9/29 - Class Recap

The flag of the United States during the National Anthem at the 2011 BCS College Football National Championship Game between Oregon and Auburn.

Dear class,

Thanks for checking in on the blog and doing your homework! We continued with our opening unit of the year on Race in class. Here's what happened in class today:

Learning Targets Addressed:
I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
I can explain the process of change and continuity in a society, place, or region.

Soundtrack: "Just Fine" by Mary J. Blige. Selected for today because it always puts Ms. Labossiere in a good mood. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 9/29/17:
Check In/Review Agreements
Debrief Socratic Seminar
Current Event - Student Rights
Conversation About Race

Homework: Read the blog! Make sure you are up to date with all assignments/readings in class!
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The PowerPoint we went through during class to guide the day can be found here:

Google Drive - 9/29 DSJ Class PowerPoint

Check In/Review Agreements: At the beginning of class, we went over the Courageous Conversations Agreements, as always, to begin our work together for the day.

Debrief Socratic Seminar: What a super interesting conversation we had with Jordan last class! We asked everyone to talk about what they took away from the conversation - again, my notes from what was said are in the last blog post, recapping class on Wednesday. We will aim to continue having these sorts of great conversations, hopefully with more guest speakers, as well!

Current Event - Student Rights: Since this came up on Monday, and we did not have time to debrief together on Wednesday, I wanted to talk about student rights regarding protests during patriotic events. We showed this email from Westview's Athletic Director, which was a forward from the Beaverton School District administration:

The link referenced in the email is this article: EdWeek.org - Students Have a Right to Protest During National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance. A very interesting read, for sure!

We talked in class about our thoughts surrounding the protests and the message that it sends to various groups of people, as well as the original intent. We also asked about the message it sends when owners and coaches are protesting with the players.

Next, we talked about two recent acts of defacing our shared property here at Westview that really concerned us. We shared about the letters KKK being written on a desk in our DSJ room (we have no idea if it was someone from this class or another one), and what that brought up for us. I shared about a swastika being drawn on a poster that was in my room last year of British pilots who helped save the country from German attack during the Blitz that my grandmother survived (though she went into shock and has very few memories from that time).

Again, the point here was not the drawings or the intent behind them. It was more about the feelings it left use with: scared, sad, ashamed, worried, etc.

Conversation About Race: This was deliberately vague in the introduction, as we had a lot to say here. In fact, so much, that we did not even come close to finishing our planned lesson today. Ms. Labossiere read from her recently published article in Rethinking Schools (so awesome!):

RethinkingSchools.org - Who Do I Belong To?: A Black Teacher's Dilemma

This was meant as an introduction to the next reading we are having the class do, but it actually ended up as the final activity of the class today, as there were a TON of questions, comments, and stories about the use of the 'n' word in society. The resulting conversation lasted the entire rest of the class.

We know that it was pretty much an entire class period of one big group talking about these issues, and that those conversations (not always a bad thing) tend to have some students who are more comfortable in wanting to share out in response. Obviously, it will continue to be a balance for us in terms of the different activities we do and ways to encourage everyone to stay engaged with what we are doing in class. Thank you, everyone, for sticking with it and finding ways to buy in to what we are talking about! Have a great weekend.