Two

Becoming Feminist

The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.

—bell hooks

AS I WALK INTO the cafeteria, the students are quietly eating breakfast.

Once they have finished, the students walk in an orderly, single-file line into the gym. The 200 or so students sit in a circle, each classroom together. Each of the ten classes is named after a university. A student named Bethany runs to the middle and starts to chant:¹

We’re girls and we matter,

And we have something to say.

Are we perfect? No.

Are we perfect? No.

We are better today than yesterday.

Better today than yesterday.

The principal, Donna Knight, takes the lead and yells, “The competition is fierce!” to which the students respond, “The competition is fierce!”

Principal Knight continues: “Who is going to take home Ava [the school’s mascot]? Stanford University, we want to hear from you.”

A group of about thirty girls sitting in the left corner of the gym begin to chant a song describing their college aspirations: “Reach for the stars … I work really hard … pocket full of money, on our way to college.”

The girls at times hold hands, stomp, clap, and do dance moves, including “dabbing.” Some of the harmonies mirror today’s newest hits but with the words revised to reflect their personal and professional ambitions.

As the girls chant, their peers and teachers listen, intermittently flashing hands and spirit fingers to indicate comradery. They make no other sound. Principal Knight also provides affirmation as the student’s chant.

“Oh, Stanford University had so much [spunk]!” she exclaims.

Each class completes its chant. It takes a total of about thirty minutes. The principal wraps things up by leading the students in the singing of the school song: “We Are the School that Works Hard, and We Will Change the World.”

“Who is going [to] take home Ava?” Principal Knight yells again. The students rise and explain why they think they should get to take home the mascot. One group says: “Because we have bright faces and our movements are crisp.”

Some even make a case for their friends (or rather, their competition): “Because they have [spunk]!”

The crowd says together: “We like that.”

The room is vibrant and spirited but also coordinated and disciplined. No student speaks unless called on. The teachers gather in the circle with the principal, and they discuss the potential winner.

“Brown University,” Principal Knight announces. “Now let’s get fired up and ready to work.”

The students exit the room as quietly and orderly as they entered.

It’s time to start the school day.

This is just another ordinary morning at Barbara Teele Elementary, an all-girls K–4 school founded in 2009 by two educators with the lofty goal of increasing the number of women in leadership positions across the United States.² Each grade has two classes, and each class has two teachers, allowing a student-teacher ratio of fifteen to one. The school has an extended school day that begins at 7:10 AM and ends at 3:50 PM, Monday through Thursday. On Friday, the day ends at 1:20 P.M. so that teachers can work on professional development. After school and on Saturday, tutoring is also offered.

As of June 2017, the school enrolled 440 students, 90 percent of whom were African American and 73 percent of whom qualified for free or reduced lunch. Of the teaching staff, 60 percent come from historically underrepresented minority backgrounds. Principal Knight is an African American woman who grew up in the same Northeast neighborhood in which the school is located. The area has a population of about 150,000 people, 70 percent of whom are Black and 15 percent Hispanic. The average income is about 37,000 USD per year.

In short, the attendees of Teele Elementary reflect their neighborhood: they are poor students of color—a demographic typically associated with schools that perform the worst academically in the United States. However, despite serving an economically disadvantaged population, Teele Elementary has consistently performed at higher levels than its majority peers at the city and state level. Accordingly, in 2016–17, the school was one out of ten schools in the state to be designated a National Blue Ribbon School—the highest academic distinction for a primary school provided by the US Department of Education.

But does Teele’s distinguished academic program alone provide girls with what they need to succeed on their later academic path and, ultimately, in the greater world? I argue that high academic performance is a necessary component, but it is insufficient for the type of schools that girls need. Schools such as Teele Elementary must first engage in practices that keep girls safe. They must then provide girls with tools to develop achievement-oriented identities and, consequently, confidence, strategy making, and the ability to transgress. In doing so, they must serve as models of gender equity. In other words, schools that turn out girls with achievement-oriented identities are, and must be, feminist institutions.

Feminist institutions acknowledge how policies and practices affect boys, girls, and nonbinary identifying students differently, and then proactively respond to those differences. They strive to defy gender norms, as they intersect with race and class, and work to embody equity for all. In their most ideal form, feminist institutions act as sites of social change: they disrupt dominant power structures and redistribute them, thereby ensuring that all students can secure net achievement and contribute to broader societal transformation. In the next section, I provide a brief review of the historical and contemporary state of schoolgirls in the United States before returning to the case of Teele Elementary to illustrate the promise of feminist schools.

The US Educational Landscape

Just over sixty years ago, the US public school system allowed legal segregation of its schools based on race. Although the passage of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 declared segregation unconstitutional, schools in the United States remain highly segregated along the lines of race even today.³ As the Brown v. Board decision became the law of the land, White families fled to the suburbs, thereby effectively resegregating Black families in the city.⁴ Consequently, the public-school population shifted from being primarily White to one in which nearly 50 percent of students were of color. Demographic shifts have been associated with major disinvestments in public schools, as they are now filled with students from families with lower levels of resources.⁵ For example, one study from the Center for American Progress found that a 10 percent increase in the number of minority students in a school was associated with a $75 reduction in per-pupil spending.⁶ This occurs in an environment in which minority students are already half as likely to have a parent who obtained an advanced degree, 23 percent less likely in their childhoods to have a parent who read to them, and three times more likely to be held back a grade when compared with their majority counterparts.⁷

What did the education landscape look like for women and girls just over sixty years ago? Women and girls were underrepresented across every level of education in the United States. If girls did attend school, they frequently went to single-sex schools that emphasized girls’ futures as homemakers or at best as secretaries or teachers. When they did attend co-ed schools, they were tracked into fields such as home economics or domestic science. These tracks were especially encouraged for minority girls, even if they had strong academic records.⁸

By 1980, women and men began accessing education at equal levels after the passage of Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act, which bars gender-based discrimination in programs that receive federal funding (20 USC). By 2010, women in the United States represented nearly 50 percent of primary and secondary school enrollment, and 57 percent of college degrees were earned by women (compared to 43 percent by men).⁹ That trend has continued at the graduate and doctoral levels.¹⁰

The Barriers Girls Face in the United States

The relatively high number of girls attending schools in the United States suggests to some that the issue of educational access for girls is no longer relevant and should be deprioritized nationwide. In fact, policies around girls’ education passed by US lawmakers are usually intended to assist girl students in developing countries where educational resources are scarcer. The exception is policy regarding recruitment into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for US girls, such as the 1974 Women’s Educational Equity Act. However, even though girls almost universally have access to school in the United States, their educational experiences are often hampered by issues that have gone unaddressed, such as safety and bullying, puberty and pregnancy, mental health and trauma, and school discipline. These barriers, discussed in more detail below, must be addressed for schools to become equitable learning environments.

SAFETY AND BULLYING

In the United States, parents feel relatively secure sending their kids to school every morning, as most assume that their children will be safe while they are there. Indeed, US schools are often touted as “safe havens” and “sanctuaries,” even in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods. Given the amount of time young people spend at school each day, one should expect these institutions to be among the safest spaces for children to be.

Yet, youth in America are more likely to be victims of violent crimes than any other age group, and these violent crimes often occur in or around school.¹¹ In fact, between 2010 and 2013, victimizations at school increased by 100 percent, from twenty to forty victimizations per 1,000 students.¹² In 2015, according the US Office of Juvenile Justice, “students age 12–18 were victims of an estimated 209,900 serious violent crimes; just under half (47%) of these incidents took place at or on the way to school.”¹³ This is in addition to more recent, large-scale violent events such as the tragic Parkland, Florida, school shooting.

According to a National Women’s Law Center study of more than 1,000 girls aged fifteen to eighteen years, one in seven in the United States report being absent from school because they felt unsafe in or on their way to school. These numbers are three to five times higher among girls who have special needs or identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. A study of more than 1,000 adolescents released by Plan International in 2018 revealed that 76 percent of girls between the ages of fourteen and nineteen report feeling unsafe as a girl in their daily life, and 69 percent report feeling judged as a sexual object.¹⁴ Across these studies, girls cite sexual abuse and bullying as the top concerns shaping their perceptions of safety. Sexual abuse and bullying often stem from beliefs—at the individual and school level—that girls and nonbinary-identifying students occupy inferior positions relative to boys and should not strive to defy gender norms.¹⁵

Bullying is often about policing or regulating nonconforming actions, studies suggest, thereby discouraging these actions among students. As noted by Elizabeth Meyer in her book Gender, Bullying, and Harassment, “the social constructs of ideal masculinity and femininity are at the core of much bullying behavior.”¹⁶ One study found that verbal harassment around gender nonconformity and sexual orientation are among the top forms of bullying students encounter at school.¹⁷

Unfortunately, when students use bullying to regulate behaviors that overstep gender boundaries, teachers often fail to intervene, mostly because they don’t know how.¹⁸ Some education reforms aim to improve the number of girls attending school and the level of their achievement, but these tend to focus on access only and do not train teachers on how to enable students to subvert traditional gender stereotypes or sexual identities.¹⁹ Being able to subvert traditional gender hierarchies requires teachers to address the central question—as stated by Deborah Youdell—of “why education policy or curricular changes that may (or may not) have improved girls’ educational achievement have not simultaneously simply freed-up or expanded who or how girls can be.”²⁰ Altogether, making school safety a priority and training teachers to be gender conscious can help prevent the traumatizing effects of abuse and bullying on students’ educational experiences.²¹

PUBERTY AND PREGNANCY

Girls must contend with pregnancy, or the potential for their own or friends’ pregnancy, while they are still in school. Issues around pregnancy have affected Black and Hispanic students disproportionately. While the percentage of Black and Hispanic school-aged girls who are pregnant has dropped significantly over the past two decades, in 2015 they were still twice as likely as White girls to be pregnant between the ages of fifteen and nineteen.²² School-aged girls faced with pregnancy need schools that are willing to accommodate the unequal burden pregnancy places on them.

Black girls, in particular, must deal with stereotypes related to their sexuality and promiscuity.²³ Such stereotypes may be exacerbated by the fact that, overall, Black girls undergo puberty earlier and at faster rates and thus appear more physically developed than other girls. For example, 25 percent of Black girls begin to develop breasts at seven years old, double the percentage of White girls at the same age.²⁴ Black girls, if they are perceived as sexual or mature, may assume or internalize these perceptions. As Monique Morris argues in Pushout, Black girls are “subjected to powerful narratives about their collective identity that impact what they think about school, what they think about themselves as scholars, and how they perform as students.”²⁵ For example, a Black girl may begin to believe that she should be able to take on more responsibility than a typical student if she is perceived as mature, and she may be disappointed or ashamed if she is not prepared to do so.²⁶ This may lead her to ask fewer questions about concepts that are unclear and accept harsher punishments for making mistakes. In addition, research suggests Black girls may act “loud” in order to be seen and heard in spaces where they are typically ignored. The same research notes that girls use this tactic even in African-centered institutions where racial identity is embraced as the norm.²⁷ Ultimately, it is incumbent on schools to develop constructive experiences and identities for Black girls so that they do not absorb the negative stereotypes typically associated with them.

MENTAL HEALTH AND TRAUMA

Girl students faced with challenges such as abuse, bullying, or negative stereotypes commonly suffer from poor mental health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed in 2016 that those who experience sexual abuse and forms of gender-based violence at school have a higher probability of reporting depression, low self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts.²⁸ In 2009, the National Survey of American Life Adolescent Supplement surveyed more than a thousand African American and Caribbean youths aged thirteen to seventeen years and reported that twice as many Black women (7 percent) attempt suicide before they reach age seventeen compared to their Black male peers. According to the same study, nearly half of those who attempted suicide had not been diagnosed with a mental disorder at the time of the suicide attempt.²⁹

In fact, out of the one in five students in the United States who show signs or symptoms of a mental health disorder, only 20 percent receive the mental health resources and services they need.³⁰ When mental health services are available, the presence of race and gender bias in school shapes how youth learn to manage trauma. Black youth are less likely than their White and Latina peers to receive treatment for mental illness in general, but these numbers are even worse for Black girls because they are perceived as more mature, and thus better able to handle mental health trauma relative to their peers. Accordingly, mental health services, when available, are either offered less frequently to Black girls or Black girls feel less entitled to them (or both).³¹

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENT

School discipline may also act as a mechanism of policing girls’ behaviors and bodies to enforce prescribed feminine ways. Although there are higher numbers of incidents of school punishment for boys, research shows that being Black disadvantages girls more.³² In fact, from between 2002 and 2006, there was a 5.6 percent increase in the number of Black girls being suspended per district, compared with an increase of 1.7 percent for Black boys.³³ Moreover, a 2014 report on school discipline by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found that Black girls are suspended nationally at higher numbers than all other girls and most boys, even after accounting for the rate of offenses committed.³⁴

Regarding how Black girls compare to other girls, research indicates that they typically attend high-poverty institutions where they suffer from disproportionate experiences with school punishment—both in number and severity—compared to their White and Latina peers.³⁵ A study conducted by the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies and the African American Policy Forum found that Black girls are ten times more likely to face disciplinary actions such as suspension or expulsion than are White girls, partly due to dominant perceptions of their actions (for example, being too talkative, which is inconsistent with traditional feminine norms).³⁶ Often, their actions, which may be the same as their peers, are interpreted differently because of preconceived notions steeped in stereotypes of Black girls.

In June 2017, the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality released the report “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” which was based on a study of 325 adults of different racial and ethnic backgrounds across the United States. Overall, 74 percent of participants were White (and 60 percent of these, or 44 percent of the entire sample, were White women), 11 percent were African American, 7 percent were Hispanic, 4 percent were Asian, and 4 percent were Native American or other. In addition, 39 percent were between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four, and nearly 70 percent held at least a high school degree. The participants were randomly assigned an equivalent question about a Black girl or a White girl between the ages of zero and nineteen using a five-point scale.³⁷

The study revealed that respondents begin to view Black girls as adults when they are as young as five years old, which is five years earlier than for Black boys and significantly earlier than for all other groups. Consistent with previous work, the study titled the phenomenon the “adultification” of Black girls—defined specifically as a process by which Black girls are viewed as more like adults, and thus no longer innocent, relative to White girls of the same age. Because of this phenomenon, the study’s authors contend that the public may be less forgiving of mistakes Black girls might make and thus view them as knowingly guilty of their actions. In other words, being viewed as an adult at five years old may deny Black girls the protections—most notably the privilege of innocence—afforded to their majority peers. This perception of Black girls as essentially guilty adults might explain why they are more likely than Whites to be suspended from school and referred to the juvenile justice system.³⁸

A Better Educational Experience for Girls

All negative educational experiences—whether related to safety and bullying, puberty and pregnancy, or punishment—faced by Black girl students shed light on the importance of shifting discussions away from an exclusive focus on educational access and performance. Instead, there is a need to prioritize efforts that seek to enable girls to attend feminist schools where they can have positive educational experiences that account for their net achievement.

A school that strives to be feminist must work to first protect its girl students, thereby acting as a safe space that disrupts dominant power relations. Only then can this school impress upon its girl students the achievement-oriented identities that provide them with the power of positive beliefs in their own abilities and the tools to translate those beliefs into realizable actions. Such a school must help girls acknowledge the gender barriers before them and then enable these girls to have confidence in their abilities to respond strategically. Finally, a feminist school must strive to push girls to transgress the traditional norms placed upon them, thereby facilitating their ability to thrive and contribute to societal change.

Toward Feminist Schooling at Teele Elementary

From its leadership to its nonacademic curriculum, Teele Elementary approaches the type of feminist institution necessary for girls to thrive. Teele Elementary benefits from a leadership team that shares both the demographic and household characteristics of its students (60 percent of the faculty are people of color). The students are described by staff as coming from “non-traditional households with two moms or no moms, who face adversities like violence and just being low income.” Principal Knight describes herself as growing up in similarly underprivileged circumstances, stating: “I grew up … [with] my mom and older sister, and we grew up in a one room house, and my mom’s room was in the dining area and we were in the actual [bed]room.”

Principal Knight’s personal experiences with underserved populations—experiences that are shared by many of her teaching staff—shape her approach to leading the school. When she was in college, she visited a friend who was incarcerated and was struck by how she “went from being on this campus,” where she was treated like a deserving student, to this prison, where she was “treated like the scum of the earth.” Principal Knight’s experience piqued her interest in prison studies, and she soon began a prison tutoring program. Her interactions with one particular inmate played a direct role in developing her interest in teaching: “We were working on simple multiplication facts and he was feeling discouraged … and I had to do so much convincing in order to get the buy-in … He would be talking about taking care of his kids but he could not do his multiplication, and I am like ‘I have to teach’ … and I have to teach foundational skills and they have to love education, because, as I reflected on my life, it was my educational opportunities that got me here.” Similarly, some of her teaching staff were also drawn to the profession because of their direct experiences with underserved populations. One teacher who had been at the school for four years shared the following: “I worked with women on welfare, and a lot of them said that they dropped out of school because they didn’t have a person who believed in them. I just thought, ‘I wish I got to them earlier,’ and that is what brought me to [Teele Elementary].”

The leadership and teaching staff thus came to the school with an interest and genuine passion to work with the type of population Teele Elementary serves. This intentionality has had a positive impact on curating the type of achievement-oriented, feminist institution that Teele Elementary has become.

Instilling Confidence

Perhaps no quality is emphasized more throughout a typical school day at Teele Elementary than confidence. According to Principal Knight, “by teaching our students to persevere, we are building their confidence and assuring them that they can conquer anything they put their minds to.” Indeed, she believes confidence is the trait she wants students at Teele Elementary to learn above all others. Many girls arrive at Teele Elementary meek and quiet, she explains, concerned about having perfect handwriting and afraid to disagree. Her goal is to teach students that it is okay not to be perfect and that it is okay to have a different opinion. “Part of why you hear them scream their chants [is so they’re] not afraid to voice their opinions,” Principal Knight explains.

Teachers at Teele Elementary expose students early on to practices that improve their self-confidence. During teacher training, all staff members read “The Confidence Gap,” an article published in the Atlantic in 2014 that documents how women in the workplace often struggle with notions of perfectionism and thus fail to apply for positions for which they are qualified.³⁹ By reading articles such as this, teachers begin to understand that nurturing students’ confidence will help them meet challenges beyond their school experience. As Principal Knight explains, “When I think about my success, it’s not about intellectual ability … it’s my confidence. We have to make sure every girl here really loves herself, has a strong sense of self-worth, is confident … not cocky, knows who they are and can lift others up. We have a unique ability to [do] that in this environment … so that is really the goal here, and we see that in their results.” Ultimately, Principal Knight acknowledges the specific gender-based concerns affecting the ability of girls to learn, and she works to proactively address them using research as well as her own experience. In doing so, she instills in her teachers a similarly strong belief in the importance of confidence for academic success. As one teacher emphasized, “If these kids have confidence in themselves, they will be able to understand [everything] better … that is what will be able to help them to succeed.”

I observed teachers integrate these beliefs into their instruction and activities for students. They recognize that students’ confidence levels—just like their academic levels—vary, and part of their goal is helping all the students arrive at similar levels. When I asked how they do this, one teacher responded, “It has to do with knowing your kids’ strength and highlighting that strength, no matter what that strength is … The kid who might be good at math problems, she can build on that … I let them show others who they are.”

Beyond highlighting the strengths of individual students, teachers assign confidence-building exercises that emphasize persevering through problems and finding “flexible” ways to solve them—a strong element of building achievement-oriented identities. These exercises also emphasize the importance of making mistakes, learning from them, and making a better effort next time. In one assignment I observed, students were asked to reflect on the question, “What makes you confident?” Students’ responses reflect an internalization of the lesson being promoted:

I love my sense of humor and style. I believe in whatever I want to do. I don’t care what people think about me. I always try my best.

I believe in myself all the time even though somebody says I can’t do it. I push through. I always say “I can do it” when something is hard.

I speak loud and proud because my voice matters. I also sit up because it shows that I am a strong girl. I raise my hand straight to show I am sure of my answer.

This exercise is particularly important for students who experience bullying in school, as one response shows: “I [am] confident in wearing glasses because they make me unique. They help me see. I inspire people with them.” Through this activity, the girl is learning how to respond to the challenge of being bullied by reshaping how others view her. Each of the responses is projected on the wall with a picture of the student and her name, thus encouraging girls to embrace what makes them confident in themselves and in each other.

The confidence these girls develop from activities such as this improves their lives inside of school and out. Parents immediately recognize the difference in their children. These parents come to view confidence building as the school’s most significant contribution to their daughters’ lives. As the mother of a current fifth-grader (and a K–4 graduate) noted, the school gave her daughter “confidence that she wouldn’t have otherwise—confidence in just being a girl and knowing that she is fierce and good enough, that she is smart and she got it.” She goes on to explain that students at Teele Elementary “think their teachers are everything so they … have power and carry a lot of weight [when they tell students] ‘you are smart and you can do it, that you are a [womanist woman].’ ”⁴⁰ She continues, “I don’t think [my daughter] would have that level of confidence without this school. Thankfully, I don’t have to leave that to chance.” Clearly, parents recognize that the work of teaching their child extends beyond academics and includes key factors such as confidence. This confidence becomes critical to girls’ belief in their ability to persevere when faced with adversity.

AFFIRMATION

Interestingly, I observed that efforts to improve confidence were supplemented by routine affirmation of students. More specifically, Teele Elementary students were provided affirmation for the ways in which they engaged with lessons. I often heard teachers across classrooms say, “Nice straight backs … nice going back to the text … nice helping hand … nice voice.” These affirmations were seamlessly woven into class lessons, regardless of the topic, and encouraged students to celebrate not only their intellect but also one another.

In the classroom, for instance, the students “do a lot of self-love building exercises.” As one first-grade teacher described, “I found this book about different shades and still being beautiful … I have them take out their imaginary mirrors and tell themselves how beautiful they are … and highlight in each other the things they think are beautiful.”

This affirmation begins as soon as students arrive at school in their morning meeting, as described at the beginning of this chapter, and it continues outside of the classroom as well. For example, students at the school take dance and singing class, which gives them the opportunity to de-stress and learn more about their bodies. They learn and adapt songs that celebrate their belief in their ability to achieve their aspirations, such as the following:⁴¹

I’m stepping out, I want the world to know, I got to let it show.

It’s a new me coming out and I am going to live, and I am going to give, I am completely positive.

I will go to college because I got the knowledge. Oooh I’ll pass the test.

Altogether, whether students are told to celebrate their brains, asked to sing about their college aspirations, or given an assignment to reflect on their beauty, their physical and intellectual value are constantly affirmed. This type of affirmation is essential for girls for multiple reasons but especially for building their confidence. One study investigated anxiety among female math teachers, for example. It revealed that girl students enrolled in classes with anxious female teachers were more likely than boys to believe the stereotype that boys were better than girls at math by the end of year. These perceptions also contributed to girls’ lower academic achievement.⁴² The ability for teachers to provide affirmations for their students, then, may help to explain the high confidence and academic achievement of girls at Teele Elementary.

DISCIPLINE

Another important factor for success that teachers emphasize at Teele Elementary is discipline. As one teacher put it, “The key is confidence and discipline. That is really going to get you to where you want to be, and without that, these [womanist women] have nothing.”

The topic of discipline was especially interesting to me because, as explained earlier, Black girls in the United States are often suspended and expelled at high rates compared with all other girls and non-Black boys. Still, discipline is consistently described as a critical factor for enabling girls to achieve academically, not only in the United States but also elsewhere. Thus, I needed to understand how Teele Elementary was using disciplinary practices to achieve positive academic, social, and emotional outcomes.

Teele Elementary has specific rules of conduct that are closely followed by teachers and students alike. There are rules for participation, going to the bathroom, paying attention, reading, raising one’s hand, and so on. Principal Knight explained, “We ground our expectations deeply in rationality … we don’t call out because then we will not be able to hear the things our sister has to say and then we won’t be able to build on those ideas.”

Indeed, from Day One, students are taught how to behave in a certain way. At times, I was so overwhelmed by the number of rules in place at Teele Elementary that I wondered how many were necessary. Principal Knight noted, “There are many areas throughout the days when misbehavior becomes a teachable moment. Discipline is not the focus of our school. All kids want to do well. All kids want to learn … Our teachers work on buy-in from our students.”

These statements were echoed by Teele Elementary co-founder Maria Avery, who stated in response to questions about school discipline that “we do everything to keep our kids in schools—we are relentless.” She observed that before third grade, girls are relatively kind and well-behaved, but after third grade they begin to bully one another. At Teele Elementary, the staff examines these concerns from the perspectives of social and emotional well-being. “We have had social workers in our school since Year One,” Ms. Avery explains. Social workers experienced with aiding students who have been affected by trauma help design responses to misbehavior in class to determine “how students’ social and emotional well-being impact[s] their ability to succeed.”

When I asked teachers about their strategies for dealing with misbehavior, I heard a variety of long-term as well as short-term solutions. Some of the long-term solutions included changing their approach to the students, changing their tone of voice, considering where and when discipline occurs, and being aware of a student’s family background and academic performance. One teacher gave the following example: “I have one student [who] acts out because she is so smart, and she felt like a lot of the work wasn’t that challenging, so we thought of additional work we can give her.” Long-term discipline involves showing some empathy but also pushing students to be better.

Short-term solutions might include what one teacher calls “the calm down corner.” As she explains, “It’s not time out. I’ve told all of [my students] that when you go through something that is hard, you can feel down but you have to come back up … and in the calm down corner are a list of calm down strategies … you have 5 minutes and if [the anger] has passed and you have calmed down, we welcome you back with open arms.”

Strategies to help the student calm down include counting to ten, thinking about their favorite food or color, taking deep breaths, or squeezing a stress ball. If none of these tactics appear to work, the dean of students is called. According to Principal Knight, “we have a culture where [we don’t send students out of class] … we address the behavior, not the child.” The staff seeks to keep the students in school to learn rather than in detention or at home. For example, I observed one incident in which a student was not paying attention, despite the teacher’s demands. The teacher, working on guided reading with other students in the class, seemed frustrated. This student appeared to get into trouble often, but she was not kicked out of class. The teacher instead sent the girl’s mother a text and showed the student. She then continued the lesson; the student had been disciplined and the learning did not falter. Once the foundational factors of confidence and discipline are in place, Teele Elementary focuses its attention on teaching its students about social justice and how to transgress norms.

Teaching to Transgress: The Development of Womanist Women

Teele Elementary—physically, materially, and socially—reflects the womanist woman curriculum they created to build socially conscious students who transgress norms.⁴³ In the hallway on the third floor, a poster of Lupita Nyong’o hangs outside a classroom door. It reads: “No matter where you are from, your dreams are valued.” Also hanging are images of Toni Morrison and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

On another wall, there is a long display of Essence magazine covers with different images of Black women. Some are actual covers; others were designed by students. Under the display of covers is a description of the magazine’s history and the students’ reinterpretations of the magazine. There is also a “goals wall” where students state what they want to be: “the first female Mexican president,” for example. Outside of the third-grade classroom, a picture of prominent activist Angela Davis appears alongside student letters, one of which reads, “I like how you fought for Black people.”

These small details are examples of how the womanist woman curriculum at Teele Elementary works: It connects women role models to specific values, including optimism, respect, honesty, curiosity, justice, love, hope, courage, and sisterhood. Principal Knight explains: “Each month has a … value. Our … values stay the same from year to year but what changes is the mentor we learn about and their stories. So, for example, [for the value of] Optimism [we chose] Misty Copeland. We chose that term for her because part of her story is not having the ballerina body type and phenotype but still persevering and showing that [if] you have your skill, your confidence, you will get to your goal.” These values are woven into the school day, as students are asked by teachers: “What is the … value? Who are the [womanist women] that represent it, and how do they show it?” In the morning, teachers discuss with the students how they use that value at home or outside of school. Throughout the week, staff members keep track of different acts that display values and give rewards at the end of the week to the girls who embodied the values the most.

Introducing powerful, inspirational women along with the values is critical. “I think it’s allowing students to have a mirror,” Principal Knight states. “And it’s good to hear that people can struggle but they always come out stronger on the other end. The women we are picking are multicultural … [for example] she was a soul-cycle instructor and now she is an Adidas ambassador and she tried out 30 times! Next year, we are trying to pick more girls in our community … I think the ability to make connections to these women drives the students to be awesome human beings.”

Teachers use these dynamic women role models to educate their students about strength and overcoming challenges.⁴⁴ For example, during my visit to Teele Elementary, students were taught about singer, actress, and civil rights activist Lena Horne, who was the first African American woman to sign a long-term contract with a major studio. Students, when asked to document why she inspired them, provided the following responses:

Lena Horne inspires me because she reached to her goal and became a famous singer and actress. Even though she was a Black woman and couldn’t perform with White people, she still took action in her dream and was able to inspire many people in the world.

Lena Horne inspires me because she shows me that if I work hard enough I could achieve my dreams just like her and become a great success in life.

She left home just to support her family and she became a dancer and became known as one of the top African American performers of her time, and she did her work with civil rights group, refused to play roles that stereotyped African American women.

The students’ responses reflect how learning about these role models teaches them important lessons not only about hard work and persistence but also about the barriers associated with being a woman of color in the United States. As one teacher remarked on the effects of the curriculum, “It really opens their minds to different things that can be a barrier to girls in different ways.” Through their exposure to these barriers, students also learn that, just like the women they read about, they can have myriad challenges in their lives and still become successful individuals. Most important, the success they are being exposed to extends beyond academics.

Beyond historically notable women who have overcome obstacles to find success, the curriculum also highlights contemporary heroes who are women, most notably the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. During the year of my study, students were taught about these women and the founding principles of the movement that was created in response to police violence against African Americans in the United States. In addition, an assignment was created around exploring activism and why the founding women were womanist women. Fourth-grade girls were asked to describe how they were inspired to make a change in the world and what impact they believed the movement had on their future. Responses to the former question included the following:

Because they inspire me to do anything I want to. Because they believed that racial profiling was wrong and created the whole movement #Blacklivesmatter. So, if they can do that, I can be a lawyer, a teacher, an astronaut, the president, because they taught me anything I put my mind to can happen.

I should fight for something that is unfair, something that I disagree with.

Because they went above and beyond, instead of just resting … so Blacks and Hispanics can get the treatment they deserve. And since only three Black women did it by themselves, it tells me that they had to work really hard to get the movement in motion.

These females make me believe that everyone needs the opportunity to have their voice be heard. Especially girls and girls of color.

When asked about their expectations of the impact it would have on their future, the students responded with the following:

I will not tolerate anyone being racist to another person in front of me because the racist problem will gain more throughout the world and then people of color will feel [that they don’t belong] and sad and that they don’t matter. So in the future, everyone should know that they’re special in many ways!

In the future, Blacks are going to be treated more fairly.

Being a young Black woman, I might not be who people want me to be, but this movement shows, no matter how much hate I get because of my skin color, I know that I matter so that’s all that matters. Even [though] I may be different from the world, I know that these women gave me the right to speak my mind and [that] I matter and so do you.

These responses reveal not only a sophisticated understanding of what the movement seeks to achieve but also hope that it may contribute to a better world. Students are taught to acknowledge race and gender inequality but also to recognize the steps that are being taken by others to address inequality. They are being educated on these issues and empowered to believe they can help address them. As stated by Principal Knight: “A lot of things are influenced by the stories they hear … they don’t just want to be lawyers. They say things like, ‘I want to be a cheerleader for Black people.’ ” In several cases, students take a specific stand on the role they intend to play in improving a problem, such as not tolerating “anyone being racist to another person.” The lessons learned play a crucial role in building self-belief and self-efficacy, critical skills for developing achievement-oriented identities, and exemplify a feminist practice of teaching students to speak out against injustices and believing in their ability to transgress them.

As part of the discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement, students were also given room to express their feelings toward the victims of police killings, particularly Rekia Boyd and Tamir Rice, who were close to their age when they died. Through letters written to the victims, students shared their empathy: “I know this letter will never reach you, but I wanted to say this was really unfair. It was just a toy or [N]erf gun or a water gun. You did not do anything wrong, you’re innocent! And the police did not get charged.”

They also share their fears and wishes: “This means a lot to me because I have 12 toy guns, and me and my friends play with them every day. Let God bless you, and I hope you made it to heaven.”

Additionally, they provide them with affirmation: “Don’t regret being Black. Love your race and be proud of who you are,” and “Even though you died, you’re strong. You’re still strong and you will always be strong.”

Finally, they assure them that people are fighting on their behalf: “I am here to say there is good news, people are protesting and trying to stand up for the people who were shot for no reason. Now you won’t have to feel bad. People care for you as a Black person so be proud that you have brothers and sisters standing up for you.” The exercise is sad but necessary. It enables students to develop mechanisms to cope with the events they see on their televisions, cell phones, and computers every day. From these lessons, students build the identities necessary to confront the hard truths of being a Black youth in today’s America.

Looking to the Future

Teele Elementary stands out, first and foremost, as an institution that protects its students and impresses upon them the need for positive, or rather, achievement-oriented identities. These identities are built through the school’s efforts to dismantle the gender barriers faced by girls and to provide them with the confidence and strategies necessary to transgress challenges inhibiting their net achievement. In doing so, the school serves as a close model for gender equity: it approximates a feminist institution that helps girls thrive.⁴⁵

What happens when these girls leave Teele Elementary after the fourth grade? The statistics are not in their favor. While more Black women and girls in the United States attend and graduate secondary educational institutions than ever before, they may also be subject to high rates of suspension, expulsion, and entry into juvenile justice centers.⁴⁶ When Black women graduate from high school, research demonstrates that they are more than twice as likely as all other groups to attend for-profit colleges, many of which lack accreditation and use predatory financial practices.⁴⁷ The consequence is that these young women take on loans they cannot afford to repay to earn degrees that are unlikely to land them well-paying jobs.⁴⁸

Once in the job market, Black women not only struggle to land well-paying jobs, but also suffer from higher levels of unemployment, even though they are the group most likely to be a single head of household.⁴⁹ As expectant mothers, Black women are twice as likely as expectant White mothers to experience the death of their infant. These disparities persist even among expectant Black mothers with an advanced degree.⁵⁰ Regarding death, Black women are also twice as likely as White women to die from homicides, in large part due to the violence of an intimate partner.⁵¹ Altogether, Black women and girls face myriad struggles over the course of their lifetimes that inevitably impact their ability to thrive.

We don’t know if students at Teele Elementary will retain their lessons about gender, race, confidence, and transgression. Will they make a difference, especially once they enter much more hostile environments? The administration at Teele Elementary knows that outcomes are uncertain. As one teacher put it, “I just hope they retain their confidence.” Her goals for them are in no way modest.

While it is unclear whether these girls will be able to hold on to the skills they gain at Teele Elementary, they have developed a foundation from which much can be built. In particular, Teele Elementary disrupts dominant power relations and helps students grow to feel confident in their voice and thus secure in speaking up and taking up space. They also create curricula that teach students not only about how to recognize race and gender inequality but also how to transgress it by taking on these issues at school and within their communities. Finally, Teele Elementary encourages dialogue around physical appearance and standards of beauty, thereby enabling girls to defy stereotypes and rebuild more positive identities.

With this feminist school foundation, girls at Teele gain a tool kit that can be put to use as they grow and develop. Of course, this tool kit does not relieve society from its moral responsibility to be equitable, but it does engender pragmatic hope for girls while we wait. Sadly, that is much more than is provided to most poor girls of color in the United States.