As a future elementary teacher, my classroom will disrupt racial injustice, transform the world, and humanize the lives of Black youth through the art on the walls, the books that we read, the historical figures and events that we learn about. I hope to bring awareness to my students of the injustices that their Black classmates currently face and may face in the future, so that all of my students can open their hearts and minds to be empathetic to what others go through in their lives and be accepting of differences. My students will be taught that everyone comes from different backgrounds and has had different experiences that have shaped their individual lives. I will teach in a way that is inclusive, respectful, actively listening to my students, letting them know that our classroom is a safe space to talk about anything on their mind. The Black students in my class will know they have a voice and they matter.

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Teaching for black lives means acknowledging and uplifting the multifaceted and three dimensional personhood of our students. As a pre-service teacher, this is what I’ve seen and felt. Growing up in a family of different racial identity, I learned in college the identities that were assigned to me and from there I had to realize and learn to celebrate my own intersectionality. Something that stuck out to me was when the panel restated that teaching for Black lives is more than incorporating content. I believe it would be all too easy to put some books on the shelf in my ELA classroom and call it a day. Therefore, the idea of bringing in different types of knowing and asssessment of that “knowing” is critical.

When we talk about teaching, now especially in the era where lectures have fallen out of favor in pre-service teaching programs, I think we have an opportunity to create a new precedent. The previous methods of teaching expected students to get in line with the material being taught. The new methods focus on meeting the student and in taking that futher we could not just meet our different annonymous learners, but take in the personhood of our students and teach our specific classrooms.

At the end of the article “Loving Blackness to Death”, there is a list of resources and I want to incorportate resources that celebrate my Black students. I want to go futher than that promote ways of knowing that value my Black students. If we are truly to value diversity then we need to value our BIPOC students, their ways of knowing, and their ways of expressing. When it comes down to it, I feel quite overwhelmed with all the duties and expectations of being a teacher. I don’t expect to know everything by the time I graduate or even after years of teaching. The continual learning is what drew me to teaching but is the most intimidating aspect as well. Some days, I wish I could establish my own school after graduating, but since I don’t see that as being an entirely viable option, I wonder what other teachers have done to reimagine their routines and strategies to meet their Black students.

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Hello,

I was extremely moved by the webinar, and it was the best webinar I have attended in my current credential program. I will be purchasing the book. I am Deaf and use ASL as one of my primary languages, and I also wanted to take the time to thank you for having ASL interpreters for the webinar, as that is a rare commodity of access to have, unfortunately, and it shouldn’t be a rare commodity.

One of the most important issues that came up during the webinar was how not all experiences of Black lives are the same and identities are interwoven into multiple identities to create a space where we can dismantle racial injustice by allowing individuals to have a voice to discuss their own experiences. I appreciate the multiple identities that were discussed such as Black Queer, Afro-Latinx, Black Muslim, etc., but I wish the Black Deaf community could be mentioned as well, especially in the presence of a Black space where Deaf Black participants may have been in the audience since ASL interpreters were available.

The Black Deaf community often will suffer from language deprivation, due to the schools they are placed into, not getting the services they need to be academically successful with linguistic fluency, or even being overlooked and being labeled as “troublemakers” due to policing and school policies, racist ideologies of teachers, and by the time Deaf Black children are realized to have hearing loss and need access to signed languages, it is already too late and the window of opportunity to acquire language naturally through our innate ability to learn language from other humans has closed. Not only that, due to the school to prison pipeline system, many Black Deaf do end up incarcerated for no faults of their owns, and are not exonerated because the legal justice system does not provide adequate access to language, or maybe they simply do not have the linguistic skills to understand ASL interpreters, forcing the injustice of staying in prison even longer (although may have never should been there in the first place).

This is important to acknowledge because Deaf Black people do exist, and as educators, we will have Black Deaf students. We need to acknowledge that they are experiencing even more oppression than their Black hearing counterparts because they are being oppressed from their skin color, but their language skills (using signed language, or maybe not even having a language at all) causes even more barriers and injustices when navigating within the dominant society. It is heartbreaking to hear when we have Black children physically brutalized within school environments from misbehaviors that are DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE, such as how the presenters told stories of how one girl was fingerprinted and sent to the jailhouse for having a temper tantrum, or when another girl was sent to jail for not doing homework. Although I do not have the research in front of my hand, I have to wonder if there are MORE incidents like this among Deaf Black students due to the language barrier. I would love for Deaf Black students to be able to have role models to look up to, to know they can be successful, when they see other Deaf Black people being successful. I would also love to see our education system to stop policing students through harsh punishment measures to teach a lesson, and allow our students to feel safe in a space where they can blossom into their very best selves, without feeling traumatized, or revisiting prior traumatic experiences.

I am in my 4th year of teaching, and currently teach at a school where it is predominantly white. I’ve always struggled to come up with how I can safely teach about Black Lives Matter in a way that my job will not be on the line, and while getting the support with students’ families. My privilege as a white person is showing, and until this webinar, I never once considered the fact that our American History curriculum is traumatizing for our Black students because often when discussing Black history, it is always the same thing- discussing MLK, or slavery. Instead of having the negative aspect on the American History curriculum upon Black History, why not make a positive spin on it, and talk about influential members that are often not talked about, such as Marsha P. Johnson, as the presenters mentioned. I can use this approach in my classroom by incorporating influential members of the Black community that ties directly to the subject matter that I teach, which makes it more humanizing.

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In response to the third question, creating transformative, emancipatory classroom spaces that labor and fight for social justice must first begin with the educator. Before entering the classroom, educators make a pedagogical, political, and personal choice to struggle and strive for the liberation of the oppressed or to conform to the White hegemonic ideologies in schooling and continue the system’s oppression. Those who chose to become an agent for change, must realize the corruption and violence within the system and decide to work against it while within it. These choices should then become commitment to social justice that does not solely exist in the classroom, but in all aspects of life. Also ,before entering the classroom, educators must recognize their own oppression or privilege and work against their own biases or dominant ideological conformities. This deep critical analysis is hoped for by writers of article, “’Loving Blackness to Death’: (Re)Imagining ELA Classrooms in a Time of Racial Chaos”, and is necessary for it gives educators pause and aids them in recognizing the unconscious ways they perpetuate violence in the classroom (Johnson, Jackson, Stovall, Taliaferro Baszile 2017). Educators possessing a life duty for disrupting racial injustice, humanizing the lives of minority youth, and transforming the world is mandatory in creating transformative, emancipatory classrooms. Then, they can enter the classroom and infuse their space, practice, and curriculum with these goals.
Building an inclusive, empowering community begins with getting to know each student in and out of the classroom and fostering these relationships so students know they are heard, understood, and respected. In the webinar, Jesse Hagopian emphasizes educators realize there isn’t one singular Black experience. And, the article says when Black students’ prior knowledge, experiences, culture, literacies, and languages are marginalized, educators are (un)intentionally enacting a curriculum of violence. This marginalization, seeing one student’s experience as similar to another’s because of aspects of their identity, can be seen as common in classrooms, and is just one of the corruptive tendencies within the system. In order to combat this, educators must demonstrate to all students that they understand students’ lives as varied, individual, extraordinary, and above all, valuable. In addition to creating communities for social change, curriculum must follow suit. In the webinar, Dyan Watson says she never saw Black people in textbooks unless they were in shackles or standing next to Martin Luther King Jr., and she wished for a curriculum that showed Black people as ordinary and extraordinary. You could say education has “missed the mark” in truly efforting for social justice because while it did implement Black voices and Black narrative, these voices and narratives only operated around themes of suffrage, oppression, and pain. This is violence against Black youth because it overtly and covertly teaches them that these are the themes of their life, this is where they were and where they are going, and this oppression and violence against Black people is “normal”. Educators must implement Black literacies with themes of power, success, wealth, freedom, happiness — kind of like the White literacies students have been studying for decades.

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The Black Lives Matter movement has been an ongoing fight towards ending oppression, violence, and the killings of Black people in the U.S. and all over the world. Our history with the treatment of Black individuals has been truly devastating and horrific, and even currently exists within our more “progressive” society. With the murders of Michael Brown, Jonathon Price, Breonna Taylor, Georg Floyd, Damian Daniels, and thousands of other human beings that died because of the color of their skin, our youth are becoming more aware and informed about the ongoing injustices that happen everyday. Social media and technology has helped take our blind folds off and see how the world that we live in truly is.

From the article “Loving Blackness to Death”, I can definitely agree with the 3 metaphorical bullets that are almost embraced and accepted within curriculum and what educators teach at school, “the bullet of rejection, the bullet of silencing, and the bullet of disrespect” (P. 61). While I was in school, my K-12 education focused on European/American history, proper English pronunciation and writing, and only talked or mentioned Black history when it was in the form of oppression. I remember our class focusing on slavery, segregation, and Martin Luther King. However, it wasn’t until I went to college that I learned about the Black Panthers, Assata Shakur, and Malcolm X: such powerful influencers to the progression of the Black community. Yes, we touched based about Martin Luther King, but we, as students, deserved to learn more about other powerful Black individuals. Even as a Spanish major, I learned things about how Black people influenced amazing things that we, as Latinx individuals, love. I have also noticed that AAL is sometimes viewed in schools as “ghetto” and wrong, and of course, this language will not help you with college essays, scholarships applications, and other writing skills to move up in higher level academia. From a young age, black students are already being told that the way they act, talk and simply exist, is the wrong way.

As a future educator, I want my black students to know that they are extremely powerful and smart, and can succeed in anything that they set their mind to. I will provide different authentic texts from Black perspectives in my curriculum, so they get to see some form of representation in their education. I also need to acknowledge Black families and the cultures that my students participate in. I will set high academic standards for my Black students, as well as accommodate for the needs that they need. I will acknowledge AAL as an appropriate way of communication and my students will not be rejected, they will not be silenced, and they will not be disrespected in my classroom.

Moving on as a future educator, I want to remember this quote from “Loving Blackness to Death”: “Although physical violence against unarmed Black youth happens in the streets, the idea of violence against non-white bodies begins in the classroom” (p. 60). Racism can easily be enforced in the classroom, and it is my job, to change this and bring justice and change to our future generations.

Jazmin M Benitez

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Good afternoon. My name is Serena Baron and I am an education student at APSU in Tennessee.

The Black Lives Matter Movement is a response to the systemic racism and injustice that has been a part of this country since the beginning. With every little step forward, there exists such an enormous resistance toward a more just and equal society. To dishonor the many lives needlessly lost is not an option. To ignore the suffering and oppression of so many is not an option. In order to achieve real change, it seems only reasonable that we should start in the classroom.

The 13 guiding principles that are presented by the Black Lives Matter Movement layout a diverse framework of ideas, providing a safe and respectful environment of inclusivity. Taking these ideas and incorporating them into the classroom is essential in creating a safe and nurturing environment for all students. By empowering students and celebrating differences, we can affect change and give every student the support and nurturing they need to succeed. Representation matters.

As Johnson, et al. (2017) discuss the literal violence that faces Black youth in this country, they connect this with the symbolic violence that is perpetuated in classrooms across the country through the curriculum that is being taught. While the focus of “Loving Blackness to Death” is on the ELA teacher, the ideas span to every teacher. If we, as a country, are ever to move forward and realize the dream of equality, we must face our ugly history and try to heal. If we are ever going to achieve an equal and just society, we must reimagine how we teach our children. “[…] ELA classrooms must become revolutionary sites for racial justice by shedding light on Black lives and creating classrooms where Black youth are empowered through Black literacies and tools that uplift and support the humanity of Black people” (Johnson, et al., 2017, p. 62).

By changing the classroom structure, teachers have the ability to transform our society by countering the Euro-centric status quo. As teachers, it is our responsibility to create a safe and nurturing environment that is diverse in thought and representation. Teachers have the ability to make every single student feel important.

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Hello. I am Kelsey Hayes from Austin Peay State University. I am currently a Special Education Major.
I am first responding to the question, what is the Black Lives Matter Movement and what role do you see it playing in schools? How do you see these principles guiding your teaching practices, if at all? The Black Lives Matter Moment is a decentralized political and social movement advocating for nonviolence civil disobedience in protest again incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence again black humanity. In the article “Loving Blackness to Death,” it stated that racial violences that unfolds in many communities have made its way into English Language Arts. The curriculum in the ELA damages the humanity of the black youth. Teachers of the ELA unintentionally silences their voices by the stories and experiences of the Europeans. From that example, teachers are continuously teaching violences among many races. Today’s curriculum needs to change, which I will get more into. I already see my class as a strong multicultural environment. I will have posters on the wall that reflect many cultural diversities. When I give out content to my students, I will make sure that there is no silencing voices. The content will be open-minded and will relate to all diversities. The discussions I will hold will be respected and honest.

What does it mean to teach for Black lives? In the historical context, we are beginning to see the types of struggle now. The first big issue is the students are demanding to have police free schools. By giving police free school, the students will feel more comfortable entering the school building. With the money funding for the police in schools can now be used for the students advantages. Teachers also need to add to the struggle. Having discussions about these difficult topics is by no means politicizing the classrooms. All types of students need to be aware of all these topics. This is simply educational. The curriculum needs to be changed to a multicultural curriculum. Content needs to be diverse. We all have to understand that this rebellion was not just caused by the horrific murders. It was caused by the recurring experiences that all Black communities. The webinar mentioned to have a “year of purpose.” This will be included at the beginning, middle, and end of the year, not just in February. February is Black History month; however, it does not need to be just one month. Everyday needs to have an understanding of the Black culture.

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My name is Amanda Bailey and am a grad student at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. I am a future middle/high school English teacher and will reimagine my classroom to be more inclusive. We will read novels and poetry by Black writers, stories with Black protagonists. Students will see strong Black women succeeding outside the household and Black men as doctors, lawyers or even engineers. The historical figures we study will go beyond Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X. All students will see themselves as good people, as heroes in the stories we read. All students will be heard in my classroom, their opinions respected and their experiences acknowledged.

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