Classrooms as dynamic

We white people discursively frame both our understanding of the world and our position in relation to others in our figured worlds (Leonardo, 2009; Bonilla-Silva, 2018). The responses from the white participants suggest it is through this discursive understanding that we, white faculty, have come to understand ourselves, our classrooms, and our students. One of the ways we navigate through conversations about race and racism is by suggesting that we are not privy to problematic interpersonal dynamics between students. This discursively makes sense to both us and our colleagues who recognize ourselves as “good” teachers. 

Many people -- students and teachers alike -- have shared with me that it always feels like we’re “talking around” something, particularly when it comes to engaging in discussions about “diversity” and student identity. Upon reflection, I understand now that this should not be surprising. Stevenson (2014) asserts,

To be afraid of racial encounters is not the problem. Not addressing the fear of racial encounters is. [...] That schools are jungles of racial socialization is not the problem. That these jungles are mostly socializing individuals how to avoid racial tensions in our society at the relationship level is the problem of racial illiteracy. (Emphasis added, p.61)

In other words, when the conversation turns to be about race and racism, we frame our ignorance as reasonable by establishing our classrooms as the logical point of access to students. Since we consider our classrooms as relatively safe spaces, we assert we know very little about patterns/the experience of racism. That said, what happens if we were to release ourselves from the default narrative that our classrooms are safe? Where does that leave us as educators? Isn’t it our “job” to keep our students “safe” and intellectually engaged while they are in our classrooms? 

Some student responses from my pilot study suggest participatory structures and teaching styles that make some students feel “comfortable” in the classroom may inadvertently create a hostile learning environment for others. For example, one white male student I interviewed explained that his English teacher, a white woman, helped him feel “completely comfortable” talking about “difficult stuff like racism” (Student Interview, 05/23/17). However, DiAngelo and Sensoy (2014) explain:

...in the context of cross-racial dialogues that are explicitly about race and racism, what feels safe for Whites is presumed to feel safe for people of Color. Yet for many students and instructors of Color the classroom is a hostile space virtually all of the time, and especially so when the topic addressed is race. (p.105)

What if, instead of striving to create a “safe” learning environment in our classrooms, we thought about our classrooms as necessarily part of Stevenson’s (2014) jungles of racial socialization? As Stevenson (2014) reminds us, it is not the fact that our schools are jungles of racial socialization, it is our denial that they are that is the problem. How would this change the way we prepared ourselves to teach our students? 

Harrell-Levy and Kerpelman (2010) assert that “through the expectations they set, the feedback they provide on student performance, and the student behaviors they encourage and discourage, teachers influence adolescents’ day-to-day exploration of their identities” (p.79). Thus, it’s not about the written rules/policy, per se, it is about the choices teachers make about how to structure class discussions and provide students with feedback that impact the way students understand themselves and engage as learners. That said, many of the participant responses suggested white faculty did not believe they had the necessary skills/lived experience to engage productively in conversations about race, racism, and identity with students. But, let’s make this strange: Who benefits from us believing that we can only “do our best” to support our students to develop a healthy racial identity? From my perspective, this default narrative shields both the teacher and the institution -- after all, we cannot ask people to do more than their best. #fakenews I believe we don’t need experts, per se, we need to encourage each other (by example) to commit to increasing our own racial literacy. This is part of holding ourselves accountable. 

Although reaching consensus on the specific role teachers should play in the lives of students is unlikely, insisting that our classrooms are safe will not make them so. In fact, responses from the participants suggest that although we cannot explicitly name it, we white people can sense there is something wrong. This is consistent with Delgago and Stefanic’s (1997) assertion that those in power 

fail to notice how the current situation itself reflects a particular distribution of power and authority, arrived at long ago. But [they] do notice changes and proposals for change. These stand out starkly, seem like departures, and require justification. (p.101)

In other words, it is hard for those of us who are emotionally and financially invested in the system to see the need for challenging the status quo. To me, this means if we want our discussions about “diversity” and “community-building” to be productive, we need to support members of our community as they work to build their racial literacy. 

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Hobson (2014) urges us in her TEDTalk to be “color brave” and not shy away from conversations about race. Like hashtags, the conversations we have in class and online are multi-dimensional and unstable. Although we -- as faculty -- may believe we have successfully avoided conversations about student identity and/or “silenced” racist, sexist, homophobic, and ableist transgressors, this is unlikely. Conversations that start in the classroom, online, or #IRL will continue despite us believing that we’ve “shut it down” the transgressor. To be clear, I am not suggesting that our classrooms be open, free-for-alls where everyone gets to say hurtful things without consequence. The point I wish to make is that, framing our classrooms as jungles of socialization reminds us that the thinking and learning that occurs within our schools exists within a sociopolitical context, and as educators, we knowingly or unknowingly promote mastery of the dominant culture’s socially sanctioned knowledge, norms, and expectations (McDermott et al., 2006). 

Imagine a world in which we share openly about our commitment to disrupt patterns of racial inequity and interpersonal racism in our community. A world in which we work to employ the antidotes to white supremacy culture (Appendix F). A world in which we reframe our “cultural collisions” as “a driving force that enables us to re-mediate and re-represent the world” (Janks, 2010, p.25). A world in which we support each other as we navigate and negotiate the ecosystem of our predominantly white independent school community.