95
Volume:
2020
,
September

Mending, Feeling, and Naming

Submitted By:
Lauren Vargas Bullitt, Crystal Springs Uplands School, Hillsborough, CA

My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Central Recovery Press, January 1, 2017

Though originally published in 2017, this book has gained a new elevation in light of the continued nationwide protests for social justice. For independent school teachers, Menakem’s text offers a way to understand trauma through our bodies as well as guided “body and breath practices.” Menakem exhorts the reader to not skip ahead or read around in the book; indeed, the exercises are a major reason why this book feels uniquely relevant to teaching at the present moment. Many of these exercises are making their way into adult and student affinity spaces and advisory lesson plans. For example, the chapter "The False Fragility of the White Body" offers historical context for the notion of Black bodily threat and white bodily fragility, names ways in which the failure to deal with this mythology appears in everyday comments and exchanges, and then presents a different set of reflective questions and breathing exercises for white and non-white readers. Menahem offers a guide toward mending trauma (individual and collective) through increased bodily awareness, providing a lens through which both students and adults can feel and name what is so often abstracted. Requests from adults and students for tools to meet this moment are frequent; this book offers a toolkit that can be put to immediate use.

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