As schools become increasingly diverse, the challenge to meet the needs of youth across different sociopolitical contexts becomes that much more challenging.
As schools become increasingly diverse, the challenge to meet the needs of youth across different sociopolitical contexts becomes that much more challenging. Dr. Nanika Coor talks with Dr. Decoteau J. Irby about creating racially and culturally equitable schools and what everyday parents can do to contribute to this cause.
Project Parenthood is hosted by Dr. Nanika Coor. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
Connect with Dr. Irby:
https://leadforequity.com/
https://twitter.com/stuckimproving
https://twitter.com/decoteauirby
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Hey parents! You're listening to the Project Parenthood podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nanika Coor, clinical psychologist and respectful parenting therapist. Each week, I’ll introduce you to the same respectful parenting practices that I use to help parents repair and deepen connections with their children. You’ll get tips for cultivating more parental self-compassion, more cooperation from your kids, and more joy, peace, and resilience in your relationship with them.
In today’s episode, I’m talking to Dr. Decoteau J. Irby, a researcher and consultant working at the organizational level to improve the lives of Black children and adults in educational spaces. You’re going to hear about how having a large Black and Brown representation among the students and staff in a school building doesn’t in itself make for an equitable school and what it might look like to be what Dr. Irby calls courageously confrontational in the face of inequities. Stick around till the end to learn what parents can do to help increase equity at your child’s school.
Decoteau J. Irby is an associate professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and founding member of Derute Consulting Cooperative. His life’s work focuses on questions of how to create and sustain organizations that ensure Black people’s self-determined well-being, development, and positive life outcomes. His academic research examines how equity-focused leadership improves Black children and youth’s educational experiences and outcomes. He is the author of several books, and we talk about two of them today:
A children’s book called Magical Black Tears: A Protest Story; and his book for adults - called Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership - a case study of the progress and setbacks encountered over 5 years by leaders striving to improve racial equity in a large suburban high school.
Dr. Irby uses design thinking and continuous improvement methods to help leaders and teams design and create organizations that affirm Black people. He volunteers in his neighborhood community garden, is treasurer for his local park advisory council, and spends as much time as possible outdoors with his children and partner. Finally, he is the lead songwriter-guitarist and performer for the band Decoteau Black.
Here’s my chat with Dr. Irby.
Dr. Nanika Coor:
Hi everyone. I'm here now with Dr. Decoteau J. Irby. And I'm so glad to have you here on Project Parenthood to shed some light on how we can create more equitable schools.
Dr. Decoteau J. Irby:
Thank you so much, Dr. Coor. I appreciate the invitation to participate. Great.
NC:
So before we jump in talking about schools, can you tell us a little bit about the picture book you wrote called Magical Black Tears and the message you're hoping parents can take from it?
DI:
Yeah, sure. So, Magical Black Tears: A Protest Story, is a book that actually came to me in a dream in 2016. I'm a father of two children and maybe it was just weighing on me. They were really tiny at this particular time. And there was a police involved shooting in Milwaukee where I lived at the time. And I can't recall whether it was a night, the same night, but a couple of nights somewhere within the timeframe of this police involved shooting of a Black male. I had this dream and it was a very vivid dream. There was color, there was sound, and it kind of jolted me or woke me up. And I sketched out the dream. And then I went back to bed and I shared it with a few people shortly thereafter and didn't do much with it until 2020 when George Floyd was killed and Brianna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
And we saw the uprisings of the summer of 2020. And at that point I was convinced that I needed to revisit this story. The story is about a family, a father, mother, two children, and they are in a community where there is something unusual happening in the neighborhood. At least it's unusual to the children, there's police, there's fire. Um, and they're curious about what is happening outside and their parents work to protect them and are asking them to come in the house and giving them this refrain, “It'll be over in the morning.” The children, um, driven by their curiosity are looking out the window. And one night when the parents go to sleep, the children go out to the streets to find out what's going on and there they discover why people are out in the streets protesting. And they also discover some magic.
I don't want to give the whole book away, but they discover some magic and end up playing a role in healing their neighborhood. I'm a person who talks about my children with a lot of things, and it was very difficult to figure out how to talk to them in an age appropriate way about what was happening - in a way that was honest and truthful. But that also recognized their curiosity, right? Um, and also was an effort to make them feel like they weren't victims. Our communities, our places that deserve, they - people deserve to be able to thrive in the neighborhoods, in the communities that we live in.
I live on the south side of Chicago in a predominantly Black neighborhood. We experienced quite a bit of damage to one of our major commercial thoroughfares, about two blocks from our house. We had smoke coming into our home. It was a situation where we couldn't not talk to them about what was going on.
NC:
I've absolutely had my child ask, you know, why, why is everyone yelling? Why are they so upset? Right. And it is hard to explain (because) my child was much, much younger during 2020. So it was very hard to explain what all of these things that were happening.
DI:
Yeah, it was, it was a very interesting experience. And even just to think about some of the things that they asked or what was most devastating to them would be things - our burger king was -- destroyed down the street and me and my daughter would sometimes, --, stopping at a Burger King before school and get breakfast. And her question was like – will we go get breakfast? You know what I'm saying? I was like, there's other places and they'll, it'll bounce back. And --, just those sorts of things were at the forefront of their mind. So they were just curious. So it's a, it doesn't offer a lot of answers, but it attempts to raise a lot of questions.
NC:
So switching gears a bit to school equity…you've spoken about how schools don't have the racial capacities or knowledge to enact equity improvements that benefit Black and Brown students. Can you explain the importance of Black and Brown people's influential presence, as you've said, and what you mean by courageously confrontational school culture?
DI:
What I mean by Black and Brown influential presence is that Black and Brown people aren't merely present. So I distinguish influential presence from mere presence. And so for example, you can be in an environment that is majority - numerically, a numeric majority of people of color, but there can still be a overwhelming and disproportionate amount of power and influence held by people who may not share their racial affinities, cultural affinities, and so on and so forth. And so what I try to - what I argue in the book is that, the mere presence of people of color is not enough. People of color need to be present in a way that's influential and that can look multiple different ways. It could be in positions of leadership. It could be represented in the kind of knowledge base of a particular school community.
So for example, in the curriculum, and that's not only like the pictures of people in the book, but the stories that we tell, the histories that we bring into a particular space, and it shows up in seeing how people of color play a role in decision making, for example. Um, and so one of the basic questions that I would look for in a school to understand, whether Black and Brown influential presence is being considered would be even for example, in a predominantly white school, if they're – pushing through a particular policy or making a change, have they incorporated have they thought about the perspectives and sought out the perspectives of people of color? And so I argue it's Black and Brown influential presence and is really important because, number one, it speaks to the importance of having influence, even when there is a numerical representation.
And it also speaks to the ability for the influence to be present when there's a relative lack of representation – physical representation, because people can still seek out perspectives, ideas, knowledge, so on and so forth to make decisions. And the other one is what I call a courageously confrontational school culture. And this is distinct from - I make the distinction between a congenial culture where people are just nice and come to work and come to school to kind of get along. And then collegial culture is the kind of culture where people come and they kind of support one another as colleagues, but they don't necessarily give one another the kind of professional - kind of like push loving critique that will allow them to actually do better by Black and Brown students.
And so what I argue is that the confrontation is not necessarily with people per se, but it's with the ideas, the policies, the structures that people – uphold that they operate in. And so to be confrontational is to do things like – show up and protest in March and - name injustices when you see them. And a lot of times in collegial organizations, people won't name injustices, but in a courageously confrontational when people feel an obligation and responsibility to do so, because in naming those things, it gives people the opportunity to address them. And then maybe they don't address them. Right. But people should at least know. And - and so that directness is the way to get - give people the opportunity to do something about the problems that they may not see sometimes, but that many people in school communities do see.
And really what I'm trying to do with the concept is add to the field and to the literature on organizational change, which doesn't have a concept that focuses on what does an organizational culture look like when people are committed to anti-racism and racial justice. And so we see this, more broadly in society. So -- when something happens, everybody always says, oh, here comes – Al Sharpton and such and such again. Well, these are people who are operating in a tradition of – courageous - what I would call courageous confrontation. So -- they don't make suggestions. They show up to make demands and make proclamations that things aren't right, and that they could be better and to say how they could be better. And so that is for me, the example of a courageously confrontational culture and way of being a practice. And I found that in the schools, when communities and educators and schools take up those kind of practices, they end up being more affirming places for Black and Brown students.
NC:
That makes a lot of sense, because what I hear you saying is it's not just about, um, sort of the performative, a performative kind of diversity. I, we have a lot of Black and Brown people here, but they have no say or the, this idea that -- we're all being very kind to one another. And we really prize like being nice to one another, but when things are really going on, where none of us are really gonna say anything about that. So this idea of, of going beyond this performative, --, we say that we're this anti racist sort of community and culture, but really speaking about it, being assertive about it, being direct about it. And giving people a voice, even if there are only a very few Black and Brown people giving them a voice and saying -- we - your voice is influential here.
DI:
And I, and I think part of it too, is -- I've had mixed reactions to the language of - like ‘courageously confrontational’. But in this particular school where I conducted the research -- students would do things like --they will organize a walkout, right? That's a legitimate form of confrontation in the same way that I write about in Magical Black Tears: A Protest Story. I mean, in some societies, for example, in France, like children are taught at a very young age that like protest and going to the streets is a legitimate thing that they should be ready and prepared to do at any point in their life. Should they need to, we don't do that in the United States. You know what I'm saying? But we know that those particular kinds of collective actions are what, have -- pushed our society to be closer to what it, to its full potential in terms of creating a society where everybody, regardless of race, gender sexual orientation, where you live socioeconomic class can be treated with dignity, and live a life with the promise of potential and happiness and joy and absent people being willing to do that kind of courageous, um, engage in that kind of courageous confrontation.
We wouldn't be a society that's continuing to strive to be that for people.
NC:
I so agree with this. We're really so socialized in so many schools just to be conforming and just to sort of do what you're told and just fall in line and be a cog in the capitalism wheel and not necessarily question anything. So what do you think that parents can do to start to help bring about racial equity in their child's school or the school district?
DI:
I think the first thing that parents can do is act and behave as though they do have power. And I think this is particularly important for, um, parents of color, Black parents, parents whose first language may not be English's particularly important for these particular groups because schools -- demonize and --talk bad when -- we come up to the school. People are differential to white parents when they come up to the school and that sort of thing or Asian parents when they come up to the school.
So I think people need to realize their power, and --advocate. Right. And I think this is for -- all people - white people, who want to see their schools be better places for Black and Brown children and for their own children. So all parents can advocate for small things. Like when they see something wrong, like, you know are we still teaching? How are we teaching about --the so-called discovery of the Americas? This is something that -- my daughter talks to me often about like -- you can, you can send a note or you can call the teacher and say -- wait a minute, like - y'all still teaching this in 2022?! And then I think one of the other things is to just be involved and curious and ask a lot of questions about what students are actually learning.
I think one of the things that I always like to remind parents is that we should be more, and maybe some people might say ads, but I would say more concerned about what students are learning, than we are about like their grades, because oftentimes their grades don't reflect -- they aren't an accurate measure of what they're learning. Oftentimes the grades are a reflection of their students willingness to be compliant as well as for the parents, willingness to be compliant through like homework and carving out -- two hours of homework time when that could be spent -- an hour and a half of that could - and ideally you could be spent with families talking and having dinner and cooking together and that sort of thing. And so the homework grade is low. And so the overall grade is low. And so I think some of - educators want to have a lot, spend a lot of their energy on issues related to getting parents and students to be compliant.
And oftentimes I find that they're less willing to talk to parents about what students are learning. Right.
NC:
Yeah. Just the idea of --are you learning to solve problems? Are you learning how to apply this information -in, in the actual world, right. Not just sort of memorizing things for, um, sort of a quota for - everyone has to get -- be on this grade level. Right. But not necessarily, um, how are they gonna use this information to help themselves in the world and help the world. Right.
Can you talk a little bit about what you've referred to as the conscientious collective pursuit of racial equity yeah. And challenging the violent conventions of white supremacy and, and what that looks like for you personally as a parent.
DI:
The pursuit piece, the conscientious collective pursuit is really this idea that is strongly connected to the core idea of my book Stuck Improving, which is a way to name this kind of like tension that people experience when you're trying to work towards -- in the case of my book, racial equity and progress. And so I think about, um -- the idea of like, you take two steps forward and then you get pushed a step backward and, and that sort of thing, or -- you keep trying, and -- you climb up the mountain and when you get to the mountain top, you get to the top and you look down and it's just like, there's, -- more mountain ranges.
But the point is, is that the conscientious pursuit, um, of racial equity is the willingness to still go, um, and give your all to fighting for equity and for fighting what's right.
And for what's just despite the fact that it may not work out, that it may go bad and that if it does work out often, it doesn't work out to the extent or in the way that you would like for it to, but even knowing all of that, you're still conscientiously pursuing it because it's the thing, it's the right thing to do for the people who are coming behind you. And even if you can gain -- even if you take three steps and get pushed back to you still gain one step, which puts the people behind you a step ahead. And so that's the idea of the conscientious pursuit of racial equity. And so a lot of that is about --um, fighting against -- white supremacy. And when I say white supremacy, I'm really referring to the idea of - people who have white phenotypes being superior to people who, who don't, um, we're talking about structures - from like housing and -- lending practices of the past and all of these things that really keep people of color – oppressed.
And so for me as a parent it looks like a struggle. I have two, um, beautiful, wonderful, brilliant Black children who have dark skin. And I have a son who has a lot of energy and who struggles at school. Right. And so - a lot of it is a struggle. A struggle, to -- challenge, even the ways that I think about how I should be parenting, what I should be doing to – support my children. Um, even things like whether -- what they deserve – all of these kinds of ideas are very interesting, well - not very interesting - a lot of times it can be problematic if they reflect this kind of white supremacist thinking about what certain children deserve an what - certain children don't deserve and so on and so forth.
And so a lot of it for me as a parent has been trying to figure out how to create a world, not only where my children and Black children can succeed, but how to create a world where they have multiple and various opportunities to fail, and it not cost them their life opportunities. That's how I tend to think about it. And so, and that's hard - it's hard - because that is the affordance that - white folks - and I wouldn't even say - socioeconomically, but just white folks have the ability to be able to fail multiple times.
NC:
Egregiously.
DI:
Yes, yes. Yeah, exactly. And so for me that's the struggle. It’s not so much how to try to get my children to conform, which I am, which I do often try to do. Right. But really the struggle is how to try to create the conditions where they have enough room to figure things out. Right. And where I can be a guide as opposed to having to be a parent who's on them, because I have to worry about what will happen to my son, if somebody is afraid of him. Right. And that's the unfortunate difficult thing is that in a way I feel like that's almost inescapable. And so I even find myself having to be on him a lot more. Right. You know what I'm saying? He's little, and I'd be having to tell him, like - when you get angry, people’re gonna be afraid of you, you know what I mean?
Just really having to work with him and talk about those kind of things, ‘cause he can be angry at home. Because we create those conditions. But when he gets out into the world, when he is at school, there's a palpable fear - people are afraid of him and he's little, so... And I see that with - I see that with a lot of Black children in general.
NC:
I did an episode recently, a couple of weeks ago, just about gun play and weapons - that kids pretend play in that way, and how that's really a part of development that they're doing that. And that Black and Brown children don't have the same opportunity to do those things in public - right. Like the idea that - that I even have to say - that a Black or a Brown young boy may not be safe being developmentally normal in the front yard.
And so we're nearing the end of our conversation, what's one misconception you'd like to clear up about achieving racial equity in schools and in general.
DI:
I think one of the misconceptions is that things can't change. Things can't get better. I think the way that people answer the question about change and whether things are better - whether we're making progress is certainly a question that is debatable that could be looked at from a number of lenses, right? The psychology, I mean - I think about, for example, Barack Obama's presidency. And we live in Chicago -so my children, when they think about elected officials, they think about - they think about Black people, right?! That I think has a profound, psychological effect on how they see their possibilities. So we have mayor Lightfoot - they were born into a world with a president Barack Obama.
And so there's a tremendous psychological impact. I think that they have - that I'm always trying to be mindful of as an adult and as someone who knows many adults who didn't think that - that was possible to not project onto them that: it's not gonna happen again. Because in their world - they think that it is! And it is possible - it's normal. But on the other hand, we know, for example that - real wages have declined, home ownership has declined, and so on and so forth.
And so I think that the question of progress should not be settled in terms of, we can't, we won't, we have not made progress, but rather to always keep it open to interpretation and debate, and curiosity, and complexity to say that -- while this is true, right, home ownership rates are down. It's also true that – young people – think about the world in these particular kinds of ways. They think about mutual aid and cooperatives and collectivism in a way that in the eighties, when I was growing up, I didn't think about none of that, you know? And I think that the shift and change in what young people see as possible is a tremendous resource to understand where we might be headed.
NC:
What young people think is possible.
That does, that does inspire hope, um, right. In these sometimes hopeless times. Um, so lastly, what's one thing you want listeners to walk away with from our conversation and from your, your work.
DI:
I think a couple of things - one, that -- the unfortunate reality…I sometimes I feel like I'm very bleak! But the unfortunate reality is, is that - to make the world that we want to see for our children requires us to struggle on their behalf. I'm a person, even when I work with teenagers and young people, I'm always mindful of trying to preserve as much of their kind of like - childhood, not necessarily just like innocence, but like opportunity to be silly and to be children. And I think that that requires adult’s willingness to take on a role of struggling on their behalf and when necessary with them.
And I'll always kind of tell people like – choose your fight, choose your struggle, right. Whether that's, you're gonna, and it's, there's always one, whether it's – getting your children to comply, to do their homework to get that grade, or whether it's to go to the school and say - my child's grade is not a reflection of what they're learning because they know this stuff, right. Both of those require a different kind of struggle. One of them is a struggle at home with your child. The other one is a struggle with the system, with the teachers, with the educators, who oftentimes share many of the kind of same values, – as parents - educators are parents too. So I think that's one thing. I think the second thing - progress is possible, and progress stems from the struggle.
But it's not always progress it’s not always what we want it to be and hope for it to be. But still something very important to be intentional about pursuing. So I think that those are the things that I want people to take away. And so I think that those that are kind of themes that cut through everything that I do, parenting writing and so on and so forth.
NC:
I wanna thank you so much, Dr. Iby for being here. It's been a pleasure having you here at project parenthood and thanks so much for your time and sharing your expertise with us.
DI:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
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I hope that’s helpful!
You can learn more about Dr. Irby’s research at www.leadforequity.com, and follow him on Twitter at @decoteauirby or @stuckimproving.
You can learn more about my work with parents at www.brooklynparenttherapy.com and follow me on Instagram at BKPARENTS.
If you have more questions about creating equitable schools, or any other parenting questions or stories, leave me a message at (646) 926-3243 and be sure to let me know if it's okay to use your voice on the show. Or, send an email to parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com. And don’t forget to subscribe to Project Parenthood on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch you next week!