To Kill a Mockingbird just celebrated its 64th anniversary, and has been the number one book taught in the United States for decades.... As we prepare for the new school year, I wanted to bring this question to the fore again. Why teach To Kill a Mockingbird? What do you see in the book that makes it essential to your curriculum? If you’re teaching it, are you considering the book through a racial lens? Are you attentive to how students of color feel about the book? What do you say to students about the use of the N-word in the novel? How do you relate the themes to the lives of students and t ..read more

  One could argue that the lead story in education over the past year has been the rise of artificial intelligence and its nascent impact of both teaching and learning — not to mention the rest of society. It’s a story that will continue to unfold and require our attention. In fact, the infusion of AI into education has reached the stage where it’s already become the sole subject of some education conferences. While I know the question of AI matters a great deal, a story that deserves at least equal billing this past year has been the extensive political backlash against diversity, equity ..read more

 Like many of you, I’ve been digging into the details of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College — and reading articles, commentary, and other public responses to it. I also went back and re-read a piece I wrote for Teaching While White at the start of this lawsuit in support of Harvard’s admissions practices aimed at racial diversity. If given the opportunity I might rephrase a few of my comments in that earlier piece. But it essentially sums up how I feel on this matter. All things considered, the U.S ..read more

In response to our August blog post by Elizabeth Denevi and Jenna Chandler-Ward, “‘Calling In’ Our White Male Colleagues,” we received a number of letters and essay responses. In the spirit of keeping the dialogue going on the role or white male educators in antibias education, we’re running a series of these responses this week — one each day. Others may follow in time. We’ll start with a letter from Garrett Bucks, the founder of The Barnraisers Project, an organization that helps white people establish grassroots efforts to address racism and white supremacy in their communities. Bucks has ..read more

A few years ago we, two white women, were leading an hour-long workshop at a conference. About 20 minutes in, we asked participants to turn and talk to a person sitting next to them. Instead of turning to his partner, a white man sitting in the front row walked over to us and said, “Folks are getting pretty restless. You may want to have us take a break.” We just nodded and went back to our planned agenda. But we were frustrated. Not only was this “let me help you understand how to run your workshop” comment annoying and unhelpful, it was also not the first time something like this had happe ..read more

Learning and Teaching While White: Antiracist Strategies for Schools and Communities By Elizabeth Denevi and Jenna Chandler-Ward   It’s a thrill for us to announced the upcoming publication of Learning and Teaching While White, by Teaching While White founders Jenna Chandler-Ward and Elizabeth Denevi. As the authors make clear in their work, white educators have relied too long on people of color to make the needed changes to our racist school system. Racial equity in schools will not come to fruition until white educators recognize their role in supporting racist policies and practic ..read more

I used to believe that if I cared deeply about racial justice and knew enough about racism, I would be one of the good white people who “got it,” a genuine, white, antiracist ally. This belief drove me to seek as much knowledge as I could about race, racism, and antiracist practices. I majored in Ethnic Studies as an undergraduate and became a classroom teacher with the intention of creating greater racial equity through my role within the educational system. I continued learning through workshops, study groups, conferences, and other professional development opportunities. I taught a curricu ..read more

In working on an essay recently about Wendell Berry and his book-length essay on American racism, The Hidden Wound, I came upon a related collection of essays by bell hooks, belonging: a culture of place. In her book, hooks (who always used the lowercase) references Berry often and with deep respect. Although Berry is a white man and hooks a Black woman and outspoken feminist, they share a number of core views that, for both, rose out of their childhoods in Kentucky and from their decisions as adults to return to live in the state. Their paths in academia, as students and professors, took them ..read more

If our goal in schools is to help all students thrive and become their best selves, equity and inclusion cannot be an afterthought. There is no way to support student mental and emotional health without challenging the multiple and interconnected ways in which the culture of white supremacy privileges some “selves” above others. For school counselors and school psychologists this work poses a challenge. We live and work within systems designed to socialize youth into specific cultural values and norms that have emerged from our country’s history. These values and norms are never neutral. The ..read more

  We are grateful that, back in 1986, an act of Congress dedicated February as the official month for spotlighting Black history and culture. It’s important that all of us have this dedicated time to both engage in public education and celebration of historic and present-day Black contributions to society and culture. It’s important that we have this time for Black Americans to take part in their own community celebrations. It’s important we have this time to center public conversations on the question on what we collectively need to do to create true and lasting racial justice in the Un ..read more