Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and a welcome to woke F Daily
Speaker 1: with me your girl, Danielle Moody recording from the Long
Speaker 1: Island Bunker. You know, I often say to you that
Speaker 1: you need to take a break so that you do
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Speaker 1: dear friends here on woke F, I am going to
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Speaker 1: rest and recharge as we head into what I believe
Speaker 1: is going to be one of the craziest falls we've
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Speaker 1: these episodes and these interviews that I think will be
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Speaker 1: Plots of Slates Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates,
Speaker 1: it can be tricky to sort through all the noise
Speaker 1: and the news. Each week, on the Gapfest, John Dickerson,
Speaker 1: Emily Bathlona and I decipher the headlines, break down the races,
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Speaker 1: always agree, We definitely do not always agree, but we
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Speaker 1: I am so excited to be joined on woke F
Speaker 1: Daily with and I don't want to tell you this,
Speaker 1: m Brieu. I am a former educator, and so I
Speaker 1: am super excited about about this conversation with doctor Bree Pickhauer,
Speaker 1: Associate professor at Montclair State University and the author of Reading,
Speaker 1: Writing and Racism, Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher, Education and the Classroom.
Speaker 1: Brie I'm so excited to have you here because you know,
Speaker 1: education has always been a part of the work that
Speaker 1: I do, whether it was when I was teaching in
Speaker 1: the classroom. I was a first and second grade teacher
Speaker 1: and with children with special needs as well as general education.
Speaker 1: When I went to the Hill, I did so because
Speaker 1: I wanted to work on education policy. Now, as my
Speaker 1: life has unfolded, I still consider myself an educator. I
Speaker 1: just do it through different mediums. This book, Reading, Writing,
Speaker 1: and Racism. Talk to me about it and why now
Speaker 1: was the time for this kind of book? Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, and thank you for having me. I
Speaker 1: don't think now was the time. I've been doing this
Speaker 1: work around racism and education for twenty years. This just
Speaker 1: so happened to be the time that this book came
Speaker 1: out of me. But I think that it, unfortunately is timely,
Speaker 1: because there's an awareness among white people, particularly as white
Speaker 1: educators and white people around beginning to recognize and do
Speaker 1: work on the way that they're enacting racism that they
Speaker 1: may not have been aware of or we may not
Speaker 1: have been aware of previously. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: that it wasn't there. It just means that suddenly an
Speaker 1: interest a little bit of a light bulb after the
Speaker 1: summer and after January sixth, it just so happened that
Speaker 1: the book is timely, But it wasn't meant to be.
Speaker 1: You know, I went through a My master's program for
Speaker 1: early childhood education was a very unique program because it
Speaker 1: was about unpacking your own racism, your own discrimination, understanding
Speaker 1: how you were taught and what not to bring into
Speaker 1: the classroom as a teacher. And you know, my professors
Speaker 1: were so intentional about this program. It's called the U
Speaker 1: Team program at George Mason University, and they were so
Speaker 1: intent on how we unlearn discrimination, how we unlearn white supremacy.
Speaker 1: And it's something that I have often said is taught right,
Speaker 1: like we teach white supremacy. And so you know what
Speaker 1: what kind of of I would ask, like what kind
Speaker 1: of pushback do you get when you're telling people like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're we're we're doing this work, but we have to
Speaker 1: like we have to undo this work in our classrooms.
Speaker 1: Like it isn't just it isn't just a you know,
Speaker 1: an exercise in like growth in our democracy, but it's like,
Speaker 1: how do we do that? Well, I'm so glad to
Speaker 1: hear that that was your experience, because it certainly isn't
Speaker 1: the norm in teacher education programs. I think most teacher
Speaker 1: educators consider themselves specialists in the subject area that they're
Speaker 1: preparing people to teach. So I'm elementary education, my specialty
Speaker 1: of social study, so that's what I'm supposed to prepare
Speaker 1: people to do. Instead of thinking about that we are
Speaker 1: preparing a whole person that is going to be sitting
Speaker 1: in front of a whole room full of people. And
Speaker 1: that what teachers teach is not just their subject matter.
Speaker 1: We teach our beliefs. And so if we're not giving
Speaker 1: our future teachers an opportunity to unpack what it is
Speaker 1: that they believe, particularly around race, then they're going to
Speaker 1: go in and teach mainstream, dominant racial ideology to their students.
Speaker 1: And that's what the first part of my book is about,
Speaker 1: is the kind of racist curriculum that is going viral
Speaker 1: right now that is sort of seen as one off
Speaker 1: bad teachers or bad apples, but that really point to
Speaker 1: the permanence of racism and education because, like most of society,
Speaker 1: teachers have not necessarily done that deep work to understand
Speaker 1: they're the way that they think about race, the way
Speaker 1: that they think about difference. You know, I've often believed,
Speaker 1: you know, we did such a grave disservice to everyone,
Speaker 1: not like not just teachers when we say and oh,
Speaker 1: you know, be blind to race, right, like, let's let's
Speaker 1: let's ignore it, let's tolerate it, right. I I grew
Speaker 1: up in a in a schooling system that was ninety
Speaker 1: six percent white. I was the only black kid all
Speaker 1: most of the time in my in my classes, and
Speaker 1: that wasn't acknowledged and by like, by the not acknowledging it,
Speaker 1: it was like it was it was, you know, a
Speaker 1: way to basically say you need to assimilate, right, like
Speaker 1: you are supposed to assimilate to be like everybody else,
Speaker 1: and that the uniqueness and the experiences that you're bringing
Speaker 1: into this place, we don't care. Yeah. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: such a you know for teachers that sort of with
Speaker 1: pride have that I don't see a color. I see blue, purple, yellow.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really based in a deficit notion of
Speaker 1: people of color when you hear white teacher say that,
Speaker 1: because what they're what they're saying is if I acknowledge
Speaker 1: your race, then there's something negative that I'm doing. There's
Speaker 1: some reason why I'm not supposed to notice it. And
Speaker 1: if I'm not supposed to notice it, it must be
Speaker 1: because there's something wrong with it, and so there's this
Speaker 1: fear that in actual really what I think is underneath
Speaker 1: that is a fear of being called racist. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a fear underneath a lot of white teachers, and
Speaker 1: so they espouse this race evasive kind of mentality. I've
Speaker 1: been moving away from color blind because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: move away, I know, and I actually when you just
Speaker 1: I know, and when you just said race a vase,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's a better that's a better term. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been working on that one in the field for
Speaker 1: a while. Um, But I think that it's it's really
Speaker 1: what's under underneath that is deficit understandings about race. I
Speaker 1: a student once who was like, well, it's not that
Speaker 1: I don't want to acknowledge their race, but I also,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to be making assumptions. It's like,
Speaker 1: what is the assumption you're afraid that you're making. What
Speaker 1: was the assumption that they were afraid that they were making. Well,
Speaker 1: it was actually very confusing when she actually started to
Speaker 1: talk about when she started to get into it, she
Speaker 1: had a lot of confusion around race period. I Mean,
Speaker 1: there's so much right beneath the surface you know, she
Speaker 1: started talking about how, well, if she gets a tan,
Speaker 1: then she's darker than some of her students, and so
Speaker 1: I think she was wondering if that if she's still white.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was Look, this stuff is unexamined and
Speaker 1: it's wet, and so if we're not giving them a
Speaker 1: place to talk about this, then the classroom is the
Speaker 1: place where they're experimenting. And we see the results of
Speaker 1: what that looks like when we see these pieces of
Speaker 1: curriculum that are around it. You know, as recent as
Speaker 1: three days ago, there was a curriculum out of Wisconsin
Speaker 1: around um. I think that the words were something like that,
Speaker 1: something about an escaped slave yep, and the punt and
Speaker 1: how would you how I could? I like, for the
Speaker 1: life of me, Bree, when these stories come out, I'm like,
Speaker 1: how how I know that teachers sit down and they
Speaker 1: plan out their week, they plan out their unit, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, how how did something like that happen?
Speaker 1: And that's where this book came out of, really was
Speaker 1: I was just I started collecting these examples like this
Speaker 1: because I have students who don't white, students who don't
Speaker 1: necessarily believe that racism is still a problem at least
Speaker 1: prety fifth president. I'm like pre insurrection and you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of post racial. So I had started collecting
Speaker 1: these examples show no, this actually is a problem. And
Speaker 1: so after some point it it got beyond the shock
Speaker 1: value and the disturbing value of them, and I really
Speaker 1: started to question, you know, these aren't anomalies, These aren't
Speaker 1: going anywhere, and so what is their function? How are
Speaker 1: these examples actually functioning to a maintain white supremacy and
Speaker 1: be teach the next generation dominant ideology without them necessarily
Speaker 1: even knowing the history. How is it still teaching the
Speaker 1: mainstream ideas around grace to the next generation. How is
Speaker 1: it reinvesting in whiteness? And so that's really where the
Speaker 1: book started, was to analyze these examples to move past
Speaker 1: the like disturbing shock value, to see that these actually
Speaker 1: do have a purpose, and their purpose is to maintain
Speaker 1: racial hierarchies. What do your students say when you present
Speaker 1: that truth? Because they you know, what I want to
Speaker 1: say is that I don't necessarily believe that all white
Speaker 1: teachers think one like, think about upholding white supremacy, right,
Speaker 1: but it's almost you are upholding something that you are
Speaker 1: willingly ignoring And so how when your face like, literally,
Speaker 1: what I feel like your work does is it holds
Speaker 1: up a mirror. Right, which your work does is hold
Speaker 1: up a mirror and has us stop instead of looking
Speaker 1: at these stories as these one offs, right, look at
Speaker 1: the pattern and look at what it's producing. Right, Like
Speaker 1: you you you teach this, So how do you like
Speaker 1: when you hold up the mirror? What is the response
Speaker 1: to you to them to saying like, by doing this work,
Speaker 1: you are upholding this incredible, believe violent system. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it depends and I found that it mainly depends on
Speaker 1: not what someone comes into the program believing, but really
Speaker 1: how open are they to having this conversation. So there
Speaker 1: are definitely students that respond with resistance, and I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, over the twenty years that I've been doing this,
Speaker 1: I've learned how to navigate that a little bit better
Speaker 1: so that I see less of that. But there is resistance.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's like an openness to it. Some of them
Speaker 1: really start questioning and doing that deep examination, and then
Speaker 1: some of them are just like about it, you know,
Speaker 1: as soon as they hear it, they're like, yes, I
Speaker 1: get this, what's my responsibility, now what do I need
Speaker 1: to do differently? So it's really a range and and
Speaker 1: it's been a surprise and an interest to me that
Speaker 1: it isn't about how much are you already thinking about
Speaker 1: this coming in? It's really how reflective are you willing
Speaker 1: to be? Do you find that there is a difference
Speaker 1: in reception to this based on is it elementary or
Speaker 1: high school or middle school teachers? Like, is there is
Speaker 1: there a variance there? Well, I'm an elementary person at heart,
Speaker 1: but I codirect a program now that's K twelve, and
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I mean, I think that high
Speaker 1: school teachers generally tend to come in with a little
Speaker 1: bit more understanding of the intellectual nature of education, whereas
Speaker 1: elementaries teachers often come in because they love children, and
Speaker 1: so it takes a little bit more to push to say, okay,
Speaker 1: but it's not just about like picking apples and making
Speaker 1: apple sauce, and like we're actually going to engage young
Speaker 1: people in these critical conversations. They can do, they can
Speaker 1: handle it, whereas I think high school teachers know that
Speaker 1: that's what they signed up for. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: it really depends on the person and the person's willingness
Speaker 1: to go deep. You know, it's funny you're now remembering, um,
Speaker 1: the few white women that were in my master's of
Speaker 1: education program, and they were really unhappy with the way
Speaker 1: that it was being taught, right, Like, they because of
Speaker 1: literally what you just said. I want to become an
Speaker 1: early childhood educator because I love children and I want,
Speaker 1: you know, to to play and I want to create
Speaker 1: like this playful you know environment for them, Like why
Speaker 1: are you talking to me about race and racism? Right?
Speaker 1: And like it was this it was this feeling that
Speaker 1: they didn't want to be told to feel to like,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to be perceived as bad, right, and
Speaker 1: so it was like an order for me not to
Speaker 1: be perceived as bad, not to be perceived as racist,
Speaker 1: then I have to block all of this out, yes,
Speaker 1: and I just like people, right, Like that was all
Speaker 1: you know, that was kind of the pushback and you know,
Speaker 1: and the field the sentiment that the professors would would provide.
Speaker 1: It's like, right, but you're teaching all kinds of people.
Speaker 1: They're not they're not going to stay children forever, like
Speaker 1: they're growing into adults, adults, right, Like you're training adults
Speaker 1: like you know, like and I and I don't think
Speaker 1: I think it was very much lost on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that there's also this idea that if
Speaker 1: I don't veer into this sort of anti racist social
Speaker 1: justice curriculum, then I'm just being neutral, like yes and not.
Speaker 1: And so for a lot of elementary teachers, they're scared
Speaker 1: to sort of, you know, teach a more critical history,
Speaker 1: even you know, the quintessential examples Christopher columb Right. And
Speaker 1: so if I teach the teach the perspective of the
Speaker 1: Tino indigenous people, then I'm being political. But if I
Speaker 1: teach the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, then
Speaker 1: I'm being neutral. But actually you're not. You're you're glorifying
Speaker 1: the history of polonization and you're ignoring the genocide and
Speaker 1: the violence of what Columbus actually did and what he
Speaker 1: set the stage for. And so I think teachers just
Speaker 1: think that that maintaining the status quo means that I'm
Speaker 1: not being political, But it's extra and it's all and
Speaker 1: it's all inherently political exactly right, like the way the
Speaker 1: way that the way that history has been set up,
Speaker 1: the way that we teach is inherently political. Who you
Speaker 1: decide to say is you know, even in music class,
Speaker 1: I can remember, like, who you are anointing as the
Speaker 1: music that children have to learn, right, Like is white men.
Speaker 1: So it's like and the icons that you're saying are
Speaker 1: these inventors and what have you? Are white men? So
Speaker 1: it's like, so, how do you break through? How do
Speaker 1: you break through that? Like? That is it is all
Speaker 1: pull because the purpose I have said this forever, the
Speaker 1: purpose of our public education system is to uphold white supremacy.
Speaker 1: Like that that is the purpose of it. What do
Speaker 1: you want because I think that your book, it's it's
Speaker 1: not just for teachers, it's for parents, right, it's for
Speaker 1: anybody that that interacts with kids, right, Like, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you break this system? What are the
Speaker 1: tools you know that if a parent is or you know,
Speaker 1: a teacher obviously is picking up this book, what are
Speaker 1: some of the tools that they can get to help
Speaker 1: to help start to help start the process. Because it
Speaker 1: is a process. It's not going to be one and done.
Speaker 1: It's not like I read this book and now I'm
Speaker 1: an anti No, it is a it's a practice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that the one of the strengths of
Speaker 1: the books is that it uses a framework that is
Speaker 1: really very popular and anti racism work now, which is
Speaker 1: the four Eyes that look at how individual, interpersonal m sorry, individual, internalized,
Speaker 1: institutional and ideological oppression work together. And so while it
Speaker 1: may seem from the book that an individual can take
Speaker 1: things away and reflect on their own socialization around race,
Speaker 1: the solution is not an individual one, because, as you
Speaker 1: said that, it's the institution of education that's upholding white supremacy,
Speaker 1: and teachers are very unique because they are right in
Speaker 1: the matrix. They're right in the middle of all four
Speaker 1: of these systems of oppression. They're upholding institutional racism through
Speaker 1: their own individual racism. And so we can't just try
Speaker 1: to change individual teachers, even though it seems like that's
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. But I'm arguing that the institution of
Speaker 1: deeper education, the institution of education that's providing professional development
Speaker 1: and training for educators, needs to shift to do this
Speaker 1: deep examination work because that's the only way that we're
Speaker 1: actually going to see changes and not only curriculum, but
Speaker 1: in relationships in classroom, community, and school policy. Is when
Speaker 1: everyone is doing that work, we're no longer working to
Speaker 1: uphold racist systems, we might be working together to dismantle them, right,
Speaker 1: and that can't happen if on large scales we're not
Speaker 1: supporting that kind of that kind of exercise. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you another question before I let
Speaker 1: you go, which is that you know it's a Black
Speaker 1: History month, right, and usually you know, in amal in
Speaker 1: normal times, in schools all over the country plastered with
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King posters and Rosa parks and this stent
Speaker 1: and the other thing, there is an intention, an intentionality,
Speaker 1: even if a superficial one around this month. What do
Speaker 1: you think about black history being like a curriculum for
Speaker 1: February but then not incorporated at all the other eleven
Speaker 1: months of the year. Yeah, for kids they have like
Speaker 1: it makes I mean it could It should be a yes,
Speaker 1: aunt right, it should be. It's incorporated throughout the year,
Speaker 1: and we're going to pay special attention to it now,
Speaker 1: but not that we're going to segregate it into this
Speaker 1: one month. And again, if teachers are not doing this
Speaker 1: kind of examination, white teachers are not doing this examination,
Speaker 1: it's still going to be taught in a deficit, problematic
Speaker 1: way that focuses a only on I saw a post
Speaker 1: the other day on Facebook that was chadow slavery isn't
Speaker 1: a chadow slavery is not black history. It's white history, right,
Speaker 1: but it's taught as black history, right damn. And so
Speaker 1: all of the ways in which white people have oppressed, marginalized,
Speaker 1: and and done all of the atrocities that we have
Speaker 1: done to black people is white history, black resistance, black invention,
Speaker 1: black joy. That's Black history. And that's not how it's framed.
Speaker 1: That's not how it's taught in schools, um and it's
Speaker 1: and it's when it is taught, it's often being taught
Speaker 1: through that deficit dominant ideology. So you know, Rosa Parks
Speaker 1: was tired, or we're going to Martin Luther King, how
Speaker 1: to tream? Isn't that nice? Not about his anti capitalists,
Speaker 1: anti war, you know, speaking truth to the white moderate.
Speaker 1: That's not what's getting taught during Black History when teachers
Speaker 1: haven't examined that. So that's why I'm saying we can't
Speaker 1: tinker with curriculum. We need to do deep excavation to
Speaker 1: teachers racial ideology, and that's what will change curriculum. You
Speaker 1: are doing the Lord's work, Bree, You really are. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you so much. Folks. The book is reading, writing
Speaker 1: and racism, disrupting whiteness in teacher education and the classroom. Bree,
Speaker 1: you have got to come back to wokaf because this
Speaker 1: conversation could go on for the longest, because I think
Speaker 1: that it is the most important work to do. Like,
Speaker 1: if we're to break with the abuse and cycle of
Speaker 1: white supremacy, then you have to start with education. It
Speaker 1: is the only place to start. Well, it was my
Speaker 1: pleasure anytime. Thank you so much for having me as always,
Speaker 1: dear friends. Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck. See after Labor Day.