Just Conversations: Recent Episodes
voicEd Radio
Two white high school English teachers meet to reflect on their journey to be antiracist educators. Melanie White and Amanda Potts talk about the decisions they make in the classroom and critically evaluate their teaching. These powerful conversations include book choices, canon, systemic racism, prejudice, poverty, social class, teacher efficacy, and more. In their pursuit of equity in the classroom, Melanie and Amanda open themselves to one another, and to you, the listener, since teaching is a shared experience.
Melanie and Amanda continue the conversation about destreaming in the classroom and how our practice has shifted as we continue to wrestle with the teaching of English in destreamed classes. As we respond to unique learners, we talk about the struggle to ensure student agency, the possibilities for providing instruction of teaching reading, and what research says about the teaching of reading. We talk about routines, the documentation of learning during observation, and our plan to podcast about the strategies that are working.
Melanie and Amanda presented 3 routines for building community in destreamed English at the summer conference for the English Language Arts Network of Ontario (ELAN). In this episode, they discuss the routines including the theory and practice of implementation while providing ways to personalize these routines.
Melanie and Amanda discuss the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. They discuss We Got This by Cornelius Minor and other texts and the ways that their reading helps them consider student voice and respond in the classroom. Amanda asks, "How much is enough?" and they discuss ways that social justice issues show up in the routines of school.
In this episode Melanie shares her appreciation for A Teacher's Guide to Mentor Texts by Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell and Amanda shares her interest in The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel by reading an important quotation related to education. We then wrestle with the policies and ways of thinking around education. We talk about the destreaming of English as a process of destreaming us, the educators, and the ways that we see teaching and learning. We consider personal experiences where biases have infiltrated our thinking; it is these moments that become transformational as we move towards equity. Getting to know students is about accepting them and looking at what they can do and then remove the barriers. What if we were there to let them grow?
With the destreaming of math at grade 9 in Ontario, we know that English classes will soon follow and many schools have been making small moves to destream by blending courses of Applied and Academic English. As we continue to learn and practice equity and apply the principles of social justice in English, we talk about our plans to implement destreaming in September, beginning with reading and the ways that we built on the work of others in our classrooms.
As we prepare for Season 3 and record a few discussions, Melanie and Amanda find a recorded conversation that occurred between quadmester 3 and 4 of the 2020-2021 school year. In this intimate and honest conversation, they share struggles of antiracist work and the purpose behind their podcast - wrestling in conversation together. In this episode they discuss "impact vs intent". They also share some posts from Twitter and the importance of normalizing conversations about white supremacy in the classroom, learning from these conversations to make them more effective, and they share the wisdom of Dr. Karnad-Jani - "Activism is a long term lived process".
Sabrina Kayed, a new teacher in the OCDSB, shares the ways that she incorporates her identities, interdisciplinary studies, and social justice into her high school science teaching. She candidly discusses her activism, the pressures she faces as a new teacher to conform, and the benefits of engaging on Twitter. Her honesty reminds us of the knowledge and wisdom of young people and the need to acknowledge the institutional forces within education spaces which are often barriers for some teachers.
Amanda noticed a threaded discussion on Twitter after Melanie posted some student work. There were challenging comments which raised important emotions. Here they acknowledge and try to work through their responses in this short but intimate episode.
The overlapping disruption of the pandemic, being called out publicly, and converting to a quadmester and hybrid model has Melanie and Amanda struggling with massive social change. They consider creating community with students, granting more grace to one another, and to call in colleagues to the work of equity and social justice. Being antiracist means that we consistently call our colleagues into the work which begins within recognizing the paradigm shift so active change can take place. We need to work in community with one another to recognize the ubiquitousness of whiteness, lean into the fear and the discomfort that is necessary as we integrate equity in challenging times.
Melanie and Amanda invite Tobi Hunt-McCoy into a discussion about summer webinars, what they've learned, and what they want to bring into the classroom this year. They share some of their actions and the planning required to restructure the content of their courses with a social justice focus. After many months of isolation, they finally meet, socially distanced, but in person to continue the uncomfortable yet necessary work required of White people interested in being advocates for equity and antiracism.
NB: Melanie meant to say that Jackson Katz is the first man to minor in Women's studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Amanda took a walk and encountered an activist in her neighbourhood. While listening to a podcast with Austin Channing Brown, she had an epiphany about antiracist teaching and learning. Melanie shares some of her observations about the institutional structuring of systemic racism in education in this short conversation about equity and justice in education.
Melanie and Amanda explain their long silence, the trouble with speaking out, and their learning journey as they work within and without in pursuit of equity. They discuss some of the systemic inequities and question their roles as educators while making commitments to next steps. They see this as an opportunity to revolutionize education through actions they take in their classrooms with their students.
Seeking to further understand how students of colour experience school, Amanda and Melanie interview a Black student who attends the predominantly White school where Melanie teaches. Dina Efrem, a Canadian student with family roots in Eritrea, was in Melanie’s Indigenous Voices English class last semester and in this episode, Dina explains what school is like for her. Melanie and Amanda want to hear what actions teachers might take to support marginalized students and they make commitments to take the next steps.
Melanie and Amanda have a phone conversation with Adrienne Coddett, a high school teacher and respected local leader. She is also well known in Ottawa as co-host of Black on Black, a public affairs radio show which broadcasts every Saturday morning on the University of Ottawa’s radio station. Her organization, 3Dreads and a Baldhead (founded in 2000), provides opportunities for people in Black communities to transform their lives by maximizing their physical, mental, spiritual, and economic potential.
Dealing with silence, exhaustion, tears, and trust – Amanda shares her experience of gender bias in an online course and she draws parallels with the students in our classes who experience racism. Melanie shares how struggles, vulnerability, and a moment of tears in the classroom opened students. And, since Amanda needs to decide how to wade into difficult conversations, they decide it’s time to invite some guests in to help them on the journey of anti-racist work.
Taking the Racial Literacy Self Assessment – Melanie and Amanda take a self assessment posted on Twitter and struggle with their response and understanding of racial literacy.
In today’s episode Amanda and Melanie ask the question: How do we handle challenging conversations with students who come from a position of privilege? We talk about a classroom lesson on cultural appropriation and Halloween costumes; some of the white students seemed to miss the point. What do we do?