Blog Post #4

Given your understanding of intentional and unintentional racism both through teacher-student interactions and curriculum development, how would you encourage diversity in the classroom?

Promoting diversity in the classroom must always begin with acknowledging and becoming aware of the realistic current status of diversity in the classroom. Awareness of lack of diversity is the first step needed to eventually change that lack. In regard to more immediate solutions, the awareness of diversity must lead to the people in power affirming the importance of diversity and iterating it in formal ways. Only the administrators and teachers can ensure that all students are aware of the prevalence of racism; the people in charge must eventually take the steps towards ending micro-aggressions and other manifestations of racism. 

Having conversations in the classroom about race sounds like a pointless task, but it can be extremely useful. Coming from personal experience, avoiding conversations that are honest about how race plays out in your school can be really damaging to students of color in schools where most students are white. Conversations that involve race shouldn’t just be happening during token To Kill a Mockingbird and slavery units in humanities classes. They should be officially happening in schools all the time, and they should be tied back to the status of the school itself.