The Death of Michael Brown, Teachers, and Racism: 10 Things Every Badass Teacher Needs To Understand
Hello my fellow badass teachers. My name is Denisha Jones and I have been a member and admin for badass teachers since the first week BATs was created. I am also a teacher educator at Howard University. My background is in early childhood education, diversity, curriculum teacher professional development, curriculum, and instruction. In addition to working for BATs, I am an admin for United Opt Out and I have worked with Save Our Schools since their march in 2011. And also, I am a black female. I tell you things so you know a little bit about me and my background before you judge what I am about to tell you.
In the wake of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18 year old black male who was killed by a police officer, America has once again been forced to deal with its troubled history of race. Residents of Ferguson MO, where Michael Brown lived, and activists from all over the country have taken to the streets to protest this senseless and tragic death. The media has continued to report this story making it hard for many people to ignore what is happening in America today. And many BATs have felt the need to address this issue in the main group. This has caused numerous posts filled with support, questions, ignorance, and disgust.
When BATs began to grow, the founders, admins, and moderators, decided to delete conversations that were divisive. These included posts that talked about the pledge of allegiance, sex education, changing the name, racism, and discrimination. We felt that for BATs to grow strong we needed to focus on our mission. Over time we realized that by silencing some of these conversations we did not own up to our mission. See BATs was created to give voice to every teacher who has been blamed for the failures of education. Our goals were to fight against the Common Core State Standards, high stakes standardized testing, Teach for America, for profit charter schools, and value added measures. What we came to realize over the past year, is that although these issues are very important to many teachers there are other aspects of education that are just as, if not more important, to other teachers. These include poverty, racism, and discrimination. Many of our teachers felt that these issues are central to their voice and their fight. And our attempts to silence these conversations silenced their voices. We have since apologized for our actions although it was never our intention to silence the voices of teachers. And we, the founders, admins, and moderators, have been working diligently to allow these conversations to happen in our main group. That leads us to where we are today.
In the past few days we have had conversations about these issues that have over 1,000 Badass Teachers Association: The Death of Michael Brown, Teachers, and Racism: 10 Things Every Badass Teacher Needs To Understand: