Inclusively

Inclusive, Multicultural Teaching & Parenting

Education

After Charlottesville, what can parents and teachers do?

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A still from a video in which white supremacists march with tiki torches. Closed caption reads "Jews will not replace us!"
Still image from the Vice News/HBO episode “Charlottesville: Race and Terror.”

The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, as well as the torchlit march the evening before the rally, revealed what some might call the ugly underbelly of American culture—and what others deem its very foundation: a commitment to white supremacy and the exclusion, suppression, and hatred of others. Worse, by commenting that there was “violence on many sides” and that there were “very fine people on both sides,” the president of the United States suggested that the violence that erupted in Charlottesville represents a minor eruption in an otherwise measured debate marked by moral equivalency.

There are those who maintain the “Unite the Right” rally’s genuine mission was to preserve a statue of Robert E. Lee. Evidence from the two days of the rally suggests otherwise:

 

 

Some people might suggest “big tent” multiculturalism requires tolerance of opposing viewpoints. And indeed it does—unless those viewpoints call for the elevation of one group of people above all others and the annihilation of specific groups its adherents deem inferior.

If you watch that Vice News/HBO video embedded above, you’ll see that violence and a failure to see others as human—near the end of the video, neo-Nazi Christopher Cantwell refers to the protesters “animals”—were intentional features of, rather than coincidental to, the “Unite the Right” rally. White men, as well as some women, came well-armed, looking to intimidate, maim, and kill.

Taking action at home and school

What can parents and teachers do in the face of such violence and threats of violence, which are sure to erupt again as we face, as former Vice President Joe Biden puts it, “a battle for the soul of this nation”?

There are many steps you can take. This piece I wrote six years ago remains relevant. The two most important steps, I believe, are the first and the last: make sure young people feel safe, and ask “what should we do to help?”

If you’re a parent, GeekDad author Matt Blum suggests some structure for a conversation with your kids. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Sonali Kohli shared advice from mental health experts and parents, including educating yourself first, using age-appropriate concepts, limiting media exposure, answering children’s questions, and ensuring children don’t feel disempowered. If you’re uncertain what an age-appropriate conversation might look like, this article from the National Education Association offers some guidelines.

If you’re a secondary teacher or postsecondary faculty looking for readings, or if you’re a concerned individual who wants to be better informed, there are already several versions of a Charlottesville syllabus available:

While we await the next very public flare-up of our long struggle with racism, find ways to incorporate (but not co-opt) the voices and ideas of people of color into the lives of the young people for whom you care or with whom you come into contact. You can, for example, fill your home, the school library, or your local public library, with books and media about (and ideally written by) people of color—particularly women of color, who often face the biggest obstacles to making their voices heard. You can ensure your child’s room is filled with toys and art that reflect your values. You can talk to your children’s teachers, principals, school boards, and superintendents about how to diversify the curriculum to better represent the experiences and amplify the voices of underrepresented people. (And guess what? I’ve been working for the past few months on a guide that helps white teachers do just that.)

This work pays off

It may feel like you’re trying to build an island by throwing pebbles into a rising sea, but if enough people in your children’s lives are on board, your children (or your students) will come to value diverse voices, recognize injustice, and speak up. We’ve been talking about these issues in age-appropriate ways with my son since he was in preschool, and while he may not yet have the vocabulary or maturity of an activist or scholar, today he’s a middle-schooler with a moral and ethical compass whose magnetic north is social justice.

Keep your eye on this blog for the multi-part guide—aimed at K-12 faculty, lower-division college faculty, and homeschooling parents, but of use to parents who want to encourage their children’s teachers to embrace a multicultural world—How to Diversify your Curriculum: Principles, Steps, and Resources. It’s a seven-part blog series loaded with resources and downloadable goodies for educators, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Wake up, white teachers—representation matters

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A couple weeks ago, I went to a presentation on a gifted magnet program in a district that, like many here in Idaho, serves a population that is between 80 and 90 percent white. On the surface, the program was impressive, offering all kinds of project-based STEM, arts, and language courses, as well as high-quality extracurricular activities.

The Q & A following the presentation was also typical for such a program. The audience, comprising precocious kids squirming in their seats and their hyper-attentive parents, asked questions about academic rigor, whether kids could participate in additional enrichment activities, bus scheduling, and grades.

White teacher leans over three white children. Text overlay: "Tell me about diversity in your curriculum."

I grew increasingly uncomfortable during the question session. With but a couple of exceptions, everyone in the room was white and appeared middle-class. As it was early evening, some of us were still dressed for our white-collar jobs. There was a good deal of privilege in the room. We were white, apparently able to provide for our families, and we had bright, active, healthy kids. And I recalled once again that in an academic context those are the only kinds of kids my son has ever known.

And so, as the Q & A waned and people had begun to filter out, I asked the teachers and administrators at the front of the room to tell me about diversity at the school, demographically and in the curriculum.

Silence.

They asked me for more detail on what I wanted to know and why I wanted to know it.

I explained that in an ideal world, my child would have the opportunity to learn about people who aren’t like him. Ideally, he would undertake classroom alongside students of color who have a different perspective on our city, state, and nation. (This is rare in gifted programs, even in more diverse cities.) However, in a predominantly white school, any meaningful learning about other cultures must come via the curriculum.

The only forms of diversity the teachers could cite were “diversity of thought” and a once-a-year mingling of gifted kids with “special ed” kids. They didn’t—and I’m guessing couldn’t, since I pressed them—name any diverse authors or social studies content. These were the humanities and social studies teachers.

I understand that white adults living in Idaho may not understand the extent of their privilege because the politics and demographics of this state can obscure, for them at least, the reality and extent of racism here. However, I have a hard time believing teachers at mid-career have never heard that representation matters, that students of color need to see themselves in the curriculum and other course materials, or that white students need to fully understand the legacy of slavery, racism, and white hegemony in this country.

Even if one were only going to make a minimal effort in incorporating diversity into the curriculum, there’s really no excuse for not being able to cite a single work either by an author or artist of color or that depicts people from cultures other than the dominant one. Why not? The internet, of course.

Teachers can, for example, search the School Library Journal site; find PBS documentaries like these on Latinx heritage and culture; find African-American art at the Smithsonian’s website; or find themed curricula, such as these resources on Asian-Pacific cultures, at the Library of Congress’s website for teachers. Thanks to America’s cultural institutions and the generosity of teachers who share their materials online, it’s surprisingly easy to find resources to educate oneself about diversity of all kinds, as well as classroom activities and assignments on the same topics.

Of course, you can also check out the ever-growing list of Inclusively posts on books and media and course materials and lesson plans.

White teacher leaning over young white students. Text overlay reads, "Wake up, white teachers -- representation matters."

Original photo copyright: racorn / 123RF Stock Photo