Reflect

How do you make students feel secure? As I thought about this the first thing was to establish school policies and rules but when doing so keep in mind ALL students.  Staff and students should be approachable and open minded.  Schools should provide CRE training for staff and families.  The involvement of families and community organizations is very important.  When kids and families feel safe they are more likely to open up and have the courageous conversations.
If students are proud and comfortable enough to share with one another, then conversations will occur.  It is our responsibility to promote and foster that.  I connect this to the literature used in classrooms too.  As discussed in week 1 it is an important tool we as educators can use!

A good way to foster trust among our students and support their racial identity development is to demonstrate cultural humility in our work. In my classroom, I am adamant that names are pronounced correctly. As a history teacher, my students lament some names like "Qin Shi Huangdi" and "Nikita Khrushchev." But we practice them together to validate them all. We have to build community within our classroom walls first and then have that safe, secure learning environment seep into the halls. We can only control our actions, but we can influence others. I also like to remind my students about cultural humility - to think critically about what we consider "normal" or "regular" may not be the same across our varied communities. This has been a long learning process for me. I have even stopped buying "skin-colored" bandaids for my students because not many of my students have skin remotely the same shade as those peach bandages. It is a small, but important nod to cultural humility.

1. How can we support students in feeling secure in their racial identity?
     One way to do this is to start having the conversations early.  At 3 years old, children begin to categorize by race, and by 6 years old, children have developed prejudices by race.  It is for this reason that children need to learn, address and understand race at an early age.  Positive Racial Identity must be continually and continuously reinforced.  As early as preschool, children begin to develop their own racial identity and through conversations we can support a positive image of oneself. 
2. How can we foster trust amongst the racial boundaries?
     Not all parents are comfortable with these types of conversations so it is our job as educators to have them with children.  Children are already exposed to race and racist ideas in the news and media and we must counteract that early to help children develop positive racial identities through our teaching and conversations.
3. How can we prepare students to engage in conversations about racism in ways that prevent further trauma to students?
     One way I prepare students is through community circles.  Once students build relationship and engage with comfortable conversations they can more easily adapt to difficult topics of conversation.  Inaddition making Restorative Language an every day aspect of my classroom and teaching.  This builds the ground work for later conversations.

What does it mean to be secure in "racial identity"? How would we know if someone is secure in their racial identity? Would they behave differently? act differently? Do we want students to be secure in their racial identity? My son is currently attending UAlbany where the student population is now 60% minority. He notes how walking around campus, students in social situations gravitate toward people of similar racial backgrounds despite the fact that they live together and attend classes together. Is this because they are racially insecure? or is it because they are racially secure? 
I am not sure fostering trust is the correct goal. I think the question is how can we respect other people's culture and backgrounds and how can we create more opportunities for cooperation rather than competition. So long as we view life as having winners and losers, we will instinctually take every opportunity to win even if that means reverting to racism.
We engage in conversations that allow people to tell their stories and we learn from their stories. We remember that learning is not about facts and data; it is about human connections. Facts and data are only useful in helping us understand our part in the world and how we fit with others.