Who are your best, most challenging teachers?
I have long been on record saying that I think teaching is one of the hardest, most important, and undervalued jobs in our country. I have always admired and respected teachers. My mom was a teacher when I when I was little; I can remember playing school in her classroom like it was yesterday. She spent her entire career in the public school system.
I can easily recall some of my favorite teachers from elementary school through college; teachers have such incredible influence on all of us! I have worked in the education space for the last fifteen years for an organization that is committed to training amazing leaders to teach brilliant kiddos who are growing up in poverty. As my children have begun their own formal schooling journey, I am paying even more attention to the details of their teachers – the messages they send, the confidence they help instill, the incredibly hard work they do every day to make sure my kids and their peers learn. And my gosh, watching them do this during the pandemic has brought an even deeper appreciation and respect for teachers- I can’t say enough about teachers!
In that spirit, I wanted to share with y’all some of my current teachers. I have all sorts of teachers depending on what I am focusing on learning or refining- teachers on parenting, fitness and nutrition, faith and spirituality, life hacks, adoption and foster care, management and leadership, relationships, and so much more! I love to learn from people who (a) know their stuff and (b) display a passion for learning. I want to note that I am working on learning from a diverse group of people on ALL topics listed above- I love hearing from varied perspectives on similar topics. Today, though, I wanted to share some of my teachers who continue to teach me things about race and justice, and their own lived experiences as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color). There are plenty of White people I learn from as well (and perhaps I will do another post later) but in my journey to become anti-racist, I know it is important that I am listening often to people affected most by systems of racism in our country.
Sharing this list of content creators below in hopes that you will seek out these authors, educators, and activists and begin to follow them, learn from them, and support some of them, too, by buying their books, subscribing to their newsletters and more! I know this list won’t be comprehensive as I find new people to learn from all the time, nor does it include my real-life teachers who I talk to on the regular. But I hope that this will be a helpful starter list for those of you interested in increasing the amount of BIPOC voices in your feeds and lives on your racial identity and justice journey. You can find the people below on Insta (linked) and many of them have websites, too!
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash
