The Importance of Fetching What Has Been Forgotten?

Portrait of Dr. Marlee Bunch sitting next to a sign that reads the title of her upcoming book The Magnitude of Us (image provided by Dr. Marlee Bunch) As a student, my own education was far from equitable or diverse, this being one of the reasons I decided to enter the field of teaching. I wanted to provide for students, what I had lacked in my own education: representation and teaching that reflects people and perspectives from people who look like me.& Like most non-white students, I did not see myself in the classrooms I attended until college. When I entered the classroom, I wanted to mirror to my students the best version of themselves and serve as a mentor. I knew from experience, the importance that this provided, as a critical piece to a student’s educational journey and identity. Additionally, as I moved through my years of teaching, I noticed the continued erasure of marginalized stories and histories.& I also noticed the racial mismatch in classrooms that seemed to widen each year– while students were becoming increasingly diverse, the majority of teachers remained white, women.& I wanted to find out what historical connections there were related to this, and...