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  This week is Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week brings to the fore our ideas about how knowledge is disseminated and who can have it. It’s about choosing whose stories get to be told and who will be left out. It’s about lionizing the damnable and castigating those already marginalized. In my school, I […]

Fluency implies the ability of a “foreigner” to appear lingually comfortable in a culture that is not their own. After all, we do not typically define native speakers of any tongue to be fluent. We reserve that honor for those who are visitors. This fluency does not require the visitor to know anything of the […]

I have a strange idea. I believe fiercely in the idea that people ALWAYS operate based on the information they have been given. While I recognize that if you live in the United States in 2019, you have to actively decide NOT to know certain information. That is, you have to choose to only watch […]

Every school day morning, I drive my 4 kids into Manhattan with me. We drive across the RFK bridge, and bend towards 125th Street. Every day, we see a billboard with what is viewed as a beautiful woman. Often, these women are thin, blonde, and White. Last week, my 5-year old son noticed something different. […]

When I lived in Liberia, one of my favorite activities was dissecting frogs. I’d catch them in my aunt’s yard, and go to work. I had a little board and some pins that would allow me to clearly see the insides of these animals. I was not particularly kind in how I would make the animal […]

Hi Folks! Yes, I know it’s been a while. I’ve been super busy advocating, teaching, learning, providing myself some care, and starting all over again. I came across a wonderful reading list. Though it is not an exhaustive resource, it is a wonderful start: Why AntiRacism? “Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can […]

It’s been awhile since I posted. I have to be honest. Last year nearly took me out. I felt as if I was being spiritually, emotionally, and psychically assaulted by the news. Every story I heard, read, or saw made me wonder about the limits of my ability to handle it all. When I woke […]

“Shoes are paradoxical: They are both rigid and flexible, and to get anywhere in them, a shoe must stay still (pushed against the ground) providing resistance that permits the other one to be brought forward”  K Childs As I read this quote, there are several things that came to mind. Some are questions. Some are […]

Teaching in an establishment committed to tradition rather than truth, is a challenge. However, the absence of discomfort is the point at which people fail to actually learn. In fact, discomfort may actually be a prerequisite to transformative teaching and learning. When I begin a process of curricular revision, I do so with the lens […]