Blogbook -- What's the Problem With Most Standards and Outcomes
Entry 29 In the first half of this blogbook ( entries 1-28 ), I’ve offered a history and theory of racism that might be helpful to literacy teachers. In that theory, I discussed race as a concept and set of structures that have infiltrated every aspect of our lives and education, including language -- that is, how and why we talk to each other, and who we talk to. I ended that section of posts by offering twelve habits of antiracist teachers ( entry 22 ). I then provide a discussion of white language supremacy, what it is and how to confront it in our literacy and language classrooms. I ended this section by offering six habits of white language (HOWL) as a reflective heuristic ( entry 28 ). Now, I’d like to try to put this all into a kind of practice. That is, I’ll apply these ideas to something we all have contact with as teachers: literacy standards and outcomes. One way to see the ways that racist discourse and white language supremacy in secondary schools and postsecondary educat