Episode Description
This podcast featuring Phiona Lloyd-Henry, Natasha Henry and Tana Turner, explores how anti-Black racism functions in schools and society both historically and contemporarily and the impact is has on Black students, families and educators. The speakers provide concrete examples of how educators can identify and disrupt structural patterns and ideologies that continue to disadvantage and harm Black students. Click here for all episodes in the series.
About The Speakers
Phiona Lloyd-Henry is an educator. She has worked with the Peel District School Board for more than ten years. During that time, she has been an English, history, careers and civics teacher. She has been a curriculum head of English and has served as the instructional resource teacher for equity and inclusive education, whose core responsibility includes coordinating the Peel District School Board’s We Rise Together Action Plan. This includes facilitating anti-racism training, leading the development of curriculum, learning resources and materials – and providing system-wide facilitation/training related to the School Success planning process and the Board’s Plan for Student Success. Phiona is a member of an amazing team of educators that is dedicated to serving students and creating anti-oppressive educational spaces.
She is interested in critical democratic pedagogy and anti-oppressive forms of teaching and learning; she values the development of critical literacy and the integration of student voice and choice in schooling. She also values the development of student efficacy and social activism. Phiona’s main interest is to serve students; to that end she is dedicated to the integration of culturally responsive instruction and assessment and evaluation practices that reflect students’ multiple identities and build on students’ knowledge and schema. Phiona believes in the transformative power of education – of its ability to create successful, critically aware citizens that are dedicated to justice and peace.
Natasha Henry is the We Rise Together Curriculum Consultant with the Peel District School Board. She is the president of the Ontario Black History Society. Natasha is a historian and has been an educator for 19 years. She is an award-winning author and an award-winning curriculum developer, focusing on Black Canadian experiences. She is committed to anti-racism in her teaching practice, through the creation of accessible, rich content that supports the promotion of culturally-relevant pedagogy and equity in classrooms, and through the professional development workshops and presentations she offers.
Through her various professional and community roles, Natasha’s work is grounded in her commitment to research, to collect, preserve, and disseminate the histories Black Canadians. Natasha Henry is currently completing a PhD in History at York University, researching the enslavement of Africans in early Ontario.
Tana Turner is an independent equity consultant. She has a B.A. and Master’s degree in Sociology and has worked as a Researcher and Policy Advisor in the provincial government.
For the past 17 years, Tana has led her own consulting firm, Turner Consulting Group, which provides program evaluation, research, and community consultation expertise to support non-profits and public sector organizations to understand and better respond to the diversity of their employees and service users.
She also was the co-investigator with Dr. Carl James of York University of the Towards Race Equity in Education Report.
Written by Noor El-Husseini
Noor El-Husseini
Educator, Spoken Word Poet and RSEKN Network Coordinator