The often ugly reality black students face in our schools - The Washington Post

The often ugly reality black students face in our schools - The Washington Post

The often ugly reality black students face in our schools

While protesters are taking to the streets of America to protest police brutality and racial injustice, black and other students and alumni of color are using social media to tell personal stories of racism that they encountered in school — public and private, K-12 and college.

The posts are mostly anonymous, often on pages that are specific to individual schools — such as the elite private schools Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., and Princeton Day School in New Jersey.

As reported by the New York Times, students are starting pages and inviting other students, alumni and even teachers to tell their stories. There are now scores of them, often beautifully composed text boxes that share stories of what it was and is to be black at those schools.

This post is from Alden S. Blodget, a white educator who spent decades working in private independent schools that claimed to have “diverse” and “inclusive” communities but didn’t. He said he tried to talk with black students to learn about their reality but didn’t get far. He writes:

They weren’t going to share painful experiences with some old white guy who ran a mostly white school, especially when those experiences criticized the school and belied our claims to having created a welcoming, diverse community. I was asking for their trust in a system that they didn’t experience as trustworthy …

Now, he writes, he sees promise in this new social media movement, writing, “Their collective voices challenge the empty rhetoric of our idealistic claims.”

Blodget was both a student of independent schools and a teacher of English and drama, as well as an administrator in five different schools in several states during his nearly four-decade academic career. He has published numerous pieces about education.

From 2000 until 2014, he worked with University of Southern California neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, offering workshops for teachers to explore the implications of her research and that CONTINUE READING: The often ugly reality black students face in our schools - The Washington Post