Bonus Episode: Zooming In on Being the Change by Sara K. Ahmed

Show Notes:

Being the Change by Sara K. Ahmed

Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty

Transcript:

(transcribed by kayla.r.fainer@gmail.com)

Hi, this is Melissa Milner. Welcome to The Teacher As... podcast. The goal of this weekly podcast is to help you explore your passions and learn from others in education and beyond to better your teaching. The Teacher As... will highlight uncommon parallels to teaching, as well as share practical ideas for the classroom.

This is a Zooming In episode where I zoom in on something that I'm interested in right now.

[ZOOMING IN SOUNDBITE].

I've really been enjoying a book about social comprehension. It's Being the Change by Sara K. Ahmed. The first thing I'd like to do is just break down the chapters for you.

Chapter 1: Exploring our Identities. This is where the students think about their identities and make identity webs. And I'm going to talk more about this because this was a really powerful lesson. Actually, it was a couple days. It was really fun, and it helped students understand themselves and each other.

Chapter 2: Listening With Love. This is a big one. It's all about active listening, and she gives prompts. It's just a very powerful, small little chapter that has some great stuff in it.

Chapter 3: Being Candid. This is where we talk about bias and microaggressions and understanding what that even is, and then refusing to let others' biases define who we are.

Chapter 4: Becoming Better Informed. It's understanding how our identity affects us and moving beyond our initial thinking.

Chapter 5: is Finding Humanity in Ourselves and in Others. It's broadening our ideas about who we are responsible to and for and understanding others' perspectives and

Chapter 6 is Facing Crisis Together. This chapter may be short, but it's timely and very powerful.

So when I did the first lesson with students this year, we started with a read aloud. The great thing about Sara K. Ahmed is she gives recommended book lists for the mentor texts in her lessons. So we read Ada Twist, Scientist, and we did the identity work by making an identity web for Ada Twist. Then I think the next day I modeled my identity web, and my thoughts and how I formed my identity web. So once I shared my identity web, the kids set off to create theirs.

We brainstormed categories, and then the kids came up and looked at mine as needed while they drafted theirs in their journals. The students seemed really, really excited to share their identity webs. We voted on whole group or small group or partners. And it was unanimous that they wanted to share it in partners. This lesson helped a student that, for a while, I had been feeling didn't have a sense of belonging in my classroom. I'd been working hard to try to change that. And when our psychologist gave me this book, I was really excited. And I'm planning a unit with my co-teacher to work on the lessons in this book. Sara K. Ahmed, I can't thank you enough. And now I'd like to read a little bit from the book.

"I'm sure that you have stories of your own to tell about situations or conversations that have sprung up at school, perhaps leaving you caught off guard and even a little uncomfortable. It might be political rhetoric that rippled through your classroom. It might be that moment when you felt the room become icy after someone made an offensive comment. It might be a daily barrage of comments that label, disparage or even attack others. It might be the dry spot you feel in the back of your throat when you consider how to address news of a death, a shooting or a terrorist attack.

In this book, we'll work together to address these moments during, after, and most important, before they arise, not with silence, or glossing over or punishment. Instead, we will give ourselves permission to create learning conditions where kids can ask the questions they want to ask, muddle through how to say the things they are thinking and have tough conversations. We will be proactive in this pursuit. Truthfully, we will not have all the answers. No one does. So we will do the best with what we do have, and then work to be better.

We have tools to facilitate conversations and address questions that are brought up abruptly or that come trickling in from the hallways. We have experiences and identities that bring great bias, whether explicit or implicit, whether we feel it tugging at our thoughts or don't even realize it's there until we find ourselves blurting out something unexpected."

And then she goes on to say: 

"Without this space for dialogue and questions or this reassurance that we will listen, we send the message to kids that they must keep carrying on. That they must keep their hearts buried by a flurry of stereotypes, media generated hype and tragic events that they must keep their heads down, blinders on. That they must work harder toward personal happiness and success without considering the effects we have on others in our world."

If you enjoyed this episode and have not done so already, please hit the subscribe button for the Teacher As... podcast so you can get future episodes. For my blog, transcripts of this episode and links to any resources mentioned, visit my website at www.theteacheras.com. My contact information for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are also on this site.

I am sending a special thanks to Linda and Lester Fleishman, my mom and dad, for being so supportive. They are the voices you hear in the Zooming In soundbite. And my dad composed and performed the background music you are listening to right now. My intro music was "Upbeat Party" by Scott Holmes.

So what are you zooming in on? I would love to hear from you. My hope is that we all share what we are doing in the classroom in order to teach, remind, affirm and inspire each other. Thanks for listening. And that's a wrap!