Box of delight

Let’s say that you, like me, have a renewed commitment this year to ensuring equity in your classes. Let’s say that you’ve been to the seminar—“Antiracist Education” or “Racism in the Classroom”—and afterward you read books such as How to Be an Antiracist. Now you’re ready; you want to do what some people call “the work.” But then you get to your classroom and don’t have any idea where to begin.

In education, nothing is “neutral” when it comes to race. Lesson plans, edtech tools and learning environments either create more equity among students of different races, or more inequity.

That’s what scholar Ibram X. Kendi told EdSurge in an interview Nov. 30 during the 2020 virtual conference of the International Society for Technology in Education. (ISTE is the parent organization of EdSurge.)

Ibram X. Kendi, the bestselling author of books including “How to Be an Antiracist” and “Stamped from the Beginning,” is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, as well as the founder and director of the institution’s new Center for Antiracist Research.