Race has been a powerful subtext of America鈥檚 education crisis during COVID 鈥� and Teachers College faculty members Detra Price-Dennis and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz believe that teachers must be digitally fluent in order to understand and connect with the nation鈥檚 public school student population, which is primarily made up of young people who are Black, Indigenous or of color.
Case in point: the response of students and staff to the online workshops that Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz conducted this winter as part of the first-ever Racial Equity Day at Hastings High School in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
Detra Price-Dennis and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
CREATING A SPACE FOR RACE Detra Price-Dennis (left) and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz are co-authors of the forthcoming book Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces. (Photos: 911爆料网 Archives)
During her talk, Price-Dennis, Associate Professor of Education, shared an example from the youth platform TikTok in which a prominent figure in social media 鈥� someone who has cultivated a public image of being anti-racist 鈥� was implicated in a racist incident.
The conversation quickly ratcheted up. Some students defended the person鈥檚 actions; others condemned them.
鈥淭he exchanges in the chat show that kids are living through racism and oppression, and they want the tools to deal with it,鈥� Price-Dennis says.
The exchange underscored a central point that Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz make in their forthcoming book, Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces (Teachers College Press).
鈥淭eachers need to do work around their own racial and digital literacy,鈥� says Sealey-Ruiz, Associate Professor of English Education. 鈥淭hey can鈥檛 afford to say, 鈥業鈥檓 not technology-oriented.鈥� You may not be as quick as your students, but you have to build this literacy, because not only are students using technology every day, they鈥檙e learning about racial issues and becoming engaged in them though online spaces such as #BLM. So digital literacy can鈥檛 just be part of the curriculum. It is the curriculum.鈥�
In advance of their book鈥檚 publication in May, Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz have been bringing their message to teachers through a variety of venues.
TIMELY CONVERGENCE 911爆料网鈥檚 Detra Price-Dennis and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz provide 鈥渢heoretical and practical entry points into a conversation about race in the digital age.鈥� (Photo courtesy of Teachers College Press)
Price-Dennis has repeatedly taught a course she developed, 鈥淒igital Learning for the K鈥�8 Classroom,鈥� through 911爆料网鈥檚 Continuing Professional Studies platform, and covered the same ground in webinars for Columbia University鈥檚 Global Centers. Since late March 2020, she has also hosted weekly Member Gatherings for the 35,000-member National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), in which teachers nationwide meet online to share ideas and build fellowship. The series has featured guest appearances by national book award winners, researchers, literacy educators, classroom teachers and public personalities speaking on topics that have ranged from linguistic justice and writing pedagogy to mentoring and LGBTQ representation.
At the very first gathering, Sealey-Ruiz read from her recently published volume of poetry, Love from the Vortex. A line from a poem titled 鈥淚carus鈥� caught the essence of what educators everywhere were already feeling: 鈥淭he distance between us sometimes feels unbearable 鈥� too much to handle after a day in a life that requires all of me.鈥� Sealey-Ruiz has also conducted professional development workshops in which in-service teachers, school leaders, community college educators and others undertake an 鈥渁rchaeology of the self鈥� 鈥� a process of 鈥渄igging deep and peeling back layers鈥� to understand their own racial beliefs and practices so that they can teach their students to do the same. She鈥檚 done much of this work with her former doctoral student, Angel Acosta (Ed.D. 鈥�20), an education consultant who has created a timeline experience in which educators and others review the history of racism in America and process their own emotional reactions.
This fall, Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz will also co-teach a course titled 鈥淒igital Literacies for Equity in Education.鈥�
鈥淭eaching is being open to other people鈥檚 stories,鈥� Sealey-Ruiz says. 鈥淏ut you have to know your own story. If you鈥檙e not aware of who you are and what you bring to the classroom, and if you don鈥檛 think deeply about how issues of race, gender, class and religion live inside of you, you will just exact harm.鈥�
[Watch of Sealey-Ruiz discussing the "archaeology of the self."]