I’ve never been more proud of my students

I teach grade 9-12 English at a Canadian independent school that also offers online courses. My students are great, for the most part. I love them, and they do excellent work.<br><br>Unfortunately, the student body has a lot of (proudly) conservative and libertarian students. Many of the students are from wealthy families, and they tend to be opposed to the ongoing public health lockdowns. I completely understand that, and I teach my students to be open-minded and to consider multiple perspectives.<br><br>I’ve been trying to improve my pedagogy, so I always give my students open-ended questions to discuss the texts we read. Recently, we read some texts by bell hooks, where bell hooks is obviously (and justifiably) extremely critical of whiteness, capitalism, and patriarchy.<br><br>You would expect that my conservative students would be upset or offended. Instead, they did excellent work. They listened to each other, and they listened to the texts. They produced outstanding work.<br><br>For example, I asked my students to write a commentary about the play *Intimate Apparel*. To my surprise, my conservative white students listened to the play’s commentary on whiteness. They understood that the play was criticizing whiteness’ deviant behavior, and that the critique of whiteness is *not* a personal attack on white people.<br><br>I highly encourage you to teach bell hooks, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve Tuck, and other similar authors. Your conservative students may have a hard time listening to the critiques of whiteness, but they will have a valuable opportunity to learn from their own biases and privilege.<br><br>I’m so proud of my students.<br><br>Edit: I should mention that I’m white/Canadian (not American), so my teaching context is Canadian. If you’re in the US, you may face more pushback or push against local content standards. From what I understand, there’s a strong movement in the US to suppress critical race theory and anti-racist curricula. I hope you’re able to teach and preach safely in the US.