The NYU Teacher Residency is a purpose-driven master’s program with an unwavering focus on and commitment to anti-racism, inclusion, belonging, and cultural responsiveness. Each month, we plan to share books, articles, videos, and podcasts identified by NYU Steinhardt faculty that discuss these issues in education.
Here’s what caught our attention this month:
“What Anti-racist Teachers Do Differently,” Pirette McKamey, The Atlantic
This article talks about educators who really see and value their Black students and how that contributes to Black students’ success and joy in school settings. The author, a San Francisco principal, speaks powerfully about the way that Black students are often marginalized and undervalued by their teachers, and argues that honoring their abilities and experiences can contribute to meaningful change.
“How Eugenics Shaped Statistics,” Frontiers – Issue 92
This article raises the issue that if bad people create good science, what should we do about it? The profiles of several problematic scientific pioneers and eugenicists, including Francis Galton, Ronald Fisher, and Karl Pearson, show how their work gave rise to Nazi Germany as well as modern statistics.
The Racial Contract, Charles Mills
Several of the newer books that address white supremacy and racism reference this book, written in 1997. Mills argues that the “social contract” often discussed in political philosophy is actually a racial contract and that “white supremacy is the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today” (pg. 1). This contract makes it challenging to disentangle ourselves and our institutions from white supremacy, which impacts how we organize schools, what we teach, and how we teach it. We need to recognize this contract in order to work against it.
The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, Dr. Dolly Chugh
Dr. Dolly Chugh, associate professor at NYU Stern School of Business, provides a guide to identify our unconscious bias and acknowledge that defense of our “good person identity” and the good person/bad person dichotomy prevents us from growing. Vulnerability makes space for growth so that we can become someone who expects, accepts, and learns from mistakes. This text reflects our goal in the Teacher Residency: to make our shared values actionable and observable. View Dr. Chugh discussing her book on YouTube.