Cultural Curriculum Chat with Jebeh Edmunds
Welcome to the Cultural Curriculum Chat Podcast—an inclusive space for educators, DEI practitioners, and all individuals eager to foster diversity and understanding! If you're seeking a vibrant, authentic podcast to guide you in implementing Multicultural Education, look no further. Are you yearning for inspiration to cultivate a truly inclusive classroom community? Join us on a journey filled with insightful resources, practical tips, and a touch of humor, all led by the knowledgeable educator, Jebeh Edmunds.
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Cultural Curriculum Chat with Jebeh Edmunds
Season 5 Episode #6 The Harmful Impact of Microaggressions in the Classroom
Discover the subtle yet powerful impact of microaggressions on our BIPOC students and learn how to transform your classroom into a nurturing, inclusive space. Join me as we draw on the insights of Dr. Daryl Wing Sue, dissecting everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights that perpetuate marginalization. This episode is a call to action for educators, parents, and anyone who interacts with children, equipping you with strategies to affirm cultural identities and foster a sense of belonging.
Step into my world of experienced guidance, where I share personal encounters with microaggressions and the transformative approaches I've honed over two decades in education and diversity training. We'll tackle sensitive issues such as the correct pronunciation of names and the respect for cultural and religious observances like Ramadan. With proven strategies and reflective tools at your disposal, you'll leave this episode empowered to be the change agent in not just educational settings, but wherever your influence reaches. Join the movement toward crafting a more understanding and empathetic environment for all our students.
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Hey, welcome back to the Cultural Curriculum Chat. I'm your host, jeba Edmonds, and this episode I really want to dive into the harmful effects of microaggressions in your classroom. Now, this episode is catered towards educators, but you don't have to be an educator to listen to this podcast. I have lots of wonderful business strategies for an inclusive workplace environment, as well as strategies for educators for an inclusive classroom. You might be a parent or you might be an adult who is around children, especially our BIPOC students, and when harm has been done, I want you to take this episode and understand the examples that I'm gonna share with you best practice strategies and some reflective practice tools that will be paramount in having you promote positive change and be that disruptor, that change agent that I know you are willing to be. Now I don't want you to be discouraged listening to this. Like I said, I've been in this space of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging all the days. I've been in the educator space for over 20 years, as well as a business owner doing these facilitating strategies and trainings for over 60 organizations, y'all. So I got some stuff to back up. I got some receipts for y'all today. So, before we even dive into it, I want you to take this proactive step towards fostering inclusivity in your education today by subscribing to this channel and, if you are listening to me on your AirPods or in your car on this podcast live, I want you to write me a review and screenshot it and tag me at culturallyjebe on Instagram so I can give you a shout out in a future episode, just to thank you for your support.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you some examples of microaggressions in the classroom. I have been following and reading Dr Daryl Wing Su's work and Dr Su really talks more in depth on microaggressions. You can see this person's work in highly vetted scholarly journals articles when it comes to microaggressions in the whole broad spectrum of what that is this article that I found microaggressions are, and I quote, are everyday verbal, nonverbal and environmental slights, snubs or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group or membership. End quote these could be based on your socioeconomic status, your disability, gender, gender expression, identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, national origin and even religion. So these are the things that were documented by students in this scholarly journal and I will have that in the show notes for you to do more of your research and finding.
Speaker 1:Failing to learn to pronounce or continue to mispronounce a student's name after they have corrected you. I get that all the time with my ethnic name of Jebe. So many times I've had colleagues and, being a student when I was going in through school, constantly writing my name wrong, spelling it J-E-B-A-H yeah, one of my biggest pet peeves. Another example disregarding religious traditions or their details. I am recording this episode in the middle of March. We are going through the Ramadan holiday, so you have Islamic students in your classroom that might be fasting. Failure to just even recognizing that is going on. That's a microaggression. Not saying you have to be an expert on every religion of the world, but just to understand that cultural awareness that that is happening this time of year.
Speaker 1:Calling on engaging and validating one gender, class or race of students while ignoring the other groups of students during your class sessions All right. Using inappropriate humor in class that degrades students from different groups. Here's another one that has been really big in our society when it comes to immigration Using the term illegals to reference your undocumented students. They are not illegal. Their documents are not present at the point out of no control of their own. Your students do not have control of their immigration status, that is, the adults in their lives that are still waiting, out of control of their own, to the government response. So calling them illegal is very, very detrimental and derogatory.
Speaker 1:Signaling students out of class because expectations of students of any particular group to represent the perspectives of others based on their race and their gender, for example, if we're talking about slavery or even the crisis going on, and you have a student that identifies with that particular group let's say either religious or what's happening in our country of any sort of current event, that student is not the ambassador or representative of that group that has been marginalized or oppressed. At that time, a lot of people would ask me when I was growing up oh, what are your insights on this particular thing? Or, oh, that war is going on in your country. Can you tell me more? I'm not the ambassador. I'm a student learning alongside my other peers. Please don't call me out or single me out when it comes to that. Assuming the gender of any student you know, let that student share with you their identity, how they feel most comfortable and safe.
Speaker 1:Another one I want you to think about is complimenting your non-white students on their use of good English, right? So assuming that their English or their speech pattern is the exception, how they have to leave their accent behind? Or you've been in here long enough in this country, why do you still have an accent, right? So, if you're curious about that, I talk more about accents in my Code Switching One-on-One podcast episode, so check that out and listen to it. We go really deep about the roadblocks that students have to assimilate to the majority culture in the classroom. So Code Switching 101, check that out.
Speaker 1:So, when you're learning and listening to these microaggressions and examples that I've shared with you today, I want you to do some self-reflection of when I am calling out students in my classroom. I know there are kids that don't want to be called on, but am I having a pattern? Just observe yourself, or have a professional colleague of yours. Just observe you seeing how frequently you are calling out one group over the other either gender, either race, either any other identity that you are favoring or thinking that, oh, I'm not even going to call him, this student because they don't know the answer. They might surprise you. They might not want to answer because they know well, they're not even going to call on me anyway, so why do I even bother holding my hand up, right? I want you to think about, too, my questions that I'm asking the student. Am I being curious or is my question being more harmful? I want you to go into seeing and observing your students and how they interact with each other. Are students in your class willfully excluding other students because of socioeconomic constraints, because of their race, their ethnicity and their gender, affirming and, like I said, it could be unintentional, but there are some things that your good intentions could be having a harmful impact on your student? And when you do step in it, like I always say, you're going to make mistakes. How are you facing that accountability? We are all learners, especially educators, but when we do make that mistake, how are you holding yourself accountable? And I also want you to tell that student I will do better and I will educate myself, so I don't continue this behavior. That will affirm to your student that you are going to do the work, that you are thanking them for correcting you in that bias, that you are going to do the work, that you are thanking them for correcting you in that bias that you have. And I feel like when the wrongs have been done, that it's up to you, the adult in the room, to continue to do that work.
Speaker 1:There's another great article here talking about measuring implicit bias in schools. It is by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The author who wrote this was Emily Boudreau. There is lots of evidence of teachers' own implicit biases and how it leads to unequal student outcomes. It said that the implicit biases of teachers vary significantly by the race of the individual. What that means is teachers of color were found to have lower levels of and I quote pro-white, anti-black bias than their white teachers, with Black teachers having the lowest levels of anti-Black bias. Teachers with lower anti-Black bias tend to work in counties with more Black students. It was a positive finding given that, and I quote, they wouldn't want teachers with strong anti-Black biases serving more Black students because, of course, that perpetuates more harm. This research that the author found was Harvard PhD student Mark Chin describes that in these findings of implicit bias finding in the schools, they did the Harvard Implicit Associations test. I do this with all of my clients in organizations that I work alongside. To get down to what are these biases that I still carry? Chin and the co-authors of this study found, and I quote, that areas with strong pro-white, anti-black bias among teachers show larger gaps between test scores and in suspension rates for black and white students. So that means the gap was larger when it came to expectations of their black students versus the white students in the classroom, based on the associations or the preferential treatment of those students in those cultural groups.
Speaker 1:There's so much to unpack here. The understanding of knowing where your implicit biases live and how to check and correct those biases will help create and cultivate that change that we need to disrupt those microaggressions in your classroom. You're probably thinking okay, jeb, you've given me the examples of microaggressions how you can measure your own implicit biases, because that's where it lies before it becomes a microaggressions. How you can measure your own implicit biases, because that's where it lies before it becomes a microaggression. There are some awesome ways that you can, as an educator, reduce your own implicit bias, and this amazing article that I found is titled Four Ways Teachers Can Reduce their Own Implicit Bias and is written by Jill Suddy, and she talks more again about creating and cultivating awareness of your own bias. She wants you to work to increase your own empathy and empathic communication with your students, also practicing mindfulness and loving kindness with your students and develop cross-group friendships in your own lives, taking those cross-cultural relationships in your classroom and finding ways to seek out these friendships to develop in your classroom, in our settings, which is valued and respected.
Speaker 1:These articles I will have in the show notes for you to do more. I highly suggest you look at these articles and put it in your professional learning communities, your PLCs, to further your understanding of microaggressions and how you can implement positive and best practice strategies in your classroom. Give your students a deeper understanding of African African-American cultural heritage with my 55 meticulously designed lesson plans that you can purchase and transform your classroom on my website, jebaedminscom forward slash show. If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe by hitting that subscribe button in our YouTube channel so you can get up-to-date multicultural educational content that drops every Friday. And if you're listening to this podcast, be sure to write me a review and screenshot it and tag me at culturallyjebe on Instagram and I would be happy to give you a shout out on a future episode. That's all that I have for you today. I will see you here same time next week. Bye-bye.