Millburn-Short Hills Magazine Back to School 2020 | Page 15

MEETING: COURTESY OFDR. KHYATI JOSHI; BOOK: COURTESY OF NYU PRESS
also taught in the American Studies
program at Princeton University.
Currently, she is currently a social
science researcher and professor of
education at Fairleigh Dickinson
University. She lives in Wayne.
With more than 20 years’ experience
teaching students about race,
religion, immigration and social
justice, Joshi is well-suited to share
her insights with other educators,
which she has been doing for most of
those years. “My students are current
teachers and soon-to-be teachers,”
she says, at public, charter and private
schools.
Many of the educators are aware
of Joshi’s expertise because they have
attended the Institute for Diversity
and Social Justice, a summer program
she runs that began as a collaboration
between Fairleigh Dickinson
and the American Conference on
Diversity (this year’s session was
canceled due to COVID-19).
Joshi has trained teachers in the
Hackensack, Teaneck
and Florham Park
school districts, and
has given presentations
at private schools
including Montclair
Kimberly Academy
and the Pingry School.
Word of mouth, she
says, brought her to
the Millburn public
schools, where she
has been working
with educators in
recent years.
MUCH MORE THAN
‘SENSITIVITY’
The training that Joshi provides
to teachers and administrators takes
four to five days, though the sessions
can be spaced out through the academic
year, as is the case in Millburn.
“You can’t do implicit bias training
in a three-hour session,” she says.
Group size is limited to 40 participants
to foster “real conversations.”
“We need a place where we can
say ‘My relatives came here and just
assimilated. Why can’t these people
LEARNING NEVER ENDS Joshi speaks at an event for the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities
in Richmond, Virginia.
do that?’” she says. “Someone has
to be able tosay it and hash it out if
there’s going tobelearning.” Joshi
points out that only ESL teachers are
required to learn about multi-cultural
education to be certified. “We can
only teach what we know,” she says.
Just don’t call what she does “cultural
sensitivity training.” “I hate
that phrase,” she says.
“This“
is about inequity
anda
injustice, how to
morem
effectively reach
studentss
who are differentf
from you racially,
religiously, interms
ofo
sex orientation and
genderg
and socioeconomicn
class. Wewant
studentss
to be authenticallyt
who they can be
tot
learn the most and
beb
happy. Then all of
societys
benefits.”
Children understand
thet
concept ofinequality,
she says. “You can
talk about racism with afirst grader.
The sense ofunfairness is there atthe
time.” She recalls being at an assembly
afew years back and sharing how
kids made fun ofher because she ate
unfamiliar food that smelled different.
“The Indian and Jamaican boys
came uptomeand said that this happens
to them now,” she says, “and
the teacher doesn’t say anything.”
She concedes that when there
are 30 students in aclassroom, it’s
impossible to hear everything, but
adds that some teachers hear the
comments and don’t know how to
respond to them.
Joshi gives Millburn an A for effort
in trying to promote equality. While
leaders in some school districts say
they follow the guidelines of the
Amistad Commission (requiring them
to identify texts that share the Black
experience), “You want to do more
than be politically correct,” she says.
“When the (Millburn) school district
puts something out, they can say
they’ve been engaged in this work.”
Nancy Dries, communication
director for the Millburn Township
Public Schools, says that feedback
on Joshi’s work has been very positive.
“I’ve heard teachers thank the
superintendent for bringing her in,”
she says. “They say they’ve learned
so much about how to approach the
world.” Joshi has also conducted
several parent training sessions,
Dries says.
In July, Joshi added to the national
dialogue about racial inequities with
her book, White Christian Privilege:
The Illusion of Religious Equality in
America. “It’s about how whiteness
and Christianity is embedded in our
laws, which is evident when we look
at what was done to the indigenous
population, slavery, westward expansion,
even in citizenship laws,” she
says. “My goal is to build amore
perfect union. It’s about making the
invisible visible to readers.” ■
MILLBURN &SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE BACK TOSCHOOL 2020
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