Whiteness and critical pedagogy

To my fellow pedagogues-in-training,

I know that our blog assignment is over, but this article is too powerful not to post. The major newspaper in my hometown (Austin, Texas) recently published the following article about a revolutionary fifth-grade teacher. I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I did.

LLP
#teachingacrosscultures



Austin teacher: How realizing I was white changed the way I taught
By Tara Trower Doolittle

A few years ago at Cunningham Elementary School in South Austin, Emily E. Smith’s fifth graders complained that they were looking for information about the Trayvon Martin case on Time for Kids and were frustrated that they couldn’t find anything on the youth version of the news site for the national news magazine.

And so Smith adapted and found a way for her students to read and analyze texts that mattered to them. In fact, Smith’s talent for adaptation has earned her national recognition for her work in her collaborative classroom, which has been renamed The Hive Society.

According to the classroom website: The Hive Society will implement our creative and powerful ideas through technology, participate in insightful conversations and debates about current events, interact with literature that challenges us, and delve into the corners of our brains using an array of expository texts and thought-provoking literature.”

Smith has shelved the textbooks and reconfigured her classroom to mimic the collaborative spaces that are the hallmark of high tech start ups. The goal is to harness her students’ creativity while tackling complex but currently relevant texts and media — literature, essays, poetry, memoirs, videos, photos and news articles.

Smith, who is in her eighth year as a teacher in the Austin school district, has received local and national recognition for her work. Most recently at the National Teachers of English Language Arts Convention in Minnesota where she received the Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing. That is how she came to the notice of Valerie Strauss, an education writer at the Washington Post, who posted an excerpt from Smith’s acceptance speech last month, that has since gone viral on social media.

Smith’s method means that her curriculum is ever-changing. And yes, that means discussing police shootings, immigration and Syrian refugees. It also means that this month, her students will be reading “Brown Girl Dreaming” by Jaqueline Woodson, winner of the National Book Award, and “Rain, reign” by Ann Martin, which tells the story of an autistic girl from her point of view.

Smith says that she has always had a passion to serve diverse students. But even with that orientation growing up and through college, HER emphasis on social justice and culturally relevant texts came later, when she realized the true distance in her perspective as a white teacher serving black and brown students.

She used that moment of revelation in her acceptance speech last month and gave us permission to reprint an excerpt.

By Emily E. Smith

It is probably not the first thing you notice about me, but I’m white. My classroom is not. Sure, it’s been my dream to work at an “urban” school. To work with kids whose challenges I could never even fathom at such a young age. And changing at-risk lives through literature is almost a media cliché by now. These were, however, how I identified myself at the beginning of my teaching career. I was a great teacher. I taught children how to truly write for the first time and share meaningful connections on a cozy carpet. We made podcasts about music lyrics and filled our favorite books so full with annotated sticky notes that they would barely close. We even tiptoed into the alien world of free verse poetry.

But something was missing. If you’ve already forgotten, I’m white. “White” is kind of an uncomfortable word to announce, and right now people may already be unnerved about where this is going. Roughly eighty percent of teachers in America today are white. Yet the population of our students is a palette. That means America’s children of color will, for the majority of their school years, not have a teacher who is a reflection of their own image. Most of their school life they will be told what to do and how to do it by someone who is white, and most likely female. Except for a few themed weeks, America’s children of color will read books, watch videos, analyze documents, and study historical figures who are also not in their image.

I’ve been guilty of that charge. But things changed for me the day when, during a classroom discussion, one of my kids bluntly told me I “couldn’t understand because I was a white lady.” I had to agree with him. I sat there and tried to speak openly about how I could never fully understand and went home and cried because my children knew about white privilege before I did. The closest I could ever come was empathy.

My curriculum from then on shifted. We still did all of the wonderful things that I had already implemented in the classroom, except now the literature, the documents, the videos, the discussions, the images, embodied the issues that my children wanted to explore. We studied the works of Sandra Cisneros, Pam Munoz Ryan, and Gary Soto with the intertwined Spanish language and Latino culture—so fluent and deep in the memories of my kids that I saw light in their eyes I had never seen before.

We analyzed Langston Hughes’ “Let America be America Again” from the lens of both historical and current events and realized that America is still the land that has never been. The land that my kids, after reading an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ letter to his son that connected so deeply to their personal experiences, decided they still wanted to believe in. The land they decided to still hope for. The land that one of my kids quietly said would be changed by her generation. A generation of empathy.

We read about the Syrian crisis, analyzing photographs of war-torn faces at the border and then wrote poetry of hope, despair, and compassion from the perspectives of the migrants. Many of my kids asked to write about their own journeys across the border and their own plights for a better future. One child cried and told me he never had a teacher who honored the journey his family took to America. He told me he was not ashamed anymore, but instead proud of the sacrifice his parents made for him. We listened to StoryCorps podcasts from different walks of life and children shared their own stories of losing pets, saying goodbye to a mother or father in jail, the fear of wearing a hoodie while walking to 7-11, and thriving under the wing of a single parent who works two jobs.

So as I stand here today I can declare, that I am no longer a language arts and social studies teacher, but a self-proclaimed teacher of social justice and the art of communication with words.

Looking back, I think that my prior hesitation to talk about race stemmed from a lack of social education in the classroom. A lack of diversity in my own life that is, by no means, the fault of my progressive parents, but rather a broken and still segregated school system. Now that I’m an educator in that system I’ve decided to stand unflinching when it comes to the real issues facing our children today, I’ve decided to be unafraid to question injustice, unafraid to take risks in the classroom — I am changed. And so has my role as a teacher.

I can’t change the color of my skin or where I come from or what the teacher workforce looks like at this moment, but I can change the way I teach. So I am going to soapbox about something after all. Be the teacher your children of color deserve. In fact, even if you don’t teach children of color, be the teacher America’s children of color deserves because we, the teachers, are responsible for instilling empathy and understanding in the hearts of all kids.

We are responsible for the future of this country. So teach the texts that paint all the beautiful faces of our children and tell the stories of struggle and victory our nation has faced. Speak openly and freely about the challenges that are taking place in our country at this very moment. Talk about the racial and classist stereotypes plaguing our streets, our states, our society. You may agree that black and brown lives matter, but how often do you explore what matters to those lives in your classroom? Put aside your anxieties and accept your natural biases. Donald Graves once said, “Children need to hang around a teacher who is asking bigger questions of herself than she is asking of them.” I know I’m going to continue to ask the bigger questions of myself and seek the answers that sometimes feel impossible because my kids deserve it … you’re welcome to join me. Thank you.

Growing into something new

Over the course of this semester, I have tried to focus on making sure my students were engaged with the material.  I have a passion for history that I feel compliments my passion for communication studies.  I found I very much enjoy teaching and I am seriously considering it as a career option.  However, in this semester, I encountered a very unique set of obstacles outside of the classroom.  I feel my experience, along with the successes and failures I had as the semester came to a close might help others in the future.  I am by nature a performer, an entertainer, and so what follows may be strange for a practical class on pedagogy.  I feel the narrative will allow others the opportunity to explore the experience and the sensation, and hopefully connect with it in such a way as to know they are not alone.  Also, that they might find some tool they can use or something to avoid when dealing with the stress that can come with teaching while managing a life in crisis. 

            For 27 years my permanent address never changed.  My mother began renting the house I grew up in when I was six years old.  She lived there until 2005 when I took over the lease.  It was nice having that kind of continuity.  The house wasn’t ours, but it was cheap to rent, and we considered it home.  Just down the road, the was a house with a huge oak tree I climbed with friends as a child.  It was in the yard of an older woman who lived alone, and she loved to watch the neighborhood kids swing from the branches.  That tree, and that house, we immovable objects in my life. They were anchors that let me know where I was.  They let me know I was home.  On the Friday before Halloween in 2015, as I drove to school in the morning, there were men in the yard of the house where that tree still stood.  I noticed them cutting limbs and assumed they were trimming it for the fall.  When I came home, and drove past, the tree was half gone and laying in a pile in the yard.  It was a strange end to a hard day. 

            I enjoy teaching.  From the first moment I stepped in front of the class, to the last day of instructing my COMM 1010 students, there was never a day I felt bad when teaching.  It was a place to feel safe and like I was doing something important, even when everything else in my life was going off the rails.  My central focus was always trying to ensure the class was engaged with the material.  I wanted to connect with them and ensure they were really learning.  I wanted class to be a place where they felt they were involved and not simply being talked at.  I wanted to correct the mistakes I felt had been made by teachers in my past and really pay attention to what my classes needed.  But from the day of that first cut into the tree I loved to climb as a kid, everything started to fall apart one piece at a time. 

            I was listening to Dr. Allison speak about the paradigm shift in performance studies.  I love the class, and was listening to see if there was anything I could question or that I needed to expand on for my own future work.  I sat around the table with other students and Dr. Anderson-Lain who was there observing the class.  There was candy on the table, as Halloween was only a day away, and so I popped a Jolly Rancher in my mouth to enjoy as I pondered.  I have always bitten into Jolly Ranchers, I loved the feel of the candy falling apart and dissolving in my mouth.  This time however, I had made a terrible mistake.  As my teeth came apart, my face suddenly filled with electricity.  The pain made the rest of what happened blur together.  At some point though I stood, left the classroom, and walked across the street to the CVS, trying not to scream or cry.  I bought some temporary fix for the crown that had popped off my tooth.  I placed it back on, later I would discover I put in on backwards, but it made the pain dull a bit.  I just couldn’t close my mouth.  This problem would persist for over a week. 

            After Halloween I was disconnected in class.  I was underprepared and I always felt I was talking more than I should.  I could see my students were tired and uninvolved.  I saw their detachment, and I felt awful.  I told jokes and tried to find moments when I could bring them back to the material and the moment we were sharing.  Often I would find myself relying on a method I am pretty good at, just waiting for others to answer a question I ask, occasionally letting them know I will stand there for as long as it takes and rephrasing the question.  It was as if they could sense I was detached though.  I felt at times the class could see I was falling apart and that I was failing as a teacher.  In my mind they knew I was focused on everything but school and not giving them my full attention, so I tried to fake it.  I tried to reassure them with words and by acting a teacherly in class as possible, but based on their response, I could tell they weren’t buying it.  And so I began to ask direct questions to individual students and use activities more.  I tried to give them more of an opportunity to speak and exchange ideas.  A part of me feels they still knew I was off, that something was wrong, and they were confused at the change in my demeanor.  The classes slowly became engaged again, but more people started to not show up.  And those that did took longer to get into the rhythm of participation.  And toward the end, I felt I was putting less effort in as the end of the semester became a game of catch up for me and my grad school workload.  I was still trying to hold together the tatters of my personal life, and everyday I was driving past the remains of one of my fondest childhood memories.  Like that once noble Oak with its big strong branches, I was in pieces and my students could see it.  They knew they wouldn’t be standing on my shoulders or hanging from my branches anytime soon, and so they simply disengaged.  I felt like a failure. 

            The words, ”I don’t think I love you anymore, and I haven’t for awhile…”, still ring in my ears.  The house that has been my home for almost three decades is partially empty and I lay in my bed, reading while Netflix drones in the background.  I am alone for the first time in eight years.  No girlfriend, no dogs, and no roommates.  I look at the stack of papers I have to grade and glance at the assignments of my own I am falling behind on.  I am overwhelmed and sad.  I feel hollow inside.  I decide I need food, but my tooth is held in place by a chalky crumbling substance that will break if too much pressure is applied.  I shuffle out my front door and get into the car I am borrowing from now my former girlfriend’s father.  Mine sits broken and useless in the driveway next to it.  I sigh as I remember another thing I have to do before I can move my things to my temporary home in Fort Worth.  The car squeaks as the brakes engage at the stop sign at the end of my street.  I begin to slow near the stump of the tree I climbed as a kid, and I start to cry.  This continues as I drive to the store.  I sit in the car as NPR reminds me of the latest catastrophes around the globe.  I take no solace in the fact that my problems are small.  My life as I have known it is over, I must now reinvent myself as something new.  I must do this alone.  I have no choice but to do the things that will change me forever.  I buy soup and beer and head home, driving past the wooden monument of loss recently placed along my daily commute, and step back into the monotony of trying to hold what remains in my life together.  I want sleep, I want relief, I want someone to hold me. 

            The last class period of the semester in my sections of 1010 were amazing.  My students reminded me in two days why I loved teaching.  Things had started to get better just before the Thanksgiving break.  But now I felt I was back where I truly belonged.  Each class period, I talk a little less.  Each class period more people interact not just with me, but with their peers.  I am behind on grading, I am behind on my own work, I am still feeling sad.  The last 200 minutes I share with my student feels productive and I feel I have purpose again.  I find myself paying close attention to people on phones, to students who stare blankly or wrinkle their brow in confusion.  This prompts me to switch approaches each time there is a pause in the class.  Sometimes I ask questions, sometimes I write notes on the board, sometimes I show videos.  Each class feels good.  It feels like home.  On the last day I ask the students how they feel the semester went, if they had any notes.  They compliment me, but a few give really good feedback about things I could improve.  I store the knowledge away, an leave the last class feeling that I accomplished something.  Only their grades and future use of the concepts we went over will truly tell the story as to weather or not I was successful.  But I feel like I helped some students.  I feel like I made a difference.  Like the time I pulled a trick conversation about race back from the edge of being dangerously inappropriate with a story from my childhood.  I told them about my Mississippi family, and how the way they talked about race made it hard for me to make friends when I first came to Texas because of the language I was taught to use to think about people.  Then, there was the day a student shared a very personal story about an online dating experience and how it had affected their ability to trust people they meet online.  I think of these things as I walk back to the GAB where my desk sits in the middle of an amazing group of scholars, people that all helped me get through the roughest part of the semester, people that teach me something new everyday.  As I walk, I pass a tree that is tall and old, and I think about climbing it.  In my mind, for just a moment, I am high up in the branches with the sun worming my face and my curly hair bouncing with each sway of the branches.  I smile as I walk past the tree, and I feel like I’m going home. 

Learning from failure

            When she started crying, I didn’t know what to do.  My impulse was to cut the presentation short.  I wanted to reach out to her, to tell her it was okay and that she was doing a great job, and ask if she wanted to go on a different day.  I looked around the classroom and saw people looking at their phones, others watching the scene unfold and frozen like I was.  And then a single voice rang through the room on a particularly long pause for a sob that the speaker was trying their best to hold back, “You’re doing great job,” they said.  I didn’t see who had said it, I’ll never know who stepped in and did what I should have, but I was glad they did.  The speaker continued for a minute or so more, but their speech anxiety took over again and I could tell they cut their speech short.  Why didn’t I say something?  Why had I not stepped in and tried to save them from the situation?  Was it fear of what the class would think if I cut her off?  A general anxiety that others might try and fake their way out of having to complete the assignment. Or was it simply the uncertainty of how to help in the moment?

            This is the most uncomfortable situation I faced in the classroom this semester.  I have a natural desire to want to comfort and help others.  I don’t always succeed, and in fact have on occasion simply made things worse, but my general inclination is to help.  In this moment I froze, though.  I simply didn’t think quickly enough about how to handle it.  The worst part is, I had seen this before.  I had been in a speech class with someone years ago, who cried through all of their speeches.  At one point, running from the classroom rather than finishing the presentation.  The teacher had simply continued on unfazed and called the next person up to present.  Was I merely a product of learning by example?  Was I replicating what I had seen before?  So many questions I am still trying to answer for myself, but one thing is clear: One of my students was on point that day.  They did the thing I wish I had done.  And the class and that speaker was better off for it. 

            I try to be my authentic self, I try to foster an atmosphere in the classroom that allows everyone to feel safe and provides a space for them to speak about and question the material we are learning.  In this moment, however, I feel like I failed.  I feel like if I had been my true authentic self, I would have done more.  But instead I was trying to figure out what the best course of action for me as the teacher was.  How could I maintain authority and a sense of importance among my students in these presentation, if I simply was human and stopped the speech to allow this student to gather themselves and try again later?  And while I debated this with myself, one of my students did what I should have.  They helped, they reached out, and they gave relief to someone who was suffering.

            The more I thought about it, the more began to drift to the line of thought that, maybe as the teacher I had fostered the atmosphere where my students felt like it was okay to intercede and help each other.  By virtue of everything else I had said and done, perhaps I had set the stage for a student to reach out and comfort a fellow scholar who needed support.  I had made the classroom inviting and open enough that there was no fear in interrupting another person’s speech to provide support.  Then, I realized how egotistical that sounded.  I was taking responsibility for the kindhearted nature of another, and trying to insert myself into a situation in which I had failed to react quickly and appropriately.  But then, what is the appropriate response to the situation? 

It was then I realized, I needed to plan for this contingency the next time we did speeches.  I began to feel that I had done something to foster a positive classroom dynamic, and that although the actions of the student who interceded were not directly related, my classroom was a place where they felt comfortable being their authentic self.  Perhaps, I thought, it was better to get support from a peer than from the teacher.  Better to have the support of a fellow student, than be rescued by the instructor.  I will likely debate this situation for a long time.  I will have to study more, and get more experience, and it will probably be a tennis match in my head for a long time over how the situation played out.  I feel confident that there was, in the end, more positive than negative in the situation.  I learned about myself, and gained experience with a tricky and not uncommon situation, and so I am better off for next semester and the next time I have to grade presentation. 

It also helped with the next round of presentations we did in class.  I was more alert to what was happening, I was more attentive to their level of anxiety as they began speaking, trying to anticipate the need to get involved.  This made me more engaged as a teacher, more aware of the possibilities of the students might be facing as they spoke in front of the class.  It was also interesting to see that the students themselves were engaged in the speeches being delivered.  I was used to the fact that most people tend to zone out while others present, I was an undergraduate and have been guilty of it myself several times.  Did my construct of what I thought the classroom should be like have any impact?  I will likely never know.  I can hope that it was a little me, though.  I learned something about myself and what can happen when you are unprepared for such a specific situation.  Mostly, I am happy that someone was there to step in and do what I failed to.

Palmer, P. J. (1998/2007). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons.