The teaching questions that teachers raised early in the year were questions about
pedagogy (how to teach about race), resources (what materials, curriculum, books to use),
instructional questions and knowledge questions (questions that came from a teacher’s
realization that they had significant holes in their knowledge, for example, often with
regard to teaching Black history). When teachers brought up questions in their inquiry
groups, they were usually questions that fit into this larger category of questions about
teaching. Teaching questions were also questions about how to teach issues of race in the
classroom (or “racialized” topics) and how to talk about race with students. Some
1. How do I emphasize to my students that there is great diversity within any given population? How do I help them understand that not all Africans are poor? (Helene)
2. How can I create a curriculum to support a healthy development of self and diffuse the impact of bias and stereotypes? (Laurie)
3. Where can I find short essays on race to accompany our discussions of the novels? (Sam – paraphrased)
4. How to be… able to talk about these things with elementary students… and have it be… manageable and appropriate for them. (Scott)
5. When is it appropriate to begin teaching students about injustice? (Helene and Laurie)
6. How do I find good resources that are inclusive of many racial backgrounds? (Helene)
7. How do I explain different types of slavery? How do discussions of slavery affect my students, especially my Black students? (Helene)
8. How do I help 2nd grade students talk about race honestly and critically? (Helene)
9. Where do non-Black people of color fit into the Civil Rights Movement? (Cara) At the beginning of the year, as they were just beginning their own inquiry work,
case study teachers’ questions were dominated by questions about teaching. These types
of questions were asked the most frequently and by the most teachers. On the general
survey that I did of all the teachers participating in the inquiry groups, this type of
question was the only type that teachers asked.
Age appropriate race teaching
One question that came up in this category that seems particularly challenging is
the question of what is developmentally appropriate for different age groups. Is it
racism? Is that a concept they can grasp? If not, what is the foundation that should be
laid in kindergarten? There are very few resources on how to make race learning age
appropriate, particularly for young children.
In Laurie’s kindergarten classroom, for example, she wanted to know how to
apply the broader theories about race that she had learned. One of her questions involved
helping kindergarteners deal with the anger of racism:
Dr. Stevenson started to talk about something - I just don’t know how much of this applies to a kindergartener, but he talked about how racism is obviously so physiologically damaging and children who experience this and are raised in a racist world who are a person of color how there’s, they need to be supported like they need to get in touch with their anger. I don’t know, I don’t think it’s yet developed in a kindergartener.
Beverly Tatum suggested how you approach it is that kind of like a “that was then” kind of thing … And like I thought, “Who are you talking to? Who are you talking about?” You can’t tell a kindergartener, “Be careful it’s still happening today.” So you know that’s the big thing that sticking up in my head, like blaring in my mind, like what is developmentally appropriate for a kindergartener, a 1st grader, a 5th grader, a 10th grader? It’s so completely different and that’s where being more informed from experts and listening to my hunches is really important.
As a teacher of five year olds, Laurie was left to combine theories of race and
racism with what she knew about child development. She did not know the extent to
which she could apply these theories about race (such as Dr. Howard Stevenson’s
description of racism as physiologically damaging) to the children in her class. Even if
the messages were relevant to five year olds, she was still left to determine how to
translate them into a message that five year olds could understand.
Cara also struggled with this, particularly when teaching material that depicts the
There was a moment when I was reading Alzyia Buckston and this is this little boy, well he’s 11 …and his mother had been born into slavery and had escaped, and we hear his mom talk about when she was little her master made her go with his little girl and their family up to Flint, MI and um she came back from this long summer trip and told her mom “I saw Canada.” … And her mom like beat her up basically, like hit her and then said, “If you ever get that close and come back to tell me about it, I’m gonna kill you myself. I will ring your neck. I know what the master’s got planned for you” and she like alludes to this thing that’s really bad that she doesn’t want her daughter to have to endure. And I felt like my kids maybe picked up on it a little bit and I didn’t know how to talk about that. They’re 10 so, but they were confused about why the mom would say I’m gonna kill you if you come back. And I said, “Well she knows that she can’t protect her daughter. You have to think about how little power a person would have.” And that felt a little uncomfortable and strange. This is in the context of your question about what I choose to read my kids, but that brought up a conversation that was a little weird because I don’t know how to talk about rape with my 10 year olds, you know? I can’t even imagine having a child and knowing that they’re going to be at the mercy of someone else. I don’t know.
Instructional questions such as these are hard, and the answers that teachers come
to have a big effect on their classrooms. How we teach about, talk about and learn about
race and the “racialized” history of our country impacts our students greatly. If we do not
talk honestly about the violent realities of discrimination and slavery, students will not
have a full knowledge of the foundation on which today’s reality was built. And yet
teaching the explicit details of a violent history too early could traumatize students before
they have the emotional resources to contextualize that learning. The questions that
teachers asked about teaching were the types of questions that needed immediate
answers, as teachers planned to return to the classroom the following day and wanted to
do so prepared with answers to student questions, plans for classroom conversations and