Hello all! My name is Gunnar Robinson, and I am working on my Single Subject Math Credential at California State University, Long Beach. I’d like to answer the question “What does it mean to teach for Black lives?” in a way I have come to understand through my coursework and from watching this informative webinar. First, teaching for Black lives is not just the traditional content that we often see in schools centered on the history of slavery, emancipation, the civil rights movement, and the impact of well-known Black figures like Martin Luther King. What I mean is that teaching for Black lives is not just about the content we share with our students, but also our pedagogical approach to how we get students to learn. Before we can effectively impart on our students the importance of an equitable education, however, we as educators must first recognize that the Black experience, and the experience of other marginalized groups in America, is not a monolithic one. We must understand that not all students learn the same way, and that not all students have the same level of privilege and resources at home, in their communities, or even in their schools.
As discussed by Jesse Hagopian in the webinar, all black students experience structural racism, but that does not mean the Black experience is the same across the board. He elaborates that teachers need to take an intersectional approach, suggesting the “Queering of Black History”. It is not enough to teach about Martin Luther King as if he is the only important Black figure in the fight for racial justice. Including Black LGBTQ figures in history, for example, that are often not mentioned in most classrooms, can serve to better affirm the identity and experience of not just Black LGBTQ students, but perhaps of a white, Asian or Latinx individual who identifies as LGBTQ. Furthermore, as Hagopian explains, we need to rethink the structure of our classes at a fundamental level. He elucidates that an approach to teaching that is surrounded by “collaboration, projects, and roleplays” fosters a collective effort of students of all colors to work together, feed of each other’s unique perspectives, as well as validate the experience of all students.
Whether your classroom is comprised mostly of Black students, or there are zero Black students in your classroom, these kinds of approaches to teaching Black history and encouraging a community of learners in the classroom that respect one another can profoundly impact the future of this nation, and even this world. And collaboration should not begin and end with our students. As educators, it is imperative that we establish a support network of professionals in our school sites that work together to meet the individual needs of every student. We must practice what we preach, and model to our students what a group of collaborative professionals looks like, and how even with differing experiences and opinions, a team of dedicated people can and will accomplish great things.

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Hi everyone!
My name is Kelci Lopez and I am a post grad student at Cal State University Long Beach and I am finishing my credential in history. The Black Lives Matter movement that calls attention to the inequality and racism that has been happening in today’s society. The movement also aims to educate those who are unfamiliar with the movement and its goals. The main goal is to respect black lives as much as everyone else’s and to hear their calls for reform and better policies to be put into place. As a future educator, it saddens me to see that racism still exists in our education system. This means it is our job to make students more aware and educate them that every life matters and every person has the absolute right to receive a quality education and feel safe while doing so. I feel that although I will never experience the inequality that they have experienced because of the color of my skin, I can still stand by them and continue to educate myself so I can become more aware and a better asset to the movement. The webinar was really powerful and I loved how it said that we should be celebrating everyone no matter where they come from. It is very upsetting that racism in the black community has been happening the longest and it should absolutely be brought up to parents and teachers, especially in my own history classroom. By giving support, love, and respect to all students and teaching black students that they can become whatever they want just like everyone else, there will be a real change being done.

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Hello! My name is Megan Timmons, though I live in Nashville, I am in my first semester of graduate school at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. I am in the MAT program for grades K-5.

To begin, Black Lives Matter (BLM) is already a big part of my ideologies. As a white woman, I cannot even begin to understand what black people are subjected to and the need to have an organization like BLM should make you realize that racism and bias is alive and well in 2020. BLM is an organization that campaigns against systemic racism and unnecessary violence against black people. This movement has gained momentum lately with, unfortunately, many black people who have lost their lives due to police brutality against them.

So, what role do I see BLM playing in school? I think to answer this, you must take into account the idea of multicultural education that has been drilled into our minds in many of the classes we’ve had in grad school. As a teacher, we must be ready and able to be inclusive with all of our students despite their race, ethnicity, or cultures. In order to be inclusive, I think it would be a monstrosity to not include education on BLM in certain lessons in your class. As stated above, this is a huge movement in this day and age and, in my opinion, can be compared to the civil rights movement. I can’t think of any schools that do not teach the civil rights movement and I feel that BLM will be included in the future teachings as well.

Even if BLM is not a part of curriculum like I believe it will be, I will make it a point to include as many lessons as I feel is needed when I’m teaching in my own classroom. I want, not only my black students, but my white students as well to feel the same sense of power and excitement I got when I began my research on this organization. Not only this, but I strongly believe in the good that BLM does and I have hopes that, despite what my students have learned from the media or at home, they will too learn the necessity of this movement.

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Hi! My name is Rachel, I am currently in a MAT program at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. I am SO glad that we are shining a light on this topic. As teachers, it is our job to understand and to create a safe learning environment for our students no matter their background. However, sometimes we fail when it comes to making it a safe space due to some of the things our students experience or how our students think we may perceive them due to society’s standards especially in the era that we are growing into. I think the first step is to overall make the student feel welcome by ensuring that we do have that space that children want to come to despite where they live or their skin color. I also think it becomes an injustice when we try to assume that racism or judgment is not going on within the school. With that being said, I think as we have seen from these protests taking the time to listen to Black youth and truly acknowledge their heritage without trying to conform them to a specific race can benefit a classroom and even extend to at home. I also think it speaks volumes to African American students when it comes to teaching about their culture. We don’t necessarily teach their history as we do white history and there has been some feedback about it in past years. I think by promoting their heritage and exploring their culture with them and the class can open doors to benefit a future society as well.

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Hi, my name is Julia Cartwright and I am a pre-service teacher, and I currently attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I am excited to develop my identity as a teacher and learn how to effectively teach students to the best of my ability. After murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery summer, it is undeniable that the needs of Black students are not being met by America’s current education system, and it’s essential to me that I actively work against this problem within my own classroom.

I think I am left thinking with two main thoughts after reading “Loving Blackness To Death.” I think first and foremost, it is essential that our classrooms are a place of mutual understanding, and in turn, love. I think if all students don’t feel respected and cared for in our classrooms, this is when we fail in the greatest way possible. Often, I think Black students are often made to feel excluded from this narrative by white educators, which is why the current system we have today is a failing one. I think communication is the biggest key in regards to this, and making sure that the opinions, voices, and thoughts of Black students are just as heard as any of their counterparts. I think this is a lot in how warmly we greet our students and how we radiate certain energy in our classroom. We must be intentional about this.
While this wasn’t directly stated in the article, I think it’s an important point that often gets looked over. We can have strong pedagogy and curriculum, but if we don’t show our students we love them through our attitudes, I think that all is for not. Without creating a community that feels safe, I think a lot of the teaching moves described in the article might come across to Black students as hollow or forced, and might leave them feeling less respected more than anything.

Once we create this environment, I think introducing Black narratives and literacies into our classrooms is crucial. Time and time again, white narratives are present in so many of the texts we continue to introduce into our curriculum and many times they are about white people who do pretty average things, and then are over-commended for them. I can only imagine this to be such an exhausting experience for Black students to relive over and over again, in English classroom after English classroom. Even if we are handed texts and curriculum that surrounds itself in white voices, we have to find ways to include Black ones, and make them just as present in our classroom. You can do all the loving and community-building that you want- but if you don’t validate Black literacies by including them, that is all for nothing.

I don’t think you can have either practice without the other, and it’s two of the most important concepts I keep in mind, as I strive to make my classroom a place where Black students feel able to grow, learn, thrive, and become stronger versions of themselves.

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Hi, my name is Bianka Silva and I am a single-subject credential student at California State University, Long Beach. The Black Lives Matter Movement is a movement is a call for the end of white supremacy, which continuously places the black body in psychological and physical danger. It is ment to create a safe world for all people, so that they can face empowerment instead of oppression. The Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 have been one of the largest movements in U.S history, bringing about new national changes and national awareness. However, as educators, we have the power to continue the movement in our own classroom. In “Teaching for Black Lives During the Rebellion,” Cierra Kelar Jones, Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, and Wayne Au discuss how to continue organizing for racial justice within our schools.
One part of the discussion that particularly struck me was the letter Dyan Watson wrote for her son Caleb. I went to school with people who looked like me and it’s so difficult for me to imagine what it feels like to be invisible or out of place. When I college forced me to interact with other people who were not Mexican-American, I began to feel self-conscious of what I looked like and the different way in which I carried myself; but, I was older, and I could process my emotions and thoughts with greater ease. As a future teacher of children, I know it is my job to make sure that my impressionable students, like Caleb, are not seen through hurtful preconceptions, and are instead empowered and loved. Like Watson mentions, we are “gatekeepers” who must “ love [them] for who [they] are and the promise of who [they’ll] be.” (So powerful!)
Wayne Au proves the power teachers have in progressing the Black Lives Matter movement. He explains that, even after being raided by the police looking for explosives after someone made a bomb threat, the teachers stood in solidarity to celebrate their Black students. The community came together to support the school and the movements, sparking a greater movement for racial equity in schools. Teachers are powerful! Like Au mentions, “one school can spark a whole movement.”
The “13 Guided Principles” call for the need to “work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people,” including queer people, trans people, diverse families, old people, young people, etc. As educators, we can help humanize and empower the black students in our classroom, and in turn, everyone else! Jesse Hagopain mentions that we must acknowledge that our students have become our teachers, as they’ve demonstrated great strength, bravery, and diligence. We can support them in the classroom by making sure we don’t victimize our Black students, allowing them to read a diverse range of texts, and by having difficult conversations about the state of our nation.
Some of the questions that I had, in the beginning, were based on people who were reluctant to embrace the ideals of BLM: What do we do when our district or school administration is a conservative one? Or when our coworkers don’t support us in being “co-conspirators of freedom”? How can we garnish more support? This question was answered by Hagopain, who encourages teachers to create awareness clubs so, in staff meetings, teachers can “collectively raise their voices.” Hagopain also mentions that there are many educators who fear discussions about police violence and institutional racism will “Politicize the classroom,” but he argues drake that its political to ignore these issues because black bodies are already experiencing violence.

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Hello everyone!

My name is Julianne Uhlman and I am currently a graduate student at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. It is an honor to be a part of this conversation and to get to read and engage with everyone’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas about this topic. Black Lives Matter is one of the most essential topics that schools and teachers should be discussing in the forefront of their curriculum meetings. As I am studying to become a secondary education English teacher, I often think about the kind of classroom environment I hope to create for my students. I am determined to create a classroom that is uplifting, encouraging, and nourishing for Black souls and Black students who have been marginalized and held back in American school systems for far too long. As the article “Loving Blackness to Death”: (Re)Imagining ELA Classrooms in a Time of Racial Chaos” discusses, the beginning of dismantling this overbearing white supremacy, control, and violence that exists in our society, must start inside of our ELA classrooms. The ELA classroom should be a place of revolution for the Black voice and Black spirit through reading and engaging with Black literacies and anti-racist pedagogies. Part of this has to begin with dismantling and reconsidering the canonical texts that we choose to teach. The majority of texts that are taught in secondary education are by white males. This is unproductive and unfair to all students and especially students of color. There are so many texts by black authors that should be included in the curriculum. This allows for the liberation of a perspective and voice that has been constrained for too long. There are also so many opportunities to discuss Black culture and community apart from slavery and violence. The article states that “if we truly want to center Black lives and literacies, we need to sup-plement our curriculum with texts that focus on Black struggle and liberation to teach in conjunc-tion with Eurocentric texts” (64). Why is it that when Black peoples are discussed in the ELA classroom it is always revolved around negativity? There is another side that must be uplifted and celebrated in our classrooms. I loved the article’s overall emphasis on “collective action.” This work cannot be done without the help and support from people everywhere. I hope to continue to be a part of this conversation and to continue to find new ways to lift the Black voice and the Black community in general.

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Hi! My name is Ellie Crumpler. I am a junior at Penn State, and I am studying secondary English education.

To me, the Black Lives Matter Movement is a call to action. It demands that we shed the idea that racism ended in America with the Civil Rights Movement. It demands that we re-educate ourselves in order to see the systemic racism embedded in the world around us. Most importantly, it demands that we analyze our own roles in these systems and that we find ways to make lasting change. Teachers are some of the most important people to respond to this demand, for we have a large potential to make change. School is one of the first places in which children experience society and learn their place in that society. It is up to teachers to make every child feel worthy and powerful. It is also up to teachers to expose children to different experiences and perspectives so that children can learn empathy. English teachers can accomplish this by using literature as a mirror that reflects students’ own experiences and as a window that reveals the experiences of others. This requires an expanded version of the literary canon that includes diverse and contemporary writers. As the authors of the article “Loving Blackness to Death” say, “To deny Black youths’ literacies is to dismiss their humanity” (p. 62). Denying Black students representations of themselves in literature teaches them that their experiences and perspectives are not valued by schools and society as a whole. This is also a disservice to white students, for it denies them the opportunity to learn about the experiences of others and to develop empathy.

Teaching for Black lives means teaching to affirm Blackness. In the webinar, Dyan Watson’s letter to her son sums up a lot of what I think it means to teach for Black lives and to affirm Blackness. She says, “I hope your teachers will love you for who you are and the promise of what you’ll be.” I agree that this should be the goal of all teachers when encountering all students. We must work to shed the stereotypes our society has taught us so that we can love all students for exactly who they are. We must appreciate students for all of the unique knowledge they bring with them into the classroom and teach them that they are brilliant. As Baldwin says in “A Talk to Teachers,” the way to teach a Black child is to teach them that their oppression is criminal, that they are stronger than the oppression they face, and that they’re capable of changing the world.
In my future classroom, I hope to disrupt racial injustice, transform the world, and humanize the lives of Black youth through the use of a diverse body of texts. I hope to teach students that their lives and perspectives matter and that the lives and perspectives of others matter. When reading the traditional literary canon, I’ll use a critical approach that encourages students to form their own opinions.

Teachers have the potential to be some of the most powerful agents of change. We must all actively work to affirm Blackness throughout our teaching careers and not just in this current moment.

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“And the question is: when are you going to decide that someone’s life matters enough for you to move with a sense of urgency? And if you really have to take a long time to wrestle with that question, then maybe this profession and maybe some other industries are not for you,” Dr. Erica B-Rivera, Educator and Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer of a K-12 district in Indiana. When I attended the 2020 Leading Equity Virtual Summit hosted by Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins, Founder of the Leading Equity Center, I had the privilege to learn from educators like Dr. Erica B-Rivera. Dr. B-Rivera’s words prompted my main takeaways from the Summit: urgency and accountability.

Dr. B-Rivera’s words have stuck with me since that summit, and they resonate with me now as I respond to this post. The Black Lives Matter Movement is urgent, and I hold accountable to participate in this Movement. Why wouldn’t I? The Black Lives Matter Movement is demanding justice and humanity for Black people. It undoubtedly ought to play a role in schools, because our Black students’ identities matter and exist in our schools. Black students’ lived experiences must be brought into, validated by, responded to, and sustained by our schools. On an individual level, educators not only need to have a critical awareness of their positioning and advocate for Black students, but also adopt anti-racist pedagogies and lenses. On a systemic level, schools must transform existing systems and structures to align with the Black Lives Matter Movement, if they don’t already.

With that said, I certainly see the principles of the Black Lives Movement guiding my teaching practices. Thinking about the Black Lives Matter at School: Week of Action National Demands, I see myself being able to respond to “end zero tolerance” and “mandate Black history and ethnic studies” most directly. For example, I’m actually going to complete a Restorative Circle Training on December 5th and 6th and fulfill responsibilities on my campus to serve as an additional “conflict management” resource. I can transfer this training and my future skills in the classroom and advocate to transform existing policies and structures wherever I go.

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