As a teacher/activist, Julia Torres's work is grounded in empowering students to use the Language Arts to fuel resistance and positive social transformation. Ms. Torres facilitates workshops and professional conversations about anti-racist education, social justice, and culturally sustaining pedagogies. She writes about these and other topics at at juliaetorres.blog.
Topics include:
- How Julia uses side-by-side teaching, expert groups, and culturally relevant texts to shift traditional power dynamics in her classroom
- How grades foster attitudes of competition, compliance, and insecurity in students of color, dividing them and pitting them against one another
- How Julia helps students "unlearn" disempowering attitudes from past experiences
- Why implementing progressive practices like going gradeless can be extremely difficult in urban school settings
- Why teachers from non-urban settings should visit and learn from teachers in urban settings
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