A. Warm-up Questions

Reflect on the following questions to begin thinking about the parts of your identity.

1. How do you identify? What are some key parts of your identity that come to mind with this question?
2. Have you come across the term “intersectionality”? What do you know about the term?

B. Identity Resources

Review some of the resources listed below. As you do so, consider the following guiding question: How can learning more about intersectionality and identity as well as its impact on our lives, support your own work and growth as an English language teacher?

• Article: Teaching at the Intersections by Monita K. Bell – Learning for Justice
• PDF: Identifying and Addressing Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture (p. 5-19) – University of Michigan
• Podcast: Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence – Resmaa Menakem (50:53) – On Being
• Video: Kimberlé Crenshaw: The urgency of intersectionality (18:26) – TED Talk

C. Reflection Activity

Having reviewed some of the resources above (and possibly finding additional resources to inspire this conversation), take a moment to write about the pieces of your own identity and intersections:

1. How do you identify in terms of the following identities? (Add more identities, if desired.)

• Race
• Ethnicity
• Sex
• Sexual orientation
• Gender
• Language
• Neurocognitive ability
• Physical ability
• Age
• Religious or spiritual affiliation
• Citizenship
• National origin
• Socio-economic class
• Education

2. Which of your identities are part of dominant culture, which are not, and which are somewhere in between?
3. With your identities, what societal barriers do you face?
4. What opportunities do your identities afford you in society? Or, what barriers are you able to ignore?

Note: This activity is based on a “Social Identity Wheel” activity from the University of Michigan – Inclusive Teaching (Pabdoo).

D. Post-Activity Discussion Questions

With a partner or in a small group, discuss what you wrote down regarding the different pieces of your identities. Depending on your context, you may be able to locate colleagues who are also engaging in identity work at your institution (perhaps through the office of diversity), in your community (perhaps through the library), or through TESOL International Association. You may choose to use or modify the following questions to guide the conversation:

1. Which identities do you think about every day? Which do you not think about often?
2. Which parts of your identity most strongly impact the way you see the world?
3. Which parts of your identity most strongly impact the way you are seen by the world?
4. Which parts of your identity seem to garner the respect of your students and colleagues? Which do not?
5. How do these identities play into your role as an English language teacher? What do you bring with you to the classroom within the context of your identities and intersections; for example, your assets, privileges, expectations, habits, blind spots?

Concluding Notes

The inner work of unpacking our identities and how they play out in our lives is a constant process of listening, reflecting, and growing. It is about naming how we either benefit from systemic oppression or suffer from systemic oppression. There is no neutrality.

Often, when we feel a strong reaction to something, when we feel triggered or activated, it is a signal that there is something to unpack. It takes honesty and humility to go there, to go where things are nebulous, muddy, and uncomfortable, to the heart of things. Often, it is in this space where we grow most. Notice how your body responds to the material.

Find strategies for practicing self and community care as you do the work. Social activist Mushim Patricia Ikeda writes about being “brave in a sustainable way” creating a “Great Vow for Mindful Activists” that she asks her social justice activist students to make, as they begin their journey (Ikeda). We may consider doing something similar. Taking care of ourselves and of our communities is radical. It is anti-capitalist. It is disruptive in that it places value on both wholeness AND social justice.

The practice of noticing and working gently with yourself is the first step towards disrupting patterns that harm us all. We will mess up. And we can commit to trying again and again, not allowing white supremacy culture to control the narrative of our collective healing and growth.

In the end, we all suffer when we contribute to and perpetuate a system that does not serve all. We invite you, dear colleague, to consider how you might continue learning and growing in the work of identity, with your fellow English language acquisition colleagues. We have so much further to go. We have so much more to change about what and how we teach. Together, we can work to tear down a foundation of white supremacy and coloniality in English Language Teaching and build up something we can feel proud to be a part of, to be anti-racist English language teachers.