Reading, writing, and racism : disrupting whiteness in teacher education and in the classroom

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Title:

Author:

Picower, Bree author.

ISBN:

9780807033708

Personal Author:

Picower, Bree author.

Physical Description:

xi, 202 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

General Note:

Source of cataloging data: WCP

Abstract:

"Curriculum So White explores how racism in K-12 classrooms is not the result of individual teachers' ignorance, but rather is symptomatic of the permanence of racism in education"-- Provided by publisher

Picower examines the relationship between individual teachers' racial beliefs and the curriculum they choose. She argues that what teachers choose to teach often represents their personal ways of thinking about race. Picower dissects examples of racist curriculum that have gone viral, shows how it has become entrenched in schools, and provides an alternative of how racial justice can be built into programs across the teacher education pipeline. -- adapted from jacket

Contents:

Introduction: #CurriculumSoWhite -- Curricular tools of whiteness -- The iceberg : racial ideology and curriculum -- Reframing understandings of race within teacher education -- Disrupting whiteness in teacher education -- Humanizing racial justice in teacher education.

Subject Term:

Racism in education -- United States.

Discrimination in education -- United States.

Teachers -- Training of -- Social aspects -- United States.

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An examination of how curriculum choices can perpetuate White supremacy, and radical strategies for how schools and teacher education programs can disrupt and transform racism in education

When racist curriculum "goes viral" on social media, it is typically dismissed as an isolated incident from a "bad" teacher. Educator Bree Picower, however, holds that racist curriculum isn't an anomaly. It's a systemic problem that reflects how Whiteness is embedded and reproduced in education. In Reading, Writing, and Racism , Picower argues that White teachers must reframe their understanding about race in order to advance racial justice and that this must begin in teacher education programs.

Drawing on her experience teaching and developing a program that prepares teachers to focus on social justice and antiracism, Picower demonstrates how teachers' ideology of race, consciously or unconsciously, shapes how they teach race in the classroom. She also examines current examples of racist curricula that have gone viral to demonstrate how Whiteness is entrenched in schools and how this reinforces racial hierarchies in the younger generation.

With a focus on institutional strategies, Picower shows how racial justice can be built into programs across the teacher education pipeline-from admission to induction. By examining the who, what, why, and how of racial justice teacher education, she provides radical possibilities for transforming how teachers think about, and teach about, race in their classrooms.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Picower (What's Race Got to Do with It?), an education professor at Montclair State University, delivers an impassioned and well-documented look at how racism becomes embedded in American classrooms, and what can be done to root it out. Assignments that ask students to "identify the positive and negative aspects of slavery" and textbooks that remove references to Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan are not "random, singular examples of poor judgment," Picower writes, but evidence of a "broader system of racism" in U.S. schools that actively harms students of color. She explains how standard curricula upholds white supremacy by erasing the actual history of slavery and oppression, and "paint a false narrative of equality"; she then presents case studies of white student teachers learning to "reframe their understandings about race" and become active "co-conspirators" in the project of "dismantling Whiteness." Picower also discusses how to handle "White fragility," and notes the harm white people can do while "bumbling through learning about racism in cross-racial groups." She skillfully combines theory and practice, and draws on firsthand testimony and expert evidence to bolster her case. Education scholars, classroom teachers, and school administrators will heed this urgent call to dedicate themselves to racial justice. (Jan.)

Booklist Review

Montclair State University education professor Picower's call to action to become co-conspirators in abolitionist teaching should be required reading for teacher-preparation professors, teachers, principals, and superintendents. Based on the premise that most American educators are white and largely unaware of their racial identity or roles in transmitting white supremacy, Picower cites egregiously racist assignments that have gone viral but represent only a microcosm of educational racism, which spans beyond individual bad-apple teachers into textbooks and systems. The sections explaining the "4I" social-justice framework (ideological, institutional, interpersonal/individual, and internalized) for teaching about inequality and unpacking the curricular "tools of whiteness" that ensure white supremacy evades scrutiny are important for their practical uses as screening and evaluation criteria in teacher professional development. Another powerful section offers anecdotes of teachers whose increasingly creative, liberatory curriculum ideas become transformative. Ultimately, Picower argues teacher-education programs that center race with fidelity and intentionality can disrupt racist ideologies before they make it to classrooms. Picower's honest introspection about her own positionality builds an ethos of racial humility and dedication to dismantling racism in education.

Foreword	p. ix
Introduction: #CurriculumSoWhite	p. 1
Chapter 1 Curricular Tools of Whiteness	p. 25
Chapter 2 The Iceberg: Racial Ideology and Curriculum	p. 63
Chapter 3 Reframing Understandings of Race Within Teacher Education	p. 83
Chapter 4 Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education	p. 109
Chapter 5 Humanizing Racial Justice in Teacher Education	p. 135
Acknowledgments	p. 171
Notes	p. 175
Index	p. 193

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Publisher's Weekly Review

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