February 10th, 2019
Exploring Race
The subject of race is of a great interest to me. It makes me critically think about culture and society. Controversy over race has been ongoing for centuries (maybe as early as 13th century). Our recent professional learning on We Rise Together: The Peel District School Board Action Plan to Support Black Students reminded me of the open conversations that we use to have during our Sociology and Anthropology class during my college days. The professional development again made me closely look at personal biases, and reflect on my teaching practices.
What is race? The precise origin of the word “race” is unknown, but it seems to originate in a Latin root, ratio, with a meaning similar to terms like “species” or “kind” (of thing) Smedley 1999 137-41. Race has multiple meanings, and has been used by anthropologists in a variety of ways. Race defines, separates and unites us. For example, if used in the context of “the human race” it unites the humanity. On the contrary, in terms of skin color “black”, “brown” and “white” it separates us. I wonder, can the variation of colour of the skin biologically (i.e. physical characteristics) makes difference to the point of being certain group of people biologically superior or inferior.
Personally, I find “Race” as a loaded word because people use the word in very different ways but assume that they are talking about the same thing. The conception of race is truly in the eyes of the beholder. It depends on who is looking, judging, and assuming.
Anthropologist broadly classify human race into Africans (Negroids), Europeans (Caucasoids), and Asians (Mongloids). It has little or nothing to do with biology but the history of a society that makes assumptions or stereotypes of people of darker skin to create a social hierarchy that’s visible or identified. There is variation of skin colors depending on the region of origin. Race is than just an idea and not a fact of inferiority.
If Race is an ideology we must let this conversation going as we can acknowledge our personal biases, and eliminate or reduce the barriers that stop marginalized communities to participate fully in our society. We must think about attitudes and cultural categories, ideas that within people’s minds, and that are acted upon in the real world.
As an educator, it’s our shared responsibility to be the change and bring the change in the attitudes of students, staff community and parent community. We can accept consciously our biases to gender, race, ethnicity, religion, culture, class or mental ability, sexual orientation and/or other factors, and practice culturally responsive teaching practices. Be very mindful of the language that we use, and the literature we bring into our classroom to unpack the curriculum. Engage the parent community into the classroom for students success (e.g., get in a dialogue to know more about culture), and keep our mindset open to understand. Embrace diversity. Recognize all races. Talk age appropriate to students about race. In the beginning, the topic race might be uncomfortable, but discovering it is usually better than pretending it doesn’t exist. Embracing diversity means recognizing all races. To rise above our past, we must acknowledge its existence, learn about it, remove the personal biases, keep the conversation going, be resourceful, mindful, and choose action to eliminate or reduce the barriers.
We Rise Together is an intervention plan and comprehensive response to the educational experiences of Black students in the Peel board (Learn more visit http://www.werisetogeher.ca).
Learning Environments 