Reading the "10 Books I Wish My White Teacher Had Read"

The class that I began writing this blog for is now over, but I have enjoyed writing semi-informally about pedagogy and my classroom practice, so I thought I would keep it up for awhile, even though I will no longer have a captive audience.

Over the past few years, I've thought a lot about systemic racism and my role in dismantling it as a white, woman teacher. Two main messages have come to my attention in this process: first, it is essential to listen to and believe the experiences of people of color in order to understand what actually needs to change, but second, I need to do the heavy lifting of educating myself on what the current and historical situation is in this country rather than relying of people of color to spoon-feed that knowledge to me.

My first post-course series for this blog is an attempt to do both by listening to the suggestions of one person, Crystal Paul, for what 10 books she wished her white teachers had read to prepare them to meet the needs of students of color, and then to do the hard work of actually procuring, reading, and processing through the information in each of them. Paul's article appeared on Bustle just over a year ago, but the titles are no less relevant today and it's better to do the work late than never. Seriously, the fact that I have not yet read Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me feels like a mark on my character at this point and the sooner I can rectify this omission, the better.

I'm proceeding through the list in the order I am able to borrow the books from my local library rather than in the order she listed them, but my goal is to read one book each week and write at least one post reflecting on that week's book.

This week I'll be writing about the tenth book on Paul's list: