Anti-racist teaching requires instructors to reflect on what they teach and how they teach. This unit will not fully explore all the nuanced dimensions of anti-racist, anti-eugenic pedagogy, but if you’d like to examine this topic further, please see the 2021 Volume II curricular resources, Developing Anti-Racist Curriculum and Pedagogy: https://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/2021/2/
However, this thought exercise might help teachers reflect before and after teaching the unit to ensure they are reflecting on creating a safe learning environment for students to grapple with this disturbing topic. Read the prompts below and respond in a free-write format:
- Are there ways I have internalized or perpetuated perfectionism, individualism, or ableist notions in my teaching?
- How do I respond if students challenge my authority or vocalize dissent, especially students of color?
- How do I assess student learning, and do my assessments challenge conformity, assimilation, and neurotypical ideals?
- Are there opportunities for students to critique systems, imagine alternatives, and construct liberatory work?
- What routines are in place for collective care, mutual accountability, and restorative practices in the classroom?
- How do the legacies of eugenic thinking arise in our minds and bodies? How do eugenic ideas manifest in the ways we treat ourselves?
This is certainly a challenging reflection exercise and is an ongoing examination that will carry on long, long after you’ve taught this unit. That said, consider how categorizing and pathologizing, productivity and perfection, or shame and humiliation arise in your body and your day-to-day stream of consciousness. Even the most meticulous anti-eugenic, anti-racist instructor has internalized these harmful ideas in some form or another. This is not said to cast judgment or guilt, but rather to catch oneself inadvertently perpetuating eugenic ideas and encourage us all to actively unlearn these schemas, one thought at a time.
While it is not our individual responsibility to upend the foundation of racism embedded in our educational systems, we must recognize the elements that are within our control. Teachers can have a transformative impact (for better or for worse) through their classroom rapport, assessments, grading policies, disciplinary action, and expectations. If you are going to teach a unit about the history of eugenics in any subject, it is consequential that you critically examine yourself and your pedagogy before proceeding.
