An ASCD Study Guide for The Innocent Classroom: Dismantling Racial Bias to Support Students of Color

Most of the questions contained in this study guide are ones you can think about on your own, with a colleague, or in a study group with others who have read (or are reading) The Innocent Classroom.

Introduction

Reflection and Discussion

1. Think about your training as an educator. What have you learned about developing relationships with individual students? Which strategies seem to be most effective? Are you able to describe the process you use for building relationships with students?
2. On page 17, an Innocent Classroom teacher reflects on why they chose to become an educator. What are the reasons you chose to work in education?

Additional Practice

1. The Practice section on page 11 asked, "Whom do you admire most?" Was this difficult to answer? What are the reasons you chose the person you did? Think about the students you work with. How do you think they would have answered this question? Commit to asking some of them this question, and compare your thoughts with their answers.
2. In this chapter, we get to see the experience of an individual child through his own lens. Think about one of your students and see if you can spend one day trying to see how that child is experiencing the things happening to them throughout the course of that day.
3. On page 18, the author says, "I understand that awareness about cultural, racial, sexual, and gender histories and realities that most educators are engaged in, must underpin our journey of constructing the Innocent Classroom, and context is important." Make a list of the professional development opportunities, book groups, and any other efforts that you think might align with the practice of the Innocent Classroom. As you continue reading the book, challenge yourself to consider how each of these intersects with what you are learning.

Chapter 1. Deepening Understanding

Reflection and Discussion

1. In this chapter you were asked to generate a list in response to the question "What does American culture tell you about children of color?" Return to the list you created and consider the following:
   * What was your experience creating this list? What thoughts and feelings arose during the exercise?
   * Think about the children in your classroom or school. Does this list encompass all your students of color? Does it include students of all genders? Are there any groups you left out?
   * Did you find yourself wanting to reflect on what you believe rather than on the messages that we know exist in society? Did you hesitate to write down any answers that came to mind, or try put a positive spin on some to make them less negative?
2. Can you think of an occasion when you were aware of a stereotype that existed about you? How did you experience this awareness? Think about how you felt physically and emotionally. How did this affect how you "showed up"?

Additional Practice

1. In this chapter, you were asked to identify three children to focus on as you read this book. At the top of a piece of paper, write down the name of one of these children. On the left side of the paper, write down all the behaviors you see from this child. On the right side, write down the things you truly know about the child. What has the child been willing to reveal to you about who they truly are? Repeat this process for each child.
2. On page 38, the author writes, "when we say, 'Guilt hides good,' we don't mean that students' negative behavior obscures their positive qualities, although it may; we mean that many negative behaviors are actually manifestations of a students' hidden good." Pick one of the qualities you generated in your list (in response to the question "What does American culture tell you about children of color?") that seems most relevant to the students you work with. If a child has been told over and over that this is who they are, what are some ways that child might be "showing up" in your classroom or school?

Chapter 2. Discovering Students' Good

Reflection and Discussion

1. Spend a day listening to what children are saying to you, to other educators, and to one another. Can you identify a narrative of guilt in what you are hearing? How about in ways educators are responding to children–or communicating about children with one another?
2. Why is it important that your process of discovering a child's good be like that of a detective, without being obvious or explicit about what you are doing?
3. The process of discovering good is not rocket science; in many ways, each step might seem familiar. How do you think intentionally focusing on each step of this process can help you build a relationship with a child?
4. What are some of the things (e.g., time, class size) that you see as barriers to discovering a student's good? How might you address those barriers to create the opportunity to try this practice?
5. On page 38, the author says, "good is not the opposite of bad; it is neutral." Think about the books you read, the television shows you watch, and the movies you see. Can you identify characters in each of these and begin to see how good operates?

Additional Practice

1. In this chapter, you were asked to identify your own good. How easy or difficult was it for you to choose one? What are the reasons you arrived at this good? What are some ways your good is engaged in your daily life? How do you respond when you feel as though your good isn't being engaged?
2. In the "Additional Practice" section for Chapter 1 in this study guide, you created a chart for each child you are focused on. Return to those charts. On the right side, where you documented what you know about each child, check to see if your statements are free of your own epistemology. Try to rewrite any that may hold your perspective as part of the observation. Try to understand how the child is experiencing the world.
3. For each child you are focused on, write down three to five things you are going to do to get to know the child better. Document the things you learn in your chart.
4. Think about someone you are close to in your own life. We consistently engage with people we are close to, knowing what they need from us, even if we don't have this language of "good." When we know someone's good, we can get a handle on why this person is acting this way. Can you identify the good of people in your own life?

Chapter 3. Valuing

Reflection and Discussion

1. How would you describe the relationship you have with each of the children you are focusing on? How do you think they would describe their relationship with you?
2. It can be hard to notice progress when you first start this practice. What are some ways you might track progress in your relationships with the three children you are thinking about?
3. On page 57, the author says, "good generates empathy, which increases our effectiveness with the child in front of us." What are the challenges for you in "leaning into" this level of empathy for an individual child?
4. On page 62, the author lists the following three checkpoints to help you assess your readiness:
   By this point in the construction process, you should know the following:
   

   * Many of our children of color are mired in the way American culture portrays them.

   * Students' response to you and to their education is often proscribed by the stereotypical images and narratives about them that they have absorbed.

   * Knowing and responding to students' good increases the likelihood that they will accept you and your efforts to educate them.

   
   Where are you in your readiness? What have been the challenges? What have been your successes?

Additional Practice

1. In Chapter 2, you were asked to identify your own good. Can you begin to identify some personal responses that you have to students' behavior that is centered on your own good? How can you adjust those responses to center an individual child's good?
2. In this chapter, you were asked to guess at the good of the three children you are focused on. For each child, think about how they are experiencing your classroom and their relationship with you through the lens of that good. For example, if a child's good is "connected," reflect on how they interact with you, with their peers, and with the class content. Do you see ways they are or are not "connected" in your classroom?

Chapter 4. Engaging and Responding to Students' Good

Reflection and Discussion

1. Throughout this chapter, you were asked to create strategies for the children in the vignettes. How easy or hard was this for you to complete? Did you find certain goods more challenging to engage than others? What else would you want to ask about these specific children to help you create strategies?
2. Part of a child's willingness to share who they are with you is allowing them to see you for who you truly are. What are some ways you allow children to get to know you? What are some things you could share with these individual children that would demonstrate your commitment to your relationship with them?

Additional Practice

1. Each child you are focused on has their own set of interests, passions, and talents. Generate a list of things you know or would like to know about the three children you are focused on that would help you understand them better. Now return to your guess at their good. Based on everything you know, beyond behaviors and challenges, do you need to adjust your guess?
2. Sometimes our own good leads us to create strategies that feel most comfortable for ourselves. Return to the strategies you created for the children you are focused on and evaluate them through the lens of each child's good. Does the individual strategy lend itself to engaging that child's good in a way that makes sense for that child?
3. Our first strategies can't be our only strategies. As you try the first strategies with an individual child, you will continue to learn new things about them. We have to show each child that this is intentional, that we are committed to this relationship. Once you have tried your strategies, return to each child and create at least one new strategy that reinforces your growing relationship with them.

Chapter 5. Nurturing Innocence

Reflection and Discussion

1. The script our kids are handed (the guilts) is also a script that is "handed" to us as educators. The behaviors our kids show us are driven by this script–and it is possible that we see how our kids are showing up through this script, as well. For example, a student who consistently speaks out of turn might be referred to as "disruptive" or "rude" when that behavior actually demonstrates her eagerness to learn. Think of the three students you are focused on. Are there some behaviors you are seeing from each student that you are observing through the "script" that is running through your own head? Is there another way you could see what this student is truly asking you for through the lens of their good?
2. At this point in your development, you should be trying new ways to engage individual students' goods. If you have not started this process, what is standing in your way?
3. On page 97, the author writes, "you can't be put off by or quit on a student who has not responded to your effort." Have you experienced a student not responding to your strategy in the way you wanted? If so, take the time now to refine your guess at the student's good and create new strategies to engage with this child.
4. You have chosen three children to focus on as you embark on this practice, with the ultimate goal of committing to do this for every child. What would you need to establish this practice with consistency in your own role or classroom?

Additional Practice

1. For each of the three students you are focused on, create three strategies you can use to engage their good when something hasn't gone well in the classroom or in your relationship. Having these strategies ready ahead of time will make it easier to respond to students' good even in challenging times.
2. Come up with three ways in which you will consistently provide students with direct and personal validation and curricular validation.
3. Tracking your relationship progress with students is an essential part of nurturing their innocence. What method are you going to use to track these relationships? Start with the three students you have been focusing on and slowly add more students as you discover their good.

Chapter 6. Protecting and Advocating

Reflection and Discussion

1. Once you have engaged in this practice for individual children in your classroom, it is crucial that you begin to reflect on the narratives that exist in your classroom. Thinking of your own classroom, reflect on these questions:
   * What is the narrative operating in your classroom about your classroom?
   * What is the narrative operating in your classroom about community?
   * What is the narrative operating in your classroom about what is possible for individual kids?
   * What changes might you make to your classroom to subliminally foster innocent engagement?
2. Do you believe it is possible for you to create an environment where innocence is possible for every child in your care? Why or why not?

Additional Practice

1. With your commitment to this practice, you have become something very special for your children: they now see you as an ally. On page 105, the author writes, "With this status comes a responsibility to represent them as accurately as you can to your colleagues and administrators. You can use your knowledge to protect them from possibly well-meaning adults who do not understand how students' 'good' may generate certain behaviors." For each of the three children you have focused on, make a plan to consistently advocate for them when working with colleagues and administrators.
2. Engaging a child's good is the pathway to their innocence for the time they are with you. Consider the ways in your own role or classroom in which you can consistently present narratives that support innocence for your students:
   * What narratives would counter the negative script for this child?
   * What narratives would enhance or support the child's good?
   * What narratives would increase the level of innocence for this child?
3. Make a list of all the factors and obstacles that you believe may get in the way of consistently protecting and advocating for the innocence of children in your care. Review the list and generate three clear ways you will commit to removing or overcoming those challenges.
4. Protecting your decision to become an Innocent Classroom educator will be tested at times–by children, by colleagues, by administration. What are three ways you will remind yourself of your commitment to the children in your classroom?

The Innocent Classroom: Dismantling Racial Bias to Support Students of Color was written by Alexs Pate. This 121-page, 6" × 9" book (Stock #120025; ISBN-13: 978-1-4166-2933-7) is available from ASCD. Copyright © 2020 by Alexs Pate. To order a copy, call ASCD at 1-800-933-2723 (in Virginia 1-703-578-9600) and press 2 for the Service Center. Or buy the book from ASCD's Online Store.