“Therefore it is important for educators to act in ways that allow us to know Black women today. In cyber space, those women are unlike my mother. They are, more and more, becoming writers of their own stories. Obtaining the evidence of this and studying this evidence, for me alone, has been transformative. I believe, if taken to scale in classrooms, such a study of digital texts will make for more informed, more loving, and more sensitive youth.”

Kirkland, D. E. (2010). 4 colored girls who considered suicide/when social networking was enuf: A Black feminist perspective on literacy online In D. Alvermann (Ed.), Adolescents’ Online Literacies: Connecting Classrooms, Media, and Paradigms. (pp. 87)

As much as our society does not like to talk about race, I think it is imperative that teachers not fall in line with “colorblind” practices. Students, particularly students of color unprotected by white privilege,  know that race affects theirs lives and to ignore it, I believe, is to disrespect them. If I were to teach, as a white female, I would not pretend to know the lived experience of say a Black female student in my class, but I would hope to make it clear that her story, her experince is valid and should be heard. Scholars, such as David Kirkland, whose work is quoted above, show how adolescents today are using online platforms to express themselves and are “becoming writers of their own stories.” Kirkland encourages teachers to bring these online narratives into the classroom as they can “provide critically grounded and academically rich literacy learning experiences.” I think it would also show students that you are not blind, that you are a woke educator who wants to help guide students in interrogating the injustices and inequities in our society and discuss where empowerment can be found and created. Kirkland writes about “therapeutic pedagogy,” which addresses the tensions alive in our (or our students’) everyday social interactions. Like therapy, Kirkland explains, therapeutic pedagogy seeks to both heal but also reveal so that “we as joint participants in this thing called life, being more aware of its most harmful and dangerous tendencies, can reinvent it.” What a powerful idea to help your students develop a critical consciousness. Yes, it can be uncomfortable to discuss race, such as the consequences of being Black in our society, or really interrogating what it means to be white. But your students are experiencing their lives, developing their identities as racial beings in this society. Bringing in digital texts, as Kirkland encourages educators to do, is a meaningful way to start having critical conversations with students, and building empowerment through discussing ways that social change can happen.