previous: Talk About Racism and Racial Equity | Next: Process is as Important as Content >
In This Section:

1. Create a Welcoming Classroom and School

2. Root Out Biases and Barriers

3. Encourage Self-Expression

4. Be Open Yourself

5. Engage, Don't Avoid

6. Create Opportunities for Discussion

7. Talk About Racism and Racial Equity

8. Establish and Enforce Group Norms

9. Process is as Important as Content

10. Model Your Values and Vision

Download the Full Resource Guide:

This comprehensive NEA resource guide includes tools & resources for talking about race, conducting racial equity assessments, strategic planning, ideas for capacity building and action, FAQs, and a directory of web pages, documents and allied organizations focused on racial justice in education.
Download the PDF >

"Creating the Space to Talk About Race in Your School" content on this web site and in our "Racial Justice in Education" resource guide © 2017 National Education Association, in collaboration with Race Forward.

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Establish and Enforce Group Norms - NEA EdJustice

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Allow your students to generate, agree to, and hold each other accountable to, their own norms. Since conversations about race can be difficult and divisive, establish some agreements before you begin the conversation. Allow your students to generate, agree to, and hold each other accountable to, their own norms. Display these agreements and refer back ...

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Singleton & Linton’s Courageous Conversations Sample

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Singleton & Linton’s Courageous Conversations Sample

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Establish your group norms. In order to ensure group members feel safe, establish common agreements such as respect and confidentiality.

Here's an example adapted from Singleton & Linton's Courageous Conversations model:

Stay engaged.

To stay engaged is a refusal to let your heart and mind "check out" of the conversation while leaving your body in place. It is a personal commitment each person makes, regardless of the engagement of others. It means remaining morally, emotionally, intellectually, and socially involved in the dialogue.

Speak your truth (knowing it's only part of the truth).

To speak your truth, you must be willing to take risks and be honest about your thoughts, feelings and opinions, and not just saying what you perceive others want to hear. Unless we can bring our authentic selves to the table the dialogue will remain limited. Honor and respect each others' truth as their own lived experience.

Experience discomfort.

Talking about race, racism, and inequity is often uncomfortable. Identifying and unpacking our own identity groups and the different levels of privilege associated with them is even more uncomfortable. To engage in conversations about race and inequity in honest, meaningful ways, we ask participants to agree to experience some discomfort.

Expect and accept non-closure.

There is no "quick fix," to-do list, or solution to the complex problems posed by racism and inequity. We are not going to solve racism within our organization, or even within our group today. Therefore, we must commit to an ongoing dialogue and a journey of growth together.

Confidentiality.

To support each other in our risk-taking we agree to respect the privacy of each individual's identity and life experiences. We can share our own learning, but not the names and stories of others.

(Adapted from: Singleton, G. E., & Linton, C. (2006). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.)

Other examples of group norms might include things like:

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Establish your group norms. In order to ensure group members feel safe, establish common agreements such as respect and confidentiality. Here's an example adapted from Singleton & Linton's Courageous Conversations model: Stay engaged. To stay engaged is a refusal to let your heart and mind "check out" of the conversation while leaving your body in place.

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Article from Expeditionary Learning

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NORMS PROCESS

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Resources for Remote Teaching
Teachers and students work together to generate a vision of an equitable classroom by agreeing to actions that
• are respectful and make classrooms safe places for sharing;
• are equitable so that everyone’s ideas and participation are valued;
• support commitment to community and learning together; and
• move science thinking forward as students work to figure things out

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1. Engage in Vigilant Self-Awareness
2. Acknowledge Racism and the Ideology of White Supremacy.
3.Study and Teach Representative History
4. Talk About Race with Students
5. When You See Racism, Do Something
6. Shape an Antiracist Future

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Dena Simmons

As a social and emotional learning (SEL) practitioner-scholar, I am fortunate to get invitations to support schools and districts all over the United States. When schools and districts learn that I address SEL within the larger sociopolitical context, integrating culturally responsive and SEL practices to ensure equitable student outcomes, some are excited. Too many, however, insist that there is no need to discuss equity or culturally responsive practices; their school population is mostly white. The pushback at these schools reveals an underlying discomfort with talking about race, identity, and difference in our nation's classrooms. I worry about the marginalized students and educators in these schools who are either expected to do the brunt of the race and equity work or who are likely struggling silently.

We cannot afford to wallow in our discomfort regarding issues of race and equity. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported an overwhelming 3,265 incidents of hate or bias in schools throughout the nation in the fall of 2018 alone. I, too, have experienced racial trauma at many of the education institutions where I've worked or studied. Educators have an obligation to confront the harm of racism. That is why we must commit to becoming antiracist educators and to preparing our young people to be antiracist, too. I recommend five actions for teaching for an antiracist future.

1. Engage in Vigilant Self-Awareness

People who are white or perceived as white have more privilege and fewer barriers to resources than Black people and other people of color. If we do not know our power, we can abuse it unintentionally or fail to leverage it toward antiracism. Constant self-reflection enhances our ability to disrupt white privilege when we see or enact it. Some questions to ask yourself include

How does your identity provide or prevent access to necessary resources?

How does your power and privilege show up in your work with students, take up space, or silence others?

What single narratives are you telling yourself about students, and how does that affect grading, behavior management, and other interactions?

Do you and the academic materials you use uphold whiteness or lift up the voices and experiences of people of color?

Studies show that Eurocentric values and content dominate U.S. schooling, so these reflection questions are also relevant to educators of color who may have internalized negative messages about Black or Brown people.

2. Acknowledge Racism and the Ideology of White Supremacy

When we let our discomfort or ignorance shield us from recognizing our country's racist history and present, we are part of the problem. Failing to acknowledge racism not only erases histories, cultures, and identities, but also ignores ongoing differential treatment based on race. For example, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos ignored three decades of research showing students of color are disciplined more harshly than white students when she decided to rescind Obama-era guidelines aimed at discipline equity. In addition, schools and districts have spoon-fed lessons on grit to mostly students of color, suggesting that we must "fix" them by making them grittier so that they can adapt to-rather than disrupt-racism and inequality in schools.

Acknowledging the social construct of race and racism and the ideology of white supremacy recognizes the problem so that we are not harmful in our ignorance and so that, together, we can strive for solutions. For educators of color, the work means continuing to call out racism and recruiting white coconspirators to join in antiracist work.

3. Study and Teach Representative History

No matter what subject you teach, history (including African American history, which is U.S. history) is important. Knowing our country's whole history helps us make sense of how our current education system perpetuates inequity.

For too long, we have taught U.S. history devoid of a true depiction of Black excellence and have focused on erasing the truth of racial oppression and uplifting whiteness. Our curriculum superficially talks about slavery and civil rights (notably, textbook provider McGraw-Hill called enslaved Africans "immigrants" and "workers"), and teaching practices risk traumatizing Black students by enacting mock slave auctions, slave games, and underground railroad games. Alternately, resources such as Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s PBS documentary series on Reconstruction or The New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project provide a comprehensive opportunity to learn and discuss history and race with colleagues and students. The Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools also have teaching materials that explore topics like the Tulsa race riots and colonization.

4. Talk About Race with Students

The educators I work with are mostly white (which matches the lack of teacher diversity on a national level) and often share that they do not feel comfortable talking about race. But when we shy away from open conversations about race with young people, we sow the seeds of prejudice by inadvertently sending the message that something is wrong with people from another race.

To open up conversations with young people, use stories from history and literature as a starting point, and ask students to take on the perspective of a character about whom they are reading. Reading literature and role-playing enhance empathy and other social cognitive skills. Teaching Tolerance's resource, "Let's Talk: Discussing Race, Racism, and Other Difficult Topics," includes suggestions for working through discomfort. The Educational Leadership article " Helping Students Discuss Race Openly" also has a great list of steps to begin the conversation. (And the September 2019 issue of this newsletter includes guidance from educator Liz Kleinrock on how to lead students through challenging topics like race.)

5. When You See Racism, Do Something

We have to fight against racism-and other isms and phobias. All students deserve to live and learn in the comfort of their own skin. To combat racism, consider how the academic resources, policies, admissions, hiring, grading, and behavior management practices at your school might be racist. Whom do the practices and policies benefit and whom do they disadvantage? Are Black people and other people of color disproportionately affected negatively by disciplinary, pedagogical, and administrative practices? For example, what hours are family-teacher conferences held? Which families are excluded from these hours? Which students are most disciplined based on dress code or physical appearance? In 2018, a high school wrestler was forced to cut his locks because the referee argued that his hair was not compliant with regulations. Ask yourself whether a particular "rule" is applied to all people or just to some. Engage in vigilant awareness of your implicit bias to ensure that you are not part of the problem, too.

Most important, when we see racism-whether at the individual or policy level-we must have the courage to act. White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo provides guidance for engaging in gentle but firm conversations with offenders that prevents the defensiveness that race conversations inspire. Share data on specific practices and use stories to humanize the data. Build partnerships with racial-justice organizations in your communities to integrate their work in teaching and learning. Form a taskforce to assess data, policies, and practices with an antiracist lens to disrupt systemic decisions that historically have disenfranchised people of color. Be mindful that these efforts should not be carried solely by the people of color in your school, who are living and struggling with racism on a daily basis.

Shape an Antiracist Future

In his book How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi writes, "The opposite of racist isn't 'not racist.' It is 'anti-racist.' ... One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist'" (p. 9). Teaching for an antiracist future starts with us, the educators. An antiracist educator actively works to dismantle the structures, policies, institutions, and systems that create barriers and perpetuate race-based inequities for people of color. Educating students to see and respect the humanity and dignity of all people should be a national imperative, especially if we want to heal-and have a future-as a nation.

Dena Simmons (@DenaSimmons) supports schools throughout the nation to build social and emotional learning, culturally responsive practices, and equity ( www.denasimmons.com). She is the author of the forthcoming book White Rules for Black People (St. Martin's Press). Her views are her own.

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Dena Simmons As a social and emotional learning (SEL) practitioner-scholar, I am fortunate to get invitations to support schools and districts all over the United States. When schools and districts learn that I address SEL within the larger sociopolitical context, integrating culturally responsive and SEL practices to ensure equitable student outcomes, some are excited.

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Abolitionist Teacher Network Resource on Building Relationships with Students 

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Abolitionist Teacher Network Resource on Building Relationships with Students 

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Abolitionist Teaching Network