Give Students Permission to Get it Wrong. He chose Victoria after the Queen of England.īut Pernell belonged to someone else. He chose Velicia after the latin word, felix which means happy. Joel and Velicia model for students what it means to explore one's own identity by sharing their Name Stories with their students. Sometimes my name tells you, ‘We have in common’ sometimes it tells you, ‘We might have some bridge-building to do in order to understand one another.’ In clarifying who we are, in confronting what we might assume about one another, this name exercise prepares us to be brave about our biases and values, to be proud about our stories, and to be prepared to learn from one another for one another.” Joel explains how Name Story builds trust among the students which lays the groundwork for brave and vulnerable content: “By looking carefully at our names and their meanings, we confront and celebrate the cultural and ethnic and racial and religious and gendered ways that others come to know us. The unit’s opening activity, “Name Story,” invites students to dig into the origins, spelling, meaning, and feelings associated with their names. For some students, especially students who never really had to think about race until recently, it’s eye opening.” Velicia said the first step in creating a “safe space is about students really exploring their own identities and their racial identities. The first unit of Race and Society, titled “Race, You, and Your Community,” asks students to reflect on and take responsibility for their own learning, a GOA core competency. In “ How to Start Meaningful Conversations About Race in the Classroom,” Maria Underwood writes, “One of the most important elements of teaching race and racism is examining implicit biases that may inform your way of thinking. Three Strategies for Courageous Conversationsġ. These strategies are closely tied to some of GOA's core competencies. GOA teachers Joel Garza of Greenhill School and Velicia Pernell of American School of Bombay know courageous conversations require safe spaces, and I talked with them about three strategies to create authentic, safe spaces for students to hold courageous conversations. Since 2019, GOA has been offering Race and Society, an interdisciplinary course in which students examine their lived experiences, their assumptions, their language, and their perspectives with respect to race. Communities began to publicly acknowledge that race was at the heart of inequities, a truth magnified by the disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students posted stories of experiencing racism at their schools, and streets across the world filled with protestors outraged over the continued deaths of black and brown bodies at the hands of police. Over the past year, students have watched school leaders reckon with founding histories tied to racial exclusion. Students need safe spaces to hold courageous conversations about race.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |