BIPOC Educators Reflect on the State of Equity and Justice in Education

Facing History starts by asking educators: What do you need?

As part of Facing History’s Teaching for Equity and Justice initiative, we hold guided learning opportunities for educators to explore unconscious bias and work to mitigate the impact of historical racism on educational practices and policies.

In April 2024, Howard University, a historically Black university and part of the United States network of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), played host to the Facing History BIPOC Educator Roundtable where eight BIPOC middle and high school educators from across the country convened with BIPOC staff members of Facing History to dive into brave conversations around education and race.

This cohort of educators and staff attended a year-long series of virtual roundtable discussions across 2023 and 2024 in preparation for an in-person gathering in Washington, DC. We were honored to be able to spend this time at Howard, an institution that reflects the values of Facing History with its storied legacy of empowering young people to go out and enact social change.

For nearly 50 years, Facing History has tasked both teachers and students with confronting and exploring tough histories. Some of the most fraught conversations in America involve race and racism, past and present, and tackling these intractable subjects is often more difficult for adults than for young learners. The Facing History BIPOC Educator Roundtable series was a chance to create affinity spaces and build trust with BIPOC teachers and administrators who are dedicated to equity work and who may not have the opportunity to speak as openly in other spaces. We wanted our group to share their experiences, observations, and concerns without fear of retribution or judgment while also modeling for them how they too could create safe spaces for their diverse student bodies.

Facing History knows that the enrichment and perspective of diverse workshop attendees is critical for our organization and for the schools that rely on us. A central question that Pamela Donaldson, Director of Equity and Inclusion at Facing History & Ourselves, brought to these conversations was “Why are we not seeing as many people of color in our workshops?” What we learned was that BIPOC educators were increasingly feeling like they couldn’t take up space—that their voices and experiences could not be centered. These same educators expressed genuine interest in attending Facing History workshops, and provided input as to how these professional learnings could be more responsive to their needs.

We were also eager to understand the ways in which we’d been successful partners for BIPOC teachers and where we could offer additional support. The opportunity to listen and learn from educators who use Facing History content and curriculum not only gave us invaluable insights, but underscored how much educators have come to depend on the content and outreach of our organization.

Facing History staff had the privilege of hearing teachers and administrators grapple with profound subjects while also learning more about the joys and successes in their classrooms. BIPOC educators face a dual burden: they have to navigate the personal inequities that come from systemic practices that often do not honor the lived experiences of marginalized people, and they must also support their marginalized students who feel othered in a system that isn’t necessarily set up for their success.

The gifts of BIPOC educators were also discussed through the many unique ways in which they help students of color. Sometimes that means sharing similar lived experiences, other times it’s just the simple fact of showing up to the classroom as an adult who looks like the students they teach—this has particular social capital considering that the vast majority of classroom teachers are white females.

The influence that educators have over the young people in their classrooms is well-documented. Our hope is that by reading some of the outcomes and reflections from these roundtables, other educators and people in our learning community will start to think about how to lift up teachers of color, students of color, and those with marginalized identities. Cultural responsiveness requires us to recognize that inequity exists while also striving to thoughtfully improve equity and inclusion. And this is not work that belongs solely to BIPOC teachers and administrators: we can all work to more intentionally include and center traditionally marginalized educator and student identities. By listening and learning together we can keep asking ourselves two questions: “What can I do?” and “What can I do better?”

While we were all together at Howard University, we asked a member of our cohort to summarize the experience she had with the Facing History BIPOC Educator Roundtable. Below is the chat we had with Milli S., a Latinx middle school social studies teacher from Chicago, Illinois. 

What has been a highlight of being part of the Facing History BIPOC Educator Roundtable?
I felt seen and heard and that I was not in this alone. There are other people who are experiencing similar things—I feel like I’m in my own world sometimes and that nobody gets it. Listening to everybody today validated that what I feel is real, we all go through this, I’m not imagining it, and it’s hard.

Why do conversations like this matter to you as a BIPOC educator?
I think that we’re learning every day. We have to think about how our experiences place us in classrooms, considering “Why am I here? What is the work that I’m doing? And what is going to be the impact of what I teach my students?” So, I think that having these conversations is important for people of color, but also for others to hear. Because I can tell people all I want, but when they only hear it from me, it’s just a single story—but when they hear it from a collection of people, then it’s more powerful.

What advice would you give to educators in this current political and social moment?
I think it’s important to recognize the work that we’re doing and how it’s going to affect the future. What we present to students on a day-to-day basis really is an opportunity for us to help students learn how to make decisions—not just skill-based in the classroom, but real-life political decisions for their communities, families, and for themselves.

Any closing thoughts?
I think Facing History has been instrumental to the work that I’ve been doing for the past 12 years. I don’t think that I’d be in this position—feeling so confident in the classroom—if I didn’t have the support of an organization like Facing History.