"We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is
of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it
must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven't so far.”
-Ronald Edmonds
“Because of the prejudice and racism inherent in our environments when we were children, I
assume that we cannot be blamed for learning what we were taught (intentionally or
unintentionally). Yet as adults, we have a responsibility to try to identify and interrupt the cycle
of oppression. When we recognize that we have been misinformed, we have a responsibility to
seek out more accurate information and to adjust our behavior accordingly.”
-Beverly Daniel Tatum,” Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: the Application of Racial
Identity Development Theory in the Classroom,” Harvard Educational Review, Spring, 1992.
“There are many ways to do diversity work. The most exciting, the most effective entry point as
I see it, is helping people learn how to talk and listen to one another. Everyone has a story to
tell about the impact of differences on their lives and careers. Most people want to tell their
story. The heart and soul of this work is giving people the chance to talk.”
-Barbara Walker, Teaching Diversity,” Gallos, et al, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1997.
Educators are an important force in helping many people overcome the effects of
societal bias and discrimination, but schools also serve to perpetuate the inequalities and
prejudices in the society. Thoughtful action with regard to curriculum, pedagogy and school
policies and organization is necessary to overcome the effects on people and institutions of a
long history of prejudice and discrimination.
- National Coalition for Equity in Education (NCEE)
“In schools, race cannot tell us about our students' innate proclivities to learn, to work hard, or
to play sports. It cannot provide information about whether their parents care about schooling
or believe in hard work...It can, however, caution us to question our assumptions, to remember
our cultural specificity, to take care in thinking we know too much. It can also challenge us to be
extra careful, particularly diligent, to have especially high expectations for those students for
whom education is one of few channels to success... (p. 196) "...imagine a future where things
might be otherwise." (p. 209)
-Race in the Schoolyard, Amanda Lewis
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about whiteness, my own and others’. I’ve been puzzling over the
way we often try to ignore or erase our skin color as something that doesn’t matter, isn’t part of
our identity etc. I guess it’s our sense of guilt and wanting to distance ourselves from white
supremacy that makes us deny this fundamental marker of our privilege. I understand wanting
to deny my white privilege and its largely unquestioned grip on our public schools and the ways
“we” do business. It’s uncomfortable accepting that I’m part of the problem and I wish there
was a way around it. However, I don’t think I can effectively interrupt the impact of white
privilege, if I don’t admit its existence, and therein lies the rub.
-Debbie Bambino, Philadelpha teacher, in Connections, NSRF, Fall 2006
I’m not interested in anybody’s guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you
didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen
of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason… Anyone who is
trying to be conscious must begin…to dismiss the vocabulary that we’ve used so long to cover it
up, to lie about the way things are.
- James Baldwin, “Words of a Native Son,” 1964
To say that it (racism) is not our fault does not relieve us of responsibility, however. We may not
have polluted the air, but we need to take responsibility, along with others, for cleaning it up.
Each of us needs to look at our own behavior. Am I perpetuating and reinforcing the negative
images so pervasive in our culture, or am I seeking to challenge them? If I have not been
exposed to positive images of marginalized groups, am I seeking them out, expanding my own
knowledge base for myself and my children? Am I acknowledging and examining my own
prejudices, my own rigid categorizations of others, thereby minimizing the adverse impact they
might have on my interactions with those I have categorized? Unless we engage in these and
other conscious acts of reflection and reeducation, we easily repeat the process with our
children. We teach what we were taught. The unexamined prejudices of the parents passed on
to the children. It is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to interrupt this cycle.
-“Defining Racism: Can We Talk?” Beverly Tatum Daniel in Readings for Diversity and Social
Justice: An Anthology on Racism, Antisemitism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism, and Classism. ed
Maurianne Adams et al. New York: Routledge.
… a well intended white school administration in Portland, Oregon tried to achieve integration
through racial assimilation. Ironically, by ignoring black cultural differences and personal
individuality—by taking a “colorblind” approach to integration—the administration only
perpetuated an insidious kind of invisibility: Day after day…Black students came off the bus to a
setting where the goal was to render them invisible. And the more invisible they became the
greater the satisfaction of the school personnel that the integration program was succeeding.
-The invisible children: School Integration in American Society, Ray Rist (1978), Cambridge:
Harvard University Press. Black Visibility in a Multi-Ethnic High School, James Stanlaw and Alan
Peshkin in Class, Race & Gender in American Education ed. Lois Weiss (1988). New York: SUNY
Press.
There comes a moment in every class where we have to discuss “The Black Issue” and
what’s appropriate education for Black children. I tell you, I’m tired of arguing with those White
people, because they won’t listen. Well, I don’t know if they really don’t listen or if they just
don’t believe you. It seems like if you can’t quote Vygotsky or something, then you don’t have
any validity to speak about your own kids. Anyway, I’m not bothering with it anymore, now I’m
just in it for the grade.
-The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children. Lisa D. Delpit
in Facing Racism in Education ed. Nitza M. Hidalgo et al. Harvard Educational series, Reprint 21.
“Groups can often avoid unproductive situations if members recognize that inequity and
prejudice have grown out of societal oppression or distressing earlier experiences. People need
opportunities to work through the feelings from these hurts. Participants also need to be
reminded that emotional release is the natural healing process from the distress they have
experienced. … It is also important for people to be able to talk about the first time they
encountered prejudice and inequity and their feelings at the time.”
Julian Weissglasss, “Deepening our Dialogue About Equity,” Educational Leadership, ASCD, April
1997.
“We agree with Mr. Weissglass’s concise diagnosis, but he does not go deeply enough into the
structures and policies that allow racism to be active in the lives of children and the business of
our schools. We have to change the facts, not just the feelings that nurture and are nurtured by
deep and historic social engineering that divides races and economic classes in America. It will
take honest dialogue and leadership, but also much more than that to put our society and our
students on equitable footing.”
National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, National Advisors: Alan E. Farstrup, Peter
Gerber, Asa Hilliard, III, Lisa Delpit.
The future doesn’t take form irrationally, even though it feels that way. The future
comes from where we are now. It materializes from the actions, values, and beliefs we’re
practicing now. We are creating the future everyday, by what we choose to do. If we want a
different future, we have to take responsibility for what we are doing in the present…We have
sufficient human capacities—to think and reflect together, to care about one another, to act
courageously, to reclaim the future.
Margaret J. Wheatley
Community isn’t always synonymous with warmth and harmony. Politeness is often a
veneer for understanding, when in reality it masks uncovered territory, the unspeakable pit that
we turn from because we know the pain and anger that can dwell there. It is important to
remind ourselves that real community is forged out of struggle. This is the crucible from which a
real community grows.
Linda Christensen, Reading, Writing, and Rising Up
When we begin listening to each other, and when we talk about things that matter to
us, the world begins to change. Everyone has the capacity to be able to figure out how to make
a difference. Listening and talking to one another heals our divisions and makes us brave again.
Margaret Wheatley
Vision grows out of our struggle for something better in our lives. It is how we imagine
a possible future and then manage the gap between our lived experience and what we want to
be true. It is one of the two foundations for hope. The other is the faith that your vision is
achievable.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
Education equity: the educational policies, practices and programs necessary to (a)
eliminate educational barriers based on gender, race/ethnicity, national origin, color, disability,
age, or other protected group status; and (b) provide equal educational opportunities and
ensure that historically underserved or underrepresented populations meet the same rigorous
standards for academic performance expected of all children and youth.
Equity Audits, Linda Sklra
Educational equity knowledge and practices in public schools have evolved over time
and require a comprehensive approach. Equity strategies must be planned, systemic, and focus
on the core of the teaching and learning process (curriculum, instruction, and school
environment/culture). Educational equity activities promote the real possibility of equality of
educational results for each student and between diverse groups of students.
Equity Audits, Linda Sklra
Working toward equity involves ensuring equally high outcomes for all participants in
our educational system; removing the predictability of success of failures that currently
correlates with any social or cultural factor. It involves interrupting inequitable practices,
eliminating biases, and creating inclusive multicultural school environments for adults and
children; and discovering and cultivating the unique gifts, talents and interests that every human
possesses. National Equity Coalition (formerly BAYCES)
The question of commitment declares that the essential investment needed is personal
commitment, not money, not the agreement of others, not the alignment of converging forces
supportive of a favorable outcome. For anything that matters, the timing is never quite right,
the resources are always a little short, and the people who affect the outcome are always
ambivalent. These conditions offer proof that if we say yes, it was our own doing and it was
important to us. What a gift.
Peter Block
We can’t teach what we don’t know, and we can’t lead where we won’t go.
Malcolm X
We must dare, in the full sense of the word, to speak of love without fear of being called
ridiculous, mawkish, or unscientific, if not antiscientific. We must dare in order to say
scientifically, and not as mere blah-blah-blah, that we study, we learn, we teach, we know with
our entire body. We do all of these things with feeling, with emotion, with wishes, with fear,
with doubts, with passion, and also critical reasoning. However, we never study, learn, teach, or
know with the last only. We must dare so as never to dichotomize cognition and emotion.
Paulo Freire
Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress
of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of
earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being,
putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle
there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men
who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
Frederick Douglass
It is not up to you to finish the work, but neither are you free not to take it up.
The Talmud
On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the
question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity asks the question, “Is it popular? But Conscience asks the
question, “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither
safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.