“Surround yourself with people you aspire to be” is something I heard on repeat from my mother growing up. I finally understand.
In 2019 I found myself presenting at the NYS Reading Association Literacy Conference about an integrated Social Justice / Social Studies / ELA project that I had created as part of my undergraduate coursework at Nazareth. I felt like a total fraud presenting to real, actual teachers. I soon realized that not everyone had the privilege of attending a school that valued diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice like I had at Nazareth.
When asked to present, I was confused why anyone would want to hear about what I had worked on. I was surrounded by people I aspired to be and was the person with the least amount of experience everywhere I went. Suddenly, my lived experience and ideas were given validation. I realized that day that we all live in a continuum, and that just because I don’t have the knowledge of my peers or advisors, doesn’t mean that what I can offer in the field of education is invalid.
I am fortunate enough to be in my third year teaching in a school with like minded, progressive thinkers. We are offered significant professional development that many other schools are not. I have courageous and authentic conversations about race and identity with both my students and my colleagues. Again, I find myself surrounded with people I aspire to be — with professionals who have decades of experience in teaching for justice. I am often intimidated (and always inspired) by the big brains with whom I have the fortune to work.
Always one to want to do more, I sought outside spaces to further my own identity work and comfort talking about race and racism. Dr. Sturm, an old professor turned friend (and now professor again in my graduate program), invited me to a formal reflection process guided by Layla Saad’s work Me and White Supremacy. I began to think more deeply about my white privilege and how I could use this to combat racism. I then invited Dr. Sturm to join me in workshops led by SURJRoc, a local organization who hosts workshops on responding to racist remarks among other topics. She and I completed three sessions working around the idea of writing to heal from the trauma of racism.
Dr. Sturm and I continued our personal and professional correspondences and she asked if I would be interested in presenting on the work we had done together in the 2021 NYSRA literacy conference. The theme was “Re-envisioning a Brave New World.” We submitted a proposal with the title “Doing the Work Outside of Work: Personal Professional Development in Anti-Racist Teaching.”
In the session, Dr. Sturm and I wanted to describe our year-long personal professional development in anti-racist education. We wanted to give participants resources for running anti-racism book clubs and we wanted them to experience reflective writing to explore and recognize bias. As teachers and lifelong learners, we know that the best way to learn is through experiencing. We set our presentation up like a workshop, encouraging people to think deeply about their experiences about race and if comfortable, share.
We used JamBoard to collect our thoughts, anonymously unless claimed. So many workshops and meetings exist only within their own space. It was important for us to end with a “now what, so what,” where participants shared how they were going to take their new learning out into their communities and apply them.
I was a bit nervous for the workshop itself (another mom-ism kicked in here: “fake it till you make it”), but once it began I realized I was going to be learning as much as I was going to be sharing.
Teaching is a practice, being actively anti-racist is a practice, fighting bias is a practice. Because I have always sought out people who I aspire to be, I have found myself in community with like minded folks. Folks who know that we will never truly “arrive.” There will always be ways to practice what we know. I may not have known it all those years ago, but Mom was always right.