But it got shot down.”Ī judge ruled the system had eliminated “vestiges of past discrimination” in 2019, after the district made efforts to diversify its faculty. “You know, just a base for something that could be. “It could have served as an idea,” Zaman said of the guide. “It’s a good read!”īut the effort fell through with new leadership, along with a Black History Month assembly that Zaman tried to organize this year. It’s a book about a mixed girl torn between her two identities,” Zaman wrote next to the entry. Topics included racial trauma, microaggressions, white privilege and systemic racism, and Zaman suggested readings like “Blended” by Sharon M. That’s why Zaman created a 13-page anti-racism guide for school leaders and teachers to use last year. “But when they can actually touch, see, feel, smell, and they can actually see it happening in their community… you never really understand something until you experience it.” “COVID made it worse, because you only experience life through a screen, and you don’t really have the capacity to see,” they said. Recent state actions against “divisive concepts” and “inappropriate” discussion of LGBTQ issues also have added a level of confusion to schools’ ability to address tough topics, educators and students said. The system has become increasingly diverse, but Zaman said that hasn’t stopped the racist comments – especially during the pandemic. Zaman is currently an eighth grader at Decatur City Schools, a North Alabama district that recently obtained unitary status from a decades-old desegregation order. “And he was like, ‘Yeah, ‘cause Arabians bomb people.’ And it was out of nowhere! He didn’t even know me.” “I was like, ‘Why, do I look Arabian?’” said Zaman, who is Black and South Asian. “It’s a bomb truck,” the student told Zaman, asking them if they were Arabian. Vega Zaman walked into a middle school robotics class last year to find a fellow student playing with a Lego truck. They are confronting difficult history, pushing for inclusion and searching for their place within their communities. Reporters spoke to teens and educators in Alabama, Texas, Washington and Virginia who are working to build a broader understanding amid the political fights engulfing schools. But it’s necessary to learn from the conflicts, they stress. Navigating these conversations takes courage, teachers and students say. And teachers are watching as attempts to foster inclusivity in their classrooms go punished.
Meanwhile, vague laws passed in response to the ongoing culture wars threaten to chill candid conversations about history. Some conservative students feel like their political beliefs aren’t welcomed on campuses while their families are set on “taking back” school boards, fueled by a desire to expand parental rights and block students from learning about their interpretation of critical race theory. Educators are left to answer tough questions about history, race and sexuality, hyperaware their responses are under increased scrutiny. Many children are trying to be comfortable with who they are even as their identities come up for debate among adults.