Good Monday morning. Spring has sprung! Give yourself permission to start your day slowly. Our syllabus this week:
Conversation Starters
The Dialogue (Social Justice)
Future of Higher Education
Best of the Rest
#StopAsianHate
The Atlanta killings are just one of the 3,800 recorded anti-AAPI hate incidents since March of 2020. We all need to:
Expand our racial literacy by learning more about AAPI people and their experiences. Listen to AAPI women when they talk about the racist, sexualized messages they’ve heard all their lives. Read up on the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese internment camps. America's Legacy of Anti-Asian Violence (Time)
Reach out to our students, friends, colleagues, and neighbors to check in with them. A Love Letter to Asian Americans (Time)
Reassess how we discuss issues of race and racism in our courses and programming to move beyond the Black/white binary. For teachers: Addressing Anti-Asian Bias (Learning for Justice)
Consider more intersectional analyses of major social issues. ‘It’s race, class and gender together’: Why the Atlanta killings aren’t just about one thing (WaPo)
We must confront whiteness and white supremacy. The shooter was a white man. Color-evasive language and action is not acceptable.
Conversation Starters
START YOUR WEEK HERE: ZOOM BOMBING
VOICES OF CHILDREN AND TEENS
Against the backdrop of parents, administrators, politicians (and, frankly, not enough doctors and scientists) debating schools reopening, I am struck by how important it is to hear directly from children and teenagers about their experiences.
K-12 students on their schools, their teachers, their families and their country: What I learned during the pandemic (WaPo)
A long, wrenching tale: The Lost Year: What the Pandemic Cost Teenagers (ProPublica)
'School Wasn't Even Important': For Many Local Students, The Pandemic Has Meant A Mountain Of Adult Responsibilities (DCist) (h/t Gabrielle Tillenburg)
High school students discuss COVID year, hope for reopening (LAT)
Related: Long haul covid in kids (WaPo)
INTROVERTS: “BEING SOCIAL IS SO INTENTIONAL NOW”
It’s easy to assume that for a group of people known to relish their alone time, a pandemic that encourages social distancing and isolation might paradoxically offer some great respite. It’s not that simple though. The last year has compelled introverts to think more deeply about their social lives — and though it’s not certain their disposition will change as the world inches toward reopening — some have at least considered making changes once that moment happens.
How Quarantine Has Affected Introverts (Buzzfeed)
Related: What the Pandemic Is Doing to Our Brains (Atlantic)
TECHNOLOGY: “I’M DONE LIVING ENTIRELY ON A LAPTOP”
All that technological advancement, all those emotional arguments for a tech-centric world — it was all made for a moment like this. And a year into it, I feel like I can definitively say that it f--king sucks. Good god, how it sucks. I would rather swallow all my teeth than do one more video call with friends whose faces I just want to poke with my grubby fingers. I would rather my body stiffen into an unusable husk than do one more stretching session with an instructor over a video call who mispronounces my name. I love the internet; I built my career, my social life, and my personal life on it for 15 years. And now I would rather do anything else.
Our Technological Dystopian Future Is Here, And I Hate It (Buzzfeed)
A PICTURE IS WORTH…
The Dialogue (Social Justice)
“INFODEMIC” IS A SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE
How a racialized disinformation campaign ties itself to The 1619 Project (CJR)
Social media superspreaders turned pandemic misinformation into an “infodemic” (Rest of World)
My Mom Believes In QAnon. I've Been Trying To Get Her Out. (Buzzfeed)
How disinformation and conspiracy theories tore one family apart (WaPo)
BILLIONAIRE BOOM IS A SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE
The wealth of nine of the country’s top tech titans has increased by more than $360 billion in the past year: The Billionaire Boom (WaPo)
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
10 Gender Traps in Communications—And How to Escape Them (Rethink Media) (h/t Susannah Washburn)
BLACK LIVES MATTER
After Harry and Meghan Interview, Britain Confronts 'Very Big Silence Around Race' (NYT)
America's Tax Code Leaves Black People Behind (Bloomberg)
Black coaches instill confidence, speak the truth and pass the torch (Undefeated)
Bryan Stevenson: The author of ‘Just Mercy’ says we’ve made talking about race political — and that has to change (WaPo)
AMPLIFYING VOICES
SIREN! White supremacist propaganda surged in 2020 (AP)
Why 'casual racism' doesn't exist - and shouldn't be used as an excuse (Metro) (h/t Carlton Green)
Post editorial board project: Police reform is not enough. We need to rethink public safety (WaPo)
Parenting as a Radical Act of Love (Nation)
The Plan to Protect Indigenous Elders Living Under the Northern Lights (NYT)
Future of Higher Education
HOT TOPICS
Remote learning, mental health, buildings, attendance, funding, new ways to assess learning: How the pandemic is reshaping education (WaPo)
What is the future of Admissions? What changes from this year will stick? The New Enrollment Playbook (Chronicle)
This American Life on Admissions: The Campus Tour Has Been Cancelled
While focused on K-12, a lot to consider here on elite schools entrenching inequality: Private Schools Are Indefensible (Atlantic)
A Drunken Hazing, a Fatal Fall and a Cornell Fraternity’s Silence (NYT)
FUTURE OF DIVERSITY EDUCATION
Dr. Carlton Green: “White student reports feeling uncomfortable in class. Without evidence, university leaders suspend the course. If only schools responded so definitively when BIPOC students report feeling unsafe due to racism.” Boise State suspends diversity course for 1,300 students (IHE)
Trump's diversity training ban finds new life -- in Iowa (IHE)
“Overtly.” 'The Eyes of Texas' isn't 'overtly' racist, UT report finds, so the song plays on (WaPo)
FUTURE OF COLLEGE ATHLETICS
Sally Jenkins with the fire: NCAA’s message to women’s basketball players: You’re worth less (WaPo)
Football Has Long Been the Third Rail for College Leaders. It's Even More Perilous Now. (Chronicle)
College Sports Can Be Exploitative. They Can Also Be A Lifeline (NYT)
FUTURE OF FACILITIES
More than 40 architects, campus planners, and leaders in student life and housing on how campus spaces might look different in the future: The Pandemic May Have Permanently Altered Campuses. Here's How. (Chronicle)
TEACHING AND LEARNING
“If remote learning has been good for one thing, it has closed that gap between authoritative teacher and abiding student.” Zoom school's unexpected upside (WaPo)
Zoom classes felt like teaching into a void — until I told my students why (WaPo)
Teaching: How to 'Read the Room' in an Online Course (Chronicle)
DEMORALIZATION AND BURNOUT
Important read. Teachers on their demoralization — and how it differs from burnout. What demoralization does to teachers (Culture Study)
“It’s technically a work problem. And the only person who can fix it is your boss.” How to Tell If You Have Burnout (Atlantic)
Best of the Rest
WELLNESS
Covid-19’s big public health lesson: Ask people to be careful, not perfect (Vox) (h/t Alex Wright)
UNDER THE RADAR
Child Tax Credit Advances an Effort Years in the Making (NYT)
A Close-Up Picture of Partisan Segregation, Among 180 Million Voters (NYT)
End-of-life doulas help people die comfortably. In a pandemic, they're more important than ever (CNN)
FUN
The Only New Friends I Made This Year Were My Children (Glamour)
People Are Sharing Things Authors Do In Books That Distract Them, And I Agree With All Of Them (Buzzfeed)
Until next time (April 5), be strong and be well.