Promising Practices

            My experience at Rhode Island College’s Promising Practices was so rewarding! 

During the Morning Session, I attended a workshop on social justice that included two presentations.  The first presentation was facilitated by Marcus McWilliams, a RIC graduate who teaches for English for Action.  As explained by McWilliams, English for Action is an organization that focuses on the education of minority students who struggle in traditionalized schools.  The program places a large emphasis on the perpetuation of social equity and justice through the examination of the Civil Rights.  During the presentation, McWilliams highlighted the responsibility of teachers to differentiate between the traditional narrative and the historical narrative; thus, focusing on the Truths (stressing the capital “T”) of racism, prejudice, and the pursuit of collective righteousness.  In order to reach the audience of pre-service and practicing educators, McWilliams challenged the attendees with an informal, multiple-choice assessment on civil rights with the hope of dispelling common misconceptions of our history.  The following two questions resonated with me; thus, disputing my preconceived notions of the established historical accounts that is propagated in our schools’ textbooks.  Prior to scrolling down, I ask that you reflect upon and formulate a response to the prompts.  I provide my initial response and McWilliams’s elucidation.

1. Who was Rosa Parks?

My initial response:  Rosa Parks was an African-American woman who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the city bus.

McWilliams’s elaboration:  The arrest of Rosa Parks was not an isolated incident, but a strategic protest to racial segregation.  After the arrest of Parks, the black people of Montgomery and sympathizers of other races organized and promoted a boycott of the city bus line that lasted 381 days.

2.  Where was the KKK the most influential during the Civil Rights Movement?

My initial response:  Unsure of the correct answer, I assumed that the KKK was most active in the Southern states such as Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia.

McWilliams’s answer:  Oregon.  Baffled by this assertion, I took to the Internet.  Please visit the following URL for additional information: http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/ku_klux_klan/.

            Following McWilliams’s lecture, a second workshop continued the discussion of social justice.  Entitled Slammin’ for Social Justice:  Teachers and Students Talk Back, the seminar was lead by secondary teachers from Pilgrim High School, Bishop Connolly High School (my alma mater), and Resiliency Preparatory School, and focused on the art of slam poetry as a form of self-expression.  The message of the second workshop lends a voice to McWilliams’s message—it was a wonderfully active tie-in!  Each teacher read a poem that he or she composed in response to questions on social justice.  One poem was comedic; one poem was dismal; one poem was uplifting.  Nevertheless, I was most struck by a poem read by a junior at the Resiliency Preparatory School in Fall River, an alternative high school for students who are labeled as delinquents.  Backed with a courage and maturity that was beyond his years, the student eloquently defined the term of resiliency.  He proffered the message that he was judged, tried, and convicted by his peers, and subsequently felt like an outcast.  His ruminations proved to be so touching…I become teary!  It was his English teacher, Diane Long, who ‘saved’ this student and gave him a voice—a creative voice that is assertive and filled with self-conviction!  It was a wonderful moment to witness!

            So inspired by the message of social consciousness provided during the workshops of Promising Practices, I leave you with two writing prompts that may begin a dialogue with your students:  “I once was…, now I am…” or “They say…, I say…”  Usurp the traditional narrative and allow your students to explore.