Teaching Antiracism

Thank you so much for coming to this page and thinking about how to teach anti-racism in your courses. 

You might already be doing quite a bit of this work, and, as you see things lacking on this page, please consider adding your ideas. If this is newer to you, or you are looking for some new inspiration, note that this page is mostly about skill building across disciplines and pedagogy, rather than focusing on resources for specific disciplines. 

While it would be nice to provide a uniform road map for your work or instructions for how to tell an anti-racism story in your class, it is not possible to provide specific guidelines that will work for every instructor. Your discipline, your goals, your students, your comfort level, your identity, will inform you of your unique path. Remember that you don't have to do this alone, and you don't have to do all of it all at once. What you do right now will open new pathways for change.

The Syllabus: Your Gateway to Inclusion

Racism is about policy, and the policy paper we start with each semester is the syllabus.

Skills and Actions for Faculty

Your pedagogy, interactions, and choices related to what you teach come out of your core values and beliefs. In order to consider, or reconsider, what you do, you probably want to start with thinking about your self. Thus, this list begins with ways to reflect on your identity and where you live and/or work before moving into suggestions related to what and how you teach.

  • Articulate your why.
  • Develop a teaching philosophy that includes anti-racism.

  • Include diversity/inclusion statements in syllabus and a discussion of why on the first day.
  • Embed skill building related to anti-racism in learning outcomes and curriculum. Whether you name it as such is up to you.

  • Include activities such as Multicultural Awareness Week, Native American Awareness week, Women's History Month, Black History Month in your teaching plan if possible.
  • As the world moves forward, look at your representation, again.

  • Build a safe classroom environment for exploration and practice. Here is a webinar that might be helpful: Demystifying the Safe Space: How to Create a Classroom Ecosystem that Supports Meaningful Race Conversations.
  • Contact the CTL for an equity observation.
  • Model how to be uncomfortable, and practicing how to facilitate difficult conversations.

  • Ask students how they are doing.
  • Regularly analyze how students of color are performing in your classes and programs. Identify obstacles and fix them. Fixes may include improving mentoring, creation of support classes, or cohort building.
  • Share opportunities available through your professional organization for your students of color, and from the LCSC Foundation (thank you Erika!)
  • Write wonderful recommendation letters.
  • Work with on-campus organizations that support students of color.
  • Stay in touch after graduation. 

Activities Aligned to Anti-Racist Skills

This list is compiled from LC faculty. Some of these will fit into your discipline better than others. There are multiple excellent models for how to teach culturally that overlap with this set of skills. Some of those are listed below, in the models section. 

Activities submitted by Kerensa Allison, mostly, and a bit by Rachel Jameton, Marlowe Daly-Galeano and Teresa Carmack. Please send yours along to add.

Here are a few questions to consider as you think about embedding antiracism into your class:

  • How do skills fit into your course outcomes?
  • What is your balance between being transparent and alienating your students?
  • How do the skills build over the semester/year?

Skills and Practices

  • Distinguishing between racism, which is structural, and individual racist actions
  • Identifying racism and microaggressions
  • Defining ethnocentrism and culture
  • Historical perspectives

Example Activities

Skills and Practices

  • Reflecting on identity
  • Recognizing personal biases and privilege
  • Recognizing that there is little you can do to change your first reaction/thought but much you can do to change your second one
  • Reading/listening while recognizing bias
  • Gaining perspective by looking through new lenses

Example Activities

Skills and Practices

  • Active listening
  • Amplifying storytelling from and of people of color
  • Identifying bias and racism in communication
  • Being able to have difficult conversations without shutting down or growing angry
  • Expressing vulnerability to open doors to communication
  • Developing empathy for others' stories

Example Activities

Skills and Practices

  • Developing curiosity and openness to learning
  • Asking questions
  • Allowing yourself to be uncomfortable and make mistakes, allowing others to be uncomfortable and make mistakes
  • Growth mindedness, empathy for others' growth

Activities

Skills and Practices

  • Building community
  • Application to future professions 
  • Making change (e.g. changing racist policies)

Example Activities

Student Growth and Assessment

  • Assign pre- and post-semester reflections related to bias and identity. 
  • Assign reflections asking students to consider how they might use new content in a specific situation.
  • Assign summary response essays.
  • Look for expanding definition of inclusion. 
  • Look at the questions that students ask.
  • Look for growth in student ability to identify racism, and identify solutions.
  • Course evals, especially when directed.

Models for Framing Race and Racism

Classroom Activities

If you have classroom activities to add, here is a list of things to include when you describe them. 

Resources adapted, adopted, created, and submitted by the following faculty, and all of the IPC faculty, collated here by Rachel:

Contact Information

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Center for Teaching and Learning

Meriwether Lewis Hall 320

500 8th Avenue

Lewiston, Idaho 83501