IT'S A BEGINNING ... NOT THE END

I was working at a “progressive” (I add quotes because they called themselves that but… well…you know) school where the faculty really wanted to lean into conversations about race. They were noticing that students lacked the habits and skills for some of these tough conversations, and as they tackled more difficult topics in the later years, the students just didn’t have enough content nor practice. As great schools do, the faculty got together to think about how to scope and sequence conversations about race (yay for them!).

The school was filled with brilliant, child-centered educators who were, honestly, some of the best I had ever worked with. They created meaningful opportunities for young people to be curious, engaged, and to ask tough questions.

As they had been building up to these conversations, this group of very mindful and skillful teachers decided to do some activities in affinity groups. This activity consisted of a 20-minute opportunity to eat snacks together in racial affinity, to read a book together, and to have some conversations. The classroom teachers had the students mix up the classroom spaces so that students could see friends from other classes.

Honestly, the actual activity went great. The children were with capable teachers who loved and cared for them every single day, and they did an age appropriate activity: reading a book aloud and eating snacks. The conversations were about race, and this was all done in such a positive, child-centered way.

Later that day, a parent got word of what happened as she asked her child, “So, how was your day?” The child responded that they got to each lunch with classmates who were white and that he really liked it.

The parent … well… reacted to this.

I’ll spare you all the dramatic details of what unfolded, but I’ll get to the real damage that occurred - damage that I believe has been unaddressed in these kinds of situations.

The REAL damage that occurred wasn’t that children talked about race nor that teachers guided this activity. The real damage was that the parent’s fear halted all conversations about race. The fear created anxiety in the community, and children overheard parents talk about how wrong it is to have conversations about race. The real damage is that these mostly white families shut down opportunities to build real habits and skills for working through conflict productively. The real damage is that, for the first time, children of color who are under-represented in these classrooms no longer had the opportunity to come together in this way.

The real damage is that, despite believing themselves to be racial allies and “good white people”, these adults showed their children that they can be powerful, they can stop conversations about race, and they can effectively halt/end this type of work.

Over the years, educators who are committed to building the habits and skills for difficult conversations have been bombarded with messages such as “CRT (critical race theory) just makes white people feel guilty” or that “Children are too young to talk about race.” This dialogue and fear-approach isn’t new. In fact, it exists in other spaces as well. For example, in the health and sex education space, advocates have long been saying that avoiding conversations about sex and health and bodies creates confusion, mixed messages, and in some cases dangerous situations. For years, the approach of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military implied that silence about one’s life was a safer way to build trust and relationships.

And yet, we know that silence doesn’t work.

Accurate information, real education, and honesty helps to build trust. This doesn’t mean that the information, education, and honesty isn’t challenging or difficult. No, in fact so much of what we encounter in our lives is challenging and difficult. But silence is not the answer to it. Trust, truth, and curiosity are drivers of responsible education.

Whenever I reflect back on that experience at that school, I realize the power of silencing — and especially the silencing of teachers and students — out of fear. A more healthy and productive response would have been to keep the conversations going, to engage in curiosity, to guide the students through these challenging dialogues towards compassion and understanding of each other. When we “one-and-done” these approaches to race and other difficult conversations, we fail to provide these spaces for compassionate learning.

So, what do we do? What should we do?

1) Approach this work of difficult conversations with compassion and understanding.

2) Provide opportunities for curiosity - even if the questions are difficult, challenging, and emotional.

3) Create a sustainable practice for people to ask questions. A “one-and-done” approach leaves too many unanswered questions and not enough opportunities for dialogues.

4) Notice your own discomfort, and approach it as an invitation to learn more and explore more.

5) Embrace that truth telling is hard. Truth telling is challenging. And, truth telling — whether it’s about our past or present — is an opportunity for us to understand why things happen and how we might be able to change or fix past injustices.

As an additional resource, this article here really inspired me to write this piece. It was one of the best I had read about why these conversations truly matter and how we can begin to reckon with our fears of these dialogues.