"If I'm a K–12 Educator, I'm Not Sure What I Can Do": Navigating CRT Pushback

• In Event: Voices Carry: Building and Cultivating Spaces of Resistance

Abstract

Current cultural and political pushback in the U.S. to the use of Critical Race Theory in education is threatening to make it harder for teachers to teach with an equity lens. How can teachers facilitate anti-racism learning environments in settings that deny structural racism? This paper offers paths forward for facilitating anti-racism classrooms in settings where CRT pushback is strong. A key argument is that when relationships are centered; lived experience is elevated; personhood is valued; students are recognized as solutionaries; and storytelling and counter-storytelling are primary pedagogical approaches, the fifth condition of an anti-racism feminist classroom becomes possible: connections are made between life narratives, societal structures, and historical patterns. The paper argues for creating biographic storytelling classrooms.

Author

• Lisa M. Perhamus, Grand Valley State University