Looking at the ally continuum I feel that I am on the active and advocate end of the continuum, but when it comes to my classroom I want to be fully an advocate. I have done self-assessments of my teaching to see how I interact with students to get a sense of how my biases play a part in my teaching and I also look up book awards that are given to black authors for their work and things of that nature, but I wanted to know what else I can do. I would really like some suggestions so I can continue to think about how to advocate for more diversity in my classroom.
Hi Kimberley! This is something that I have been thinking about too. One of the thing I would like to do as an English teacher is include more black authors in what I teach or select resources that are by black and PoC writers. I would like to normalise diversity without making a show of it. What subject do you teach?
Hi Abha! I really like your thought process on incorporating more black authors or adding more resources by black and PoC writers! If you find any good resources and are willing to share I’m sure it would be super helpful to come back to this forum to find resources and have discussions about them! I am a Deaf educator that also teaches special education. I got a pretty unique demographic that I teach, but I feel it’s important to still advocate for diversity in the classroom no matter what :)
I don't have specific resources but a quick google search usually works for me! Any specific subject areas that you are looking for? Doing this also forces me to read more Black and PoC authors.
That is a very specific demographic that you teach! I would love to hear more about your journey for advocating diversity! Maybe introducing students to more Black / PoC disabled content creators?
You already are an advocate for deaf and special ed students. From my observations of special ed teachers, it seems to become a priority in their lives even outside of the job. My point is that you have a bit of a head-start at being an advocate and hopefully it's a bit easier for you to transfer what you've been doing to a different focus - racial advocacy.
Some of us need to think about how to do this without acting like here we are to save the world. We can bring in our "power" but it must be used to bring us side-by-side with those we want to advocate for. As the workshop creator that does the videos emphasized, "It is not about us".