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Day 6 (and beyond): Public Speaking

There is something indescribable about presenting findings to someone of power. For students, getting to present to the school principle or a member of the local government is a direct effort to make palpable change in their/your school! With the research to back them up, students will then have to practice public speaking and relaying the message before the presentation day. As a teacher it will be critical to delegate the roles so that as many voices get to be heard on the day of the presentation as possible to emphasize the entire class’s joint efforts.

But the advocacy does not have to end there. Should the principle be unwilling to hear the students proposition, you can fuel the students to seek out higher levels of government. With a group of teachers now committed and understanding of the school to prison pipeline and school push out, this will make advocacy with students much easier. Therefore, another way to combat the problem may manifest in the form of creating an outside school club or a peaceful protest amongst teacher and student allies.

The hope is that in this project and however you choose to employ the given steps, that you as a teacher allow the student to not only learn about the problem and how it affects others, but how it is rooted in their own community and that CHILDREN CAN BE AGENTS OF CHANGE! :)

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Day 5: Intersectional Research

Depending on where you are in the process, Day 5 can take place weeks after Day 4, only days, or even hours. The important takeaway is that Project Citizen is often best when students are given a few weeks to engage in it because it IS a process and the process itself raises the overall engagement (as my own personal experience can attest to below). And while this may create stress considering limited room made in a school year for civics education, the research skills, frequent reading and writing, and ultimately public speaking skills that Project Citizen models pairs expertly with core standards (Project Citizen).

Objectives

Students will engage in intersectional research

Students will define the problem and solutions to the problem found in existing scholarship (Project Citizen)

Students will collaborate as a class in order to compile the data and select the solution they would like to advocate for (Project Citizen)

Students will make contact with local government and/or school board by learning how to draft a professional email, engage in a professional phone call, and interact with professionals over video/in person, in order to garner real support for their solution

Materials

Identity Posters

Access to computers and the school library

Step One

Students will again be divided into the identity groups from Day 2. In these groups students will begin by researching the background information on the topic selected in the vote, but will do so through the lens of their identity group. As mentioned prior, the group focusing on LGBTQ+ might look to research similar to Deanna J. Glickman’s who states that “When a trans* student wears clothing or accessories that do not match their “biological” sex, both teachers and administrators take notice and discipline students for behavior that typically would not have resulted in punishment for a cisgendered student” (Glickman 277). Another scholar named Daniel Ian Rubin found that “research has shown that racial minority students (e.g., Mexican Americans) who feel that their teachers value and respect multiculturalism and diversity will perform better in the classroom and will be less likely to drop out of school, compared to racial minority students who don’t feel their culture is valued or respected by their teachers. (Tan, 2002, p. 21)” (Rubin 226) which complicates a racial lens of the pipeline. Finally, Kimberlé Crenshaw notes that “while Black males were suspended more than three times as often as their white counterparts, Black girls were suspended six times as often” (Crenshaw 18) which lends a black feminist vantage point. Thus, this is the kind of work done in each group ensures that students throughout the process are conscious of different kinds of voices getting equal representation in their final proposal.

The research stage would continue in series of layers, beginning with defining the problem, then shifting to research on the pros and cons of existing solutions, to eventually proposing an action plan (Project Citizen). The amount of work that goes into each of these research stages cannot be satisfied in one post never mind a few sentences, so it is especially critical to realize that these steps will need time beyond Day 5 in order to do the project justice.

Step Two

Then fast forwarding past the rest of the research, once the students compile all of their research through these intersectional lenses, arguably the most important step will be deciding on the way the students want the school government or local government to eradicate the problem driving the research. Students may need to make phone calls to local officials or draft an email to someone on the local board of education. This will again require a class vote based on a cross-cutting analysis of each group’s data.

Works Cited

Ayers, William, Kumashiro, Kevin, Meiners, Erica, Quinn, Theresa and David Stovall.“Resisting the Pedagogy of Punishment.” Teaching Towards Democracy: Educators as Agents of Change, Routledge, 2017, pp. 121-152.

Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. “Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected.” African American Policy Forum, 2015. Glickman, 

Glickman, Deanna J. “Fashioning Children: Gender Restrictive Dress Codes as an entry point for the Trans* School to Prison Pipeline.” The American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy, & Law, vol. 24, no. 2, 2016,  pp. 263-84.

Project Citizen, Center for Civic Education, www.civiced.org/pc-program. Accessed 3 December 2017.

Rubin, Daniel Ian. “Engaging Latino/a Students in the Secondary English Classroom: A Step Toward Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline.” Journal of Latinos and Education, vol.13, no. 3, 2014, pp. 222–230.

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Project Citizen: A Personal Testimony

Project Citizen was a life changing experience for me when I participated in the project as an undergraduate student. Something about selecting an issue in the community that I felt so personally invested in outside of school, made me excited to select a topic and do the research thereafter; it did not feel like work but felt like I was truly making a larger impact and learning more about what mattered most to me. Our engagement in the project lasted for a couple of months, though our professor relayed to us that one of the benefits of using Project Citizen is that you as a teacher can select the time frame that works the best for you and your students. For some classrooms, the research stage (which I will be describing in the Day 5 post) will necessitate weeks in order to compile all of the necessary information. 

The specific project that I participated in as an undergraduate recognized that Trenton, New Jersey is a food desert which limits the population’s access to grocery stores and healthy options. After weeks of researching and eventually proposing a solution, my group members and myself got to present to Trenton’s Director of Health, James Brownlee, and the Dean of our undergraduate school. It was an unbelievable feeling to get to present on an issue we cared so much about to two people who could potentially influence or support our proposed action plan. The presentation and overall involvement in Project Citizen created a dialogue between us and a public servant in Trenton, which has been one of the highlights of my undergraduate career. 

My hope is that by bringing this civics education model to your students, you will not only work to push back against school push out with the people directly impacted by the problem, but you will also give students this priceless feeling of empowerment that I was lucky enough to feel.

For more information about the reaches of the project, see the video at the bottom of this post which pairs with the citation:

Works Cited

“Program.” Project Citizen, Center for Civic Education, www.civiced.org/pc-program. Accessed 3 December 2017.

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Day 4: Addressing School Push Out (For Real)

By engaging the students in the issue of school push out as it pertains to their own school through the Day 3 discussion and journal reflections, this will pave the way for you as a teacher to get the students involved in real activism. 

Objectives

Students will relay their experiences of school push out and then nominate one specific school push out issue to work towards changing it in their school

Students will address school push out intersectionally (from a vantage point that includes multiple identity groups)

Students will be able to define public policy

Materials

Writer’s Notebooks

Posters created from the previous class/day

Purchase Project Citizen Guide books

Make a mock voting booth (option)

Step One

Begin by reiterating the definitions of school push out created in the previous class. This will help to reframe how the school to prison pipeline at times manifests and will help you to assess their understanding of the new terms. More importantly though, this is an opportunity to again offer students a chance to share how they have felt school push out or injustices in their own school. This may take place either in small groups or an entire class discussion (dependent upon what/who you are aiming to assess). 

After hearing (what will hopefully be) passionate sharing, you as a teacher will notify the students of the patterns you saw in their writer’s notebooks and discussions. Were a lot of people feeling similarly to Christina and had complaints about the dress code policy as a form of push out? Did a lot have comments on how the suspension policy made them miss school time? (Ayers 124). You will then relay to the students that their concerns about school push out are ones you as a class would like to work to change, not just on paper, but in actuality. 

But this change cannot be just for black male students or white female LGBTQ students: here you must emphasize that whatever problem the class chooses to address has to affect a wide range of oppressed groups. For example, you may want to reference Deanna J. Glickman’s piece of literary scholarship on Trans* student push out to show students that people who identify as Trans* often feel school push out through dress code because they are forced to don clothing associated with a specific gender identity even during transition (Glickman 276). This can be one of the examples used to frame school push out in a way so that it addresses a population of students that come from all backgrounds. It ties closely to the Day 2 activity where students had to assess the presence of identity groups in television, so it may be valuable to reiterate your findings from that activity and bring out the class poster created on Day 2 which lists the oppressed identity groups. 

If you have a school that is deeply segregated with a nearly homogenous gender or race, this intersectional piece will still be critical. You can relay to students that considering multiple identities helps the school to be proactive should a student of another race, religion, or sexual expression enter one of the classrooms.

Step Two

As a class, you will then employ the democratic process of a student vote, where students will propose 3 topics they feel most passionate about to address push out in their schools. They will then vote on the one that is both intersectionally felt at their school as well is of most interest. To make this feel more official, you can make your own voting booth or voting area to show students that their voice will be just as important as if it were an actual election. This is the first step in the Project Citizen civics education model, in which “Entire classes of students...work cooperatively to identify a public policy problem in their community” (Project Citizen). After deciding on a topic, you will distribute the Project Citizen books to all of the students which will outline the necessary steps to make change in their school. 

Step Three

Because the kind of change that Project Citizen advocates for is public policy, this will require you to end the class by teaching a mini lesson on the meaning of public policy. A useful tool to guide this discussion can be found at the Project Citizen website which is both cited below and can be found at this link: www.civiced.org/pc-program/instructional-component/public-policy. 

While some teachers may feel discouraged because this means introducing yet another new term to the students, this term is essential because Public Policy emphasizes the importance of voices in everyday communities and hopefully, by learning about public policy, it will demonstrate to students that everyone can influence the way schools and communities are run (Project Citizen). Project Citizen’s model also mandates that students engage with a governing body when they do research, propose a solution, and present their findings (Project Citizen), though, the governing body in the case of students can be the school board or the principal. By introducing that students have the ability to get such important people at their school to listen to their ideas, this will definitely be an empowering exercise that will provide fuel for the rest of the  project. 

Works Cited

Ayers, William, Kumashiro, Kevin, Meiners, Erica, Quinn, Theresa and David Stovall.“Resisting the Pedagogy of Punishment.” Teaching Towards Democracy: Educators as Agents of Change, Routledge, 2017, pp. 121-152.

Glickman, Deanna J. “Fashioning Children: Gender Restrictive Dress Codes as an entry point for the Trans* School to Prison Pipeline.” The American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy, & Law, vol. 24, no. 2, 2016, pp. 263-84.

Project Citizen, Center for Civic Education, www.civiced.org/pc-program. Accessed 3 December 2017.

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Day 3: School Push Out

Objectives:

Define school push out

Identify the populations that experience school push out

Discuss how school push out impacts your school in pariticular 

In all, this lesson is about relating representation and push out to the students’ own experiences in school. It is intended to get them impassioned about the inequality that they see. 

Materials:

Writer’s notebooks

Sticky Notes

Poster Paper

Projector

Writing Utensils

The day/week after the representation activity, teachers can open up the discussion by saying: “Representation and inequality are not only problems in the media, but also in schools across the nation and our own. This year I attended the Girls Speak Out at the United Nations in New York City (if you did not attend say that you watched the video) where I heard a young girl named Christina speak about the way that her school did not treat all students fairly. I am going to show you her speech on video. While you are listening I would like you to write on the sticky note in front of you if you relate to her experience in any way. If you do not relate to her experience you can write down a time when you felt like your school was pushing you out or someone that you know. If none of these apply, I would like you to define school push out in your own words.”

Write these prompts on the board or project them so that students can refer back when answering on their sticky notes. Then play the video, which you can find at this link http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/other-meetingsevents/watch/-international-day-of-the-girl.-justiceforgirls/5604417721001/?term=  (1:16:00 - 1:20:00). 

Some of the highlights from Christina’s testimony include:

“School push out is when a student is pushed out of school because several reasons that are rooted: racism, sexism, Islamphobia, homophobia, and transphobia. The manifestations of school push out are dress code, metal detectors, and school curriculum”(“International Day of the Girl Child 11 October.” )

“Nearly half girls of color have experienced going through metal detectors” (“International Day of the Girl Child 11 October”)

“⅓ of girls of color are disconnected from the curriculum… because they do not see themselves in the curriculum” (“International Day of the Girl Child 11 October”) 

Give students a few minutes to write a thoughtful response on their sticky note and then put all of the stickies on something that can be projected larger. It may be worthwhile to refer back to some of the important quotations like those in the above because Christina expertly articulates the way in which school push out not only impacts girls of color but the LGBTQ population and certain faiths as well. This will help to show students that push out is an intersectional problem.

If you find that a lot of the student responses are just defining new terms they heard in the video and not relating it to their own experience, this will serve as a strong lead into the following:

What is school push out? How does Christina describe school push out?

Christina says: ““School push out is when a student is pushed out of school because several reasons that are rooted: racism, sexism, Islamphobia, homophobia, and transphobia. The manifestations of school push out are dress code, metal detectors, and school curriculum”(citation). How does our school in particular push out certain voices? Are all people represented in the books we read at school?

Although she does not use the word in her testimony, raise your hand if you have ever heard of the term “school to prison pipeline”. What do you think this phrase means? If you don’t know, what might the context clues tell you?

In what ways does our school or do other schools treat people like criminals? 

Why is detention a bad idea in our school? What are its drawbacks?

How do you wish your voice was heard in our school?

As a class you will co-construct the meanings behind the new words (that sixth grade level students may have never been exposed to, so it will be important to have an arsenal of questions for facilitation in addition to the ones in the above). These ideas should be written somewhere were all students can see it and potentially refer back to it (like a class poster). This is where the work from Day 1 becomes especially relevant because after reading/watching many resources about the subject you will have a lot of knowledge to share. The key here is to continue to refer back to Christina’s testimony because she is more of a peer to the students than you are. 

Students will again refer to their reflection journals after the discussion and  either share a time when they felt criminalized at school, felt school push out, or saw push out happen to a friend/relative in writing. These journal entries will hopefully be full of passion and ideas because the point is to create a space where students ideas matter most. 

NOTE: In this entire lesson as whole it is really important to emphasize confidentiality and to create trust with students so that they are willing to share stories of push out. Some may fear that you will tell administration and they will be punished further, so it is critical that you make clear that your goal is quite the opposite and instead you want to help stop whatever form of school push out the students are experiencing. You can reflect on their journals to see if there are common threads (such as students feeling pushed out by dress codes, or the books they read, or by the school’s detention policy) which will help to identify the way the pedagogy of punishment is represented in your school.  Trends in stories of school push out will then be proposed as topic ideas for the next class, in order to then lead into a larger social justice project.

Works Cited

“International Day of the Girl Child 11 October.” United Nations, uploaded by the United Nations, 11 Oct. 2017, http://webtv.un.org/watch/-international-day-of-the-girl.justiceforgirls/5604417721001/?term=. Accessed 25 Oct. 2017.

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Day 2: Representation and the Classroom

After Day 1 and 2 (or however long you choose to keep the discussions amongst teachers going) hopefully you as a teacher will feel more knowledgable about the school to prison pipeline, the pedagogy of punishment, and school push out. Yet, with increased stress to meet deadlines, follow Common Core Standards, and to raise test scores, carving out time in the classroom to talk about these systemic problems with students may feel out of reach. Researcher Daniel Ian Rubin says otherwise, though; he claims that reading and writing standards pair well with social justice education (227). 

I felt particularly inspired by one of Rubin’s social justice engagement lessons which specifically centered on examining representations of Latino/as in the media (227). Thus, I decided to expand upon his ideas to create an even more intersectional activity for students by having them analyze other minority or oppressed groups place in the American media. As a result, this lesson focuses on represents them in stereotypical, criminalized fashions. The hope is that by first talking about representation in the larger society, it will show the students how engrained the problem is and then provide a nice segway into talking about push out in schools during day Day 4.

While my lesson is imagined for sixth grade students, a lot of the methods can be readily adapted for younger or older students. Here are the objectives:

Students will pool their observations together about representations of specific identity groups in the media

Students will document representation in media outlets

Students will share their findings with the class

Students will ultimately be able to articulate an understanding of the universal white person presented in the media and the dangers this media representation brings for not only minorities, but all people (DiAngelo 59)

This lesson will be guided by one of the 6th grade Common Core writing standards, which aims that students be able to:

“CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.” (Common Core State Standards Initiative)

Materials

Writer’s notebooks

Whiteboard/chalkboard

Writing utensils

Sticky notes (optional)

Step One

As a class, students will list identity groups whom they feel are oppressed in American society. Teachers can either have students share aloud or have the students write their response on a sticky notes (to protect anonymity); the goal here is to pool the responses. This will help to make sure you as a teacher can assess everyone while also inviting all voices to contribute. No matter how you choose to get the information from the students, though, it will be critical that  the list is projected or written, in order to tangibly show the magnitude of oppression. 

After receiving their responses or listening to their initial comments, it will be especially important  to prompt follow up questions, such as “Are people only oppressed by race? Are there other groups in this current moment in America or other places who are not treated equally?” This will help to encourage students to see that people are also oppressed via their sexual orientation, gender, religion, whether they are or are not able bodied, and socioeconomic status. After creating a master list, students then will be placed in groups where each group will focus on one identity (eg. latino/as, black women, transgender youth, asian men, etc.)

Like Rubin suggests, the follow up to this brainstorming activity will take place outside of school, as students will be advised to watch television at home or online (a proposition that will no doubt get their attention and raise engagement immediately!). But its not all fun and games: while watching whatever they choose, the students will assess the presence of the identity group they were assigned to (Rubin 227). If they are inclined, students may assess both the commercials and the television programs, though the focus should be on the commercials (227).  Students will keep a tally of how many times their identity group gets represented in the commercials and how the commercial chose to represent that group (Is it in stereotypical fashion? Hyper-sexualized? In the background? Does the individual speak?) (227). Questions like these will help to encourage students to observe their typical media outlets critically (227), all of which will be documented in their writer’s notebooks. 

Step Two

The following day, students will take out their writer’s notebooks and relay their findings in a reflection. It is important that students use quotations from their observations the night before or relay the statistical findings or patterns in their reflection, so that the activity will begin to mimic constructing a piece of research. By analyzing, organizing, and compiling data and observations this draft will clearly align with the Common Core Standard referenced in the above.

They will respond to the following prompt(s):

What did you notice in your observations during your hour of watching television? Did it surprise you? Why?

Who was in the commercials the most? 

How do you think society views the identity group you were focusing on, based on the notes you took and what you observed?

Why does representation on television matter? 

Teachers can use one or all of these prompts in conjunction depending upon what they would feel would work best with their own students (eg. it may cause stress for some students to have to answer so many questions in one response). 

Students will then get together with a group of people who did not analyze the same identity group as they had, in order to compare, contrast, and compile any common trends in their findings. Students will then be encouraged to share what they had learned on their own or what they learned form a peer in a class discussion. 

 As a teacher you will get to assess their findings from both their writing and the discussion, and be able to reiterate those findings at the beginning of the next class (eg. I noticed a lot of people said they saw white people the most or I noticed that a lot of students said that latino actors were present but rarely spoke). This lesson intends to flow into the next day seamlessly, for it open ups the issue of representation in the larger society with the anticipation to discuss representation and push out within schools, more specifically. 

Works Cited

DiAngelo, Robin. “White fragility.” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, vol. 3, no.3, 2011, pp. 54-70.

“English and Language Arts Standards: Writing: Grade 6.”  Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2017,  www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/6/ . Accessed 2 December 2017.

Rubin, Daniel Ian. “Engaging Latino/a Students in the Secondary English Classroom: A Step Toward Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline.” Journal of Latinos and Education, vol.13, no. 3, 2014, pp. 222–230.

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“The Schools of a country are its future in miniature” ~ Tehyi Hsieh

This artwork was done by artist Sarah Watts, who “went to Ringling College of Art and Design where she learned how to draw better by many great instructors... she learned so much and pursued her career as an independent illustrator. This was her true obsession since she was in college.  She works 24-7 and loves it.  Her first published book gig, The Tilting House written by Tom Llewelyn, she illustrated at the age of 23.  She will not rest until a shark eats her or she is abducted by aliens. Today Sarah is Designer and CoFounder of Cotton+Steel Fabrics with four other lovely ladies and the epic team at RJR Fabrics” (Watts). For more information about Sarah and her art see her website link below.

This social justice poster comes from Teaching Tolerance whose “mission is to reduce prejudice, improve intergroup relations and support equitable school experiences for our nation’s children. We believe that schools must educate all students for full participation in a diverse democracy. Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants” (citation) 

I thus included this photo for two main reasons :

The Teaching Tolerance website (www.tolerance.org/one-world-posters) is an excellent free resource for teachers trying to make their physical classroom reflect the social justice model. The above image is one of their One World Social Justice posters, which they encourage teachers to download freely.

“The Schools of a country are its future in miniature” ~ Tehyi Hsieh       The message behind the quote speaks to teachers’ important role in preventing the school to prison pipeline, the pedagogy of punishment, and school push out. For it asserts the belief that the democratic practices established in schools often reflect the larger society and its decisions. Therefore, this suggests that teachers who work against the criminalization of students and stop using suspensions and detentions with troubled students, in turn, help the entire society reject punishment as a viable solution to the world’s conflicts (Ayers et al. 122).

Works Cited

Ayers, William, Kumashiro, Kevin, Meiners, Erica, Quinn, Theresa and David Stovall.“Resisting the Pedagogy of Punishment.” Teaching Towards Democracy: Educators as Agents of Change, Routledge, 2017, pp. 121-152.

Southern Poverty Law Center. Teaching Tolerance,  2017, www.tolerance.org. Accessed 2 December 2017.

Watts, Sarah.“About.” Sarah Watts, 2017, www.wattsalot.com/about/ . Accessed 2 December 2017.

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Day 1 (part 2): Discussion & Action Plan

Step 2: The day of the discussion

Individual leading the session will need:

Laptop 

Projector (and something to project on)

A copy of all of the texts/documentary

Large, poster-sized sticky notes

Markers

All attendees will need:

Their reflection notebooks 

A mobile device

Copies of the texts

Once everyone has gathered, the leader will prompt the following questions to the teachers in the order prescribed. 

How did this piece make you feel? How did your own identity contribute to this reaction?

How do you think this relates to education?

How would you define the school to prison pipeline? The pedagogy of punishment?

What were the limitations of (name one of the texts here)? Whose voice is included in that work and whose voice is not?

What do the implications of mass incarceration have on schools?

In what aspects of our school’s education philosophy does the school criminalize its students?

How can we combat the school to prison pipeline in our own school?

In response to both parts of question 1, everyone will take out a mobile device and anonymously answer the questions on the website https://www.polleverywhere.com/word-cloud?ref=pigrulaj&_ga=2.195815660.1769674499.1512165394-351192869.1512165394 . This website will take all the responses and create a visual collage. The power of this tool is that whenever a word or response is repeated, the size of the response visually grows. Therefore, this will allow everyone attending the discussion to see the wide range of responses, while still maintaining their own anonymity. 

In regard to the question 4 “Whose voice is included in the work and whose voice is not?” I felt this question was particularly important as a form of praxis: not only does it illuminate that worthy scholarship is not necessarily always intersectional but it also encourages teachers to practice assessing literature from the vantage point of voice. My own response to this question would be that upon reading Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, I felt that her narrative voice and the statistics she gave were valuable, but were targeted mostly to black males. This is why the inclusion of the Kimberlé Crenshaw’s  piece is especially critical, for “Black Girls Matter”  complicates the conversation because it centers specifically on black female youth and their experience in the school to prison pipeline.  Dependent upon the teachers’ own identities and vantage points, they may find additional critiques which will only help to further sharpen their eye for intersectionality.

The rest of the questions will be then be prompted by the leader/moderator. For Questions 3, 6, 7 the moderator will write down responses on one of the large sticky notes for each. This will help to tangibly define important terms, and for questions 6 and 7 it will help to physically plot out a plan of action to combat the school to prison pipeline and pedagogy of punishment. These posters will then be shared with teachers (physically or via email), placing all attendees at an intended crossroad: How can their ideas be put into action?

Hopefully, after this activity, teachers will come together to create a more detailed action plan to combat the issue within their school. Even without a larger advocacy project, though, the ultimate takeaway will be to have teachers become more aware of their practice of pedagogy of punishment as well as a greater understanding of their students’ experiences with school push out. 

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WARNING

This topic is particularly sensitive for white teachers still living with their “protective pillows” (DiAngelo 55) as it may cause outbursts. DiAngelo cautions that when the realities of racism are brought to the forefront, “common white responses include anger, withdrawal, emotional incapacitation, guilt, argumentation, and cognitive dissonance” (55). This demonstrates what DiAngelo calls a sense of white fragility, which, though she defines the term at length, essentially notes that “Whites have not had to build tolerance for racial discomfort and thus when racial discomfort arises, whites typically respond as if something is ‘wrong,’” (60). In order to help create a space for open discourse, it is important to anticipate that these actions may take place either directly after a teacher reads/watches one of the pieces or on the day of the group discussion. DiAngelo notes that there is no perfect way to reacts to instances of white fragility but that these individuals need to build up their racial tolerances, which will takes time (60). 

Therefore, to reach impactful conversation it may (and should) take more than one meeting or discussion. Teachers thus may want to read/watch each work and have separate discussion days for each piece, in order to be proactive about feelings of white fragility. Most importantly, we cannot label individuals experiencing white fragility as unable to learn or lost causes, for in doing so we put the pedagogy of punishment into practice by isolating peers that may not learn the same way. This activity requires Patience, Patience, Patience (and listening ears that are prepared to respond to different views with both informed responses and respect).

Pushback may not be purely a result of white fragility though, for it is also important to anticipate administrative pushback, as some of the discussion questions involve critiquing the teachers’ own school. In Teaching Towards Democracy “the authors cite that… schools themselves become makeshift prisons, as the heavy presence of law enforcement, metal detectors, and push for suspensions assume students are threatening even before they act or enter the school environment (122)” (qtd. in Vanderbilt 2). This may be something difficult for principals and the like to swallow because it directly challenges the kind of school culture they support. Therefore, this may mean that meetings or discussions need to take place outside of the school, but it DOES NOT mean that the discourse should be banned altogether.

Works Cited

Ayers, William, Kumashiro, Kevin, Meiners, Erica, Quinn, Theresa and David Stovall.“Resisting the Pedagogy of Punishment.” Teaching Towards Democracy: Educators as Agents of Change, Routledge, 2017, pp. 121-152.

DiAngelo, Robin. “White fragility.” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, vol. 3, no.3, 2011, pp. 54-70.

Vanderbilt, Angelica. “Reading Response One.” Essay, The College of New Jersey, 2017.

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Day 1: Help Yourself First

In order to break down the school to prison pipeline, teachers need to acknowledge their own position of power in a school over students and sometimes over parents. With the power comes the ability to evoke change. Therefore, I felt that the best way to begin dismantling the school to prison pipeline would be to educate the teaching staff and administration about the pipeline. The following activity would be introduced at a staff meeting or a team teacher’s meeting, depending upon how many teachers want to be involved and whether the administration approves of having a dialogue on this topic.

After the activity/discussion teachers will be able to:

Define the school to prison pipeline

Define (some of) the causes behind the school to prison pipeline

Define the pedagogy of punishment

Apply understanding of the pedagogy of punishment to their own school environment 

Propose methods to change their own school’s practice of the pedagogy of punishment

Step One:

A group of teachers (arranged by grade, by interest, by subject, etc.) will be directed to read: 

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

“Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected” by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Chapter Four of Teaching Towards Democracy: Educators as Agents of Change by William Ayers, Kevin Kumashiro, Erica Meiners, Therese Quinn, and David Stovall

13th (Netflix Documentary)

Aside from these, teachers will not be given any additional resources. While reading and watching, teachers will be asked to write a reflection in response to each, using the following prompts:

What is the problem?

What shocked or surprised you?

If you have watched/read other texts provided, how does this add to the dialogue? How does it complicate the problem?

How does the problem relate to schools in general? Where do we see these problems in our own schools?

Define any terms new to you that you found relevant.