How a Great Oklahoma Teacher Made the National News for Teaching about Racism
The Washington Post report about Norman, Oklahoma teacher, James Coursey, is currently the paper’s second mostly widely read story. The Post’s Cleve Wootson reports that Coursey was caught up in a controversy when teaching about “implicit bias — the belief that we all have unconscious opinions about race, gender and ethnicity that subtly affect our actions.” He further explains, “The incident illustrates the tightrope teachers walk between engaging students in the important issues of the day and staying neutral in a room filled with impressionable youths.”
An unidentified student further explains:
What has been reported in the news doesn’t accurately portray what happened in our philosophy class, nor does it reflect what we believe in at our school. ... The information was taken out of context and we believe it is important to have serious and thoughtful discussions about institutional racism in order to change history and promote inclusivity.
Paul Ketchum, a University of Oklahoma professor with extensive experience in teaching about race in this state and who taught in the Los Angeles inner city, supports Coursey and explains, “This teacher’s going to face a lot of blowback, because most of the students at Norman North are white and come from white families. That’s why they might view this as an attack on them.”
I know from firsthand experience that Ketchum has excellent judgment in terms of addressing sensitive racial issues. While teaching in Watts, he would have had seen the same brutal legacies of personal and institutional racism as Coursey encountered when teaching in the inner city of the Oklahoma City Public School System. But I don’t know if I agree with Ketchum that Jim could have made a “rookie error in teaching about race,” by making the mistake where, “You go for the big term when a less loaded term would be better to make it a teachable moment.” (emphasis mine)
I say this because Coursey isn’t just a great, veteran teacher. He’s an incredible teacher. Jim taught next door to me when our often blood-soaked high school How a Great Oklahoma Teacher Made the National News for Teaching about Racism | Huffington Post:
