As part of this year's Black Student Forum, I introduced an activity from the past - The Dear Ottawa Project. When the BeMore Academy team created this event, it was a tool for them to express what it was like to be black and young while living in Ottawa. It had two parts - a Dear Ottawa Letter and a series of pictures that captured something they loved, who they are and their communities (result of several "photography walks"). We rented an art gallery and then invited people to come hear and see what Ottawa was like through the " lens" of Black youth.
For the Black Student Forum, the letter became "Dear Educator" and students were given a template to follow in creating their letters. This became the opening of this year's gathering. Eight students read their letters and had a series of three slides of their pictures. The letters were raw, direct, and truth telling. There were several common themes about their experiences and many of them resonated as I reflected about my own time as a high school student. Some of it rang like nothing has changed. A lot has though because when I was in high school, there was never an opportunity like this, to safely and authentically express the experience.
We had a second opportunity to use our Dear Educator letters as a tool for transformation at the Equity PD Day. This time, I thought it would be important for my colleagues to hear from me, my Dear Educator Letter. Here's my letter - my career, captured in a letter, speaking a lived experience and what it's been like to stand in Room 216 for 20 years.
Dear Educator,
In your commitment to continue to create an equitable and inclusive learning space by identifying and addressing systemic barriers, and honouring your commitment to the International Decade for People of African Descent, I want to share with you my experience as a Black educator in the OCDSB.
My name is Adrienne Coddett
I have been an educator with the OCDSB for 20 years. I teach Law, History, Social Justice/Equity and Civics. Prior to that I was an Educational Assistant with the OCCDSB for 7 years. Prior to that I taught for two years as a student teacher in the District of Columbia public school system - Anacostia HS and Cardozo HS
As a black educator in the OCDSB, my experience has been a highlight reel of moments when I've felt truly fulfilled and other moments when I've felt so isolated and marginalized, I was paralyzed and incapable of even saving myself.
I want you to know, the moments I've most enjoyed have come when I can bring all of who I am into the classroom and be my most authentic self in pursuit of and in partnership for learning with my students.
And, the moments I've least enjoyed are when the conscious and unconscious nature of racial bias means what impacts the learning experience for students does the same thing to me as a black educator. Throughout my career in Room 216, I have most often found kinship of the school experience with black students. I have as teacher the same experience I had as student of this school district. Not only have I observed death by low expectations in black students, I have died several times by those same low expectations held for me. I'm called on for my experience when there is a racial problem in the school but never acknowledged for the contributions made inside and outside of the school given in hope of avoiding such moments.
I want you to know the moments I have felt welcomed, safe and a sense of belonging in my school:
I have felt welcomed in my school when my training and community connections have created space for something other than a eurocentric perspective to be held as important.
I have not felt welcomed when the diversity of world views I'm required to hold doesn't seem to the be the same standard required for others and is not included in any curriculum delivered.
I have felt most safe in my interactions with black students because they are the closest thing in my work day to the realities of being black in Ottawa
I have not felt safe when the navigating of the sometimes daily microaggressions leaves me isolated and alone to figure them out so my errors have come with severe repercussions to my career and mental wellbeing.
I feel the greatest sense of belonging right now because of the number of persons of colour who are now on staff. We have created a way to support each other as we each navigate our careers. I consider them my friends and along with them, allies and other co-conspirators who have noticed, the healing of my upsets has for the first time seemed possible.
I have not felt a sense of belonging when who I am in the school is invisible but who I am outside of school is highly visible in the community.
As I approach my final five years in the OCDSB, I want you to know I am taking away the blessings that have come from being my best student of Room 216. I am still the first black educator most of my students have ever had. I am leaving a legacy of being my vision fulfilled, that a little black girl from Beaverpond Dr, a late bloomer academically, came back to this community because it's my home and I wanted to be the one to make a difference. I did it.
As I get ready for this last phase of my teaching career I am looking forward to new challenges that get created out of this generation's push against the status quo providing and creating educational opportunities for all children and specifically black children.
I am not looking forward to some of the ways people will push back on any attempts to resolve anti-black racism. I'm over 50 years old now and I don't have time to waste on fragility and broken egos unable and unwilling to see that diversity makes us all smarter.
Sent with Love from my AfuaBerry
"When ya find a Mango under a Coconut tree, somebody put it there."
