People Get Ready’s READy for Change with Bree Picower

March 17, 2021 at 7pm on ZOOM

For March, People Get Ready’s educator book series – READy for Change – is diving into this just-released gem written by professor, teacher educator, scholar, and righteous rabble rouser Bree Picower.

Some extra exciting news: 10 copies of the book will be raffled off to interested public school teachers!

We’ll host a getting started book discussion March 7 (details will be shared with those who register) for those who want to launch into reading together.

Bree will join us for a virtual book talk on March 17 at 7pm

And we’ll host a follow-up conversation for those who want to debrief and plan forward on March 28 (details will be shared with those who register.

ABOUT READING, WRITING, AND RACISM

An examination of how curriculum choices can perpetuate White supremacy, and radical strategies for how schools and teacher education programs can disrupt and transform racism in education

When racist curriculum “goes viral” on social media, it is typically dismissed as an isolated incident from a “bad” teacher. Educator Bree Picower, however, holds that racist curriculum isn’t an anomaly. It’s a systemic problem that reflects how Whiteness is embedded and reproduced in education. In Reading, Writing, and Racism, Picower argues that White teachers must reframe their understanding about race in order to advance racial justice and that this must begin in teacher education programs.

Drawing on her experience teaching and developing a program that prepares teachers to focus on social justice and antiracism, Picower demonstrates how teachers’ ideology of race, consciously or unconsciously, shapes how they teach race in the classroom. She also examines current examples of racist curricula that have gone viral to demonstrate how Whiteness is entrenched in schools and how this reinforces racial hierarchies in the younger generation.

With a focus on institutional strategies, Picower shows how racial justice can be built into programs across the teacher education pipeline—from admission to induction. By examining the who, what, why, and how of racial justice teacher education, she provides radical possibilities for transforming how teachers think about, and teach about, race in their classrooms.