The Center for American Progress in collaboration with Education Reform Now invited me and a host of other citizens with opinions on education to speak about education and racial equity. I’m honored and thankful they asked me to represent current classroom teachers as so few of us – if any – get opportunities to inform policy and practice on a regular basis. Below are notes that turned into my opening remarks for the panel. The conference’s theme this year centered on the 400th anniversary of the first person enslaved arriving in the colony of Jamestown, VA.

Good morning, class. My name is Jose Luis Vilson, math teacher in Washington Heights, New York City, and this is my fifteenth year teaching students math at IS 52. In addition to writing extensively on these issues extensively, including the book This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education, executive director and co-founder of EduColor, I’m also a father to a second grader who also attends public schools.

For me, this is a conversation about truth, reconciliation, and reparations. Black teachers are more likely to see students as talented and gifted, push students towards visions of college, and inspire students towards effort and resilience. Informally, I’ll also say they are more likely to build better relationships first, shift narratives from the dominant culture to an inclusive story, and pave the way for every other marginalized group to see their work realized, too.

This also comes with important caveats because none of this is perfect. Those of us who are Black educators need an orientation towards justice. We don’t “leave;” we’re more often forced out through any number of policies. Some like to use the “death by 1000 cuts,” but in this case, I like to call it death by 1000 mandates.

Really, Black teachers are a key part to re-envisioning the collective aspirations of what we call America. We are part and parcel of what reparations should look like here.

After a few more introductions, the moderator, Curtis Valentine, had asked about obstacles to fully realizing students’ potential:

To follow what my fellow panelists said, I’d like to echo the words of Rudine Sims Bishop’s work (shout-outs to Black women scholars!) on mirrors, windows, and sliding doors. For each, we need teachers of color to reflect the majority of public school students, we need teachers of color to show our white students who they can learn from and shake up their boring curriculum, too. We need teachers of color to help push the narratives in our curriculum, our pedagogy, and our systems about who deserves, who has a right to learn, what they learn and why they learn.

But there’s plenty of obstacles. Black teachers find themselves too often in our schools replicating the same roles they undertook during slavery times. We’re asked to be the overseers, to take on the more difficult students when it’s the entire school’s responsibility to assure every student is learning. The one Black teacher, custodian, social worker, or staff member has to control the kid instead of stepping into the nurturer role.

That gets us further away from what people purport is this American vision.

There was some stuff in the Q&A, too, but I’ll post it when the video comes out. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed what I’ve scribbled in my notebook.

Jose

p.s. – My newsletter is coming out every other work. I know you got soul.

photo c/o