Learning and Teaching While White (Equity and Social Justice in Education Series)

Co-author Elizabeth DeNevi has a blog with a similar name to the text, so I've follwed her for some time and find her thoughtfully engaging with texts, students, and families. This text gives specific strategies to try as a white anti-racist educator--especially for English/language arts and social studies teachers.

This book is the perfect blend of comfort (we're all in this together) and challenge (we can, we must, do better), offering practical tips alongside solid academic theory. As a parent i particularly appreciate one of the appendices: short bios on many white antiracist activists, who serve as guideposts for the work that is yet to be done. An excellent read, and resource, for parents and teachers alike.

"Learning and Teaching While White" is the most reader-friendly PD book I've read in twenty years. I usually loathe book studies because the writing is dry, stuffy and irrelevant.This book was intelligent, interesting to read, and dense with useful insights and information. It is an important book that every teacher should read. Thank you for writing and sharing it with me.

I’ve been working in the field of educator for many years — and am well aware of the ongoing racial inequities in our schools and the system at large. So it’s great to read a book with such a laser focus on righting the decades of wrongs. Learning and Teaching While White is an essential guide to getting education right in a democratic society. Designed to help white educators (the vast majority of our teachers) develop the skills to serve all children well, the book outlines the obstacles to racial equity in schools and offers a clear path forward. At the heart of the matter is engaging white educators in (1) understanding their own racial identity, then (2) developing antiracist teaching practices that will (3) ensure that all students thrive. If you are a white teacher, and you wonder what you can do to serve every child who enter your classroom well, Learning and Teaching While White is essential reading and a valuable tool-kit. If you are an administrator, it will help you shape policies and build practices that ensure racial justice. The authors Jenna Chandler-Ward and Elizabeth Denevi are highly experienced educators and diversity practitioners who have worked in the classroom and have run a plethora of DEI workshops. Together, they bring their years of experience to the writing of this book — to the benefit of all of us. The goal of American education is clear: we want our children to get a quality education that will serve them well in life and work. Doing so is the best way to ensure the well-being of our democratic society. With this end in mind, read Teaching and Learning While White. Engage in the reflection and discussion questions. Use the book to understand yourself better and to improve your classroom practices and your schools. It will help all of us in field of education get where we know we need to go.

What a fantastic book. Whether you are just starting to think about the ways racial identity impact how you parent, teach, or coach, or it’s been on your mind and you’ve been wondering how to turn it into action, this book is a great primer, workbook, and action planner all in one. Blending theory with lived experience, the authors do a great job of making the abstract very tangible, and applying it not only to the individual but also to the institutions around us. You can fly through reading it and get so much out of it, and then go back chapter by chapter and further digest and process. I love the end of chapter reflection questions. This is a great little book to give to the parent or teacher in your life who wants to foster inclusion and belonging for the kids in their lives.

As a black parent of two biracial (black in America) young adults, this book has been valuable for me to read and discuss. I have a better understanding of things I should have better advocated for when my kids attended a mostly white high school. The King Philip Regional district (MA) should read this book and consider learning from Jenna and her co-author. I appreciate you both being brave enough to be honest about your mistakes as white teachers. I hope other white teachers read and learn, and apply your suggestion and stop unintentionally harming students. Our future leaders need better from you.

Learning and Teaching While White is the book I wish I'd had more than two decades ago when I entered the classroom as a white teacher. With a steady and deeply informed hand, it explores the ways that whiteness operates in schools and how we can work to disrupt it. It's both approachable and well-researched. Only when white educators and parents dig into the work that is explored in this book will we be prepared to do and be better for *all* children and each other in our schools.

This book, as well as the radio interviews the authors are doing, gives so much clarity to the whys and hows of bringing anti racist practices into classrooms. May this book equip families and educators who want justice minded curriculum and calm down those who fear anti racism classrooms are about brainwashing. Learning to understand ourselves, one another, the world we live in, and the obstacles that get in the way of all of that is what this book offers. We’ll done!