>>Dawoun: When the Atlanta mass shooting happened,
there were two things going on in my mind.
One was that I need to have conversation with my students about this.
The other thing is, me processing what's been going on, and the fear
and the disbelief and lament.
Asian Americans have experienced a year of rising numbers of hate crimes,
racist rhetorics and violence.
The way that Asian Americans have been portrayed during the pandemic...
calling coronavirus "the China virus," or "kung flu."
These stereotypes really build a story of fear, otherness,
and so a lot of what we are seeing,
and what Asian Americans are experiencing today,
has deep roots in the history of our country.
For the last three years, our school has been making equity
and racial justice one of our priorities as a school.
The students have engaged in this type of conversations before,
with George Floyd, with Breonna Taylor.
A few colleagues at my school and I got together and planned two lessons.
And so the first lesson was a lot about empathizing,
and also giving students space to make sense of what happened and why.
We first named the facts.
So eight people were shot and killed, at three Atlanta-area spas.
Six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent.
The gunman was a young white male.
The second lesson was focused on how we got here.
We started with a video:
"This Is Not New: Anti-Asian Xenophobia Has a Long History In the US,”
kind of prompting students
to think about, oh, this is not new?
This has happened before?
When, how, why?
The students had a range of emotions.
They were upset, angry, disappointed, and lots of wonderings,
why are people hating Asian Americans?
Or why is this happening to Asian Americans?
I also had students who shared the implicit biases
and stereotypes they have experienced.
Being called "ching chongs" or getting those slanted eyes gestures.
I also had students who are grappling with how to make sense of this,
in the bigger context of the racial injustice that's been experienced
in our country.
And so these lessons have created a safe space for students
to grapple with these questions.
I think there are some simple structures
that we can use, noticings and wonderings.
It could be a simple video of what happened.
Share that with the students.
Ask, what do you notice?
What do you wonder?
Our students are extremely empathetic.
They are extremely curious.
And so when we bring these current events into our classroom,
students will really drive the conversation.
As Asian-American educator, there are parts of Asian-American history
that I did not learn growing up.
But I cannot wait to be an expert before I have these conversations
with students.
It needs to happen now.
It's really time to learn and time to bring the conversation
and the silent and invisible narratives into our classrooms.