While there are many more barriers than 4, these are four common objections people raise when they're trying to explain why they are hesitant about anti racist work in schools.  We have found that these are easy grabs for people, but actually reveal underlying issues, typically rooted in racism in the first place. Watch.  1. "I don't know where to start."  This is a good first question but it’s not an honest one. We know how to start all kinds of things, but we choose not to know how to start anti racism work. When we want to start a diet, we go online and get reviews and check ..read more

  The population of students in the United States working to learn English, is now 10% of public school students. This is an important number, because one of the major barriers to their proficiency is a lack of qualified educators to teach them. First, a recent EdWeek article explains that, “not all states even have bilingual certification programs that would ensure teacher candidates can teach in multiple languages and engage in that level of pedagogy.” This is a way our education department is not meeting the needs of 10% of it’s student body across the United States. While dual lang ..read more

As a result of strong anti-southern biases among northerners and people outside of the south, anti south commentary persists in this season of keyboard warriors. In response to DeSa*tis and Abbo*t legislation, people easily want to ban Florida and Texas, for example, from the union. It’s wild how quickly they become cessationists. Understandably, these laws cause frustration, anger, and a desire to rapidly remove them from their positions, but there’s a difference between critiquing them and their fascist governments, and the entire population of a state. There are people in both of those stat ..read more

"He sits there and keeps his down and just does his work. He's such a good student."  "Mary was diagnosed with cancer and we didn't even know! She's such a trooper."  "Juan barely talks and responds only when called upon."  "They're such a difficult student. They fidget all day and need all these stimulations just to get a simple task done."  Heard those statements before? Made those statements before? That is what it sounds like when educational numbness is the expectation. Somehow, (and we can trace it far back into early schooling practices and our socialization) we've a ..read more

I guess that the nuance in knowing the difference between a book that exposes harm and one that is harmful isn't as clear for everyone as it may be for me. Let me change that.  There are books that cause harm. Harm, in this case, refers to offense or insult. These are books that lead the reader to feel negative feelings whether about themselves or about others. This is a problem because it pushes a dehumanizing ideology and plays a role in sustaining bias and discrimination in our society. A book that leads a person to hate or dislike a group of people based on a cultural or ethnic stereo ..read more

Let me preface this entire blog post by saying that all white kids are not evil or bad. They are not our enemies. This isn't an 'all white people' blog post. This is about what is missing from education and how it's disproportionately affecting white children.  Recently, we posted on Instagram a mini thread on the explicit anti racist instruction that white kids need. It definitely resonated with many. We want to argue that they need anti racist role models. In the Instagram post we included a super short list of white antiracist models that white students can learn about. It's ..read more

 When working with emergent bilinguals in the classroom it is important to have a well-developed toolbox of strategies that celebrates their strengths and builds on their needs. This work doesn’t have to be a mystery. It is about intention and preparation. In this blog post, we have some research-based strategies that are classroom-ready.  The 7 step vocabulary strategy: It supports the development of academic language and content knowledge by providing meaning to the words, review, and reinforcement throughout the lesson. This vocabulary strategy also provides multimodal ..read more

Because the issue of immigration is a hot topic right now, it makes sense that immigration and education should also be at the forefront of peoples' minds. In these conversations there are often arguments or opinions presented that embrace racist ideology and American exceptionalism all while sounding like they're about rigor and driven by success. Below, we have addressed some of the main points we hear way too often:  1. These students need to only learn English and leave the other language at home so they can focus and progress academically.  The flaw in this argument is that ..read more

I know you've been watching the news and you've probably been watching our videos on social media. We can't stop talking about what DeSantis is doing, and here's why:  1. These book banning are racist and oppressive in every way. He hides behind certain vague phrases to appease his political base. There is no validity to the bans.  2. He is going to be a problem for all of us in 2024. This is all scoring him points and is creating away to position himself for the presidency.  Now, back to the bans. The irony is that in their efforts to "protect" children, what they are doing is ..read more

The National Center for Education Statistics has shared the news from their 2020 and 2021 research. One of the striking statistics that I think we need to meditate on is that out of 49 million public school students, 27.2 million of them are students of color. White students comprise 22.4 million. Students of color have officially surpassed white students in public schools. This was predicted years ago and we are seeing the change now.  This is an important demographic shift that has many implications for those of us in the education field.  White students are no longer the majority ..read more