Anti-Racist Education

I haven’t blogged for a little while now because of this stressful time for school. I always find that within the last 3 weeks of school, I have a breakdown and think that I can’t finish the semester. It happens every semester. My boyfriend finally told me that I do this every semester and I always get everything done. This feeling of stress is definitely something that we as teachers need to remember when we go out into the work world. We need to remember that our students will have other things going on in their lives and hopefully that will make us better teachers. This was really just a side note because I haven’t been able to write for a while.

I wanted to discuss the presentation on Anti-Racist Education. I like the idea that we try to incorporate other cultures into our lessons and schools in order to embrace others that the students might not know much about. I enjoyed the tests that we had to complete. I found it really interesting that when doing the first test, most of us did not experience any issues. It was the second test that was taken from other places/cultures where most of us were confused. It allowed the class to realize that the context of our lessons needs to be respectful of students who are not from the same culture as the majority of the class.

There are two major obstacles with anti-racist education that the presenters mentioned. Firstly, the teachers have to manipulate the curriculum in order to include anti-racist ideas. It is not a central part of the regular curriculum, but more integrated. Secondly, teachers do not see the value of anti-racist education. This is definitely unfortunate because if teachers do not see the value, how can we pass on the importance of anti-racist education.

I thought the presentation was good and the presenters were able to encourage the class to promote anti-racist education. Good job!