A statement from PDK International

During this bitter time, we urge all PDK members to join with their colleagues, friends, families, and students in expressing outrage over the brutality that has been leveled at African Americans, not just in recent weeks but since the founding of this nation. George Floyd is just the latest addition to a long list of Black victims of racist violence. However, outrage isn’t enough.

As educators, we must do more, finding concrete ways to promote social justice and equity in our classrooms, schools, and communities. We have a responsibility to educate ourselves about the complex and often shameful history of public education in the United States. While our schools have served as great engines of opportunity, they have also served to deny and exclude. For generations, and like so many of our other public institutions, our schools have practiced both subtle and not-so-subtle forms of bigotry, providing separate and unequal instruction to children from differing backgrounds.

This means that as educators, we must also recognize the limitations of our own knowledge and experience. Those of us who are White and middle class, especially, must be willing to admit how much we don’t know about the lived experiences of our students and colleagues of color, those who come from working-class backgrounds, or those who have immigrated to this country. In order to move forward, we must push ourselves also to look back to our past practices, and we must look to the people at our sides, who may have very different knowledge and experiences from our own.