Living Under Racist Terrorism Impacts Learning

Young indigenous victim of colonial settler terrorism.

A whole generation of BIPOC children and college students in the US are being negatively impacted by the climate of fear that is being perpetrated upon them by the unrestrained white-supremacist movement and the government that supports this abomination.  Their mental health, their educations and their lives are all being stunted and slowed down by these racist attacks by settler colonists.

According to Zaretta Hammond in her astounding work, "Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain,"  students should be able to feel safe and confident to be able to become a self-sufficient learner.  Becoming a self-sufficient learner means the student becomes involved in their own educational and personal development by reflection and by being warmly challenged by an instructor who has earned their trust.  A dependent learner is always dependent on someone outside themselves to take charge of their education and are thereby passive learners who often give up because they have come to depend upon help.  They have a fixed mindset and not a growth mindset.

Hammond, Z., & Jackson, Y. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students.

One of Hammond's four elements of the academic mindset is, "Our belief in our ability to move about our world freely and control our external world."  This helps the student begin to believe in themselves, especially when the observe progress because of their hard work.  If the student does not feel they can move about freely, say for instance--they feel like their parents might be arrested by ICE, or that they themselves might be shot by the police because of the color of their skin--then the student's amygdala will be sent into threat reaction.

Human Brain

If the amygdala is sent into a threat reaction, learning cannot occur.  The amygdala is sent into threat reaction when the brain feels threatened.  It triggers the fight or flight reaction and learning is the farthest thing from what can occur at that point.  The student just wants to survive, they just want to get out of there.  The student cannot learn when this occurs.

As I write these words there is an attack on Latinx people in the US.  White supremacist have purposely targeted us and have murdered many in CA, TX and OH just in the past few weeks.  There has also been a string of immigration arrests in the US--leaving many children without their parents on the first day of school.  This creates a general fear in the Latinx community throughout the US.

WE (BIPOC) ARE BEING TARGETED AND WE KNOW IT!

Black Americans are under constant attack as well.  Not even safe in their own churches, Black Americans have to put up with daily racist humiliations like the recent mounted police officers leading a walking black man through town by a rope.  Black Americans, no matter what their age,  are often shot with no reason by the police and so-called vigilante criminals.  This creates an unsafe environment that is perpetrated by the dominant culture, who are also in charge of the educational system.  This can lead to distrust and set off a threat reaction in the amygdala and thereby impact learning.  

Image Source

All of the above lead to an unhealthy climate for children of color.  Granted, before 2016, it wasn't great for BIPOC kids in the US, but today the climate has worsened.  Today, even US citizens are arrested by ICE because they are Latinx.  This creates a climate of fear for our children.  If they are Latinx and old enough to understand what that means, they fear losing their parents--no matter what their citizenship status.  This creates an unsafe environment that is perpetrated by the dominant culture, who are also in charge of the educational system.  This can lead to distrust and set off a threat reaction in the amygdala and thereby impact learning.  

Our BIPOC student's brains are  are being turned into fixed mindset brains.  We need independent learners more than ever in our struggle for social justice.  Independent learners require a growth mindset.

Illustration from Hammond, Z., & Jackson, Y. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Our children's brains are being damaged by this treatment and we need to talk about this.  Our children face so many obstacles already--now we are facing a neurobiological attack in addition to the regular attacks we AND OUR CHILDREN face daily.

Some things YOU can do:

Fight against the current administration's acceptance of white-supremacy.

Make your classrooms more welcoming.

Post up images of BIPOC leaders, educators, business people and scientists in your classroom.

Talk about the racist attacks that are ongoing with your students.

Honor their feelings and ask them to express themselves--to provide counter-narratives to the racist narrative that is ongoing.

Build trust with your BIPOC students.

Demand excellent work from your BIPOC students.

Buy this book and learn more about culturally responsive teaching and the brain!

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain by Zaretta Hammond

Crowdsourcing Great Teaching @ the NW Great Teaching Seminar

I attended the NW Great Teaching Seminar this week and it was life changing. This seminar is part of the National Great Teachers Seminar Series. It lasted five days and was held at the amazingly serene and picturesque Menucha retreat in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge.  There were over 30 other seminar participants!

Scenic views were readily available

All attendees teach at community colleges, but come from various disciplines. Based on the premise that the real experts on teaching are those who teach, the seminar was led by five amazing individuals: Linda Gerber, Phil Corliss, April Fong, Doug Dickson and Jan Woodcock. Following a "flexibly rigid" format, meals were held at 8 am, 12 and 6 pm daily; the rest of the schedule revolved around these times.

Jan Woodcock

Humor, experience, practical knowledge, active engagement, integrated learning and game-centered teaching made this seminar a life-changing experience for me.

Mingling of ideas

The format also included each of us writing an Innovation paper (first day activities) -- a one-page paper outlining a successful teaching innovation the teacher has implemented and a Problem paper (second day activities) -- describing an ongoing issue the teacher experiences.

Exchanging these writings, we broke up into smaller groups and discussed the innovations and problems, using a Socratic questioning method designed to help the individual sort it out on their own. These papers create a great pool of knowledge, solutions and inspiration.

Then:

Emerging themes (throughout the rest of the seminar) -- themes that arose the first two days as we went over the Innovation and Problem papers.

And finally:

Large group discussions: giving teachers a chance to obtain crowd-sourced answers to questions.

Large group discussion

I learned something, literally every two minutes, i.e., teaching students to nod their heads, maintaining student boundaries when it comes to classwork and the importance of trying new things and not being afraid to change it up. Many common solutions, tips, and other techniques carried over from one discipline to the next.

Outdoor discussion in perfect weather

I was struck by the common love and passion for teaching and helping others held by the entire cohort. It was a positive, supportive, and stretching event for all involved.

Opportunities for exchange abounded

Learning opportunities also consisted of small and large group communication and crowd-sourcing answers, games, interpretive dance along with time for recreation and building rapport. Recreation included hikes at Multnomah Falls and surrounding area, bike riding, reading and writing, etc. The meals were fabulous. All in all, this was one of the best learning experiences I have ever had. I was pushed out of my comfort zone, which in turn, created fallow ground for greater learning.

I highly recommend this seminar for educators. The Great Teacher Seminars are available throughout the country. 

Class of 2015

From the GTM website:

“The National Great Teachers Movement is called a ‘movement’ because it is not associated with, nor does it constitute a corporation or an organization of any kind. Thus, it serves no institutional or commercial interests. There is no headquarters or address, and there are no officials, owners, employees or politics. There are no manuals or handbooks, only a few simple guidelines [Editor’s Note: This web connection created by Steve Smith after the 2nd GT colloquium in 2001].

Everything is passed on by oral tradition in order to prevent the development of any form of true believership or fixed procedure, which might come to be followed to the letter and of which the educational profession would soon tire. The many annual Great Teachers Seminars throughout North America, and now in several foreign countries, exist and persist only because of the initiative and selfless ambition of people who want to share the experience with teachers in their own geographic area.”