Toward an increasingly anti-racist biology education
Notes on one recent approach.
Like so many other teachers, one of my goals this year is to be much more intentional in pursuing a culturally-responsive, anti-racist stance in my teaching. In my own internal binning, there are two primary aims: A focus on increased representation in my courses (both in terms of my curricular decisions AND in terms of working to help my students see themselves within the courses that I teach), and one on how I offer a responsive pedagogy in my instructional design. It’s admittedly a project without any real end, but that’s what makes it useful.
When I consider what I think a student’s experience in my room is, I generally think that I do a pretty decent job at the second goal. I have a lot of survey data over many years that suggests that my classes are places where students feel safe to be themselves and feel that they have a voice in approaching and demonstrating their learning. I also think I do a decent enough job interrogating the power dynamics in my pedagogical choices with more than the usual focus on offer in other classes. This is a large part of what a responsive classroom is to my own way of thinking, almost certainly as incomplete here as in nearly every other area.
Where I have been less-than-robust in the past is around how I frame representation in my curriculum. It is plain to me that, like many other science teachers, I tend to present a view of science as a way of thinking that is removed from the exigencies of bias and white-supremacy that occupy so many other domains of society. This is, of course, well contrary to my feelings on the matter, but I still don’t think I’ve done as much as I can to unify my thinking in this area with my teaching of it. Hence I’m jumping at various chances to work these threads through my courses as the opportunities present themselves.
What does this look like in practice?
One very recent example follows. We start AP Biology in Evolution, working first by building out the theoretical underpinnings of the modern evolutionary theory, the evidence that informs that theory (and is informed by it), and some application within our unit labs. Once this sequence finishes, we return to theory within the spheres of three major topics that have occupied the field: The origin of species, the origin of life, and the various patterns seen in life’s history on Earth. We are currently in the first of these three areas; the origin of species.
If you have had a traditional Biology education, you may well not see a clear connection between speciation concepts and scientific racism. On some level, you are probably aware that there is a good deal of false teleological work that has been done to establish an “evolutionary ladder” of the different races of humans. Still, it has been my experience that most people don’t necessarily connect that ugly historical concern with speciation directly. Or at least I didn’t until I educated myself on the topic. In point of fact, until the Biological species definition was developed by Mayr (et al.) in the 1930s and 1940s, and accepted by the broader biological community, questions about the unity of humanity within a single species were very much present in the scientific zeitgeist, with a sizable percentage of human “splitters” advancing racist notions as to why white races were a more advanced species than other races. This is a plain historical fact, but it is largely undiscussed in many textbooks and other biological resources. It is also not considered in many of the historical texts that I had read prior to my doctoral work, even those on the history of the natural sciences. Generally, this type of thinking showed up in exactly one historical instance: Nazi Germany. As if the ideas that occupied the thought leaders of the Reich had come to them out of thin air, rather than being the result of hundreds of years of scientific and philosophical racism on the topic. This all established, it seemed like a decent enough space to shine a bit more light than I might have done in prior years.
How to do it?
I kicked this one around for a bit before settling on the structure that I decided to use. And I won’t suggest that the lesson that emerged was somehow perfect. But I do think that it did a good job for what I was looking for. It also wasn’t a big, complex, pedagogical lift. I found some readings on the topic. This actually turned out to be the most challenging part, as most of the references are a bit too deep to use the way I wanted to. The two that I did wind up selecting do a decent enough job of getting the main thoughts across in the time I was looking to use for the purpose (10 minutes of sustained silent reading). Preceding the reading period, I had a brief conversation around what we would be discussing, why we were discussing it, and how I hoped that the discussion would proceed from the standpoint of our class norms and working agreements. Here I borrowed a few moves that had been modeled for me a few weeks earlier by one of my colleagues as he led a session on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for a teacher-leader team I am a part of. For instance, I expressed that while this conversation could be uncomfortable, I was sure that my students would ably work through any discomfort, while also signposting that the use of slurs would be very difficult for me were it to occur. I also made sure to make it clear to all of my students (and particularly my students of color) that this conversation was not supposed to add to their emotional labor for the day, so that if at any point it was unpleasant or too uncomfortable, they did not need to participate and should feel free to leave the conversation space.
That all established, I let students read in silence for 10 minutes, encouraging them to annotate the reading in any way that would help them in the subsequent discussion. When the reading period ended, I introduced the discussion protocol we would use for the conversation. We are fortunate here, too, as FIS is a very protocol-focused institution, and I have many different resources to draw from when looking to use a particular protocol to effect a particular type of discussion. The one that I used here is typically referred to as “Save The Last Word.” Click the link if you want to see the details, but it is basically a round-robin small-group discussion structured to avoid any one person in the group taking too much space in the conversation. With the protocol introduced, students were released to their discussion groups for 10 minutes. I use discussion groups a lot in my class, so this is a familiar structure for my students. Even so, I still made sure to make myself a bit more physically present in the discussion space than I do for other types of discussions. Not that it was really needed, but I still rather would have been there and not been needed than the other way around. Once the small-group discussion concluded, I led students through a whole-group discussion. Initially, I opened the space for anyone to contribute who wished to.
I have three different AP Biology classes this year, and each one had students contribute in slightly different ways:
Multiple groups expressed surprise at how robust a “field” scientific racism had been, and how preoccupied it was with its major “project.”
One group wondered why they had been through AP US History at our school and never heard much about it.
One group wondered why white-culture is so frequently portrayed as being more “advanced” than other cultures.
Multiple groups in different classes noticed that a significant flaw in racist scientific work is that the scientists involved were looking to support a conclusion that they had already reached.
Several groups wondered how it was that scientists could find “data” that didn’t exist.
One group was disappointed that “respected” scientists could act in such an immoral way.
I tried my best to facilitate these discussions and provide some information where needed. Generally speaking, I think I did a good enough job. I didn’t want to short circuit their thinking in the conversation by providing “answers,” but I do know that I needed to give some required information as the “expert-information-source” in the room.
Once groups finished contributing as they wished, I left students with two further considerations:
How is it that expert scientists can engage in such flawed misapplications of the scientific method to pursue goals like these?
How can we interrogate our own biases and habits of mind to avoid doing the same in our own thinking and the work that we do?
I pointedly did not ask students to answer these questions in the whole group setting. As we use a bi-weekly biology learning journal structure, the current prompt gives an opening to any students who wish to engage more in this discussion. It will be a formative point for me to see how many do. Finally, I offered any student interested in more information a rather deep collection should they want it (all they have to do is email me). That done, we went on to other work for the day.
This structure took 30 minutes from start-to-finish, and it did what I wanted it to. I was pleased with the level of student engagement (certainly a credit more to them than anything else) and how the structure supported my personal goals for my classroom. It also set a template for how I want to do this work with my students during our year together in a way that I don’t really think I’ve done quite as overtly during this first month. Now I just have to keep moving down this road.
Are you striving to increase your own anti-racist teaching toolkit? Do you have any suggestions or questions for me? Drop a line here, or @DavidKnuffke. Comments are also always welcome. Take care of yourself and those you love!
