Social Justice Book Club Update #1
Researching Is Everything.
And by everything, I mean impossibly challenging and rewarding at the same time. Researching is the closest I have ever felt to doing truly meaningful work inside of a public school. What I imagined teaching could be long before I ever started this journey in the classroom, youth participatory action research allows possibilities that create space for actual change. Hopelessly frustrated with planning meetings with a pre-determined curriculum and set multiple-choice assessments, I am able to find hope again in small group discussion circles sitting on beanbag chairs with high school students discussing race, gender, justice, and power.
"I've never been able to talk about race like that," Clara shared in a conversation I overheard as we walked back from the bathrooms. We were taking a short break after our use of Ibram X. Kendi's The Anti-Racist Deck.
"The cards gave us space to talk about issues we normally don't get to discuss with people."
Clara is a Black female senior and one of the students who is participating in the pilot study I am running through the book club. She is a researcher in her own right already: she interviews people about their queer experiences related to the Religious South and then turns their interviews into art projects. I had sat down with her a week previously and we traded interviews. Mine lasted twenty minutes, and she spent a solid forty minutes interviewing me. I felt like an amateur when she was done, and I honestly believe she has more actual research interview experience. Clara is a great example of the gifts that students have that go unnoticed and unappreciated in classroom spaces.
We had just spent over an hour in small groups discussing different cards. 17 people showed up to the book club today, down from 19 last week. Interestingly there are a total of 26 people who have been to at least one meeting and taken books. This means that we have a rotating membership with two-thirds of our members showing up to meetings each time. As we continue to grow, this is something to consider for next year (and even this year). Participation is much less stable than I was anticipating.
One student, Isabell, even emailed me today to let me know that they were sick and were not able to attend. It is clear how much this club means to them. I let her know we were excited to see them at our next meeting in just two weeks!
Ms. Montgomery, a Social Studies, Economics, and Ethnic Studies teacher at the school joined us for this meeting. Along with Ms. Lopez, I was very thankful to have the support of two Black women scholars, researchers, and activists. Ms. Montgomery is the founder of Georgia Educators for Equity and Justice LLC. The three of us helped to facilitate groups of four to five students as they discussed the cards. Each student would present a card for the group to discuss. I found myself in a group of three white students (one of Serbian ethnicity), and two Black students. All five students were female.
"What happens when white culture is normalized as American culture?" Sophia asked the group.
"I think it's interesting - people see me as white, but I'm not just white. They see all white people the same." The student with Serbian American student responded. This led to a discussion about the difference between race and ethnicity. She explained how this was problematic given the violence her family escaped, and the challenges they had learning English and trying to participate in our society. Later, we would talk about how intersections in our identity give us privilege as well as cause us to experience oppression given different contexts. We also discussed the way that whites used this normalization as a way to maintain power through laws that are seen as "American Values." Clara added that American History classes focus and start with Columbus, and why this is problematic considering the fact that he didn't discover anything. We also discussed the problematic nature of the Constitution and Supreme Court being governed by primarily white men, thus promoting white male values as "American Culture."
One card asked about a time when we had experienced racism. Kloewy gave an example of colorism, and how she felt that most of the racism she had experienced came from people of her own race. She gave a specific example of how people, mostly her "friends" call her "halfie" and use other slurs to refer to the fact that she is only "half-black." She and the group were able to discuss how colorism is different than racism, but when skin color is used in the spreading of racist ideas it can be racism that she is experiencing even though it is coming from her own race, especially because people were trying to attack her for not being "black enough."
The discussion included five cards, though we all had more to share. Next time I think a trick to try would be to pass out several cards to each student and have them select their favorite to discuss with the group. We then took a much-needed break, went to the bathroom, etc.
Back in the classroom, we then spent the rest of the meeting coming up with shared definitions for terms we would be discussing in our work together.
"Can anyone explain what we mean by -isms?" Ms. Lopez, a close friend, cohort member, and a teacher in our department who is deeply committed to healing practices, social justice work, and liberatory teaching practices asked. She had committed to staying for an hour of our meeting but ended up staying the whole time. Ms. Lopez is Dominican American and has previously taught in New York City.
"It's a prefix on different words?" Fluff added, mostly joking, but that is his humor.
"Suffix," Lopez corrected, smiling.
"Right, I knew that."
"It's ideologies of power and control," a student added. She had just spoken about sexism, proudly standing at the front of the room. Verbally, she had extended both fingers to the patriarchy, dropping an f-bomb casually, demonstrating her level of comfort with language in our space.
"It's also about systems," Clara added.
We discussed those "-isms" for another thirty minutes. We discussed colorism, and how it was different than racism. We discussed how many "-isms" contained hierarchies and power structures - even terms that seemed to be libratory in nature. Feminism, for example, is often policed and controlled by white women. We also debated sexism, and if women can be sexist toward males given that oppressive systems are ultimately about power and dominance.
As a new researcher, I am torn between methods that give recorded data and "doing school." What feels like a good idea from a data collection point of view is often also a "school work" task. Students writing definitions and passing papers sounds great because it gives artifacts, but after an hour-long discussion about being an antiracist, the energy isn't always there. I am sure there is a way to do both - this is just an early observation of a researcher in the field - but I do believe that finding ways for student researchers to build and compile artifacts is essential for large multi-faceted YPAR projects.
Other work we did, at the beginning of the meeting, was to work with our book group books. At this point, students should be about halfway done with them. We plan on having them finished by the end of the month. I had students respond to the following prompts in their research journals:
Next month students will get to begin their research journeys. I need to start pulling research to prepare. They will get an opportunity to work with Dr. Zoss and Dr. Fornillier from Georgia State University. I am excited to see what is possible with our club as we transition to research, and later action. Ms. Montgomery has promised to try to connect the club with the Black Student Union, and I am excited by future collaborations between clubs. The work we are doing is just getting started.
Onward!
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