Reading, Writing, and Racism

October 12, 2020
Picower (What’s Race Got to Do with It?), an education professor at Montclair State University, delivers an impassioned and well-documented look at how racism becomes embedded in American classrooms, and what can be done to root it out. Assignments that ask students to “identify the positive and negative aspects of slavery” and textbooks that remove references to Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan are not “random, singular examples of poor judgment,” Picower writes, but evidence of a “broader system of racism” in U.S. schools that actively harms students of color. She explains how standard curricula upholds white supremacy by erasing the actual history of slavery and oppression, and “paint a false narrative of equality”; she then presents case studies of white student teachers learning to “reframe their understandings about race” and become active “co-conspirators” in the project of “dismantling Whiteness.” Picower also discusses how to handle “White fragility,” and notes the harm white people can do while “bumbling through learning about racism in cross-racial groups.” She skillfully combines theory and practice, and draws on firsthand testimony and expert evidence to bolster her case. Education scholars, classroom teachers, and school administrators will heed this urgent call to dedicate themselves to racial justice.

November 1, 2020
Montclair State University education professor Picower's call to action to become co-conspirators in abolitionist teaching should be required reading for teacher-preparation professors, teachers, principals, and superintendents. Based on the premise that most American educators are white and largely unaware of their racial identity or roles in transmitting white supremacy, Picower cites egregiously racist assignments that have gone viral but represent only a microcosm of educational racism, which spans beyond individual bad-apple teachers into textbooks and systems. The sections explaining the "4I" social-justice framework (ideological, institutional, interpersonal/individual, and internalized) for teaching about inequality and unpacking the curricular "tools of whiteness" that ensure white supremacy evades scrutiny are important for their practical uses as screening and evaluation criteria in teacher professional development. Another powerful section offers anecdotes of teachers whose increasingly creative, liberatory curriculum ideas become transformative. Ultimately, Picower argues teacher-education programs that center race with fidelity and intentionality can disrupt racist ideologies before they make it to classrooms. Picower's honest introspection about her own positionality builds an ethos of racial humility and dedication to dismantling racism in education.

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Starred review from April 16, 2021

Picower (teaching and learning, Montclair State Univ.; Practice What You Teach) examines K--12 education in the United States and argues that it perpetuates systemic racist curricula. The author uses the "Curricular Tools of Whiteness," a framework she developed, to explain how teaching practices can uphold white supremacy. Citing examples of racist lessons that have gone viral on social media, this book pinpoints two problems in teaching: lack of cultural proficiency, and the centering of Whiteness in education. Picower writes case studies of four pre-service teachers, who reflect on their own experiences with race and the influences of socialization, lack of exposure, and bias on their teaching. Picower also highlights particular pre-service teacher education programs in the U.S. that she believes effectively center racial justice, and discusses inclusive, responsive education practices that can lead to student learning, engagement, and success. Like Dr. Bettina Love's Abolitionist Teaching and Dr. Gholdy Muhammad's Cultivating Genius, this well-written, accessible book pushes educators to reexamine standard instructional practices. VERDICT Classroom teachers, curriculum instructors, and administrators, especially those eager to implement culturally responsive teaching strategies, will find this title essential to starting conversations about antiracist pedagogy.--Tiffeni Fontno, Boston Coll.

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