The Kazi Begins…
Outstanding educators are empathetic by nature. There is no way that someone can effectively motivate and engage a young person (especially an adolescent) without first showing a sincere interest in who they are and what they care about. No matter race, color, religion, sexuality, gender, or nationality, if students feel they have a teacher who is a true champion of their success and their future, they will perform better in that class. There is absolutely a law of diminishing returns on productivity and success if a teacher does not establish this human connection. This fact has been true for all of eternity, however, in the Spring of 2020, with the Coronavirus Pandemic, the public murder of George Floyd (among others), and the further polarization of our country, it became all the more important that students (especially students of color) had confidence in those adults in their school buildings.
One of my favorite mentors once told me, “It’s all about the kazi (Swahili for work).” Nothing worthwhile gets done without putting in sincere effort day-in and day-out. Most often, it is the intense effort of good and committed people that create meaningful change in the world. There are no shortcuts. As educators, it is our job to continuously grow and evolve to help us better understand where all of our students are coming from and what is valued by them. We must invest ourselves in the Kazi of becoming more informed, more well-versed, and more empathetic to what our students need as young human beings. For many educators (majority white) and for the overall cohesion of the teaching staff, this begins with an honest dialogue around real issues of race, class or caste, and power in America.
With the unfolding events of the Spring of 2020, the timing was perfect to increase the dialogue on difficult topics among our staff members. We already had a school-based Cultural Proficiency committee that regularly put together professional development sessions on some of these topics, but it was time to continue the kazi on a larger scale. Especially with a majority white teaching staff working in a school/community that is 99% of color (77% Black, 12% Latino, 10% Asian), it was critical that our team was doing some of the hard work and having tough conversations to better understand our role in this country/world and that of our students. As educators, we must lead by example. If we are not willing to learn with an open mind, how can we expect the students in our hallways and in our classrooms to do the same?
So, in the Spring of 2020, a group of over 30 educators in our school signed up to participate in the Staff Book Club where we would discuss sensitive and critical topics affecting ourselves, our students, our community, and our country. We created a Google form with a list of possible books that we could use to start. After two rounds of voting, it was decided we would begin our club over the Summer with The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. This team of amazing educators was poised and ready to have some real discussions about structural and systemic racism in this country and the way it has purposefully led to the mass incarceration of black and brown men. We had our book and now we had to start the kazi.
We started the club the week after July 4, 2020. We met bi-weekly throughout
the summer on Wednesday afternoons at 4pm on Google Meet. Teachers, administrators, and myself (Principal) read 1-2 chapters for each session and then had an educated, honest, vulnerable, and direct conversation regarding the laws, systems, beliefs, and people that have used very coded language and practice to attempt to embed second-class citizenry for black and brown people in our country. There were many moments of discomfort and were absolutely many moments that stretched and bent people’s understanding of the world they interpreted and encountered every day. People introduced supporting articles, videos, and many personal anecdotes to deepen the conversation and body of evidence. Beliefs were simply a matter of what we had seen, been taught, and had experienced. Beliefs could be built and they could also be broken down. It was our job to use the information we were reading and the discussions between those we knew and trusted to break down unhealthy belief systems to see and potentially comprehend how others experience the same world we live in.
Our work continued throughout the Summer of 2020 and as we finished our discussions, everyone agreed that the work must continue. So we set off in the hybrid school year of 2020-21 with a goal to continue our bi-weekly discussions via Google Meet. Due to busy teachers’ lives during the school year and due to the large number of articles and media on the topics, we decided to utilize videos, TEDTalks, articles, and podcasts to continue our discussion throughout the school year. This would keep the conversations rich and diversified while keeping the consumption of material manageable. I picked a number of topics for the conversations, however, we also utilized suggestions from members of the club and built off previous discussions/topics when appropriate. Each discussion lasted one hour and we tried to hold to this time frame out of respect for everyone’s time. On and off, over 30 educators participated in these discussions that continue until this day.
This blog has been started to help shed light on the work being done by real educators. We also hope that it will inspire or encourage other educators to step up and have the difficult conversations they need to better themselves and better serve their students. We cannot truly serve others if we are not committed to empathizing with our students and better understanding the world they are experiencing. These are real thoughts from real people and we hope that this work will help others to grow as individuals or as part of teams at their school.