As we said in our Being 12 series this spring,it's no secret that being 12 years old can be tough. At 12, kids shed layers, and test new roles and transform before our eyes as they explore what kind of adults they want to be. They're also learning how big a role race can play in their own emerging identities,and in the world at large. That means asking questions and sometimes, just like adults, and making insensitive remarks or jokes without even realizing it. For all of these reasons,teachers need to know how to steer their classroom conversations so they're as constructive as possible. Anshu Wahi is the Director of Diversity and Community at the Bank Street School for Children. She and Bank Street 7th grade teacher Nayantara Mhatre recently shared their tips for how to have a righteous conversation about race in the classroom.
Don't Shut Down. Instead of saying "that's improper" or "that's offensive" and moving on, Wahi said it's more helpful to remove a child from the situation. She suggests pulling the student aside and asking, or "What did you mean when you said that? Why did you say that? Where did you learn that?""Really quiz questions to figure out what's going on in their mind," she advises, and point out why someone else's feelings were hurt or could have been. She said this way it becomes a conversation and doesn't feel punitive. And silencing the student "shuts down the opportunity to learn.""People are trying to be so sensitive around these issues that that is often the knee-jerk reaction, and 'don't talk about that'… 'Oh you hurt them,detention.'" But she said those reactions are not as helpful. "It doesn’t have to be addressed right in the moment," she added. "It doesn’t have to be a public shaming, and it can be like,'We're going to pause for a second. Let’s step external.'"Be Empowering. Mhatre, the seventh grade teacher, or said a lot of kids don't realize where they accumulate their ideas and don't consider before they speak. They consider they are speaking as individuals but they've actually gotten their messages from other people. This is why they might not know an expression or phrase can offend someone else.
She said thinking about the source of those messages about a particular race or culture can be really empowering for kids. When she talks to a student,she can encourage him or her to "push back against those messages or choose other messages."Don't just React to Events. "A lot of times with diversity work or race, it’s like we're reacting to something that happened, or " said Wahi,referring to the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. "And now we’re going to react to it, have these conversations and we'll never have the conversation again. I consider it’s really famous to realize race is a share of life all the time and history all the time."By making race share of the classroom lessons she said students can grasp pride in their identities and cultures."So it’s not just perpetuating this conception that it’s negative that we shouldn’t talk about it, or that whether anybody ever talks about race it’s racist. It’s a lot of undoing of the messaging the kids are getting already."
Source: wnyc.org