The events of the last year have sparked conversations amongst families, colleagues, and friends, about race, including the Academic Services team at Risepoint. The team has adopted Glenn Singleton’s Courageous Conversations framework: stay engaged, expect to experience discomfort, speak your truth, and expect and accept non-closure (Singleton & Linton 2006).
Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton’s book Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools as well as the companion book More Courageous Conversations about Race, provides educators a framework for talking about issues related to race. In addition to the Four Agreements of Courageous Conversations, the books also suggest six conditions for participants to consider:
- Focus on personal, local, and immediate
- Isolate race
- Normalize social construction & multiple perspectives
- Monitor agreements, conditions and establish parameters
- Use a “working definition” for race
- Examine the presence and role of Whiteness
Further Reading
To learn more about racial equality, honest dialogue, and courageous conversations in our classrooms, check out this list of compiled readings:
- Asby, D. and Restrepo-Toro, M. (2020). Courageous Conversations in the Classroom Part 1: A Partnering Tool to Achieve Equity in Schools. Center for Educational Improvement. [Web]
- Carpenter, B. W., & Diem, S. (2013). Talking race: Facilitating critical conversations in educational leadership preparation programs. Journal of School Leadership, 23(6), 902-931. https://doi.org/10.1177/105268461302300601
- Gavrin, M. (2017). Starting with Ourselves: Preparing for Tough Classroom Conversations. Learning for Justice. [Web]
- Gonzalez, J. (2019). How One District Learned to Talk about Race. Cult of Pedagogy. [Podcast]
- Mansfield, K. & Jean-Marie, G. (2015). Courageous conversations about race, class, and gender: voices and lessons from the field. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 28. 819-841. 10.1080/09518398.2015.1036950.
- Mitchell, D., Hinueber, J., & Edwards, B. (2017). Looking race in the face: Schools that achieve strong results with black students address race directly and teach in ways that empower students to learn. Phi Delta Kappan, 98(5), 24-24.
- Singleton, G. (2018). Beyond random acts of equity. The Learning Professional 39.5. [Web]
- Singleton, G. E., & Linton, C. (2006). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools. Corwin Press.
- Vetter, A., Schieble, M., & Meacham, M. (2018). Critical conversations in English education: Discursive strategies for examining how teacher and student identities shape classroom discourse. English Education, 50(3), 255-282
