Teaching on Days After

What should teachers do on the days after major events, tragedies, and traumas, especially when injustice is involved?

This beautifully written book features teacher narratives and youth-authored student spotlights that reveal what classrooms do and can look like in the wake of critical moments.

Dunn incisively argues for the importance of equitable commitments, humanizing dialogue, sociopolitical awareness, and a rejection of so-called pedagogical neutrality across all grade levels and content areas. By highlighting the voices of teachers who are pushing beyond their concerns and fears about teaching for equity and justice, readers see how these educators address negative reactions from parents and administrators, welcome all student viewpoints, and negotiate their own feelings. These inspiring stories come from diverse areas such as urban New York, rural Georgia, and suburban Michigan, from both public and private schools, and from classrooms with both novice and veteran teachers.

Teaching on Days After can be used to support current classroom teachers and to better structure teacher education to help preservice teachers think ahead to their future classrooms.

Book Features:

• Narratives from teachers and students that represent a diverse range of identities, locations, grade levels, and content areas.
• Examples of days after that teachers remember, including 9/11, elections, natural disasters, gun violence, police brutality, social uprisings, Supreme Court decisions, immigration policies, and more.
• Examples of days after that K–12 and college-aged students remember, including what their teachers did and didn’t do and how they experienced these moments.

Proceeds will be donated to educational non-profits The Abolitionist Teaching Network and Woke Kindergarten.

Alyssa Hadley Dunn is an associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, and author of Teachers Without Borders? The Hidden Consequences of International Teachers in U.S. Schools.

“In her new book, Teaching on Days After: Educating for Equity in the Wake of Injustice, Alyssa Hadley Dunn, an associate professor of teacher education at Michigan State University, thoughtfully describes how schools can and must create authentic opportunities for students to process, understand, and respond to events including natural disasters, political turmoil, racial injustice, and gun violence.”

—NASSP Principal Leadership

“In Teaching on Days After: Educating for Equity in the Wake of Injustice, Alyssa Hadley Dunn highlights the importance and responsibility that K-12 teachers, classrooms, and schools should play on the days following horrific and controversial societal events.”

—Teachers College Record

“Alyssa Hadley Dunn’s Teaching on Days After is an amazing book that all educators should read. Through a beautifully written combination of prose, analysis, classroom stories, and student essays, Dunn not only guides us on how to work with our students immediately after major political events, but does so with an attention to educational justice and care for students and teachers alike. An eminently useful and imminently necessary title, Teaching on Days After helps us sort through the tangle of emotions, pain, politics, and pedagogy that all teachers have faced in the wake of national trauma.”
—Wayne Au, professor, University of Washington Bothell; editor, Rethinking Schools

“This powerful and practical book gives concrete how-to steps for all teachers to engage substantively with students upon their return to the classroom following traumatic national events that occur, often precipitated by systemic injustice. Dunn imbricates passion for justice with everyday pedagogical moves—she compels educators to have 'skin in the game' and equips them with tools to do so.”
—Edna Tan, professor, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

“In these unprecedented times, many teachers remain silent on pressing social issues in their classrooms, not because they want to, but because they don’t know how to proceed. With Teaching on Days After, Dr. Dunn fills this void by providing teachers with a clear and explicit path to engage students in the most important conversations of the moment, from racial injustice to political unrest, preparing them to become active participants in the quest for social justice.”
—Bree Picower, professor, Montclair State University; author, Reading, Writing, and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom

Contents

Acknowledgments xi

1. Introduction 1
Days After That I Remember, as Student and Teacher 4
Teachable Moments in Service of Justice 8
On Silence 9
What This Book Is About 11
Why Teaching on Days After Matters—and Why Now 12
What Is “Days After Pedagogy”? 13
How This Book Is Organized 15

Student Spotlight: Days After Sandy Hook 16
Marlena Young

2. Guiding Frameworks 22
Guiding Frameworks in Context: Today’s Classrooms as 24
Spaces for Days After Pedagogy
Asset-Based and Justice-Oriented Pedagogies 25
A Sociopolitical Education 30
Trauma Responsiveness and Socioemotional Learning in the Classroom 35
Conclusion 39
Theories in Practice: A Letter From a Teacher to His Students 40

Student Spotlight: Days After Community Turmoil 43
Roxy Mashkawiziikwe Sprowl

3. Toward a Purpose for Freedom: Why Teach on Days After 47
Days After Pedagogy Supports Student Agency and Voice 48
Days After Pedagogy Works Against Oppression 53
Days After Teaching Redefines “Relevance” 56
Disrupting Whiteness: Pushing Against “Two Sides” on Days After 58
Days After Pedagogy Responds to Trauma in a Meaningful Way 61
Days After Pedagogy Is a Form of Trauma-Responsive Teaching 62
Days After Pedagogy Offers a Space for Transformative Learning 65
Days After Pedagogy Is Sustaining for Students and Teachers 70
Conclusion 74

Student Spotlight: Days After Parkland 75
Deidre Gorkowski

4. Putting Students First: Who We’re Teaching on Days After 77
Days After Pedagogy Is About Knowing Students Deeply 80
Days After Pedagogy Is for All Ages 82
Days After Pedagogy Is for All Content Areas 89
Days After Pedagogy Uses Student-Centered and Humanizing Lessons 93
Conclusion 96

Student Spotlights: Days After in 2020–2021 97
Sudeshna Flores and Ava Rizzico

5. Educators: Who Is Doing the Teaching on Days After? 101
Days After Pedagogy Requires Teachers to Be Vulnerable 102
Days After Pedagogy Pushes Teachers to Be Curricular Risk Takers 107
Days After Pedagogy Pushes Teachers to Work Through Fears and Challenges 114
Days After Pedagogy Necessitates That Teachers Negotiate Their Positionality 119
Conclusion 128

Student Spotlights: Days After the Capitol Attack 129
Corabella Dover and Marjorie Wiese

6. The Intersections of Teaching and Politics on Days After 131
Days After Elections 132
Days After Gun Violence 138
Days After Environmental Crises 143
Days After Gender Injustice 148

Student Spotlights: Days After Racial Injustice 153
Camille Dotson, Taliyah V. Andrews, and Maya Andrews

7. The Intersections of Teaching, Racism, and White
Supremacy on Days After
156
Days After Global Terrorism in a U.S. Context 157
Days After Racial Violence 161
Days After White Supremacist Events 165
Days After Immigration Injustice 169
Days After Local Racial Injustice 172
Conclusion 177

Student Spotlight: Looking Back on Days After 179
Paige Carletta

8. Conclusion 180
Part 1: Institutionalizing a Space for Days After Pedagogy 180
Part 2: Where Do We Go From Here? Some Final Advice for Teaching on Days After 185

Epilogue: January 2021 192
“What Will We Tell the Children?” 194

Appendix A: A Letter to Educators and Children 197
Appendix B: Methods 199
Appendix C: Participant Profiles 201
Appendix D: Social Media Resources for Supporting Days After Pedagogy 207
References 213
Index 219
About the Author 225