Interview #1- Karl Kitching

Karl Kitching

1. Background
1. Taught in Dublin as a Language Support Teacher
2. Noticed the immigration increase
3. "The infrastructure to understand minority groups in the education system is very poor"
4. Masters of Literacy
5. "Racism. The fact that these kids were being skewed based on the fact that they were other or being others based on having parents of migrant backgrounds"
6. "As a white guy who has been very privileged and part of the norm and all that kind of stuff, it wasn't something I really reflected on"
7. Ph.D on Racism
8. David Gillborn
9. "The discourse about race and racism wasn't as developed and didn't have the same history"
2. Using Arts and Education
1. "Say what is unsayable or unthinkable"
2. "Provide a medium on which on the one hand people can give counter stories... "
3. "arts is about how you feel"
4. "racism has a lot to do about feelings and emotions"
5. "the arts is one of the key ways to building relationship"
6. "it provides the voice for marginalized people"
7. "Arts are a form of respected cultures so all cultures get a seat at the table because of that"
3. Activism
1. Practices of Learners Citizenship- things students do that are anti racist in the everyday
1. Ex: Reporting racism
2. Acts of Learners Citizenship- creative things that confound you and make you wonder what you are going to do next
1. Ex: Anti Racist intervention
3. "who lives here belongs here" -> "who learns here belongs here"
4. "media is the key way to get the message across"
5. Public Pedagogy
6. "As a white person who has got so much privilege, how can you talk about dismantling white privilege without making yourself the center of attention?"
7. "Use your privilege to enable and support other people to speak"
8. "You can't actually quantify the history that is giving you the privileges that you have, it has come long before your life"
9. Ex: First Holy Communion --> someone doesn't partake in it --> Not Catholic = Not Irish = Where are you from?
10. "It might surprise people around here.. but I wasn't born an immigrant and it is not a disease. I wasn't Black until I came to Ireland"