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Inquiry Series
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Current Year: '25-'26 School Year
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- September: What is keeping us together, focused, and motivated to do this work in 2025?
- October: Revisiting the Helms White Identity Model
- November: Learning from White Anti-Racists of the Past
- December: How can we identify and challenge white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions?
- January: How can we create classroom culture that resists white supremacy and that nourishes Black joy?
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Current Year: '25-'26 School Year
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If this is your first year doing this series, we recommend starting with the August 2018 materials and following the 2018-19 Inquiry Series 1 Discussion Guides. Here is a link to the February 2019 guide.
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Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview
We are focusing this month on one of the demands of the Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools: Hire and Retain More Black Teachers. This is our second month of collaboration with the Racial Justice Organizing Committee of the Caucus of Working Educators in Philadelphia.
Racism affects our colleagues and friends as much as it affects the young people we teach. Moreover, the racism BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) educators experience has a ripple effect - as more of them are pushed out of or discouraged from joining the profession, more students are denied the opportunity of having BIPOC as teachers, role models, and mentors. Our primary article this month comes from Professor Michele Foster at the University of Louisville. It outlines the reasons for the lack of black educators in the United States and offers ideas for what to do about it.
As we said last month, we encourage you to reach out to BIPOC colleagues and begin to foster interracial conversation around antiracist work in your school or organization (if you have not already). As you work to expand the work in this way, be sure you keep in mind our norms - especially the need to maintain humility and work towards being a productive ally, rather than dominating the work.
Racism affects our colleagues and friends as much as it affects the young people we teach. Moreover, the racism BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) educators experience has a ripple effect - as more of them are pushed out of or discouraged from joining the profession, more students are denied the opportunity of having BIPOC as teachers, role models, and mentors. Our primary article this month comes from Professor Michele Foster at the University of Louisville. It outlines the reasons for the lack of black educators in the United States and offers ideas for what to do about it.
As we said last month, we encourage you to reach out to BIPOC colleagues and begin to foster interracial conversation around antiracist work in your school or organization (if you have not already). As you work to expand the work in this way, be sure you keep in mind our norms - especially the need to maintain humility and work towards being a productive ally, rather than dominating the work.
Primary Article
Guiding Questions
- Why is recruiting and retaining black educators a priority for anti-racist education activists?
- What did having BIPOC teachers in school mean to you? If you never had a BIPOC teacher, how did that impact you?
- What are the factors that help keep BIPOC educators in the profession?
- What can you do in your setting to hire and retain more BIPOC educators?
Additional Resources
Facilitation Information
- Set a day and time for your group to meet - during lunch, before school, after school, whatever works best for participants. Make sure to send reminders. Also, snacks are always a good idea!
- Send this month’s Primary Article to your group. Look through the additional readings to see if there is another reading that might be better suited to your group and its interests.
- Prepare yourself to facilitate by reading through our Norms and Discussion Protocol.
- Pass the Hat and collect donations for The Melanated Educators Collective this month. The Melanated Educators Collective is a Philadelphia-based group of BIPOC educators working to support each other and recruit and retain more educators of color in Philadelphia.
- Complete the Feedback Form.
- Prepare yourself for March by setting a date and time, inviting colleagues, and looking out for our next Discussion Guide on March 1st.
Pass the Hat
In addition to being accountable to our colleagues and students of color, we believe it is important to be financially accountable to people of color who are doing this work on a daily basis. Each month, we will recommend an organization led by people of color, in education and beyond, doing the work of pushing for justice.
At the end of each monthly discussion, pass a hat (or a box) and collect donations for the designated organization. You can then have one group member go online and donate in the name of your school. If you want, you can add “Building Anti-Racist White Educators” after your school name.
This month, we encourage you to donate to The Melanated Educators Collective (MEC) this month. The Melanated Educators Collective is a Philadelphia-based group of BIPOC educators working to support each other and recruit and retain more educators of color in Philadelphia. MEC has partnered with Black Lives Matter Philly to launch the Philly Black Educators Fellowship starting in March 2020.
If you are looking to buy refreshments for your session, we recommend supporting businesses owned by people of color, especially Black-owned businesses, if at all possible. In Philly, we recommend Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Franny Lou’s Porch, and Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books.
At the end of each monthly discussion, pass a hat (or a box) and collect donations for the designated organization. You can then have one group member go online and donate in the name of your school. If you want, you can add “Building Anti-Racist White Educators” after your school name.
This month, we encourage you to donate to The Melanated Educators Collective (MEC) this month. The Melanated Educators Collective is a Philadelphia-based group of BIPOC educators working to support each other and recruit and retain more educators of color in Philadelphia. MEC has partnered with Black Lives Matter Philly to launch the Philly Black Educators Fellowship starting in March 2020.
If you are looking to buy refreshments for your session, we recommend supporting businesses owned by people of color, especially Black-owned businesses, if at all possible. In Philly, we recommend Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Franny Lou’s Porch, and Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books.