Open Windows, Open Minds: Developing Antiracist, Pro-Human Students

by Afrika Afeni Mills

Overview

Equip your students—and yourself—to grapple with racial identity and crucial questions about race.

Open Windows, Open Minds, explores why racial identity work is critical , especially for White-identifying students and teachers, and shows educators how to use literacy instruction to provide more windows to racial awareness, antiracist thinking, and pro-human action in the classroom. It includes:

• Exercises that push educators to examine their own racial identity before facilitating antiracism work with students
• Developmentally appropriate teaching strategies for guiding students toward understanding racial identity and engaging in action-oriented learning
• Tools and resources for navigating challenges, finding allies, and creating partnerships

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781071852897
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	07/08/2022
Series:	Corwin Literacy
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,059,936
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Afrika Afeni Mills is a Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and an education consultant. She works with colleagues, teachers, coaches, and administrators to transform practices. Before these roles, she gained extensive experience as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, teacher developer, and school administrator since 1999. Afrika has been featured on podcasts, blogs, delivered keynote addresses, and facilitated sessions at conferences across the United States. Afrika believes that all educators can be motivated, engaged, dynamic practitioners and leaders when provided with the support needed to create student-centered, antibias, antiracist, culturally responsive learning environments that inspire wonder and creativity and nurture true diversity, belonging, equity, and inclusion. Recognized for her contributions, Afrika was named among Brightbeam's Top 22 Education Influencers of 2022 and is an active member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and Learning Forward. She holds an M.Ed. in Elementary Teaching from Boston College's Lynch School of Education and Human Development, graduating at the top of her class.

Table of Contents

A Foreword in Two Voices Cornelius, Minor Kass, Minor xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

Indigenous Land Acknowledgment xxiii

About the Author xxv

Prologue xxvii

Introduction 1

Part 1 Why Windows Are Crucial for White Teachers and Students

1 Windows for White Students 13

What We Mean When We Talk About Windows 14

Antibias Training Is Not Enough: Learning From the Testimonies of ABAR Practitioners 17

2 Starting with Ourselves: Racial Identity Development for White Educators 41

Stages of White Racial Identity 43

The Danger of Deficit Thinking 48

Be Open to Productive Struggle With Racial Identity 49

The Need for Healing From Racialization 52

Uncovering, Dismantling, and Healing From Racialization 56

3 Instructional Strategies that Help Students Develop Racial Identities and Understandings 61

The Impact of Segregation on White Children 64

Affirming Identity by Exploring What Has Shaped Us 67

Sharing Name Stories to Understand Identity 77

Helping Students Understand the Complexity of Identity 84

White Identity Development and Identifying as an Antiracist 85

4 Navigating Resistance and Creating Brave Classroom Spaces 89

Lack of Experience With Race-Based Conversations 90

Lack of Coursework About Race in Teacher Prep Programs 92

Fear of Pushback by Administrators, Families, and/or the School Board 95

Lack of Instructional Materials for Race-Based Conversations 99

Navigating Resistance by Partnering With Colleagues 101

Overcoming Internal Resistance: Taking Responsibility for Our Biases and What Feeds Them 104

Preparing for External Resistance 110

Creating a Brave Space for Critical Classroom Conversations 114

Part 2 How to Provide White Students with More Windows

5 Opening Windows into Overlooked Contributions, Histories, and Experiences: Content that Expands Understanding 123

Connecting Across Difference 128

Learning or Rediscovering US History 133

Building Radical Empathy 137

Examining Race Through Literary Analysis 141

Exploring Challenges Through Interactive Read Alouds 150

Sharing Book Reflections 155

Parallel Tracks for Teachers and Students 159

6 Opening Windows into Overlooked Perspectives: Building Skills Through Discourse 161

Addressing the Underlying Causes of Injustice 162

Benefits of Debate/Discourse 165

Having Clear Outcomes, Assessing Growth, and Monitoring Progress 167

Developing Foundational Discourse Skills 171

Exploring Debate Examples 172

Strategies to Develop a Shared Understanding of Multiple Perspectives on an Issue 175

Strategies to Practice Using Evidence and Examples to Defend a Position 180

Integrating Technology Into Discourse 185

7 Opening Windows Into Overlooked Challenges: Action-Oriented Learning 189

Laying the Foundation for Action-Oriented Learning 192

Design Thinking: Working to End Racism 193

Interdisciplinary Connections 204

Epilogue: Find Your Marigolds 209

References 211

Index 215

Editorial Reviews

Open Windows, Open Minds is a powerful and instructive guide for White educators who are striving to become more effective allies, accomplices, and co-conspirators. Afrika Afeni Mills offers a progression of reflection and action that will empower White educators to dismantle our internalized biases and prejudices and provide better learning opportunities for our students.

Teacher, Author, The Book Whisperer - Donalyn Miller

Afrika Afeni Mills expertly offers just the right blend of reflective questions for increasing racial consciousness, with numerous resources, and asks us as White educators to heal ourselves so that we might provide a more accurate racial understanding for all of our students. Doing the exercises within this book is a must-do for any educator who wants to further the work of racial justice in schools.

Co-Founder, Teaching While White - Jenna Chandler-Ward

Afrika Afeni Mills’s work is, in short, exceptional. She guides her readers through some of the most important reflections that we can undertake, often with a clever approach that places our answers in conversation with other thoughtful educators around the country. Next, she guides us through practical strategies that not only are grounded in the early chapters’ reflective practices but also show us how to inspire students to start—or continue—their own journeys of rigorous reflection about their racial identities. I love how, when doing this, Mills never offers the empty generalities that we have become accustomed to in recent times. She instead embraces complexity and shows us how we can encourage our students to do the same. Open Windows, Open Minds is truly a must-read, in every sense of the phrase.

Teacher, Author, Not Light but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom, and Co-Author, Answ - Matthew R. Kay

The key contribution of Open Windows, Open Minds is Afrika Afeni Mills’s ability to carefully, transformatively step readers—and especially White teachers—through our own knowing better so that we can do better supporting students’ abilities to know and do better.

Founder and Lead Equity Specialist, Equity Literacy Institute - Paul Gorski

Afrika Afeni Mills’s Open Windows, Open Minds: Developing Antiracist, Pro-Human Students is a must-read for K–16+ educators who want not only to espouseantiracism practices but also to do the deep transformative work required for this within schools and communities in a way that orients us all toward freedom and liberation.

Associate Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development/Chief Diversity Officer Office of Academic Affairs & Provost, Tu - Anneliese Signh

In this book, White teachers have an answer. The work of being pro-human is hard and in some ways requires that teachers reinvent the wheel. Afrika Afeni Mills has done a fantastic job of laying out a process for these teachers to follow. From the prologue to the very end, there are nuggets of wisdom and powerful examples that offer concrete ideas. Considering the struggles our schools are facing and the needs White students have for ABAR learning, this is a timely and necessary book.

Lorena Germán of Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices

Afrika Afeni Mills’s book fills an important gap in the arena of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She helps us understand why White students need to build their cultural competence if we are to truly have a society that is bias-free. If you’re a White educator or parent, this book will help you to let go of the things that no longer serve you and to teach your students to embrace those things that will help create welcoming environments where all feel a sense of belonging.

Zaretta Hammond of Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement

Open Windows, Open Minds isn’t simply a book you will read. It’s a brilliant book you will reread, mark up, keep near, talk about, and encourage others to read. It’s a critical text for anyone committed to living an antiracist life. It’s a book you will start reading for just ten minutes and then discover you have sat still with thoughts racing for an hour. It’s a how-to book that is also a why-you-must book.

Kylene Beers of When Kids Can’t Read; Notice and Note; and Forged by Reading Past President of

Afrika Afeni Mills’s book fills an important gap in the arena of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She helps us understand why White students need to build their cultural competence if we are to truly have a society that is bias-free. If you’re a White educator or parent, this book will help you to let go of the things that no longer serve you and to teach your students to embrace those things that will help create welcoming environments where all feel a sense of belonging.

Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor - Zaretta Hammond

Open Windows, Open Minds isn’t simply a book you will read. It’s a brilliant book you will reread, mark up, keep near, talk about, and encourage others to read. It’s a critical text for anyone committed to living an antiracist life. It’s a book you will start reading for just ten minutes and then discover you have sat still with thoughts racing for an hour. It’s a how-to book that is also a why-you-must book.

Author of When Kids Can’t Read; Notice and Note; and Forged by Reading Past President of the National Council of T - Kylene Beers

In this book, White teachers have an answer. The work of being pro-human is hard and in some ways requires that teachers reinvent the wheel. Afrika Afeni Mills has done a fantastic job of laying out a process for these teachers to follow. From the prologue to the very end, there are nuggets of wisdom and powerful examples that offer concrete ideas. Considering the struggles our schools are facing and the needs White students have for ABAR learning, this is a timely and necessary book.

Author of Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices - Lorena Germán