I must say, Goodman (2018) writes a pretty enthralling introduction. The part that stayed with me the most is when we writes “It is healing for students to know that it’s not their fault that they live in inequitable and impoverished conditions in their community or attend underresourced schools, and that these conditions do not define them. It is empowering for them to learn that there is a history of economic forces and racialized public policies that have created these conditions, as well as movements of people who have long struggled to change them” (p.7).

It is commonly believed in the education world that students must understand what they’re learning and why. As teachers we have to tell them, and show them, and model for them what they’re learning today, why it’s important, how does it connect to their previous knowledge and how will it relate to upcoming activities/projects. We have to help them build connections from the content of the classroom to their own experiences and realities to make it relevant to them on a personal level and gain their interest and motivation. A good teacher plans all of this into his/her lesson plan just to conduct some activities, so I loved that Goodman made the same point in regard to students learning the history of their disadvantages — they must be explicitly taught, just like everything else in the classroom. I can image that without access to this kind of information, disadvantaged students potentially walk through life blaming themselves or their parents or their ancestry for these prejudices and the conditions they bring. They may know in their hearts that the system is against them, but not have the knowledge to explain how they know. Using historical facts to be able to support the truth of their experiences has to be liberating. While they learn that their experiences aren’t singular, they also get to learn that there have been passionate and ambitious groups of people before them that have fought to hopefully eliminate similar struggles for future generations. With this empowerment, students of this nature can begin to heal.