Decolonizing Classroom Management

As an educator who supports and advocates for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and Culturally Responsive Classroom Management (CRCM), I expected to feel at home with the contents of Decolonizing Classroom Management. I was wrong. In this bold, yet warm-spirited book, editors Flynn Ross and Larissa Malone and an extremely diverse group of contributors push the envelope of DEI and CRCM and call for decolonization--dismantling the white, middle-class, Eurocentric worldviews and power structures of today's classrooms. I never thought of myself as a "white settler," but the authors have pushed me to consider a colonialist framework without hurling names or attacking. They encourage educators to integrate Western codes of conduct with Indigenous ways of being and to reflect on the cultural assumptions underlying many popular classroom management practices. Decolonizing Classroom Management has provided me with a new lens through which to view the power dynamics of classrooms and the obvious inequities that can result.

This thoughtful volume essentially decolonizes modern-day (de)colonialism, peering beneath the mantle of practices labeled liberatory, yet which can/do ultimately reify and perpetuate oppressive structures and re-normalize whiteness. Uniformly, the authors challenge us to look with new eyes at prevailing, "new and improved" classroom models and methods, so we can begin to see where they fall short, where they harm, where they exclude, and how they can be transformed to truly honor the polyvocal voices, complex and layered identities, latent agency and collective power of young people.

Decolonizing Classroom Management gives teachers tools to take on one of the most difficult challenges in teaching: classroom management. In this collection of highly readable essays, authors deconstruct prevailing systems that are rooted in whiteness and control. Using stories from their own practice, authors show what decolonized classroom management looks and feels like to both students and teachers.

Decolonizing Classroom Management amplifies the important message that the time has come to take a deep dive into examining existing classroom practices. Each of the essays in this roadmap for classroom reform stand alone, providing compelling arguments for change. Taken together, they create a powerful argument for curricular reform at all levels to ensure all students see themselves reflected in their studies, and provide educators with a culturally responsive framework for their work.