Video of Teaching for Black Lives Book Launch: “It really touched my heart more than you will ever know.”
Town Hall Seattle recently sponsored the Seattle book launch event for the new Rethinking Schools book, “Teaching for Black Lives,” at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center.
It was a sold out forum and turned out to be a wonderful celebration of Blackness, resistance, and pedagogy. It was a special night for all of us editors of Teaching for Black Lives–Dyan Watson, Wayne Au, and myself–who got to come together in celebration of the work we had done to create this book. But the highlight of the evening was the Garfield High School students who opened the event. Their poignant descriptions of institutional racist schooling, coupled with their appreciation for the transformative power of the lessons in Teaching for Black Lives, was truly moving for me.
Janelle Gary, in what I would consider the best praise the book has ever gotten, ended her speech to the assembled audience saying:
There’s this quote on page 10 of Teaching for Black Lives: “Teaching for Black lives also means considering the loneliness of learning about one’s history when you might be one of the few students in class or few teachers in school that this history represents.” And that stuck out to me the most because…I felt alone and I felt like none of my teachers were going to be able to relate to me. And just reading that in the book really lets me know that I wasn’t crazy.So I just wanted to thank Mr. Hagopian, and I want to thank everybody who’s here. This book is amazing…if you haven’t read it yet, please read it. And if you have, read it again and suggest it to someone because it really touched my heart in a way more than you will ever know. Thank you.
Below is the video of the Town Hall event–featuring the wonderful speeches of Garfield student leaders from New Generation Janelle Gary, Chardonnay Beaver, Ke’von Avery–followed by an edited transcript of the Janelle’s presentation. I hope this book event inspires you to work to dismantle institutional racism in education and teach for Black lives! Continue reading: Video of Teaching for Black Lives Book Launch: “It really touched my heart more than you will ever know.” – I AM AN EDUCATOR
