For White Teachers of Black Children (Part Two)
“It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals in order for people today to recognize their potential agency as part of an ever-expanding community of struggle.” – Dr. Angela Davis
(For context while reading this – I wrote this second piece after receiving great feedback on the original post from one of my Black colleagues, Nikeya Stuart. She significantly pushed my thinking / writing to include suggestions about connecting with our families and our Black colleagues as necessary components of our antiracist work. I am by no means an expert on this subject so I welcome and would appreciate any / all thoughts in the comments below. Or you could email me at mjoseph@kippnj.org and we could hop on a Zoom call!)
In For White Teachers of Black Children * I quoted Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade at length. When he insightfully said, “You need to get access to what it is kids are thinking about your practice,” I should have added that you need to get access to what your students’ families and your colleagues (especially your Black colleagues) think about your practice as well.
Making a “spiritual and emotional investment” (Duncan-Andrade’s compelling words) in the lives of your kids is tremendous. Making a spiritual and emotional investment in the lives of your kids, their families, and your colleagues is transformative.
Said another way, you can wish upon a single star but a constellation can help guide you to freedom.
Or, in the words of Dr. Angela Davis reflecting on Nelson Mandela in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, “He was indeed extraordinary, but as an individual he was especially remarkable because he railed against the individualism that would single him out at the expense of those who were always at his side.”
Those were always at his (her / their) side.
In our case –
Kids. And families. And colleagues.
My first piece was primarily filtered through the lens of students and so I hope to deepen the discussion here in regards to your families and your colleagues.
So what do you do if you are a white teacher of Black children?
Long story short (as I wrote before), we help do the antiracist work of abolishing white supremacy because Black lives matter.
Long story continued –
We ask our families for regular feedback, informally through conversations and formally through surveys (both self-administered through sites like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms and school-administered through the appropriate channels).
We host Family Nights once per quarter (or more!) – sip and paints, pumpkin carvings, potlucks, bingo games, etcetera.
We invite our families to a barbecue / cookout one afternoon / evening in late August or early September. (Like The Fast and the Furious barbecues but better.)
We call / FaceTime / Zoom our families when there is cause for concern as well as when there is cause for celebration (and sometimes just because).
We communicate weekly updates to our families via email, text, and / or newsletter.
We apologize to our families ** when we make mistakes.
We teach the kids of our families in the best and most passionate ways we know how, constantly refining, reflecting on, and researching about our practice because we must teach author’s craft and dividing fractions and forest ecosystems with the same energy we protest racist policies.
(And much more.)
We get to know our Black colleagues (and our colleagues of color) in real and authentic ways – so much so that the formal word “colleagues” eventually is replaced by “friends” and maybe even “family.” ***
We celebrate the successes, efforts, and growth of our Black colleagues.
We ask our Black colleagues for regular feedback (both informally and formally as I wrote above) and we provide them with regular feedback because we are committed to their development and craft.
We collaborate with our Black colleagues on lessons, projects, and / or trips.
We advocate for our Black colleagues to attain positions of leadership and power in our schools.
We see our Black colleagues as individuals and not do not assume their actions and beliefs are representative of the entire Black culture and experience.
(And much more.)
I closed For White Teachers of Black Children with a question –
If you don’t love Black lives, why are you teaching them?
Put a different way –
If you love Black lives, you love all Black lives.
“In keeping with Mandela’s insistence of always locating himself within a context of collective struggle” (more from the profound Dr. Angela Davis) it would do well (especially for me) to remember the African proverb –
“If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.”
The marathon continues.
Together.
(A special shout-out to Nikeya Stuart for providing inspiration and feedback on this piece. I literally could not have written it without you. And to Ray James for his continued feedback and ideas on these pieces.)
* For Antiracist Teachers of Black Children was probably a more apt title.
** And our kids and our colleagues.
*** I wrote in the first piece that “kids might not always be listening; however, they see everything.” Nowhere is this more true than in how you treat your Black colleagues. Your kids will know if “Black lives matter” only applies to them or if it applies to all Black lives in your orbit. And, honestly, they will consider you a hypocrite (and rightfully so) if you pick and chose which Black lives you care about at the expense of all the others.
Moreover, I believe that (in the words of Ray James) “kids see and learn from adult actions in the building more than anything else” while at school. You might think that a conversation with a colleague about basketball that turns into a text thread, a text thread that turns into a song recommendation, a song recommendation that turns into book swapping, a book swapping that turns into a poker game, (and so on), is only beneficial for you (and it will be very beneficial for you). However, the impact on kids is unquantifiable; when kids see all of their teachers care about each other in sincere and vulnerable and non-trivial ways, the school environment and the vibes and the energy are downright magical.
