The mere mention of these topics can be awkward and difficult, yet various research findings point to the need to confront the discomfort to improve student learning.

With a profession that’s characteristically white, female, and middle class-and with students of color and children in poverty rapidly making up the majority of the public-school population-it’s become a necessity to have teachers equipped and willing to talk about race and racism. And I'm definitely not going to violence against black bodies.’ That’s where we are in 2017.” “Basically, teachers said, ‘You’ve twisted my arm. Teachers overwhelmingly agreed that race should be discussed in classrooms they felt woefully unprepared to lead such conversations and they strongly rejected discussing racial violence, which Milner called “central to working with … black and brown students” who are frequently the victims of police shootings. Despite the small sample size, the preliminary findings from the nationally representative group revealed an intriguing disconnect. ” So in early fall 2016, he surveyed 450 pre-service and current public-school teachers on their beliefs about race.

“Rather than asking me how to help teachers … we should be asking teachers if they believe race is salient … something should be interrogating and thinking about. And he always thought the questioning was misguided and inadequate. As a noted expert on race in education, he frequently received calls from journalists seeking comment on how to help teachers talk about race in the classroom, typically following the fatal police shooting of a black victim. Richard Milner, a professor of urban education at the University of Pittsburgh, set out to answer a question that had been gnawing at him for some time. After a rash of police killings last summer, H.

Her Master's Teacher by Lily White