Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters

by Tonya B. Perry, Steven Zemelman, Katy Smith

Recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Equity Award! It is not enough to be against racism in education teachers must be actively antiracist. Yet how do we start reflecting on our own beliefs and lives so we can truly teach for racial literacy? In the award-winning Teaching for Racial Becoming Interrupters , authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith engage in honest conversations between educators of color and their white colleagues. Authentic, inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable, teachers share stories of personal histories and experiences that shaped them as people and educators.In this book you will Strategies to understand different backgrounds through a racial lens and ways to address potentially difficult conversations with fellow educators In-depth overview of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Archaeology of Self™ and how it can be personally and professionally adopted Lists of resources for teaching about and actively interrupting racism in education and tools that document systemic inequalities in the classroom Ways to facilitate student-led conversations which examine race and inequitable conditions found nationwide By examining inequalities found at a systemic level, teachers can start to remove some of their internal biases and allow students to show who they truly are. In turn, this can help create a school curriculum that makes space for BIPOC voices that inspire and invite students to share. Teaching for Racial Becoming Interrupters provides a resource for teachers and educators to critically reflect and begin work to interrupt racism at all levels.

Genres: Teaching

272 pages, Paperback

Published April 22, 2022

Reviews

[Howard Mogil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authors Perry, Zemelman and Smith have done a great job making Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz’ Racial Literacy Development framework a workable paradigm through the examples of their use of it with each other, other educators and students. Further, they provide resource and reference materials that can help new advocates of RLD get going and continuously improve inside the classroom and out in the community.
The “Time Out To Talk” sections are great way to change the pacing while staying on topic. Spacing them in between the Chapters gives one space to consider how we would feel at each stage of our own journey to becoming an Interrupter.
Kudos to this trio for an understandable and thoughtful guide on such an important and difficult to tackle topic!

[Linda Galella · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is misleading altho’ there is some good information and resources available.

A full third or more of this textbook, and it is formatted as a textbook, is devoted to proving the authors worthy of writing this book and exorcising their personal demons. It’s too much, especially from the two white authors; “me thinks they doth protest too much.” Yes, providing context/intent for a book like this is important but 72 pages out of 205 in the actual body of the book is excessive, IMO.

That said, the authors are keenly concerned about helping teacher help students thru the volatile issues of race and racial inequality. Using personal life timelines and biographical sketches is an inspiring way to encourage students and teachers to invest in each other. It also allows for writing skills, investigative opportunities, conversations and above all, learning about each other and hopefully developing empathy. There are a few other suggestions but this one has the most real estate devoted to it and in my opinion, has the most use for teachers, parents and regular folks.

All things considered, leans left but not too far, w/good ideas after a lengthy “who we be; we be good”📚