Review: Reading, Writing, and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom

Reading, Writing, and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom by Bree Picower
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At a time when pundits rage about critical race theory being taught in K-12 with no real understanding of what that is, nevermind its near-utter absence from K-12 teaching and learning, Picower's book is both a breath of fresh air and a call to teachers, parents, and most critically important, teacher-education programs.  The book highlights the framework of racism through institutional, interpersonal, internalized, and ideological approaches.  From there, she highlights the presence of these different racist approaches embedded within the curriculum, classroom practices, and mindsets by educators.  In this first section, she draws upon example upon example of how blatant acts of racism are present throughout the curriculum or show because people have caught and challenged them.  These examples include things like having Black children act as slaves in reenactments, requiring students to identify the benefits of slavery and word-problems that play on racist stereotypes of Black people. It might feel like a skit from a comedy show if Picower were not drawing upon real-life examples.  From there, she pivots to showing ways that teachers and even students can disrupt such inherent practices and curriculum.  The final part of the book is most intriguing as she highlights teacher education programs that are actively working to train and support teachers who are antiracist in their practices. The programs she explores are not just ones that check a box or have educators take a course on "diversity" but rather work critically through the program to challenge the way racism is so easily manifested and upheld in the classroom.  It's a must-read for anyone in education and parents as well.  

View all my reviews

---

Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and check out some of my other posts!. You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by signing up for them via email.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.