ANTI-RACIST TEACHING

CONTRIBUTIONS TO METHODOLOGY & PRACTICE

A collaborative, reflective, and ongoing endeavor with the School Programs Team at the Barnes Foundation to make all K-12 and teacher offerings accessible, empathetic, and Anti-Racist.

Anti-Racism

is fundamental to education.

is fundamental to the workplace.

is fundamental to communication.

is fundamental to cooperation.

is fundamental to success.

Anti-Racism is many actions over time and takes place in a wide variety of circumstances. In the context of education, I see the role of Anti-Racism as inserting reflection, intentionality, and empathy in every aspect of teaching.

This includes understanding one’s personal experience and biases pertaining to race, seeking out the perspectives of others relating to racial experience, and intentionally incorporating non-White narratives and opportunities for students to share their own narratives within lessons. It also necessitates accountability for ones’ harmful actions, regardless of intent.

Students, regardless of their racial background, deserve integrity. They deserve truthful, inclusive narratives in their learning. They deserve teachers who are excited to teach them as they are instead of who they expect them to be.

I believe that, in every field and context, engaging with Anti-Racism is a vital step in the march toward a better future.

Without intentional Anti-Racism, learning is inhibited and every student suffers.

In art institutions, and in formal education as a whole, there is a historical and deeply entrenched racial bias, which persists despite apparent social progress. It lives in the bones. The School Programs team at the Barnes recognized a national movement to address these biases and in 2017 sought to form a continuous dialogue and a codified plan to combat the effects of bias in our practice.

For the past 3+ years, the Barnes School Programs team, including volunteers, have been meeting regularly to collaboratively design, assess, and reflect on a series of Values & Tenets for Anti-Racist Teaching, specifically tailored to our institution, our educators, and our students. The Values are a series of seven overarching concepts that we hold fundamentally true and inexorable in our teaching. Examples include Joy, Equity, and Accountability.

We then spent time examining the way these fundamental Values intersect with race and the experience of our students, forming one or two distilled Tenets of Anti-Racist teaching for each Value. The Tenets provide guide-posts and accountability. For example, when evaluating the Value of Equity, we decided that our primary Tenet would be: “I will not perpetuate stereotypes about students or assume behavior and capabilities based on background or appearance, and treat students differently as a result.” These Tenets are simultaneously actionable, reflective, and memorable. This set of Values & Tenets was intended to be remembered and used daily, without hesitation.

Among the most personally impactful Values & Tenets that I engage with in my work is the Value of Inclusivity, which has many varied and sometimes vague meanings in the wider world, but for us, it boiled down to being proactive about including and honoring the personal experiences of our students. Its resulting pair of Tenets have changed my approach to teaching in incalculable ways:

Inclusivity

I will value students’ individual voices and perspectives and respect the wealth of knowledge they bring.

I agree that students’ experiences are of greater value than the art in our collection.

Barnes Foundation School Programs Values & Tenets

While the Anti-Racism Values & Tenets were designed through the lens of race in our teaching, the Barnes School Programs team and I have also proactively designed our K-12 offerings with other lenses in mind. All of our regular school programs are created with adaptive lesson plans for students who are differently-abled (cognitively and/or physically), with input from experts, teachers, and students. I've also made it an intentional part of my practice to provide space for students to engage with Gender and Sexuality in the Barnes collection (and art institutions as a whole).

Art museums, and education generally, are prime places to open up inclusive, sometimes difficult conversations about the world and how it works. With preparation and intentionality, educators have a responsibility to make those conversations fruitful and authentic, hopefully arming our students with confidence and the knowledge that their experiences matter.