After Black Lives Matter protests this summer and yet another police shooting of a Black man – Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday – college students want to talk about racism. And faculty across disciplines are trying to figure out how to facilitate those conversations in their real and virtual classrooms.
A new guide on anti-racist pedagogy could help. Released on Tuesday by Packback, an online discussion platform, the guide compiles strategies for educators to foster meaningful, reflective discussions about race with their students, based on interviews with three scholars.
Dr. Akil Houston, one of the participants, praised the guide as more than a “performative act of racial solidarity” but a sincere exploration of the question, “What can we do that will have long-term implications?”
An associate professor of cultural and media studies in African American studies at Ohio University, Houston hopes the handbook will encourage faculty to get “comfortable with being uncomfortable,” he said, especially scholars in fields that might see conversations about racism as beyond their purview.
“I think the times call for us to say, ‘Let’s put some boots on the ground and engage from where we are, as we continue to learn, as we develop the tools and strategies to have these conversations in our classrooms,” he said.
The guide stresses to scholars that, while they don’t need to be experts, they should come to these discussions prepared. That means setting clear communication guidelines and discussion intentions for students, planning reflective writing assignments that help students engage with their own ideas before class, thinking through how to respond to possible scenarios that might come up – like a student using an anachronistic or offensive term – as well as readying themselves to model vulnerability by sharing personal stories when relevant.
For example, interviewee Dr. Selfa Chew, an associate professor of instruction at University of Texas at El Paso, openly discusses her own experience as a minoritized scholar and what it means to be a non-Black professor teaching African American studies.
