As a classroom teacher, I used to believe that valuing diversity in the classroom meant learning about our differences and similarities and finding ways to work together. Creating a peaceable classroom for learning became central in my teaching. I taught strategies for conflict resolution, developed culturally responsive curriculum that promoted cross cultural understandings, and worked to help my students build self-esteem. Now as I reflect on my own past practice, I have come to believe that teaching the skills for a peaceable classroom without a focus on social justice and activism is a way of managing behaviors, silencing the marginalized, and maintaining the status quo. My limited worldview as a privileged person shielded me from seeing how my "peaceable classroom" failed to expose the inequities inherent in our political-economic system. Worse, by ignoring gross inequities or treating them as mere "differences," I was actually abetting the forces of injustice. From this painful realization and critical reflection on my own practices, I dared to imagine how teaching could be different. --WEL faculty member
