How to Talk about Racism in the Classroom?

A healthy, well-guided conversation in the classroom is crucial for the visualization of systemic racism.

The issue of racial discrimination is especially challenging to deal with in schools. There is a collective intention to create safe spaces for children while educating them. Issues as complex as racism can touch sensitivities, especially in students who have been victims of discrimination.

Nevertheless, recent events motivated by racial violence call for an urgent shift in focus and raise difficult questions. What is the point of protecting children from issues like racism in the classrooms if, outside of these, instances of racial violence happen daily, some of them against the same students we teach?

Talking about racism in class is still not a legal obligation in all schools. To address the topic or not depends on the decision of each teacher. For those who recognize the social and ethical need to introduce their students to an understanding of systemic racism, we share the following recommendations.

Tips for discussing racism in the classroom

1. Generate an atmosphere of honesty and empathy

In previous articles, we have discussed that when children are educated, they are told that skin color does not matter; however, this deprives them of the basis for understanding the root of systemic racism. It leaves them without the tools to identify social injustices based on skin color or ethnicity.

Therefore, before introducing the issue of racism into class, it is necessary to establish an interaction that builds an environment of respect and support for students from social minorities who have already been touched by racism. Similarly, it is important to be honest, accurate, and empathetic to students who have no experience with the issue.

Any anti-racist education in the classroom must be designed to visualize rather than traumatize and educate rather than blame.

2. Get used to feeling uncomfortable

Talking about racism in the classroom is challenging, especially in a mixed group where there are social majorities and minorities. The majority of students may not want to offend anyone by talking about the topic, and the minority students might find it exhausting to share their life stories to educate people who have not had the same experiences.

However, not living the same experiences does not mean that the students of social majority are not open to feeling or understanding the concept of social imbalance and how it affects their classmates.

Racism is not a comfortable topic. It is crucial to convey to students that it is okay to be uncomfortable, as long as the conversation is directed to a better understanding of how distinctions of skin color generate social imbalances and how we can do our part to avoid these.

Making students feel comfortable in a conversation about racial discrimination is essential. Making them feel safe to communicate honestly, assertively, and empathetically is valuable and productive. This also implies admitting errors during the discussion. It is necessary to understand that the classroom is a place to learn and that no one starts a conversation about racism, expecting to become an expert in five minutes.

If we have already established an environment for sensitive communication, it is advisable to assume that the comments of the students come from a place of good intentions and a desire to learn. A conversation about racism should also serve to establish responsibility for discourse without dehumanizing or destroying the will to continue learning about how to address issues of social injustice.

3. Start from solid historical and social footings

Talking about the experiences of minority students can be enlightening to understand the issue of racism on a personal level. However, to understand systemic racism, it is essential to resort to the historical records that document it.

There is a vast historical record that makes systemic racism visible. Including it in the curriculum before a class discussion on racial discrimination is crucial to understanding not only that it exists but also how it has been made invisible and minimized throughout history, making it possible for minority groups to have experienced it for centuries. Even today, this type of discrimination is still present.

4. Clarify: Racism is bad, not people

Defining racism as a systemic problem and not as a personal practice serves to start a productive conversation about social injustice that is based on race or ethnicity. This is not saying that there are no actively racist people. However, it is necessary to differentiate between actively racist people and those who engage in patterns of racism because they were not educated to question how the social differences between people of different ethnicities are used to generate social injustices.

Racism is undoubtedly an instance of injustice and should be pointed out every time it is seen in everyday life. However, it is also necessary to know that a systemic problem is not just solved by pointing at it. We must reflect on how and why we see it and focus our attention on the patterns of racism rather than on the person who behaves racist because he knows nothing else.

5. Encourage questions that call for reflection

Talking about racism in class is going to generate questions. Teachers will have to act as moderators so that the conversation focuses on issues that lead to a better understanding of systemic racism, in other words, teaching and learning how it works, whom it affects, and why, how we practice racism unknowingly, and how to avoid it. In the classroom, we can point out constructively when it happens, being where we can reason with each other. We can also discuss with the students how to challenge or report racism when it does not occur in a safe space beyond the classroom.

Addressing and putting in front of the conversation the questions that attempt to resolve these issues will lay the foundation for a productive discussion with the potential to help students understand systemic racism and what their role is in the efforts to dismantle it.

Have you tried talking to your students about racism? What has been your experience? Tell us in the comments.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Sofía García-Bullé

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0