Case study · Illinois private school
Six weeks with the tenth grade.
A private high school in Illinois used RACE to Be Human — film segments followed by Creative Coping Toolkit discussions — in one class period a week, with every tenth grader.
Film programRACE to Be Human
140
high school students at the school — and after the email home, not one family opted out.
A count, not a measured outcome: 140 is the school’s whole high school, and every tenth grader in it took part. The school’s own figures, February 2022.
At a glance
- School
- A private high school in Illinois
- Grade
- Every 10th grader took part
- Sessions
- Six class periods, one a week
- Started
- February 2022
Background
In February 2022, the Director of Student Life, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at a private high school in Illinois came across RACE to Be Human.
The school wanted to talk more broadly about equity and inclusion, and knew that year-round access to the RACE to Be Human Creative Coping Toolkit would set them up for it.
It is a small school: 140 high school students in all. The program ran with every tenth grader in the building.
Opportunity
School leaders wanted more than a screening: a way for their high schoolers to hone their empathy skills and become more thoughtful.
They also saw the film program as a way to truly get students into a place where people aren’t being attacked while discussing race, racism, and identity. The bite-sized content in the Toolkit gave students the time and space to sit with the conversations RACE to Be Human starts.
With 140 high school students, school leaders were hoping to use Race to Be Human to talk about race and identity AND have students think about how you use your words, serve as an ally, and interact with people from different backgrounds or cultures.
What worked
Every session opened with a reminder of the norms for the space, and one more: “We will not solve all of the world’s problems in this session — these conversations serve as a primer for exploration.” The short videos center student experiences, which is why the material lands.
School leaders found the Toolkit interface intuitive, so moving between the resources was easy. The discussion questions work as a starting point while leaving facilitators free to tailor them. Giving students a worksheet with the day’s vocabulary helped too: they could take notes and build the language they needed to talk about race, identity and racism.
Discussion happened in smaller groups, to promote deeper conversation, and every session deliberately left space at the end — for breathing exercises, reflection, or any last questions.
Asked how to discuss race and racism in the classroom effectively, the lead facilitator said it relies on building trust with and among students over more than one session, rather than just one day. As the facilitator, making yourself vulnerable to students invites their own vulnerability into the conversation.
Where it stood
A baseline every tenth grader took forward.
The school described a year of RACE to Be Human as having developed its tenth graders’ “muscles of curiosity” for other cultures, and a mindset of lifelong learning about themselves and others. It left a baseline of knowledge every tenth grader carried forward, and at the time the school said it planned to continue with the grades to come.
Nothing here was counted. After a successful first run, the school said it wanted to quantify the impact, and the Creative Coping Toolkit’s Engagement and Impact Reporting Tool makes that possible in a next year of use.
The conversations the film started were a launching pad: race kept coming up in English and Social Studies, and in wider conversations about the construct of race in America.
How it ran
Six class periods, one a week.
The shape of a session, and what the school did before the first one.
Before it began
An email home first
Before anything began, the school emailed parents with the topics covered and the option to opt their student out. No families opted out.
Six weeks
One period a week
All 10th graders watched segments of the film, followed by discussion questions from the Toolkit, over six classroom periods.
Every session
Norms at the start
Every session began by restating how the space works — and that it is a primer for exploration, not a place to solve everything.
Every session
Small groups
Discussion questions were taken in smaller groups, so the conversation could go deeper.
Every session
A vocabulary worksheet
Students got a sheet with the day’s vocabulary, to take notes and build the language for talking about race, identity and racism.
End of every session
Space at the end
Each session kept time at the end for breathing exercises, reflection, or final questions.
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