Racial Identity and its Role in the Classroom

Robert Schroeder | Posted on July 23, 2015

Teacher Dayo Harris stands at the front of a classroom, in front of a whiteboard and a map of the continent of Africa, delivering a lesson to a classroom of students. In the foreground of the image, two Black female students are listening to Harris talk.

"Words are not really words; they are concepts, and they can change depending on the context," says Dayo Harris, MEd Language, Literacies and Learning student and assistant principal at Village Leadership Academy, an independent K-12 school located near UIC's campus.

Formerly as a teacher and now as a school leader shaping curriculum, Harris believes students need to view stories and world events through the lenses of identities: racial, gender, ethnic, national, international. Learn why she says interrogating racial identity is key to the learning process:

Modified on October 17, 2017