Decentering Whiteness in the classroom: A mini booklet for higher education instructors & Leaders

Project Type: Research and Analysis, Learning Synthesis, Graphic Design
Topics and Themes: Embodied Cognition, Truama-Informed and Holistic Learning, Data Justice, Decolonized Tech

The Challenge Space

Ignoring the trauma that students face is not acceptable nor viable for institutions of higher learning. The imperative for acknowledgment and action calls attention to the trauma and injustices caused by systemic racism, settler colonialism, ongoing socioeconomic disparities, and the global health crises. How may instructors and learning designers orient our classrooms towards anti-racism and trauma-informed practices? How may instructors and higher ed administrators recalibrate praxis to create spaces for holistic healing?

The Response

Our collective body of human knowledge and wisdom, rooted in different ways of knowing, seems to point to a need for collective healing which will take holistic intentionality, intersectionality, and courage in design. It will take what peace theorists term reaching emotional resonance; empathy to the point of reaching each other’s joys and suffering each other’s pains in order to reach harmony necessary for cooperation. The literature on culturally sustaining and trauma-informed pedagogy, decolonizing technology, and on data justice offers meaningful frameworks and strategies.

The Artifact

I designed a mini booklet that offers introductory nudges for holistic calibration in thinking about embodied cognition theory, trauma-informed and culturally sustaining pedagogy, data justice, and how to decolonize technology. The design is influenced by systems theory with a critical and speculative lens; all aspects of spaces within interlocking systems of oppression must be adjusted in order to achieve change. Each section of the booklet offers a brief summary of framing, emerging key insights from the literature, promising practices, and a list of resources for further exploration. It is not meant to be exhaustive in scope. While it does not offer a comprehensive action plan, it aims to spark contemplations in this complex work and the robustly holistic efforts needed.

I welcome your ideas for improving upon this piece.