(Preface: Last night, I began a tweet that I thought would be a short list of suggestions for my high school about curricular change to empower students of color and actively fight systematic racism in education. I didn’t expect to keep writing. I was scared out of my mind to hit the post button, but after I did, I realized so many current and former students have felt the same. Many of the issues I raised are not just true of Valley, but of schools all across the nation; but I felt called to speak to Valley specifically because of their unique position as a private Christian school to which I am deeply attached).
(I’ve converted the thread to a blog post because the WordPress format conveyed my message more clearly than Twitter could. It’s mostly the same, with a few slight edits for clarification and effectiveness. This is also a more professional format if you want to share these words with your own school’s administration. Some issues are unique to Valley, but many are applicable to the American education system as a whole. Maybe the churches of America too). Here goes…
DEAR VALLEY CHRISTIAN,
Add a sociology elective.
Dear Valley Christian:
Add discussion about privilege and social location to your history/social studies classes.
Dear Valley Christian:
Incorporate multicultural literature into EVERY year of school, not just Junior year English alongside the history unit on slavery.
Dear Valley Christian,
Your motto is “Equip and Inspire.” While attending, I was equipped with biblical knowledge. But I didn’t realize racism was still a relevant issue until college.
Dear Valley Christian,
Call out your students when you hear them say, “If you ain’t Dutch you ain’t much.”
Dare I say, ask them where they learned that phrase. Dare I say, remind them that their parents can sometimes be wrong.
Dear Valley Christian,
Worship in Chapel in other languages.
Dear Valley Christian,
Seek out Black teachers for hire (not just coaches).
Dear Valley Christian,
Acknowledge Black History Month.
Dear Valley Christian,
Keep the Multicultural Food Fair going.
(ASB, that’s your job. I say this not to call anyone out, but just so you’re aware that this isn’t the responsibility of Administration. So take it upon yourself).
(For the record: the 2019-2020 ASB did have a food fair planned. In fact, it was more than a food fair! They had a whole festival to celebrate culture in mind, complete with performers, and taking up more time than just a single lunch period. Unfortunately, COVID-19 necessitated school closure and cancelled the event, but know that the effort was there).
Dear Valley Christian,
Throw out the canon of American literature. As a private school, you actually have the freedom to be able to do that.
The American canon is white male-centric because for most of American history, having the ability, freedom, and voice to write was limited to white males. Try Zora Neale Hurston; try Sandra Cisneros; try Maxine H. Kingston.
Dear Valley Christian,
For the most part at your school, I felt safe, and seen, and loved. But there was culture shock when I first got there in 7th grade.
Eventually, I was able to grow accustomed. Maybe because my last name ended in “-sma;” maybe because my track event was predominantly white (xc/distance, not sprints). Maybe because, as an Asian, I was one step closer to fitting in with the white kids.
But not everyone had these privileges. Some of my friends felt ostracized every day.
So many of us never had a teacher that looked like us. Never read a book by someone from our culture. Only heard about people of color being oppressed, but never educated on how they were successful.
Dear Valley Christian (and everyone else),
The books you don’t assign, the side of history you don’t share, perpetuates racism and opportunity gaps.
I’m not white but I had privileges. But my friends who were black didn’t have as many.
Dear Valley Christian,
You taught me so much. But you didn’t teach me enough. You didn’t teach me about race. You didn’t teach me about privilege. You didn’t teach me about systematic inequality– much less how to talk about it, or what to do about it.
Your commission at our graduation was “Go; Love; Serve.” But we didn’t know how to do that as awake and aware citizens in our own campus, much less our whole country.
Dear Valley Christian,
I say these things not because I hate you but because I love you. Because, as a Christian school, I know you are called to something higher. You can create a school system that breaks cycles. You can be a school system that doesn’t just increase diversity in enrollment, but fosters RACIAL RECONCILIATION, inclusivity, and social awareness on the daily, in the classroom (especially English & History). In chapel, in BIBLE CLASS, You can teach on God’s concern for the alien and the oppressed.
Dear Valley Christian,
I know it’s controversial and scary to have conversations about race instead of pushing “color blindness.” Yes, God loves us regardless of race, and KEEP TEACHING THAT!! But this country doesn’t present the same egalitarian love, and we are not sufficiently “EQUIPPING” (as the motto says) our students to truly see and hear and understand and defend our neighbor in the sociopolitical context of the USofA if we pretend like these issues don’t exist.
I know it’s scary because lots of parents would rather not see you calling out their privilege to their children. They might threaten to cut your funding if your curriculum treads a little too closely to the side of the “lib trash” as I’ve heard it called.
But I will remind you of the words from some of the posters that hung on the locker room and classroom walls of the school in my 6 years there:
“Doing what is right is not always easy
but it is always right.”
“Stand up for what is right
even if you are standing alone.”
“He has shown you, O Israel, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8).
The theme verse my eighth grade year was “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). You know what an act of trust is? Trust is taking a leap toward greater inclusion, representation, and equality in the Kingdom of God. Even if that risks the loss of some families with lots of money. Because even if you lost them, the Lord would still provide. Sometimes it is at the last minute (just increasing your trust more :)), but he will not let your mission die so long as it aligns with HIS mission (Psalm 41:1-3). (HIS mission is care for the orphan, widowed, powerless, poor, OPPRESSED, & vulnerable (READ: “AT-RISK”).
Dear Valley Christian,
You’ve done good in some ways.
Moving from AP Euro to AP WORLD History was good. Changing Mascots was good (*I confess to being wrong about this issue in high school). Promoting Camp Dunamis at VCMS, a camp with a twofold vision of racial reconciliation and spiritual development, was good. I acknowledge these things. Thank you for doing them!
But!
Dear Valley Christian,
I want to see you do more. I know you can do more.
This is a summer at home; what better way to spend time usually spent fixing up campus and putting on camps and practices, than to rework curricula and put into place proactive, socially sensitive policies? I’ve given you a few ways to start. So with all this said,
Dear Valley Christian,
Stand up; Do more.
“Equip and Inspire.”
“Go; Love; Serve.”
With utmost respect and love for my Alma Mater,
-Marian Ledesma.
The More the Marianer 