Don Cheadle’s Nose

Teachers at a, mostly white, independent school met monthly for a year, discussing how to talk with children from pre-K through eighth grade about race. They looked at interactions that arose spontaneously in the classroom, from younger children’s comments about skin color to racially tinged remarks in the older classes. Faculty members, who all identify as white, became aware of their own wish to avoid these conversations, since many of them had not looked at their own relationships to being white in a racialized culture. By talking and supporting one another and by learning more about the effects of systemic racism, the teachers became more comfortable and could talk about race in meaningful ways with their students. Each teacher chose one situation involving race, looked at what made her uncomfortable, and worked to address the issues at a deeper level. In this article, the teachers describe this process as it unfolded in their classrooms.