By Jinnie Spiegler, Director of Curriculum at the Anti-Defamation League
Race and racism are topics that regularly populate our news feeds and affect a wide variety of people in profound ways. But discussions about these topics can be difficult and provoke strong emotions.
Though teachers often need to confront race and racism in the classroom — they are, after all, integral parts of our history and culture, not to mention students’ real lives — some feel tentative about how. We hope these ideas can help. They center on work from Race/Related, a New York Times feature that explores race “with provocative reporting and discussion” and includes firsthand accounts of diverse people dealing with the issue.
In the piece we’ve chosen, “First Encounters with Racism,” the Race/Related team partnered with Youth Radio to ask teenagers across the country, “What is your earliest experience dealing with race?” That question resulted in the four stories you will read here. They can be used to begin a conversation or supplement one already underway in your classroom.
As you adapt our ideas for your own classroom, you might keep in mind the guidelines suggested in the A.D.L.’s “Race Talk: Engaging Young People in Conversations about Race and Racism,” or those in this piece from Teaching Tolerance, “Talking About Race and Racism.” As always, we’d love to know how you teach about these topics. Please tell us in the comments, and thank you.
Warm-Up
Ask students to think about the question below. Explain that the class will talk about it in more depth later, but, to start, they might simply do a quick-write that they are welcome to keep private.
What is your earliest experience dealing with race and/or racism?
Explain to students that everyone has a racial identity. Sometimes white racial identity is seen as the “default” and people mistakenly think only minorities (African-American, Latino/Hispanic, Native American, Asian) have a race. It is important to emphasize that all people have experiences with race, whether they are overt, hidden, unconscious or implied. People might experience those encounters directly, witness them happening to others, or have opportunities, or privileges, as a result of their racial identity.
