Powerful Choices Recommits to Active Anti-Racism
Hello, Colleagues.
From our founding, our mission at Powerful Choices has been to work for social justice, for racial justice, and for civil rights through our efforts to promote liberatory literacy practices. At this time, we want to express our recommitment to active anti-racism, and specifically to anti-Black racism, to Black Lives Matter, and to Students Deserve.
To our Black colleagues, we know that most members of our team cannot imagine the pain and anger that you must feel as you face yet again the most visible and symbolic version of our country's structural, systemic, and institutional racism: the callous murder of George Floyd by a white police officer. We stand in solidarity towards an end to anti-Black racism.
To our colleagues of color, please know that we stand with you. The racism in our culture and institutions impacts all people of color, in sometimes similar, sometimes unique, ways.
To our white colleagues, it has long been our belief that white educators have a critical responsibility to model a different way to perform whiteness, as active antiracists. When those of us who are white educators are not sure what action to take, or that we're up to the task, we must remember that our kids are watching. We might not always have the right words, we will certainly at times misstep, but we can learn to engage rather than to turn away or wring our hands.
As our team turns our attention to the 2020-2021 school year, we vow to wear our commitment to anti-racism on our sleeves. We will challenge ourselves and our clients to think about schools as structures, systems, and institutions with the potential to change society for the better, or to reflect current realities and reenact old patterns of oppression and injustice.
As white women leading a company that primarily serves communities of color, Kate and Dana recommit to investing in our own learning and growth, partnering with a diverse team of staff developers, and seeking input and mentoring from those with experiences and expertise that we lack as the beneficiaries of a culture and system of white supremacy.
And our team will be explicit about why we are passionate about the methods we teach: because when we teach reading and writing in a workshop, we can teach a literacy that liberates, rather than oppresses:
When we ask students to write the stories of their lives, we communicate our belief that their lives and their stories matter and are worthy of being told.
When we ask them to write about areas of personal expertise, we show that we believe the knowledge they bring with them into our classrooms matters, and is worth teaching others.
When we ask them to write about their ideas, we demonstrate that we believe they have a right to have a voice, and that by lifting their voices they can change the world.
When we include “the why" in our lessons, we make sure students know that the reason we read and write is to discover who we are and who we want to be, to understand the world we live in and the role we want to play in that world, to connect with others who are like us and who are different from us.
These choice-based methodologies are rooted in the belief that children deserve to make choices in their work and in their lives, and that those choices can be powerful - thus our name. These are radical messages.
If you have not yet viewed the Kidlit 4 Black Lives Rally, we can't recommend enough this event that featured Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds, and many other favorite children’s authors. TCRWP's Cornelius Minor has a challenge for teachers (at 1:14) that is not to be missed: we must move “from intentions to plans,” because "love alone can't feed no family, and it certainly cannot protect our most vulnerable populations from a system that is literally killing them."
Let's make some plans together.
In partnership,
The Powerful Choices Team
Dana Bowden, Kate Garcia-Beaudet, Allegra Brown, and Cindy Peña-Sperger