Bending The Arc

A Social Justice Newsletter for Educators “Broadening access doesn’t mean that everybody has the experience that I, privileged person, had in the discourse. Broadening it means that we are all equally uncomfortable, right? That’s actually what pluralism and plurality is.” – Tressie McMillan Cottom in conversation with Ezra Klein Lost in Discourse Ever since I started…

A Social Justice Newsletter for Educators Better late than never. March, as in March fo(u)rth! March on, march in line, march to the beat. Keep marching. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Bending The Arc for this auspicious month is only appearing near the end. I wasn’t sure it would get written at all.…

A Social Justice Newsletter For Educators “We wish we didn’t need to say it, but it is very important for all educators to observe Black History Month, including non-Black educators and those teaching majority non-Black students, because they are least likely to receive this kind of content during and outside of school.” – Tweet by @consciouskidlib…

A Social Justice Newsletter for Educators Swamped By The News Welcome to 2021, friends! I hardly know how to begin this newsletter in a new year we hoped would be better than the last. It has not even been a fortnight’s worth and I already feel mighty challenged by events and the commentary it has…

A Social Justice Newsletter for Educators “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure…

A Social Justice Newsletter for Educators “It is joy by which the labor that will make the life that I want, possible. It is not at all puzzling to me that joy is possible in the midst of difficulty.” – Ross Gay Image: A view from the field. Grateful for every day we can be…

A Social Justice Newsletter For Educators “We must free our imaginations. Not because it is fun, but because our futures depend upon it. Yet we must be especially brave in our dreams, because it is far harder to envisage love than it is to envisage horror.”  – Musa Okwonga, “We Must Free Our Imaginations” Hello, October! Hello,…

A Social Justice Newsletter For Educators Well, we made it to September. In the northern hemisphere, new school years are beginning or have already begun. And this year, in the midst of the global pandemic, re-opening schools, commencing instruction feels so inescapably fraught. We know beginnings to be vital to the learning enterprise – for setting…

A Social Justice Newsletter For Educators “Anti-racist work means acknowledging that racist beliefs and structures are pervasive in all aspects of our lives—from education to housing to climate change—and then actively doing work to tear down those beliefs and structures. Those beliefs and structures don’t just exist in primarily white/and or privileged institutions—they thrive there.” …

A Social Justice Newsletter for Educators “Don’t talk to us about looting. Y’all are the looters!America has looted Black people!America looted the Native Americans when they first came here,so looting is what you do!We learned it from you!”   – Tamika Mallory, Activist, at Minneapolis protest True story: I hardly know where to begin. It’s June and my…