Meeting Facilitators: Dr. Ryuko Kubota and Ashley Moore
In this meeting of the LLED Antiracist Caucuses (BIPOC/Racialised Caucus & White Caucus), we will focus on creating spaces for participants to share stories of difficult moments involving racism in the classroom (disguising the names of people and other identifying details). Whether as instructors or students, when such moments occur, we often find that time seems to slow down as we become aware of the complexity of coming up with an appropriate, contextualized response. By sharing our individual experiences and discussing a variety of possible responses as a group, we hope that we can build up a bank of flexible strategies that we might draw on when we encounter future difficult moments.
Stimulus Text:
Please read the short stimulus text on p. 3, an example retelling of a “difficult moment”, before our meeting on November 22nd. We hope you might share a similar story of your own on the 22nd by retelling a difficult moment involving racism you’ve experienced in a classroom as a teacher or student. To help us create spaces that are both generative and safe, please:
- Select a story in the classroom involving racism. It may also include ideas and actions that are oppressive in terms of other intersecting subject positions;
- Use pseudonyms for the people involved;
- Remove any other potentially identifying information;
- Tell the story up until just before your reaction. This will leave an open space for others to suggest a wide variety of potential responses (there will be a chance to talk about your actual response after the group discussion).
Optional Stimulus Texts
- What if we were to talk about it? Engaging controversial topics in the classroom, a 4-minute read describing Dr. Aftab Erfan’s (UBC) approach to facilitating difficult dialogues in the classroom.
- “We must look at both sides”—But a denial of genocide, too? Difficult moments on controversial issues in the classroom (Kubota, 2014).
*If you choose to read these texts, please keep in mind that all of the ideas discussed by the authors can be critically questioned.