At Educators Rising, we believe that education is one of the driving forces behind meaningful social change. We also believe that as current and future educators, we must engage in the uncomfortable and sometimes painful conversations happening all over our country right now in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Abery, Breonna Taylor, and others. We believe that Black Lives Matter, and we know that our Black students and educators are disproportionately affected by these events and are in need of support from their friends, colleagues, teachers, and school leaders.
To that end, we have pulled together some PDK resources that can be used to inform discussions about how best to pursue racial equity in our classrooms, schools, and communities.
To our Black members, both students and current educators, we see you. We know that the systems that are supposed to support and protect you often fail to do so, including the education system. We are committed to diversifying the profession, so that Black students can grow up with teachers that look like them and Black teachers can be surrounded by the support of colleagues who understand what it means to be a person of color in this country and in our schools. We are committed also to strengthening our partnerships with other organizations doing this work, particularly Black-led non-profits and HBCUs.
Click here for articles on school segregation past and present, on how racial stress affects Black students, and on how to have productive conversations with kids about race and other controversial subjects. We also encourage you to follow PDK International on Facebook and Twitter, where we will continue to elevate the work of leading Black educators.
As educators and students, you are uniquely positioned to engage in these difficult dialogues to advance racial equity. We hope you find these tools useful, and we will continue to do our best to support you in engaging in thoughtful, meaningful, and actionable conversation moving forward.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joshua P. Starr
Joshua P. Starr is the managing partner at the International Center for Leadership in Education, a division of HMH, based in Boston, MA. He is the author of Equity-based Leadership: Leveraging Complexity to Transform School Systems.
