Here are ten non-fiction texts that I frequently return to and contemplate as I teach. The list is far from complete, but it is one way of reminding myself of the responsibility of finding a truly equitable educational environment in which to learn and to teach.

Audre Lorde’s “Mythical Norm” of White, Male, Straight, wealthy etc. is still strongly intertwined in the unwritten missions and cultures of Independent Secondary Schools, and so my desire to “unpack” inequity in these schools requires the intellect and experience of others smarter than me.

Some of these essays were originally published in Independent School Magazine, others are available in various anthologies or are chapters found in books by the author. They are listed in no specific order.

•  “Coming into Being: 500 Years Later”       – Simon Ortiz

•  Race Matters        – Cornel West

•  “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”       – Peggy McIntosh

•  Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria      – Beverly Daniel Tatum

• “Silence is the Voice of Complicity: Addressing Homophobia in Schools”                                                                                                                                 – Kevin Jennings

•  “The Invention of the Asian-American” from The Big Test        – Nicholas Lehmann

•  “The Achievement of Desire” from Hunger of Memory       – Richard Rodriquez

•  Black Ice, (especially Chapters 1 and 4)       – Lorene Cary

•  “The Arrowmaker” and “The Native Voice in American Literature” from  The Man Made of Words       – N. Scott Momaday

• Finally, two works that should be read alongside each other: “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” by James Baldwin and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates