Whose Space? White Space and the Fallacy of Inclusion

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While learning about social justice and inclusion, I started visualizing the idea of white space. I am referring both to physical and conceptual spaces that appear to be designed for white people to exist and thrive in them. An extreme example of what I call “white space” is any suburban neighborhood where a young teen can be killed just for being black and wearing a hoodie. It is not labeled as “whites-only space”  but some non-written rules widely proclaim it and make it so. Even a bird-watching area in Central Park, New York can become white space once a white person enters it and decides so. These are extreme cases that make national headlines but, how about our spaces? What are the rules of engagement in our places of work, study, worship, where we shop for groceries, workout, etc? What kind of spaces are our classrooms and our school? Implicit and unconscious bias are forms of bias nonetheless. Are we sending unintentional messages to our students that white behaviors and culture will determine success and adaptation in our spaces? Are we willing to entertain the idea that we provide spaces where white students are more comfortable and at ease than their black or brown counterparts?  I often hear from BPOC activists that outside of their home, they have to change aspects of their identity, personality, way of speaking, in order to fit in their workplace, school, or other spaces where certain rules of engagement are seen as the norm.

Brenda Leaks*,head of School of Seattle Girls School talks about unspoken codes that black women in particular have to abide by in order to seem competent at their school and workplace.  She says: “What we end up asking of the black people in our communities is: …we need you to adjust and to adapt yourself so that you fit in with our culture and our community, so that we don’t feel threatened by your presence;  and I feel people get used to doing that, you figure out how to cope and then eventually ends up being an exhausting burden that you can no longer carry. As a black head of school, I will say that the burden that I carry, with every step I take, I (also) take the step of a person that looks like me, that has not reached this far before. The burden of carrying that, of fitting in, only gets heavier. We have to change that.”

If this is the case for some of our students, our spaces may not be as inclusive as we like to think. Proclaiming ourselves as inclusive might be not enough and even misleading and confusing for students that don’t feel ownership in our spaces. Furthermore, if the behaviors are unintentional and implicit, it is possible that even our BPOC students accept them and consider them the norm. This would make it hard to identify them and justify a need for change.  Ultimately, finding out if we are engaging in these types of behaviors requires effort, self reflection and listening to BPOC voices with curiosity, wanting to learn what is really like for them and willing to find neutral ground. 

Tema Okun**, a well known author and facilitator in the field of social justice has put together a list of attitudes and behaviors that show up in white supremacist culture at work places. They are the following:


  • Perfectionism

  • Sense of urgency

  • Defensiveness

  • Quantity over quality

  • Worship of the written word

  • Only one right way

  • Paternalism

  • Either/or thinking

  • Power hoarding

  • Fear of open conflict

  • Individualism 

  • I’m the only one

  • Progress is bigger and more

  • Objectivity

  • Right to comfort


This is a link with Okun’s whole document. It is well worth the read. It is a good exercise to self reflect and see if we can identify some of these attitudes on the list in the way we carry ourselves and in how we set up expectations from our students. It is also worth it considering the “antidotes”  suggested in the article, as helpful avenues for reimagining our classrooms as places truly inclusive.


*Brenda Leaks was one of my favorite speakers at the NCGS Symposium that some of us teachers and administrators at the school attended recently. Brenda struck me as very personal and honest in her words. She is the head of the Seattle Girls School which is very similar to CHS also in that the majority of the student body is white. She recently wrote an Op-ed piece at the Seattle’s times discussing how to talk to your children about racism.

**Tema Okun is an author and facilitator who has spent many years working in the social justice field has written the book The emperor Has no Clothes:Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don’t Want to Know.”

What Do We Teach?

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 I just read this article, Does America’s Math Curriculum Add Up? It says we should teach more “data analysis and problem solving; and linear equations.” This made me think of my freshman year in high school in 1961. The teacher told us we were only taking algebra to get into college. Most of us would never put algebra to any practical use, but all of us would benefit from going to college. I obviously remembered that conversation from nearly 60 years ago. Sounds like it is still true today. The article goes on to tell how difficult it is to get the public and many colleges to accept this new math reality. They want algebra and geometry, just like they had in high school.

This made me think about other subjects, like history. There are so many historical names, places, and dates that every students should know. Would any U.S. History course be complete without a unit on the great Wobblies movement, founded in 1905, or the Battle of Bunker Hill, Korean War, 1952. How embarrassing to not know these names and dates. 

There is so much historical information available now that it is mind boggling. Robert Caro spent ten years researching for his 3000 page magnum opus The Years of Lyndon Johnson. If students need to learn data analysis in math, they certainly need to learn research skills in their history classes. This boils down to data analysis. Math deals mostly with numbers. History deals mostly with events. But, when it comes down to it, both are trying to make sense of data. In both cases it is not the data that needs to be learned, it is the crunching of the data. 

I am no math expert, but I do know that it is impossible to cover the California history content standards in the time allotted, especially if we take seriously the need for research and analysis. We have only so much time available. This year, it seems like so much less time. How do we spend this time? How do we divide the covering of information with the deep dives that involve real research and analysis. How much time do we spend remembering, and how much time do we spend understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating? This is such a basic question. Why is it so far from being resolved?


Chunking

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The word “chunking” makes me think of what might follow a night of hard partying. This thought reminds me of a favorite Princess Bride quote, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” When I first heard the word chunking I truly did not grasp the meaning of it. After reading Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes, I have a definition that works for me. 

Initially chunking made me think of a bunch of small independent lessons. Currently we are teaching about the 1920’s in U.S. History. An example of chunking with this definition would mean teaching a lesson on prohibition, another on consumerism, then women’s rights, and maybe one on religious fundamentalism. At the end of these lessons students will know what happened during the 1920’s, but have no idea about why it happened or the relationship between these chunks. Even so, the ground was covered and it will be time to move on to the 1930’s. 
 

Before we leave the 1920’s, let’s try chunking again, but after we apply some backwards design. We open the lesson this time with an essential question. For example, “How did various socioeconomic groups react to the prosperity of the 1920’s?” This raises more questions, like who were these groups and why did they react so differently? Soon we have a list of the above-mentioned groups. But who has time to research all these groups? 


This is where we do some jigsaw chunking. Every team takes a topic and researches the topic while always focusing on the essential question. Before beginning the activities the teacher tells the class that each team will convey what they have learned to the rest of the class. When that part is completed, each person will write a reflection that explains why each of the socioeconomic groups reacted so differently. Each team will become an expert in one piece of the puzzle. When the pieces are revealed, the whole puzzle, the essential question, will be revealed to everyone. 


More chunking comes with the research and delivery. Each teammate will find one or more pieces of unique evidence for the team’s topic. This will be put on a Google doc shared with teammates. Included will be a MLA citation, a quote or paraphrase, and a reflection of the meaning and usefulness of the information, pretty much like evidence for a DBQ. Teammates will then decide how they will turn the information into a presentation, a video, a website, or whatever delivery method works best. Each teammate will be responsible for a chunk of the delivery, and will put their name on their chunk. One benefit of this chunking with names is that it allows the teacher to see the contribution of each student. It makes formative and summative assessments so much easier. 


Finally, when all the pieces of the puzzle have been assembled and delivered, it is time for the summative assessment. The essential question will be answered by each student using examples from each piece of the puzzle. For this assignment, if the teacher has done his or her job, students will realize the Roaring 1920’s had more to it besides partying and throwing chunks. 

Eat a Peach – and other writing about food

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If I am not reading about teaching, I am reading about food. I find an incredible amount of overlap between people who care about food and people who care about education.  The food world and the teaching world both require an unreasonable amount of care for ingredients/content, a constant need to try new things, and sometimes require great efforts of convincing people (patrons/students) that what they are doing, though maybe foreign, is valuable. I recently finished 3 books about food

Eat a Peach –  David Chang
Brief synopsis – Chang is an unlikely chef and restaurateur. He was groomed to be a professional golfer and his parents, Korean Immigrants, did their best to talk him out of this profession. He is the owner of the Momofuku Restaurant Company and has been featured in Mind of a Chef on PBS & has his own show Ugly Delicious on Netflix. 

Takeaways/Thinking about teaching

  • Culture/Thoughts on being an outsider – David Chang calls himself a Twinkie “yellow on the outside, white on the inside” and talks about what it is like being an Asian American, not embraced as “white,” but also shunned by many of his more traditional Korean family members. On top of that cooking is inherently a Eurocentric career field as most chefs are trained in a French focused way. Though very much owning up to being a part of the “boys club” in the food world David Chang spent a lot of his career feeling like an outsider because of his ethnicity. 
  • This summer I spent a lot of time scrolling through Twitter and reading about what former students said were missing in their education at Carondelet. Many of their sentiments echoed Chang’s experience in the food world. In history we have a lot of control in how we curate a unit and I am reminded of the times that I have focused on content that was easy to create because it is part of the “cannon of world history” that is to say mostly white and European. I know a lot of us are thinking about these issues right now and I found his take on things really thought provoking. 
  • Access – When David Chang opened his first restaurant he did not want a wait staff or anything remotely formal. He admired Chipotle (recently opened as he was getting into the business himself) more than he admired the French Laundry because while both organizations had a goal of serving quality food, Chipotle was able to do this in a way that reached far more people than the exclusiveness of the French Laundry.  His goal was to create Michiliean Star worthy food in a fast food environment.
  • Sometimes in education I think people are “too inside” meaning that they forget what it is like to feel like an outsider because they are so steeped in the language of education. Working with our freshmen this year I am reminded of this on a daily basis. The things I just think everyone should be able to do and understand is not working. All of our students were impacted by school closures, many of them are dealing with the social-emotional issues of starting high school online, some of them are not at grade level and are dealing with heavy things at home, I few I just worry will not make it up to speed this year. Reimagining what quality teaching looks like right now is really important and something that I do not always feel like I am doing on a day to day basis which feels daunting.
  • Mental Health/Work Life Balance – David Chang is a workaholic who spent a majority of his time in the kitchen to avoid his own thoughts and demons (relatable). When opening Noodle Bar he signed a short lease because he so often thought about ending his life that he didn’t see himself being around in 5 years to run the restaurant. He attributes a lot of his early success to his poor mental health, until finally needing to confront those feelings in order to become a more whole person. 
  • I think work life balance (though most of us are not this extreme) is a really challenging thing right now being that since March the line between our homes and our classrooms are really blurred. This has been personally hard for me and I am sure many other people. I think just talking to other people about it and reading about how other people experience it has been really helpful in not feeling so alone in it. 

Two others I recommend:

  • Always Home – Fanny Singer 

    • Singer is the daughter of Alice Waters (foundress of Chez Panisse) and Stehpen Singer (well known wine maker on the Sonoma Coast). This memoir covers her childhood through young adulthood, her travels in Europe with her mother, and the legacy of Chez Panisse.


  • Burn the Place – Iliana Regan 

Regan grew up on a farm in rural Indiana. She came to cooking in a roundabout way and never went to culinary school. Her restaurant, Elizabeth (Chicago), earned a Michelin star for the past 6 years straight, she recently left the restaurant and opened the Milkweed Inn. The inn is actually  a rural plot of land where people stay in tents for the weekend and eat food foraged and harvested from the land. This memoir covers her childhood and her break out into the food world and is free if you have an Audible account!

Learning Happens Everywhere!

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I wanted to reflect on my classes that I had this past week and the awe and amazement that I experienced after thinking about my classes. Learning truly can happen anywhere. 

These have been some insane months lately: pandemics, protests, elections, illness, online learning, hybrid learning, fires, remember murder hornets??? I admit, when we made the move to online learning, I was stressed, reluctant, and longed for the times when I was in a classroom, with my students, in person and I was teaching and they were learning. I feared that with the online move, my students’ learning and progress would suffer. I feared that my students would not bother to log in the Zoom, and we would all be completely disconnected. Maybe this is the case for some, but as I’ve recently discovered, I am having quite a different experience…

This is a video of one of my Zoom classes where we were practicing prepositions and location with stuffed animals (and a Buddha) 

Last Thursday, I conducted my Zoom class as I normally do, only to see that one of my students was participating in the Zoom from her car, and another student was participating while she was in Tahoe with her family. The week before, another student was in my “class” while she was in the passenger seat of her car en route to who knows where…I have had many students engage in my class from areas that I would not deem a traditional classroom or even from the rooms or a desk. At first, I was a little bit annoyed that these students were not participating from home or at a desk, and I worried that they would be distracted, or not really be involved in the lesson of the day. These students not only participated for the entire duration of the class, but they were active, and engaged, and volunteered answers to questions, more than they had in a traditional setting. Recently, I also had another student email me and say that she was not feeling well, but I encouraged her to at least have the Zoom open so that she could listen to the lesson and get the instruction, even if she didn’t feel well enough to participate. She attended the class and thanked me later for still being able to participate in the lesson even though she wasn’t feeling well. Instead of focusing on the negative that they were not following “protocols” I decided to take this as a positive, and here are some of my takeaways:

  • Students can attend class from any place. They don’t have to be limited by vacations, or sports tournaments that are far away. 
  • Students can still attend class even if they don’t feel well enough to participate. In an in person setting, students would typically miss school, and have to make up all of the lectures and assignments and come to office hours to catch up. With online learning, students don’t have to miss the entire lesson, and still remain in the comfort of their homes. 
  • Parents who are near their children (in this case, my student’s mom was driving the car) can witness all of the magic and dynamic lessons that are happening in their child’s classes. I don’t mind parents seeing what cool things we’re doing in class so that there is some transparency. This might be intimidating for some, and I agree, but I think that having a glimpse into what is happening in their child’s class is beneficial. So often parents ask their child: “what did you learn in school today?” and the kid typically responds with: “nothing.” This opportunity gives parents a window into what is happening in their child’s school day. 
  • Teachers can collaborate and observe classes a lot easier, and less intrusively. I have had the opportunity to observe some colleagues on Zoom, and I find that it’s efficient, beneficial, quick, and perhaps not as intimidating as having a person sitting in a chair in the back of the room. I can unobtrusively observe a colleague and cause little disruption.
I was truly amazed to see how engaged my students are in my Zoom classes from literally EVERYWHERE. Learning is not confined to the classroom, nor the traditional environments from long ago; good education can happen in Tahoe, in the car, a dining room, classroom, Innovation Center, you name it. Some may disagree, and I still prefer to teach in a classroom and in person, however I think that online education opens the doors for so many students and families and teachers that a new way of learning is continuing to expand. 
I will add this caveat: not all students have the same access to reliable internet and the online tools that other students have, however perhaps the roads will be paved so that more students have more access to quality education from anywhere.
You know what they say about lemons and lemonade…

The Elusive Writing Voice Part II: It’s Happening!

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I blogged last year about trying to develop the elusive student voice in writing and working towards a writing curriculum that enables for real, authentic student voice.

This year, I shifted my focus to teaching students to “read like a writer” while working with mentor texts. Essentially, students are taught to notice writer craft choices that they eventually imitate in their own writing.

To begin the year, Kate Cutright and I developed a unit for juniors in response to the social unrest of the country. Students were allowed to pick from a list of seven socially-responsive topics to develop a position on and eventually their own Op-Ed in response to. 

Students learned to identify the five types of argumentative claims as well as some logical fallacies. Students examined the rhetorical triangle and rhetoric as a persuasive tool. The goal was to use mentor texts and guided activities and assignments to help students examine the nuances of Op-Editorials. They also learned how to embed quotes and hyperlink evidence (something more and more writing does as it goes more and more digital). 

Below, is a student learning to “read like a writer” and develop her own voice in her Op-Ed. I read with pleasure as her face was silenced by the power of her words in my mind. 

If you have.a few moments, I invite you to read as well.

    With our lives on hold and our domains restricted to the walls of our homes, the American people are paying attention. As we muddle through our second recession, open our eyes to racial disparity, and watch lives being helplessly lost to fearsome disease, we are becoming more in tuned to the value of money, the value of equality, and the value of life. And one American institution seems to be getting in the way of all three. In the wake of the wrongful deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of police, the country has started to see just how much the police mess up and how much we are paying for it. Sadly, exorbitant police budgets have become a gaping sinkhole, and in several cases, a detrimental one, for taxpayer dollars in many communities, but is the American public ready to let go of our history of policing? And will it do us any good?
                    Defund the police. Some associate the phrase with a swift transition to a police-free America, while others believe it to be another code word for “Police Reform”. According to the Brookings Institution, a D.C.-based public policy institution, defunding the police means “reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipalities,” but there is no official agreement on how it is to be done.
                    Police budgets across the country vastly outweigh those of their other public service counterparts. In 70% of the country’s fifty largest cities, the police account for the largest portion of their respective cities’ budgets. In Los Angeles, the LAPD takes up more of the city’s unrestricted revenue than all other departments combined, which is not outwardly a bad thing. It depends on whether or not the police departments that incur most of their cities’ expenses are repurposing the money in favor of the citizens. In Dewey Beach, DE, where full-time residents number in the three hundreds and only one homicide has ever been committed, the police have a military-caliber arsenal that includes “two Humvees, a diesel troop carrier, a Unimog with a loader and backhoe, two five-ton dump trucks, dozens of assault packs, 50 ammunition chests and assorted military rifles and pistols.” When discussing problems surrounding unnecessary weapons stockpiles, Dewey Beach’s watchdog group founder Jefferey Smith says, “You give police these kinds of military toys and that’s the attitude they then bring when they engage with the public.” 
                   Such heavy emphasis on policing creates a ‘justice’ system based on retribution versus rehabilitation. The police enforce negative consequences of disobedience in our communities, but if people are only ever met with punishment and violence when they make mistakes, can they ever achieve a healthy and long-lasting dynamic? As said by Durham mayor Jillian Johnson, “The safest communities don’t have the most cops; they have the most resources.” In Memphis, TN, the local police department cut the number of officers in the field and the crime rate actually fell. This does pose the question of whether it is because crime actually drops or if criminals are simply not getting caught. But law enforcement consultants do often suggest out-sourcing lower priority tasks to civilian city departments, a main pillar of the “defund the police” argument. Ideas like special non-armed patrols and mechanics positioned to take care of traffic violations and onsite repair of vehicle infractions or people trained in addiction crises for drug-related calls, are some proposed alternatives to police.
                However, the corruption that has affected the American policing system is partially based on a bias that is not isolated to law enforcement alone. Many other public services not only work in coordination with the police and sometimes their corrupt actions, but also fail to serve the people on their own.  After being arrested for looking “sketchy” in August of 2019 and restrained with a carotid hold, Elijah McClain was sedated with an amount of ketamine inappropriate for someone of his height and weight. While there is no conclusive answer on the cause of his death, both police and paramedic misconduct can be seen, and it does not stop there.  Pregnant black women and their children continue to suffer avoidable deaths because of medical negligence. Schools in poor neighborhoods remain underfunded because of inequitable tax distribution. People of color are still more likely to get a harsher court sentence than non-POC. However, the most significant fact is that other public service departments do not tote guns that give them the ability to take a life with less than a second’s thought. But if corruption is widespread throughout the country as a whole, will defunding the police really bring about the widespread change the American public so desperately wishes to see for those most at risk?
                Bias is so widespread on an institutional level because it exists so heavily on individual levels. We all suffer from our own subconscious biases. For one person it might be what someone is wearing or the language. For another, it might be their gender, the color of their skin, or a number of other attributes. When we go to work and participate in society, we carry our biases with us, whether that job arms us with a gun or not.
                Local governments across our country are in desperate need of a change, but the automatically proposed solutions might not be readily equipped to take it on. There are valid points for and against defunding the police, but as city and state officials examine them, they must keep in mind their ultimate goal. If left unquestioned, all societal institutions become vulnerable to corruption and incompetence. We have been conditioned to see our public services, most specifically law enforcement, with such impenetrable reverence that we have become blind to the possibility of their faults. If America wishes to truly be a land of opportunity for all, we must commit ourselves to removing the rose-colored glasses and seeing our government through a new and honest perspective.

Podcast Recommendation: 99% Invisible, Episode 414 “The Address Book”

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As many of you know, I love podcasts.  I subscribe to a lot of them.  The podcast, 99% Invisible with Roman Mars is one that I’ve listened to and loved for a few years now.  The podcast is one that explores design.  I’ve learned so much about design ofavariety of things, the history of design, and how so much of our world is actually designed.  The latest episode is especially interesting from a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens.  Episode 414, “The Address Book” is a conversation with the author Deirdre Mask about her book, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power.  I found it fascinating.  I don’t want to give too much away, but I especially found the discussion about the address as an equity engine super interesting.  

I’m going to keep this short, because I really want you all to check it out.  If you enjoy this episode, check out other episodes.  Roman Mars also has a book coming out (that I have already pre ordered) called The 99% Invisible City.  

How do you know if you are being a successful teacher?

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Spending this first month of the school year doing distance learning has made it hard for me to evaluate my own teaching. The measurable data I had from class interactions previously, doesn’t exist anymore and this can lead to self doubt as a teacher. This can (and does) lead to taking every comment about our teaching as more valuable.

I recently had a conversation about one of the classes that I teach that I believe is going really well. Very well considering that it is via distance learning. The conversation didn’t include what I believed was happening. I discovered that the virtual world is more isolating and invisible than when someone could come into the class and see learning in action. What is visible to the outside world (those excluding the teacher and students) is a Schoology page. The conversations via zoom have been and gone, the laughs and “now I get it” moments have been left in the virtual realm. Sadly my impression to the outside world is minimal.

This week after hearing voices in my mind questioning whether I am a good teacher, I decided to do something about it. This isn’t new or revolutionary. In fact it’s a requirement as a teacher here at Carondelet. I did class surveys asking what items helped the students learn new concepts and what parts of my class have and haven’t been successful for learning (Schoology included). Simply I went to the source to find out whether my self doubt was accurate.

I know you’re wondering what my students said. Before I tell you I invite you to ask your students too. They see you every week and know all the hard work you’re doing. The responses that I received that were about all their classes expressed an appreciation that every teacher is truly doing his/her best.

So the results came in. Simply I can tell you that my students don’t see my as a non-effective teacher, one that is unclear about what he is teaching, or even as someone who doesn’t care. My most positive response was that they feel that I am approachable. That is huge for me. It has actually been my most positive evaluation from students in regards to helping them (in teaching and assessing) to be successful students. The written comments were positive, especially the ones that were specific to me. My favourite was “I really enjoy how you do distance learning.” Also a shout out to Ms. Orr, Mr. Ward and Mr. Buckles that students gave praise to on their online teaching. Basically my students expressed that they are happy, they are learning, and that what they do in class is valuable.

I finished teaching my last period on Friday and I’m thankful to have positive voices in my mind acknowledging that I am doing a good job in the classroom. I hope you take the time to hear from the students and take those same positive words to heart.

Spotify

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Have you ever been waiting for your participants to join your zoom session and felt the awkward silence? Have you ever been joining a zoom session in the silence and wondering if you should spark a conversation? Well here is a fun way to eliminate any awkward or uncomfortable moments. At the start of the school year I posted a survey for my students to complete. On the survey I included a question asking their favorite song. I took these songs and created a Spotify playlist. Which fun fact Spotify is free to sign up for!

Each class when girls are entering my zoom session I play one song from the playlist. I personally love watching the girls dance along or bring out the hairbrush microphone. This is not only a great filler to start class but it sets the tone. We start class all on the same positive note. This activity builds on our classroom community as we are sharing our favorite songs. You can see that each student has their own identity through the playlist created. I got a mix of pop, rock, country, reggae, and more. We have our differences and we are celebrating and sharing those each class. You can grab the link to the playlist to share with your students. Maybe they found a new favorite song or love the mood of the playlist and want to listen more. I will be accepting songs through the year to add on the playlist. As we know a favorite song can change!

An extension you can add is have students share why they chose this as their favorite song. You can also ask instead of their favorite song what their walk up song would be if they had one. This is their pump up song that can be easy for students to share and explain. Here is the link to my playlist if you would like to check out what some students picked out! You may even see your favorite song.