Praxis Conference 2019
Anti-Racist Pedagogy: Visions and Practices for Institutional Change
Friday, February 22, 2019, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Cascade Rooms, Haggett Hall
University of Washington, Seattle Campus
Schedule Overview:
- 9:00-9:15 Registration and Check-in
- 9:15-9:30 Welcome Remarks
- 9:40-10:40 Concurrent Session A
- 10:50-11:50 Concurrent Session B
- 12:00-1:15 Keynote Panel (Refreshments will be provided)
- 1:20-2:20 Workshops
- 2:30-3:00 Reflection conversation & Closing words
9:00-9:15 Registration and Check-in: Cascade Rooms
9:15-9:30 Welcome Remarks: Cascade Rooms
Welcome speech by Sumyat Thu, conference chair, and Carrie Matthews, conference faculty advisor.
9:40-10:40 Concurrent Session A (45 minute panel presentations with a 15-min Q&A)
A1 “I had to prove myself before people took me seriously”: Responding to International &Multilingual Student Experiences of Discrimination (North Cascade)
Sandra Silberstein, Mutallip Anwar, Ryan Burt, Mihaela Giurca, Katie Malcolm
Based on the three Seattle campus surveys done in fall 2017, panelists share students’ reported experiences with exclusion and discrimination in UW’s academic settings. They report students’ comments in the form of major recurring themes and suggest changes in pedagogical practices to have a global and multilingual analysis in anti-racist pedagogy.
A2 Shifting the Discourses of Yoga, Correctional Settings, and Sex Work Towards Social Justice (South Cascade)
Amber Kim, Alice Pedersen, Dyana Prewitt
Based on three different but related contexts, an FYW class that draws on the “Seattle Yoga Controversy,” a 2015 event when a People of Color-only yoga class in Rainier Beach was violently shut down by white protestors, the creation of ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’ committees in correctional and educational settings, and dissenting discourses on “left Twitter” regarding sex work, the presenters discuss how the pedagogical and communicative practices of each context can be shifted towards upholding social justice by reflecting on contemplative pedagogy, Julia Serano’s framework of changing a focus on diversity to a focus on challenging double standards, and self-empowering practices of sex workers.
A3 #notmyhero and #studentvoices: Challenging the Knowledge Hierarchies in Teaching Scandinavian Mythology and Academic Research (Olympic)
Emily Willard & Lauren Poyer
Based on their teaching experiences on a Scandinavian literature class and a human rights seminar in Law, Societies, and Justice, the presenters discuss the need to challenge the inequitable power structures embedded in teaching the canonical literature from the Middle Ages and the conventional methods of academic research which give more privilege to secondary sources over students’ personal voices and the voices of their families and communities. Poyer discusses strategies on helping students challenge culturally dominant narratives about the Middle Ages, and Willard shares a set of guidelines for students to formally cite in their research papers their personal experiences and personal interviews done with family and community members.
A4 Decolonizing Classrooms and Higher Education from the Lens of Critical Race Theory (Rainier)
Yan Wang & Manjeet Kaur
Drawing on critical race theory, anti-colonial theory, and scholarship in teaching English to speakers of other languages, Kaur and Wang propose interventions that decenter whiteness in higher education. Kaur discusses the macro-level issue of colonization in higher education, calling out diversity initiatives and advocating for an intersectional approach to decolonizing the classroom. Wang sheds light on the dearth of pedagogy and scholarship on race in writing studies. In her talk, she shares a classroom activity from the first-year writing course she teaches that takes an additive approach to student language resources.
10:50-11:50 Concurrent Session B (45 minute panel presentations with a 15-min Q&A)
B1 Emotional Labor and Literacy in Teaching First-Year Writing and Climate Change (North Cascade)
Jessica Holmes & Peter Brooks
Presenters focus on attending to the issues of emotional labor that often arise in first-year writing classrooms and courses that explore climate change and ecological crisis. From an instructor’s perspective, Brooks addresses the private/public tension of teachers’ emotional work while mitigating two audiences: students and administrators. Holmes presents the challenges of attending to students’ affective responses to climate change and discusses potential pedagogical strategies for helping students compose narratives surrounding climate, social equity, and global community.
B2 Anti-Racist Pedagogy as Action Research: Teaching First-Year Writing through Cultural Competency Model and Service Learning (South Cascade)
Ahmad Alharthi & Shauna Searcy
Drawing on their action research projects that Altharthi and Searcy have been conducting in their composition courses, the presenters discuss curriculum development ideas on designing an FYW course through a cultural competency model and teaching about homelessness that incorporates service learning. Altharthi describes three forms of cultural competency: multiculturalism, cross-culturalism, and interculturalism, and Searcy discusses how she encourages students to craft counter-stories that upset the stereotypes of marginalized groups who are experiencing homelessness.
B3 From the Personal to the Practical: Making Native-Speakerism Visible on Campus (Olympic)
Christina Larmore, Flora Damasio & TJ Walker
In this presentation, three panelists will discuss the inequities that they have perpetrated, witnessed, or suffered as a result of native-speakerism before moving to a concrete examination of the ways that native-based discrimination is made invisible and a discussion of the practical efforts that language teachers can make to expose and mitigate these sites of discrimination in their classrooms and at their institutions.
12:00-1:15 Keynote Panel (Cascade Rooms): "Anti-Racist Pedagogy: Visions and Practices for Institutional Change"
Tyler James Valentine, UW Black Student Union
Sahra Mohamed Ibrahim, UW Black Student Union
Mark Perry, Principal of Nova High School
JM Wong, Parisol // Pacific Rim Solidarity Network, Seattle
In a moderated conversation, the panelists will discuss what they have learned about anti-racist education and organizing speaking from their different experiences and projects they have participated in. Panelists will address the issues of institutional barriers when doing anti-racist teaching or organizing, the importance of intersectionality in making social change, learning from mistakes or failures, and how to sustain the work. Q&A time with the audience is reserved at the end.
1:20-2:20 Workshops (Participants will have a chance to workshop their own materials)
C1 Using an Anti-Racist Lens to Foster Inclusive Teaching (North Cascade)
Katie Malcolm, Elba Moise, Tikka Sears & Milan Vidaković (UW Center for Teaching and Learning)
As instructional consultants at the CTL, the workshop leaders co-construct a framework for inclusive teaching that considers how power, privilege, and oppression impact our roles as teachers and students for those of us who might feel varying degrees of empowerment to address these issues in our classrooms. Participants in this interactive workshop will take part in activities used in the CTL workshops to encourage inclusive teaching by centering race and equity. Participants will also collectively exchange ideas and expertise on facilitating these types of workshops or trainings in different institutional and departmental settings.
C2 Interdisciplinary Affordances & Challenges to Anti-Racist Pedagogy (South Cascade)
Holly Shelton, Hsinmei Lin & Aric Rininger (IWP instructors)
The facilitators of this workshop are all graduate student instructors of Interdisciplinary Writing Program classes linked to biology courses. They will share context about their approaches to and training in anti-racist pedagogy, discuss examples of critical moments in the classroom, and offer recommendations for responding and holding space. Then, workshop attendees will be invited to collaborate by identifying affordances and challenges to anti-racist pedagogy in their own teaching contexts.
C3 Ask Me Who I Am: Creating and Curating Counter-story Narratives as Pedagogy (Olympic)
Mia Lawrie
Informed by Critical Race Theory, Black Cultural Studies, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story”, participants will generate ideas on how to compose counter-narratives about themselves that combat stereotypes they face and also how to empower students to do so on their own behalf. Participants will collectively discuss how framing our stories as valuable knowledge challenges hierarchies of knowledge creation and curation.
2:30-3:00 Reflection conversation & closing words
To request disability accommodation, contact the Disability Services Office at 206-543-6450 (voice), 206-543-6452 (TTY), 206-685-7264 (fax), or dso@uw.edu, preferably at least 10 days in advance of the event.