The Teaching and Learning Innovation Digest - May 2023

simple act of recruiting the interest of Black, Indigenous, and racialized students converges antiracism
and UDL, honouring these identities and creating healthy relationships and a strengthened
school culture. Education does not take place in a political, social, and cultural vacuum; in fact,
C. Wright Mills (1959) promoted what he referred to as the sociological imagination—that is, an ability
to connect personal challenges to larger social issues, and take learning beyond the classroom walls.
A+UDL can bring context to our students, explaining the uptick in racism across the world during
the pandemic, and the traumatic and adverse experiences they face everyday. A+UDL stresses the
creation of supportive classrooms, drawing upon social-emotional learning opportunities, and various
“safety checks”.
Yet another “safety check” highlighted
by Fritzgerald is the notion of behavioral
expectations. Diverse behaviors can be
perceived as deviant, abnormal, or bad when
viewed only through the lens of those in
power, creating additional barriers for Black,
Indigenous, and racialized students
(Apple, 2004). Even in the wake of the
pandemic of racism, postsecondary institutions
upheld racism by succumbing to these
behavioral expectations and failing to act on
creating and sustaining equitable and inclusive
education environments. In fact, in 2021, Chief
Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights
Commission, Ena Chadha, issued a letter to all
Ontario colleges and universities concerning
reports that Black, Indigenous, and racialized
students were experiencing significant
discrimination, xenophobia, and targeting on
campuses and in academic environments
across the province. Students lamented the
manner in which school administrators and
institutional mechanisms handled formal and
informal complaints, erecting barriers to their
full participation on campuses, and perpetrating
trauma and harm (Kaczorowski et al.,
2022). Here, again, A+UDL could have been
utilized to foster a greater sense of community
on campus and in our teaching and learning
interactions. Granted, Centennial College has
made strides in this area through the creation
of the Indigenous Strategic Framework and the
Anti-Black Racism Task Force, but much more
work can be done by adopting A+UDL and
asking questions such as:
• Is there a real connection to the
community?
• Are Black, Indigenous, and racialized
students welcome at our school or school
system?
• Has there been an effort to gain insights
from Black, Indigenous, and racialized
people to design your curricula, systems,
supports, or resources?
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These “safety checks” allow educators to
design pedagogies and dialogues that dig into
student funds of knowledge about the things
that matter the most to them, honouring what
students want to talk about, and how they want
to talk about it (Bass and Lawrence-Riddell,
2020). Through the synthesis of anti-racism
and multiple means of engagement and action
and expression, what is valued at home can be
valued at school. One of the “safety checks” is
“actively recognize racist barriers and do the
work to tear them down” (Fritzgerald, 2020,
p. 33). Whatever school an educator works
within at our college, why not make a
concerted effort to highlight Black, Indigenous,
and racialized experts in the subject material?
This is one of the pressing barriers to antiracism
practice at our school. In the wake
of the Black Lives Matters movement and
the increased rates of anti-Asian racism in
Canada, community members, activists,
and allies such as the Action Chinese
Canadians Together (ACCT) Foundation and
ACT2endracism sought partnerships with
industry and postsecondary institutions in
order to maintain the fervor of anti-racism and
racial justice. Irrespective of the discipline
or school, students are engaged by content
that is relevant and valuable to their interests
(Hollingshead et al., 2022). As educators, we
must strive to recruit interest to highlight the
utility and relevance of our content, drawing
concrete connections to anti-racism in various
sectors. A+UDL could be leveraged as a tool to
reach this “safety check” and recruit students’
interests by optimizing the relevance, value,
and authenticity of learning (CAST, 2018).
Such questions should be at the forefront when we imagine a return to campus after everything our
students have endured over the last two years. With coiled-spring alertness, we educators must pave
the way for an equitable and empowered learning environment, becoming advocates for our students
and their lived experiences. The learning outcomes, or how they are arrived at and measured, should
entail a transformative experience for students, encouraging collaborative approaches to constructing
expectations at the college—in other words, signaling to students that “they are safe here”, and
that they “have a voice here”. The aforementioned “safety checks” and the synthesis of A and UDL
(A+UDL) can do just that.
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