A Biracial/Black male senior who entered LREI in 5th grade stated, “I think a lot of white people think that the way to solve race problems is to ignore them and pretend they are not there.”
“Race” is biologically meaningless, but, as a social-political construct that underlies systemic racism, “race” does deeply affect how societal institutions and individuals respond to people. (Louise Dermal Sparks, 2012).
At LREI we pride ourselves on our initiatives, practices, and policies that keep race “on the table,” meaning that race informs institutional goals as we strive for more inclusion. Discussions of race, racial pride, racial identity development, important historical and contemporary people of diverse racial backgrounds, as well as historical racism, racial microaggressions, oppression based on race, racial stereotypes, racial inequality, and racial bias are regular parts of on-boarding new employees, yearly trainings for all employees, Board retreats, curriculum development, parent sessions, and, in a developmentally appropriate manner, the student experience. These conversations can be, and have been, challenging but we find them to be an essential component of our collective work as an institution. Recruiting, enrolling, and retaining employees, students, and families of color has been a priority for LREI since it opened in 1921. Diverse racial/ethnic demographics allow students to learn from as many different people as possible. The school believes that mere contact with diverse students is not a sufficient way to benefit from diverse populations. Greater benefits of diversity include equitable practices, intimate relationships across differences, and celebrations of common goals (Gurin, 2003). We want to create many different opportunities to benefit from the student body in any given class, grade, division and throughout the school. This takes time and dedication.
Discussions on race are important if we want to attempt to raise children to feel affirmed about all aspects of their identity; who embrace human diversity and build authentic relationships across differences; who are able to recognize bias and discrimination when it is present in their lives or in the lives of others; and who are ready to take action in our democratic society to address inequities. In our quest for racial justice we acknowledge the decades of research from scholars that focus on the correlation between race and education, race and self-esteem, race and achievement, race and friendship, and race and health and happiness (see references below). At LREI, the question is not whether or not race matters, but a question of how will we better understand our history of racial injustice and the racial patterns that exist in education in order to counter the negative effects of racism (Pollock, 2005; Stevenson, 2018). If parents and educators do not talk about race with children, society will continue to inform children’s values and beliefs about race and racial differences, sometimes in ways that counter home and school values.
Nor do we [LREI] believe in focusing on race as the only identity that matters, thus the title of this piece, Race, and… All of our multiple identities are at play when we are interacting with others and engaging with the world. Being Jewish, or LGBTQ+, or speaking a language other than English, or immigrating from a country outside of the US are identities and cultural experiences that matter to people. What we have come to understand, however is that conversations about socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, religion and beliefs, political views, marital status, educational attainment, disability, learning styles, language, immigration status, family structure, and more must not exist without a racial lens. For some, race is a challenging topic to broach, yet we must examine how race also informs the experiences people have even when they share other common identities. For example, LGBTQ+ people experience many forms of bias and discrimination, and yet LGTBQ+ people of color experience racism AND homophobia/transphobia. Jewish people experience hate crimes, discrimination, and anti-semitism and Jewish people of color experience these AND racism.
What does this work look like in a school that serves children as young as four and as old as eighteen? What are the race-conscious practices, programs and policies that support all children? Applying the work of scholars on racial-ethnic identity development like Drs. William Cross, Janet Helms, Beverly Daniel Tatum, Howard Stevenson, Daphna Oyserman, Ali Michael and others to our work with students has helped us consider the ways in which our curriculum impacts students’ racial identity development as well as the ways in which students’ voices enter the examination of history or through literature. Our school’s class placement policy is a perfect example of a race-conscious policy that informs the way we place students into classes. I would like to paint a slightly different, but related, picture of how race-consciousness enters other programs and practices at LREI. In addition to a sampling of curricular and extra-curricular programing, I have included the voices of a group of students who were interviewed when they were seniors in 2014. They were engaged in a discussion with me [Director of Equity & Community] about race and identity at LREI. Their voices stand alone as powerful narratives in need of no explanation. I am in awe, however, of the ways in which their experiences support, and are supported by, the research on race and education and our school’s long-standing commitment to equity and inclusion.
In her book, Can we talk about race?: and other conversations in an era of school resegregation, Tatum (2007) introduced her ABC approach to creating inclusive schools that empowers all students and, more directly, motivates Students of Color in predominantly White schools. The ABC approach stands for A, affirming identities; B, building community; and C, cultivating leadership. A brief description of what Tatum meant by the ABC approach is followed by an example from our program, and then a few statements from Students of Color from the class of 2014.
Affirming Identity: Identity is complex and multifaceted. We want students to enter into self-exploration and relationships with others from a position of strength and to appreciate those who are different than they are from an equal position of strength. Our educators work hard to prevent, or at the very least interrupt, the cycle of internalized superiority and internalized inferiority that can occur when a positive sense of racial-ethnic identity is left out of students’ school experiences or when racial tension or racial microaggressions go unexamined. Students need to see all aspects of their identity reflected in the environment, the curriculum, the adults, and in their classmates (Tatum, 2007). Coupled with self-identity is group identity. Who we are and how we see ourselves is wrapped up in who our group is – gender, race, class, etc. Representation in the school of the groups to which you belong can mitigate the negative impacts of isolation and invisibility.
An ongoing curricular practice in our early childhood classrooms is the monthly self-portraits that students draw. As children develop over the course of the year, so does their understanding of facial features and other characteristics like skin color, hair texture, height and weight, gender and gender expression. A Four-year-old, remarking on her hair during a unit of study on the diversity of hair color, textures, lengths and styles commented, “My hair is kind of wavy and straight. I like it to be a little bit wavy. It’s really long. My color hair is brown like Mommy and Sam, but Daddy has gray hair” while another male student stated, “My hair color is black. My hair is long, pretty long, like down to my hips. It’s in a circle in my padka. I don’t cut my hair because it’s religious. I like that it’s very long.” Our youngest students are in the driver’s seat of identity awareness as they explore with a mirror their uniqueness and fabulous selves. Affirming language is explored through children’s books and whole class discussions to celebrate the diversity of identities in the room.
A Black female senior, class of 2014, who entered LREI in Kindergarten was reflecting on her awareness of race at LREI. She stated, “Peers had a big effect. I personally, in lower school especially, I didn’t recognize the lack of people who didn’t look like me because of the folks around me that did. By 7th grade, when more kids came in, I realized that I was different than my White peers. It is a dual responsibility of the family and school to help with student’s racial-ethnic identity.”
Available to students in all three divisions is the opportunity to join one of the many affinity groups that run either as a morning meeting, a lunch/recess gathering, or as part of the student-led clubs at the high school. Affinity groups provide a space for sharing and exploring one’s experiences whereby membership is defined by a specific racial, ethnic, or cultural identity group. These gatherings provide fellowship and give those who attend a safe and supportive place to decompress from biases they may have experienced while building personal advocacy and agency to manage adversity. Affinity groups are another place where identity affirmation occurs. However, these groups are optional and so we may not reach all of the students in the school. One way the larger community, particularly in Middle and High School, learns about the experiences of the students who attend the affinity groups is through the assembly program. For example, the Black Heritage assembly is facilitated by the Black Student Union group, the Latino Heritage assembly is led by the Latinx student group, and the Asian Heritage assembly is run by the Asian student group.
Building Community: All students need to feel that they belong. A sense of belonging to the community is known to increase connections and lesson the cues that trigger stereotype threat, the psychological threats in academic environments which can negatively impact the performance of people targeted by the negative stereotypes. As students engage in academic and extra-curricular programs and projects, they are building a sense of shared values and common purpose (Tatum, 2007).
One thing that can inhibit any one student from fully participating and accessing all of their knowledge and skills is the makeup of the group. For example, one girl in a group of boys working on a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) project may be highly successful and even more capable than the boys in the group. We know this is a possibility and an actuality. However, it is also possible, and more often the case, that this single girl will worry that her contributions on this project will be less valued because she is feeling the threat of the stereotype about girls in STEM subjects. One way schools mitigate the negative impact of stereotype threat, allowing that female student to thrive not just survive, is to place more girls in the group working on the project.
Similarly, solving real world math problems in mixed-raced groupings requires that all students are able to access the skills they bring to their team, have equal access to resources, are encouraged to think divergently for solutions before converging on an approach, are sharing the air time in their small groups, and feel that their skills and approach to solving the problem are valued in the class. Claude Steele (2010), author of many articles and books on stereotype threat, claims that Students of Color in predominantly White schools feel the threat of being stereotyped, leaving them vulnerable and more likely to be hyper vigilant about racial cues in their environment. The energy spent looking for and worrying about these negative racial cues zaps away students’ focus on their academic work. Students of Color, who believe they belong to the larger LREI community, are able to access their cognitive abilities and prior knowledge to contribute to the collective learning in the room.
A Black male senior, class of 2014, who entered LREI in Kindergarten, stated, “The school is really, really protective of all students, not just students of color. Something had happened with [a Black male student] being pulled over by police in his neighborhood. Bill, history teacher, in charge of history classes and homework, called the police precinct, the local representative of your hood, spoke to the head of school. He was more infuriated than us. He said to us about getting order in court, and said ‘I really want to do this because it is not ok with me.’ It makes us feel that we are not alone. He wrote our recommendations for college, keeps in touch with us.” When building our LREI community we actively consider ways to boost students’ personal identities from positions of strength while we encourage them to build their communities across differences.
Biracial/Black male senior who entered LREI in 5th grade stated, “In my preschool there were a lot of White kids but by the time I left there were less. When I came to this school I was trying to fit in. I didn’t take race into consideration. I didn’t immediately go up to the Black kids, I went up to the White kids. By the time [another Black male student] came in middle school I started reaching out to the Black kids.”
Black male, entered LREI in 7th grade, responded to the student above. “[That is the] opposite from me. I didn’t want to fit in with the White kids. I knew it [LREI] would help me educationally, but not socially. But, then I got here and that was not the case. I realized that the Students of Color were not what I thought either. I didn’t see White people in my community so I thought the Students of Color here were not going to be like the Black kids in my neighborhood. Then I saw that if they could talk to White people I could too. Then I stopped seeing them as White friends and Black friends but my friends.”
Cultivating Leadership: Leadership for the 21st Century requires a set of skills and dispositions to be active citizens in a democratic society. Tatum (2007) states that our future leaders need to be able to work effectively with people of varying backgrounds. The real-life experiences students have while in school builds their capacity for leadership.
Anti-bias curriculum helps build skills for all children to understand social justice, prejudice, discrimination and racism. Our founder, Elisabeth Irwin, understood that progressive pedagogy IS anti-bias education. When we teach children behaviors and practices that match their beliefs, the impact is powerful. It is challenging to grapple with issues like race, racism and racial inequality, yet we know the outcome is worth it when our students see new opportunities to become positive change agents.
Leadership skills develop over time and our students have many opportunities to practice these life skills. One area I would like to highlight is the role students play in presenting curricular projects, speaking at assemblies, or organizing teach-ins or marches. LREI students have a long history of activism. Over the past five years high school students have volunteered to organize and facilitate their day-long diversity and equity awareness conference. The team is made up of student leaders of high school affinity groups; the Adoption Group, Black Student Union, Gender & Sexuality Alliance, Asian Affinity Group, Jewish Affinity Group, Latinx Affinity Group, and the Students of Color Affinity Group. Working together this diverse group of students grapple with ways to help the high school community fight systems of oppression by first acknowledging that they occur at LREI. The description of their conference reads, “Our collective acts of justice as a community allow us to address racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, religious-based bigotry and many other forms of bias. Acknowledging how we influence and perpetuate these systems in our everyday lives, both at school, and at home, is the foundation for doing this work together.”
LREI Mission Statement
A leader in progressive education since 1921, LREI teaches children to be independent thinkers who work together to solve complex problems. Students graduate from our diverse community as active participants in our democratic society, with the creativity, integrity, and courage to bring meaningful change to the world.
A podcast on race
Article links to children’s development of race and racial attitudes
- Children are not colorblind: How young children learn race. Erin N. Winkler, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
- Stages in Children’s Development of Racial/Cultural Identity & Attitudes. Louise Derman-Sparks
Research on race, racial identity, racial stereotype threat, and race and self-esteem
Altshul, I., Oyserman, D., & Bybee, D. (2008). Racial-ethnic self-schemas and segmented assimilation: Identity and the academic achievement of Hispanic youth. Social Psychology Quarterly, 3, 302-320.
Aronson, J. (2004). The threat of stereotype. Educational Leadership, 62(3), 14-19.
Greenwald, A. G., Rudman, L. A., Nosek, B. A., Banaji, M. R., Farnham, S. D., & Mellot, D. S. (2002). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. Psychological Review, 109(1), 3-25. doi: 10.1037//0033-295X.109.1.3
Gurin, P., Nagda, B. A., & Lopez, G. E. (2003). The benefits of diversity in education for democratic citizenship. Journal of Social Issues. Retrieved from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pgurin/benefits.html
McKown, C. & Weinstein, R. S. (2003). The development and consequences of stereotype consciousness in middle childhood. Child Development, 74(2), 498-515.
Moje, E. B., & Martinez, M. (2007). The role of peers, families, and ethnic-identity enactments in educational persistence and achievement of Latino and Latina youths. In A. J. Fuligni (Ed.), Contesting stereotypes and creating identities: Social categories, social identities, and educational participation, (pp. 209-238). New York, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Noguera, P. A. (2003, March/April). How racial identity affects school performance. Harvard Education Letter, 19(2), 1-3.
Oyserman, D., Brickman, D., Bybee, D., & Celious, A. (2006). Fitting in matters: Markers of in-group belonging and academic outcomes. Association for Psychological Science, 17(10), 854-861.
Pollock, M. (2005). Colormute: Race talk dilemmas in an American school. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Steele, C. M. (1992). Race and the schooling of Black Americans. The Atlantic Monthly, 269(4), 68-78. Retrieved from https://illiad.sjfc.edu/pdf/134588.pdf
Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52(6), 613-629.
Steele, C. M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do. New York, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Tatum, B. D. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: And other conversations about race. New York, New York: Basic Books.
Toomey, R. B. & Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2012). The role of ethnic identity on self-esteem for ethnic minority youth: A brief review. The Prevention Researcher, 19(2), 8-12.
Walton, G. M. & Cohen, G. L., (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82-96. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.92.1.82
Walton, G. M. & Cohen, G. L., (2011). A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331, 1447-1451.
Wolfe, C. T. & Spencer, S. J. (1996). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their overt and subtle influence in the classroom. The American Behavioral Scientist, 40(2), 176-185.