“More Than an Ally” describes an opportunity to make enduring change within a system of racial inequality.
Dr. Michael L. Boucher, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, will release More Than an Ally Tuesday, Sept. 15.
According to Dr. Boucher, the book is meant to empower white teachers to do the work of interrogating their racial privilege and join in Caring Solidarity with their African American students.
“The book came out of my experiences as a white teacher of students of color and my research in schools,” Dr. Boucher said. “I found that teachers who were successful in teaching across racial difference built ‘relationships of solidarity’ with their students. I saw the terrible consequences of teachers and administrators who relied on suspension – or worse, the police – to keep school discipline. To me, dismantling the ‘school to prison pipeline’ is all educators’ moral and ethical responsibility. Yet, many educators need help understanding how to do that and the role race plays in decisions about education.”
More Than an Ally, which will be available in all online bookstores, arrives in a historic moment that demands white teachers become more effective in their schools, classrooms and local communities. Reading this book and considering its ideas on structural racism is an act of defiance in the current climate of inequality, police brutality and violent, reactionary political forces.
Dr. Boucher completed his Ph.D. in 2013 in Curriculum and Instruction with a minor in Urban Education from Indiana University. As a successful Minneapolis Public Schools teacher, Dr. Boucher taught social studies and served as department chair and program coordinator. He has taught middle school, high school, online courses, adult diploma, GED and instructional methods.
As a teacher-leader, Dr. Boucher advocated for his students every day at school and in the press, the district and the statehouse. As a teacher-educator, Dr. Boucher prepares preservice teachers, challenging them to create caring solidarity in their future classrooms.
