Reading, Writing, and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom

When racist curriculum "goes viral" on social media it is typically dismissed as an isolated incident from a "bad" teacher. Educator Bree Picower, however, holds that racist curriculum isn't an anomaly. It's a systemic problem that reflects how whiteness is embedded and reproduced in education. In Curriculum So White, Picower argues that white teachers must reframe their understanding about race in order to advance racial justice, and that this must begin in teacher education programs. Drawing on her experience teaching and developing a program that pairs pre-service teachers students with mentors who focus on social justice and antiracist professional development-Picower demonstrates how individual teacher's ideology of race, consciously or unconsciously, shapes how they teach race in the classroom and reinforce racial hierarchies in the younger generation. She also examines current examples of racist curricula that have gone viral to demonstrate how whiteness is entrenched in schools and teacher education programs. With a focus on institutional strategies, Picower shows how racial justice can be built into programs across the teacher education pipeline-from admission to induction. By examining the who, what, why and how of racial justice teacher education, she provides radical possibilities for transforming how teachers think about, and teach race in their classrooms.