The Innocent Classroom’ at Paul Revere School a Model for Anti-Racism Education

Every child should know what it is like to feel innocent – to believe that this world is open to them but many times our society’s stereotypes stand in the way.

“The Innocent Classroom” project, founded by Alexs Pate, partners with administrators, principals, and classroom teachers to help them build relationships that liberate children of color from the power of racial stereotypes in their schools and classrooms.

Pate, who is a novelist, a poet and a college professor started this program as a part of his own reflection of his own experiences as a black child. He felt he was always seen through a filter of negative stereotypes that pervade our society.

“In his book he writes that he never felt that anyone outside of his family and friends really understood him or understood who he really was as a person,” said Paul Revere School Principal Donna Bonarrigo. “So there’s a classroom program that he created to train educators to help us to better understand and develop authentic relationships with our students, especially students of color and students in other marginalized groups.”

Pate’s project found its way into the classrooms of the Paul Revere School and is becoming a model of anti-racism training for educators in Revere.

“The Paul Revere had developed a committee on Equity and Antiracism and 14 members of the committee participated in training in order to help lead (“The Innocent Classroom” project) for the rest of the staff this year,” said the Paul Revere’s Kelley Williams. “So this year, moving forward we have the majority of our full-time educators participating in the first half of the training which is five sessions in total.”

Paul Revere 5th grade teacher MJ Crossman said the mission of the project is to dismantle racial bias in the classroom.

“It focuses on the basic fact that every child should know what it’s like to feel innocent, to believe that the world is open to them, but our society stereotypes stand in the way and that kind of manifests itself in the form of guilt,” said Crossman.

Williams said Pate argues that children of color are being held in virtual bondage to the negative stereotypes that our culture developed and perpetuated about them.

“What he means by that is that children of color come into our classrooms aware that these negative narratives about them and these negative stereotypes create feelings of guilt in these students of color,” said Williams. “The Innocent Classroom project trains us to recognize how these negative narratives can affect their relationships or our relationships as teachers with the students. It also aims to train teachers to truly know their students of color as individuals, freeing them of this guilt and restoring them with innocence.”

Crossman said the truly beneficial part of this training is having focused attention on a relationship with a specific student.

“It kind of brings to light some of the things that you might have missed before,” she said. “So it’s building that authentic relationship and the goal is that this relationship frees the student from the burden of guilt that comes with a stereotype and so when they enter your classroom or the school, they know that they’re in a safe space. When they are perceived as innocent, then that opens them up to be able to learn and to succeed, socially and academically.”

Bonarrigo said there were a significant number of students at the Paul Revere School who did not feel connected to teachers and who did not feel understood in school.

“We felt we really, really needed some training to help us to better connect with students from diverse backgrounds,” said Bonarrigo. “I think that this work has really helped us to recognize implicit bias and realize the end goal is to help students be successful in school and to realize their full academic potential. It is also connected to our strategic plan, which is to create, adapt and apply equitable practices and our hope is that this program will help us to do that.”

Revere School Superintendent Dr. Dianne Kelly praised the program and the Paul Revere School staff.

“The Paul Revere is our innovation school and we have learned so much,” said Kelly. “The teachers at the Paul Revere have pioneered (many programs) that we have then brought to other elementary schools. I want to thank the staff for not only the incredible work that they do, but also for being the sharing and caring adults who helped the rest of the district learn from their experiences. After they take trainings, such as this one, they help give us all practices that make our collective work better. So thank you.”