Here are some more notes:
Privilege & Oppression in American Schooling
To further understand schools as either spaces for liberation or tools for oppression, we must think further about what American schooling as done to uphold systems of power and oppression - and where there is space for resistance.
First, what is privilege?
- How have you benefited from (or seen others benefit from) privilege in life?
- How have you (or others) benefited from privilege in school settings?
- What is privilege, specifically “white privilege”; why do we need to think and talk about it in education?
- What various other ways does privilege manifest?
- Why is it important to consider privilege as a systemic reality and not just call out the problematic behaviors of individuals?
- This illustration of privilege may be helpful; this provides a way to think about the multiple dimensions of privilege.
We all have some sort of privilege (our role of educators privileges us in some ways within the system of schooling!). Our task is to start to think about how we can disrupt the systems that privilege some at the expense of others, including ways we can leverage our privilege.
A Meme!
We talk a lot about "equity" and "equality" around education. But what do we mean by those terms?
This is helpful in breaking it down further. What is "justice" in this context??
The Problem with “Nice” Teachers
Nieto’s essay on “niceness” & Sleeter's Q&A can help us think further about this.
- What argument does Nieto make about “niceness”?
- What connection do these draw between racism, teachers, and schools?
- Why is "colorblindness" problematic?
- Why is "appreciating diversity" not enough?
Schools as Systems: Colonization and Privilege
- How are schools systems? Systems within systems?
- Scholars sometimes talk about schools as “colonized”. By whom? What does that mean?
- Let’s think of some concrete examples of what this looks like.
- What behaviors are privileged in schools?
- What ways of being (dressing, speaking, interacting) are privileged?
- What knowledge is privileged?
- What does it mean to “decolonize” education?