21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Educator Edition Challenge©

Curated by Seema G. Pothini, MN-NAME, Eddie Moore Jr. and Marguerite Penick.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

This quote reminds us, as educators, that we bear a great responsibility. Our students and families need us to dismantle systemic racial barriers which impede their success, while also cultivating a passion for learning. We have pulled together some resources that can help you on this journey and want to remind you to engage with a sense of urgency. Utilize the following resources to educate, inspire, and bring to the forefront the narratives which are often absent in the educational setting. Information is power, and we hope you use this power to act, not just absorb.

About the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge for Educators

If you are in the field of education, you are someone who enjoys learning. You might also enjoy charts. This challenge will be great for you! For 21 days, do one (or more!) action(s) to further your understanding of power, privilege, supremacy, oppression, and equity, and how this impacts students & families.

White privilege has a powerful impact on systemic inequities in education. The resources below help shine a light on that issue but also provide some general awareness for your own personal development. We recommend that you complete this challenge with friends, co-workers, family, or others so that you can share the impact and your “a-ha!” moments. If you choose to do it individually, make sure to find a way to connect with others in order to process your learning. Feel free to utilize the 21 Day Challenge Facebook page as well. 

Thank you for your commitment to working towards educational equity and to creating anti-racist and bias free environments for students and families. Let’s Go!!

Get Started

Commit. Choose an Activity. Complete. Reflect. Repeat. 

  • Individuals

    Jump right in! You pick your start day and commit to one of the 9 action categories below on each of those days… yes, it is that simple to get started! The hope is that you will change things up based on your schedule, commitment, and understanding, so you will be able to attempt all activity types.

  • Groups or Organizations

    Use our Copyright and Recognition Page to get started on the planning and advertising, so your group is cohesive in your approach to the 21-Day Action Plan. Use our Facebook page or Prohabits to stay engaged with each other. As a group you can select which action type and resource to complete as a group or have individuals select for themselves. We have found engagement occurs either way. It is a good idea to plan a pre and post survey and discussion as a group to assess skills building and which challenge you will do next!

  • Adapters

    We encourage organizations to make the challenge fit their audience. Using the structure, intent, and resources within the 21-Day Action Plans, you can adjust daily design, prompts, or how you choose to reflect and engage as a group. Click HERE for adaptation ideas and examples of how communities are adapting the challenge to meet their specific social justice focus. Remember the required recognition. Reach out to us with your adaptations, so we can share with others.

ProHabits

Automated Interaction

Daily Tracker

Stay on Course

Facebook Community

Engage & Network

Choose One Activity Per Day

To further your understanding of power, privilege, supremacy, oppression, and equity.

Read: Encounter new writers and ideas from a range of media sources. 

 

 

Articles

 

Books or Publications for Professional Development:

 

Although the provided links are for Amazon & Barnes and Noble, we recommend supporting local, independent bookstores by using sites like bookstop.org, indie-bound.org, or bookriot.com. These books might also be available at your local library. If not, you can put in a request and the library should be able to add it to their collection.

Young Adult/Children’s Books (Great for you to read AND to share with students)

 

Listen in on the kinds of open, honest conversations that too many of us avoid having.

 

 

 

Watch and learn. We've offered everything from short videos to full-length films.

 

 

Brief:

Longer:

Notice: Why didn’t I see this sooner? It’s easy to overlook what we’re not looking for.

 

 

 

Once you deepen your understanding of  white privilege and barriers in our educational system for youth who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color) you will start to notice inequities everywhere. We hope you look at your spheres of influence and take time to NOTICE. Notice the following: Who is included?  Whose voice is missing? What barriers to participation might exist? What is shown as being valued? What assumptions of knowledge are made? Is only racial harmony stressed or are challenges recognized as well? Is it a celebration of diversity or an insistence on equity? So many more ways to “notice” for each of these aspects:

  • Classroom  & hallway walls

  • Interactions with staff of color

  • District Website

  • Social Media Posts (what people are not saying)

  • Curriculum & books that are used with students

  • Parent/Caregiver Interactions and perceptions

  • School Calendar: holidays and annual school celebrations/events

  • Virtual Learning & Interactions (how do staff video messages  to students highlight privilege, even if unintentionally? What assumptions are made based on student participation in video calls? What message is sent to other students as to the absence of some students?)

  • PTA/PTO/ or other volunteer groups that help the school

  • Professional Development opportunities (are words like privilege & racism used or words like culture and differences?)

Follow Racial Justice activists, educators, organizations, and movements on social media.

Consider connecting with any of the people  you learn about in the above resources. Here are more ideas to widen your circle of who you follow. Pro Tip: check out who these organizations follow, quote, repost, and retweet to find more people to follow.

 

Follow Racial Justice activists, educators, and organizations on social media. You can read and explore their posts even if you don’t have a Twitter or Facebook account. Here are some ideas to get you started. Take time to also explore the people and organizations they are  re-tweeting and reposting to even further deepen your network.

 

 

Engage in racially mixed settings. Be a learner more than a knower.

This can be the hardest part for people new to racial justice work. Engaging in racially mixed settings can trigger age-old power and privilege dynamics. The goal is to be a learner more than a knower, exactly the opposite of what dominant U.S. culture teaches us to be.

 

Just Get Started!

For each of the below we recommend exploring the website and from there linking to the social media platforms each person/organization uses.

 

Act: Flex your skills. Take action to interrupt power and privilege dynamics.

 

Though many people believe they need to wait until they better understand privilege and racism before taking action, please know that your students cannot afford for more time to pass without you exhibiting some advocacy. Here are a few simple actions that you might consider:

 

  • Name your commitment to learning about anti-racism  to your friends, family, and on your social media posts.

  • Convey to all in your circle that the point of racial justice is not to hate on white people, it’s to create a more loving and humane world for ALL. We can’t fix the problem if we don’t name the problem.

  • Sign up to Join Teaching Tolerance’s community. Browse the thousands of resources.

  • Research a policy in your district/campus that targets or alienates  BIPOC youth (hoodie policy or use of racial slurs). Reach out to school board to seek clarification.

  • Prepare yourself to interrupt racial jokes. Click HERE for some advice about how.

  • Learn how to be an ALLY for racial equity. Watch THIS video and share it with a colleague and discuss how you can be a better ally for staff who identify as BIPOC.

  • Research candidates running for local office (city council & school board). Ask them questions about how they have disrupted racism in the past and what their plan is to dismantle systemic oppression, or what issues in the BIPOC community concern them the most (wow… we can only imagine how surprising this question might be!).

  • Reach out to students and families who are underserved by doing a home visit with a simple, positive message like, “Thank you,” or “You are Missed.” Let them know their voice matters as you go through the school year and as decisions are made. See what you or the institution can do to better help them share their input (don’t tell them what they need to do).

  • Check out this resource regarding social justice standards by grade level. Choose one standard in the “Justice” category and create a lesson to use with your students immediately.

  • Solicit input from colleagues about antidotes students, staff, or families have shared regarding racism or lack of inclusion in your educational setting. Perhaps these are microaggressions, but gather these antidotes so that the work you do is personal and local. Often times, educators  are not even aware that exclusion or racism is an issue in the educational setting.

Reflect on what you choose to do, what you’re learning, and how you are feeling.

Reflecting and Journaling is a crucial piece of the challenge. Plan to take time everyday to reflect on what you chose to do, what you’re learning, and how you are feeling. Difficult emotions such as shame and anger, though uncomfortable to feel, can guide you to deeper self-awareness about how power and privilege impacts you and the people in your life. At the very least, use the “Reflect” space on the reflecting journal tool.

 

Use our tracking tool to stay on track and be able to reflect back at the end.
(Tip: diversify your habits by doing some of each.)

Create a Soundtrack4Justice playlist that fuels you and/or can serve as a conversation starter with people of all ages.

 

Let the music move you!

 

Create a Soundtrack4Justice playlist that fuels you and/or can serve as a conversation starter with people of all ages.

You can find ours on Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music.

Tufawon- Sagepatch Kid
U.N.I.T.Y, Queen Latifah
Public Enemy, Fight the Power
Tracy Chapman, Revolution
The Beatles, Revolution
The Impressions, People Get Ready
Nina Simone, Revolution
Jimi Hendrix, The Star Spangled Banner
Jasiri X, (We the 99)
Nas, I Can
Griot B, Black Made That
Tupac- Changes
Cynthia Erivo - Stand Up

Guidelines:

If you are using, revising or editing the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge © content created by Dr. Eddie Moore Jr. and his team at The Privilege Institute, giving credit to the creators is required. Remember, now more than ever, you/your organization must always give credit for the social justice tools/ideas created by BIPOC folks doing and leading Antiracist work. We’ve made it easy to give the proper recognition to be used on websites, social media sites, in email communication, during interviews and/or infomercials. Click HERE for our copyright information and tools to incorporate the required recognition in your plan. We are committed to offering the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge © free of charge. We are constantly enhancing the materials, monitoring social media pages, responding to inquiries/questions, and Moore.

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