Talking About Race

What is it that gives many of us White people a visceral fear about discussing race?

Do you realize that being able to not think about or talk about it is a uniquely White experience?

Do you warn your children about how people might react to them; find store staff following or watching you; get stopped by the police for no reason?

The students of color in your classroom experience discrimination every day, in small and large ways. They don’t often see themselves represented in their textbooks, and encounter hostility in school, and outside. For them race is a constant reality, and an issue they need, and want, to discuss. Failure to do so can inhibit their academic performance.

Failure to discuss race prevents White students from getting a real, critical and deep understanding of our society and their place in it. It is essential for the well-being of all students that they learn to have constructive conversations about the history of race in this country, the impact of racism on different ethnic communities, and how those communities and cultures contribute to society.

The need to model for our students how to talk openly and comfortably about race is critical in America today, but it is still an issue that is difficult to tackle.

To overcome the common fear of discussing race, of saying “something wrong”, this book brings together over thirty contributions by teachers and students of different ethnicities and races who offer their experiences, ideas, and advice. With passion and sensitivity they: cover such topics as the development of racial consciousness and identity in children; admit their failures and continuing struggles; write about creating safe spaces and the climate that promotes thoughtful discussion; model self-reflection; demonstrate the importance of giving voice to students; recount how they responded to racial incidents and used current affairs to discuss oppression; describe courses and strategies they have developed; explain the “n” word; present exercises; and pose questions.

For any teacher grappling with addressing race in the classroom, and for pre-service teachers confronting their anxieties about race, this book offers a rich resource of insights, approaches and guidance that will allay fears, and provide the reflective practitioner with the confidence to initiate and respond to discussion of race, from the pre-school and elementary classroom through high school.

Steven Grineski started his teaching career in 1975 as an elementary school teacher. In 1984 he joined the Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) faculty and earned his doctorate from the University of North Dakota in 1989. While at MSUM Steve served as Dean of Education, Chairperson for Secondary Education and Foundations, Director of Faculty Development, and taught in several different departments and regularly in the local public schools. Currently he is Professor in the School of Teaching and Learning and teaches in the Foundations of Education program, while serving as field experience liaison between the MSUM Teacher Education and the Moorhead, Minnesota, Alternative Education programs. Steve has made over 100 presentations at state, regional, and international conferences; and published over 75 articles and 4 books in diverse areas including cooperative learning, critiquing corporate school reform, alternative education, holistic approaches to teacher education, critical perspectives about instructional technology, talking about race and racism, and the history of education. Steve and his wife Lee are parents to daughters Abby and Sara and privileged grandparents to Noah, Libby, and Caleb.

Julie Landsman has taught in Minneapolis Public Schools for 25 years. She has also been a visiting Professor at Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota, and an adjunct professor at Hamline University and Metro State University in St. Paul. She is the author of numerous books on race and education and a frequent speaker and consultant around the country and abroad. She can be reached through her website at jlandsman.com

Robert Simmons III is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Loyola University Maryland, an associated faculty member of African and African American studies, and a member of the social justice collaborative Edchange. Robert’s K-12 teaching experiences include being a middle school science teacher and elementary teacher in the Detroit Public Schools. With additional teaching and administrative experiences in the Dominican Republic and Minnesota, and in the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program, Robert was nominated twice as the Walt Disney National Teacher of the Year and once for the Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Foundation Outstanding Educator Award. Robert has been a fellow with the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation and participated in the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund. Robert is currently working as a co-PI on an NIH funded grant that focuses on the development and study of virtual science labs in secondary classrooms.

William Ayers is Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired), and founder of both the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society, where he taught courses in interpretive and qualitative research, urban school change, and teaching and the modern predicament. A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Bank Street College of Education, Bennington College, and Teachers College, Columbia University, Ayers has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the cultural contexts of schooling, and teaching as an essentially intellectual, ethical, and political enterprise. He is currently the vice-president of the curriculum studies division of the American Educational Research Association.