COLLECTIVE OF ABOLITIONIST TEACHERS
An NEIU Praxis Project
The purpose of this website is to share practical ways to incorporate abolitionist teaching practices. You will find a variety of abolitionist teaching topics on this website, addressed through a Critical Race Theory lens. We encourage you to share thoughts and constructive feedback!
It’s important that I acknowledge my whiteness up front, that I am humble and vulnerable, that I listen to people of color, and that I acknowledge how white supremacy has benefited me. I am from an upper middle class predominantly white, Christian neighborhood in the northern suburbs of Chicago. I went to Catholic schools and my parents paid for my undergraduate degree. I never had to worry about access to excellent healthcare or being safe in my neighborhood and I never faced food insecurity. I am also a cisgender woman.
I didn’t have a Black friend or a Black instructor until college. I was never taught African American history or white settler colonialism in school. I currently work at Lane Tech College Prep High School, a school with a predominantly white faculty in a well to do neighborhood. I have never felt like I am being discriminated against due to my race. I never had to think about my race or culture. My aim is to understand how whiteness has benefited me at the expense of non-white people. I am eager to learn and implement abolitionist teaching in my classroom.
Betty Lee
I acknowledge my whiteness and what I have gained from white supremacy. I grew up in an upper middle class, predominantly white, Christian community. The schools I attended were mostly white and the only racial diversity I encountered would be from my Asian classmates. Although I am Jewish, I never had to worry about blatant anti-semitism because there were other Jewish people who lived in my community, nor did I have to fear for my safety because of my whiteness. My parents also paid for my college education and allowed me to live in their house for several years after college as I got settled into adulthood. I teach U.S. History and Government at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire and although there is a fair amount of racial diversity amongst the student body, the teachers are mostly white.
Lizzy Scheinkopf
I grew up in a little village in The Netherlands was almost completely white. The people around me, my neighbors, teachers, family and friends were all white. Even though my high school and college experience were slightly more diverse, my daily interactions and the people around me were still by a large majority white, so much that I never gave my skin color much thought. Growing up in a country that has embraced social democracy, the middle class status of my parents was more than enough for growing up comfortably with vacations, access to (college) education, healthcare and spending money. I now understand that the fact that I grew up not having to pay much attention to my whiteness or class has been growing up in privilege. I moved to the United States in 2013 and in the last 7 years I have become very aware of issues or race and class especially in the Critical Race Theory class this summer (2020). I am motivated to listen, learn and reflect more about my role in the white supremacist patriarchy and committed to humbly contribute to bringing about positive change.
Gertjan Vriend
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My name is Dania Barrientos and I am proud to say that I am a Mexican American cisgender woman living in the northern suburbs of Chicago where community members are predominantly Hispanic. I would consider my family to be working class living paycheck to paycheck. After high school I decided to go to community college, College of Lake County (CLC). CLC was also known as College of Last Chance s. Students gave CLC that label because they could not afford to attend a four year university. I consider myself to be blessed, but other minorities see me as a privileged Mexican American woman. I graduated from Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) with my Bachelors in Social Work. While attending NEIU, I was given the opportunity to be a McNair Scholar. I acknowledge my privilege being a Mexican American because I never had to worry about access to excellent healthcare, had a job that was flexible with my school schedule, and had no problem commuting an hour away to get to school. I am humbled and eager to listen, learn, and bring change to the community and white supremacy.
Dania Barrientos
I grew up on the south side of Chicago in a middle class predominantly Irish neighborhood. I attended Catholic schools through High school then attended Antioch University. In many ways I had grew up with a high level of privilege. Much of this privilege was due to me successfully hiding that I was a transgender woman. That stolen privilege allowed me access to many benefits which I used to become a middle school science teacher with Chicago Public Schools. After college, I served in the Peace Corp in Honduras and then spent the last 25 years working in CPS. When not teaching, I take care of my daughter, as a single parent, organize youth to take action to improve their communities and serve as an EMT with the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Trump tried and failed to get me out of uniform with his ban on the transgender. If not for the privilege that whiteness granted me, I would have had a much more difficult or maybe impossible time overcoming the obstacles that I have faced in life.
Meia Freidheim
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I was born in Evanston. Under the illusion of diversity, I now realize that I grew up in a very segregated community. I grew up in a seemingly-progressive family but realize now that ideas of white supremacy and antiblackness were reinforced under a form of liberal racism. I believe that part of creating more equitable outcomes leads in white liberals confronting their own biases. Additionally, I worked at the McGaw YMCA from 2007-2012, and since 2012 have been a Chicago Public Schools teacher, working with predominantly Latinx students. My research focuses on how popular classroom management techniques in urban schools have further marginalized Black and Latinx students, as well as students with behavioral techniques, often classified through interventions. My hope is to collaborate with others and create more equitable classroms for BIPOC students.
Mike Friedberg
My name is Courtney Keenan, I am a white, cisgender woman from a predominately white and Christian middle class suburb north of Chicago. I acknowledge that I benefit from white privilege in a multitude of ways. I was not acutely aware of my race until college, but on a deeper level, not until I entered the professional world. I have learned a great deal from my middle school students who represent a far greater range of cultures and races than people I ever had meaningful relationships with before now. I am deeply humbled by this. I dedicate myself to learning more about how white supremacy shapes our world and how I can be a co-conspirator with people of color and work to dismantle structural inequities, especially in our education systems.