p173-178 I Birthed a Nation

I think this book is a good way to make open spaces for talking about issues, as it is an open space in itself. A book is a non-threatening public forum- it can’t be hurt by you, your words or your thoughts- it’s just a place to be temporarily, a different world with souvenirs you can take back to your everyday life experience.
I was also thinking about my experiences at the diversity workshop (details below) and my conversation with Lisa about the book- one of the issues that came up at the workshop was that students, especially White students aren’t taught a framework for dealing with racial issues, often because they’re taught to ignore them. Gary Howard’s book gives an adult perspective but I think something that focused on how to teach such a framework and what a framework looks like would be helpful for me as a teacher and a teacher of teachers and even as a supplementary resource for my students, although I don’t know how often they ever use all the extra resources I provide. Unfortunately Howard’s REACH program sounds like it has the right materials at the right levels but there’s no online or downloadable information for free. In any case, the lack of structure is something that Lisa thought maybe her daughter hadn’t gotten from Upper Arlington schools. In this case, access to a book with authentic voice and sensitivity toward multicultural issues was not enough to create change/prompt ideas/instigate thinking. Books like these have to be taught and how they are taught matters. Simply reading it and saying what a nice story it was and how awful it was that these people were treated and shouldn’t we treat all people the same etc. isn’t going to do anything especially in conjunction with the idea that we’ve “fixed” things and now everyone has an equal chance. Actually, thinking more, I wish I had thought this at the beginning, but this would be so much better as a blog. Lisa would like to read it too and I’d love to have it as a public record of my journey with everyone’s comments and everything.