One of the most important things I've learned in the last couple of years is that I really know very little about the world - at least the world outside my world. In a previous post I shared about an early experience I had while dating my husband that I didn't see clearly until much later after it had happened. My perspective was skewed by my own background and my own narrative of the event. That was the beginning, though I didn't know it at the time, of a journey that would completely change my life, but that would take me to so many new places - in both time and space - on a journey to better understanding those around me. 

In her book, Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain, Zaretta Hammond tells the story of a teacher who asks a young, African-American student to take a seat. Instead, the student continues to sharpen his pencil. The teacher proceeds to send the student to the office for disobeying her. She goes on to reveal that the act of phrasing a command as a question is a trait specific to the white, middle class. I had no idea. I do this all the time! *Looking in mirror* Oh yeah, that makes sense. She also developed a protocol for checking unconscious bias, changing the narrative, and reconsider one's interpretation. 

In order to continue to change the narrative and consider potentially biased interpretations, especially those that are unconscious, we can continue to challenge ourselves and our students to consider other perspectives. 

This Guide to Visual Thinking from Manuel Herrera (@manuelherrera33) and Sadie Lewis (@sadieclorinda) has an amazing template for empathy mapping (page 12). Students (or teachers) can use the template to draw, sketch, write, whatever from perspectives of other individuals, practice using book characters, or think about a certain job or role. These are a great way to enter into a space where we have a framework or way to practice thinking about how others are thinking or seeing. 

Cornelius Minor, in his book We Got This, shares another template for Listening to Kids and one for Thinking About Kids that help teachers think, look, and listen differently than they might otherwise do on a regular basis. The templates help identify specific interests, issues, and characteristics that will benefit your learners. 

Be sure to check out my suggestions for expanding your view of other cultures from my last blog post, Supporting Culturally Relevant Examples in the Classroom.

I attended the Summit on School Climate and Culture in Des Moines last month and had the opportunity to attend a session on white privilege with Dr. Eddie Moore Jr. He had a series of slides that suggested that if your movie selections look like this: 

and the TV shows you watch look like this: 

and the magazines you read look like this*: 

Then you're probably not ready to truly bring your students a culturally relevant classroom. Because even if all the faces looking back at you really do reflect your own on the surface, you don't always know the stories that go with them - and if the ALL faces looking back at you do reflect your own AND their backgrounds and families also ALL reflect your own (check again, I doubt it), it's still our job as educators to share a world of differences with our students. At some point I promise they really will leave the homogenous bubble, and then what? 

In a world that allows us to stream and access more content than one could ever truly consume in a lifetime, I want to share a few of my favorite spaces to educate myself beyond the faces and backgrounds that are similar to my own.

1. Teaching Tolerance - My all-time favorite go-to site for info and lesson plans and videos on ALL the things! Seriously, there are age-appropriate resources on pretty much every topic from K-2 lessons about gender identity to teacher resources around understanding implicit bias and everything in the middle. 
2. Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime Documentaries (and not) - my personal favorites include (please add to this list in the comments - always looking for more!):

• Teach Us All
• 13th
• When They See Us
• Time: The Kalief Browder Story
• Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj
• Crime + Punishment
• Whose Streets?

3. Check out how Soundtrap is capturing voices from youth with unique experiences from the juvenile justice system.
4. StoryCorp provides not only a series of video interviews with people from all walks of life, has created teacher resources for facilitating student/classroom conversations, and has an app to help record your own stories. 
5. Safe Space Radio put together a great playlist around talking to White kids about race and racism
6. The New York Times put together a series of short films about identity in America that is particularly powerful. 
7. Explore art! You don't have to be an art teacher or artist to appreciate the creativity of others and the role that art plays in society. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has teacher resources for art from all different types of people and backgrounds in the United States, while Google Arts and Culture offers insight into basically every genre under the sun.
8. GET ON TWITTER! Or whatever social media, but check out #educolor. Participate in the #disrupttexts conversations! #WeLeadEd is doing a book study of Ibram X. Kendi's How To Be An Antiracist right now (also my current read, definitely worth picking up at your local bookstore/Audible/Kindle/whatever). Spaces like #ISTEChat are promoting more diversity of voice. #NYEdChat just featured Cornelius Minor. You almost have to TRY to avoid these conversations and this learning if you're on social media. Don't try. Don't avoid. Jump on in!

These are just a few of the millions and millions of spaces out there to explore and learn and connect, but they are a great starting point to broaden your own understanding of the world as well as that of your students. Definitely don't play Hasan in the classroom, that stuff is NOT PG, but he does raise some really interesting points and questions in his comedic take on the world around us. There's not one movie or one voice or one story that is going to make you an end all expert, but taking the first step is important because when we know more we can do more.  

Over the next few weeks I want to visit a few different practical strategies and tools for creating a more culturally responsive, accessible classroom for all students. First up? Information processing and oral traditions.

​One of the ways that we can help students learn is by tapping into the values of their culture. Stories are important to any culture, and the means and methods of recording and sharing those stories have evolved over time. In many cultures though, oral storytelling specifically is a hugely important tradition and a rich way of transferring information, from spoken word to chants to songs to the epic orations of historic greats like Homer (the Greek poet, not Simpson). When my husband and I visited the newest Smithsonian museum this summer, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, on each floor of the History Galleries experience (a three-level experiential trip into the depths (literally - you ride an elevator underground) of African American history in the United States) they had booths where visitors could enter and record their stories and reactions to video prompts. The recordings were then shared on the walls for all to experience. 

So how do we utilize this type of powerful narrative in the classroom? We give students a chance to tell their own stories. We give them a chance to capture the mood and rhythm and tone that make an oral story so powerful and captivating. And how do we do that? I have a few tools in mind.

1. FlipGrid

​FlipGrid is a video discussion tool that is provided free to all educators by Microsoft. ​Creating grids allows a teacher to provide a prompt and students to record their responses in anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Why is this one so powerful? I love that it provides the opportunity to "speak to" others with the safety-net of a draft or "re-record." I can see your face and hear what you're saying and watch your expression as you tell the story. Students can respond to teachers and each other, can contribute to another student's thoughts and ideas, and the video responses can be shared with the class or even the world. Many educators are already using FlipGrid in their classrooms, and it's a great way to connect beyond walls and class periods, but I challenge you to use it to intentionally capture the rich tradition of oral storytelling.

2. Synth

Synth is a free micro-podcasting platform, providing users with the opportunity to share stories in 256 second increments. Synth provides classrooms with the opportunity to capture and share short stories, ideas, and learning opportunities, threading them together into a playlist that can be shared with others. There are different levels of privacy, as well as an opportunity to turn on video and record, and also attach links and files, but I appreciate the "true to form" version of the podcast most. 

3. Soundtrap 

While the classroom version of Soundtrap is not free, the robust platform including collaboration, music creation, audio creation, and remixing and sharing is definitely worth the $250 price tag for 50 users (teachers and/or students) for the year. If you're ready to invest in the complete package of digital storytelling, from creation of original music to enhance the mood of your story to professional downloading and publishing to share with your audience, this tool is worth considering. No, I don't get a cut of sales, but the fee includes not only the tools, but meets online safety rules and regulations for kids and privacy. I don't typically opt for the paid apps, but once in a while you come across one that is worth the cost for all that it offers, and this is one of those. 

What other oral story-telling tools do you love? Share yours in the comments!

I spent my morning providing feedback on (adult) student reflections about white privilege for a class I'm teaching on culturally responsive teaching. White privilege and racism are HARD topics (evidence - people don't talk about them, people shut down as soon as you bring them up, people refuse to even consider their part in them, very few likes or interactions when I mention race on social media ;) but SO important. I wanted to share some takeaways from the group.

1. If you're white, you benefit from white privilege. White privilege doesn't mean you have money or connections or things handed to you, it means that you get to walk into a room and most people look like you. It means your teachers looked like you. It means realtors show you all the houses in all the neighborhoods. It means you can shop in a store without raising suspicion. It means you can go shopping for a holiday card and find a wide variety in any store that fit your needs. You did not earn these things. They were given to you because you are white. That is the privilege.

2. There are different kinds of privilege. In our country that means: Men have privilege that women don't have. Christians have privilege that Muslims don't have. Wealthy people have privileges that poor people don't have. It's not a one-size-fits-all label, it's a process of being aware enough to know where your personal privilege lies.

3. Racism is NOT binary. We don't live in a racist = bad, not racist = good world, as much as we'd like to make it that simple. Racism, by definition, is about SYSTEMS. Systems are in place that benefit the group in power or hurt those who are not. By definition, in the USA, as a white person, you benefit from this system. It doesn't make you a bad person. It means you have the opportunity to use your privilege to disrupt the system. It also means that by definition, there is no such thing as reverse-racism and people of color cannot be racist. Biased? Sure. Bigots? Yes. Racist? No.

One of my participants used my mantra when it comes to this work - KNOW BETTER, DO BETTER. If we don't know, we can't do. So here's my tiny piece of education to help with the "knowing" part. So the question to them was, what do we do with this information in the classroom? Before I share some of their ideas or my own, I'd love to know what you think. What do we do with an understanding of privilege as teachers? 

*For this assignment participants were asked to read Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"

I am so excited to be offering a PLAEA chapter of the #SDGBookClub! This month we're talking about goal 1, NO POVERTY!

Find more information on my flyer if you want future dates to join the chat virtually, check out the project website for all the info on hosting your own book club, or watch the recording below for my resource suggestions and ties to Iowa Social Studies standards!

Since finishing my IPLA principal licensure program (insert cheering here) I've had the opportunity to think a lot about the type of job I want in the future. I was sharing with a fellow educator recently that I'd really like to work in x town or y city because I felt like I could truly make a difference in those school districts. I was greeted with an eye roll that would make teenage me envious. An eye roll. For my dream work. 

I don't know if the eye roll was more for the district reputations or for my bubbling "save the world" enthusiasm, but I need to tell you all two things:

1) When I say "Every Kid, Every Day," I mean, EVERY kid, EVERY day. 

There is not a single kid on this planet that doesn't deserve the best, brightest, most enthusiastic, talented teacher out there. I don't care where you live, I don't care how much money you have, I don't care if you're urban or rural or a red state or a blue state, when you send your child to school your child deserves to feel safe, loved, and like the luckiest kid on the planet to get to walk through those doors. I shouldn't have to tell people that, and in particular I should not have to tell educators that. But there it is. Sorry, not sorry.

I'll never claim to have all the answers, but I will take my "naive," "unrealistic" (yes, I've heard those) belief that I can make a positive impact on every kid that crosses my path to my grave. I'm pretty sure I got that from my mom. 

2) Nobody gets to eye roll your goals or dreams. 

Forgive me the Rachel Hollis moment, but you are capable of doing whatever it is you set your mind to. To quote Girl, Stop Apologizing, "You are capable of more." You are capable and nobody, not a colleague or a family member or even you get to tell you what you dreams are, how big your dreams can be, or how you set your goals and intentions to get there. If I want to go into the roughest school with the least amount of money or the lowest test scores or a terrible "Conditions of Learning" survey and try to make a difference, nobody gets to tell me otherwise. There's probably some savior complex in there somewhere, but I prefer to call it commitment to my mantra: Every kid. See number one. 

​End rant.  

Educator friends, you may have to hang in there with me for a minute, but you all know that a school is a family. I'll make more specific comparisons at the end of this piece, but know that when I say "family" I'm talking to you, too. 
​
If you live in the Midwest right now you know what I'm talking about, but for those of you who don't, I'm living in a "winter wonderland" of 8-10 foot drifts, closed highways and interstates, and have been cooped up in my house since Saturday afternoon. That's two days of being home - which to some of you probably sounds great, however when you know you CAN'T leave it's very different from choosing to stay home. Anyway, 48 hours into this I've found myself doing some heavy thinking and I'd love some thoughts from my online friends. Actually, I've found myself asking a lot of questions that I don't have the answers to. 

• Do I spend too much time celebrating my daughter's black-ness and not enough recognizing her white-ness as a biracial baby? 
• Should I even be concerned about her white-ness? Sure it's part of her, but where's the line between family traditions and Richard Spencer? Okay, yes, I realize there's a huge gap between sharing my culture with my daughter and the likes of Richard Spencer, but you get where I'm going here.
• What if she resents me for being the white parent? Or doesn't identify with me? (Thank you, Dear White People)
• Is it inauthentic for me to celebrate my baby's biracial status because she's too young to identify one way or another? And do I look like a "poser" (do people still even use that word?) because I'm the white parent?
• Does it matter how she wants to identify when the world will see her how they want to see her? 
• Whose permission am I really seeking - shouldn't this just be a conversation between my husband and I? What do my in-laws think? Does my family know my struggle wit these questions? Is the larger issue that I care what other people think? 
• What does it look like to my older white children when I celebrate the black-ness of my youngest? Sure, society celebrates their whiteness everyday, but what does that look like through the eyes of a child to see their mother celebrate something they are not? 

Guys, this is probably 1/3 of the list of questions I fired at my husband tonight over dinner, but you get the idea. I'm struggling a lot lately with my role as a white woman in raising a biracial child. Somedays it seems like one step forward, two steps back. I'm so proud of the lengths we've gone to to make sure she has books and dolls and holiday traditions that mirror her background. Her "babies" (dolls) look like her in several shades of tan and brown, the books on our shelves feature characters of every skin tone, but day after day I still find myself wondering if it's enough - or too much? 

Why am I sharing these struggles with you on my professional blog (I feel like I ask this question a lot too)? Because I think it's important for us to recognize the struggle and process that we go through. No, not like "poor white woman is confused," but in a "how do I, as an educator, make sure that I am meeting the needs of ALL my kids in an authentic way?" kind of way. I don't have a tribe of people that are sharing my experience right now (if you or someone you know is raising white kids and biracial kids in an interracial marriage I'm looking for friends), but I think I could find my tribe in the educators who are trying to do justice for all their kids like each and every one is their own. 

I'm headed to the Robin Di'Angelo lecture (author of White Fragility) at Iowa State University tomorrow night and her work has helped me realize just how important it is to a) recognize why white people struggle with these questions, and b) help white people have these conversations. So if you're a white educator (and 80%+ of us are) trying create a culturally inclusive classroom (unfortunately a much smaller percentage - though this is just a guess), I'd love to connect. Let's be friends and identify our questions and support each other. Let's reach out to our friends of color - not as token experts on race, remember, it is not the burden of people of color to educate white people about race and racism - but as partners in learning, as another perspective, and as professional colleagues. You'll notice that this post is all questions and no answers. I have found some great resources, but I want to have a conversation first. 

The need for constituent voices is an essential part of how our government functions. As school leaders it is our duty to be advocates for our students and for our schools. Advocating for resources for our schools can be done in numerous ways. Some of these methods include mailing, advocacy groups, and supporting the campaign.
​
One way school leaders can communicate with legislators is to contact them directly either via mail or email. In recent years it has been said that it is more effective to send physical mail than email because legislator inboxes are flooded with emails, but a piece of physical mail may stand out. However, it can also be more difficult to get a response via physical mail because it takes more effort. Being on an email listserv can get you quick and frequent access to your legislator’s current priority list so you can make timely communication about issues. For example, Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer’s most recent email asked for input on sports betting in Iowa. While this is not necessarily closely aligned with education, it is an excellent example of how to give timely input when a legislator is seeking it.

Another powerful way to communicate with a legislators is to join an advocacy/lobby group. Joining a group like RSAI or Iowa’s UEN group gives you a leg up because they do a lot of leg work for you. The groups identify priorities, research bills that may come up and their likelihood of passing, organize events for face-to-face time at the capitol, and provide materials and talking points that administrators can easily implement into a conversation so that they sound informed on the issues. While your individual school voice can get lost in a larger crowd, these groups tend to advocate for legislation that is beneficial for all schools, meaning that you have power in numbers. You could also join other community groups that do not have a specific education lens but do lobbying work. Those people are part of your community and it is both important to share those issues in those spaces and gives you a broader constituent base and voice when talking to your representatives.

Another suggestion is giving a small donation to the campaigns of your elected officials. It does not have to break the bank, but $25 does get you on mailing lists and keep you on the radar as an invested supporter. You do not have to support only one party, and probably shouldn’t, because as party majority changes you will still want to have a voice with the decision makers in your area.
Finally, while it may not be direct communication, it is also important to communicate with the students, parents, and communities your serve about your school’s legislative priorities. Helping them understand the issues and encouraging and supporting them in contacting legislators themselves amplifies your school community’s voice in the process.

Want to see some of this year's education priorities in Iowa? Check out the Urban Education Network's one-page list of priorities (which is very similar to the list identified by the Rural School Advocates of Iowa). 

We were sitting at dinner about a week ago with some friends and some new acquaintances and race came up (because isn't that what you talk about at dinner with people you've just met?). During the conversation one person made a statement about how reverse-racism is worse (than racism) and she knows this because she dated a black guy for nine months. 

This work is HARD, y'all, but I've been sharing my journey with you, and part of the journey includes the missteps along the way. I was coming off of an amazing two days of training with Teaching Tolerance literally the day before this happened - including "Facilitating Critical Conversations." I love their Speak Up pocket guide as a quick reminder to think about how to stop or change a conversation. I was feeling SOOO good about it, like I really have the right tools in my toolbox to have tough conversations about race; to be able to educate and speak up without alienating. But in that particular moment there was no educating or seeking to understand. It was quick shutdown, disbelief, and dismissal. My quick jump to soapbox about the definition of racism and its necessary ties to systemic injustice rendering reverse racism impossible (because it doesn't have the weight of a power structure behind it) was not what was needed in that space, but I was so caught of guard by such a bold and misinformed statement I didn't stop to think first. 

I can only seek to do better next time, but I wanted to share my story in an effort to keep my journey toward being a strong advocate for anti-racism and social justice an honest one. I've replayed a hundred options for how I might have handled this differently in my head since that evening, but I'm curious, what would you have done?