Assistant professor of elementary education and foundations Kenneth Varner is challenging American teachers to rethink their racial identities — but not the teachers most might expect.

Varner’s most recent book, “Working Through Whiteness: Examining White Racial Identity and Profession with Pre-Service Teachers,” a journey into finding white racial identity, argues the importance of teachers finding their own racial identities in order to develop better teaching styles.

“We need to figure out who we are and how our experiences shape the world,” Varner said. “[If] we do that, we can be open to seeing how the intersections of my identity meet up with the identity of people I am going to work with.”

Assistant Director for the School of Education Roland Mitchell said the research Varner is doing on white racial identity is imperative to the development of the next generation.

“If we look at the infrastructures of society, those were decisions made by white people,” Mitchell said. “White teachers must understand their proximity to other groups.”

According to Varner, white teachers make up 80 to 90 percent of the teaching force in the United States, while the majority of students they teach are not white. He argues that the first step in learning how to deal with groups of people from different backgrounds is for teachers to understand their own identity.

“I am challenging the assumption about white racial identity,” Varner said. “We typically view in developmental ways.”

Varner has proposed that instead of viewing white racial identity in developmental terms, it should be viewed as something that exists with many components that manifest ultimately into white racial identity.

“Two white people may look similar with similar components, but there are differences and the differences become interesting,” Varner said. “So it is a sociological model.”

Varner referred to his mentor, Gloria Ladson-Billings, assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who spoke on the idea that every person is a byproduct of slavery.

“If we wear cotton shirts or eat sugar, we benefit from an industry created on the backs of slave labor,” Varner said. “So every white person in the United States has an obligation to think about their identity. How are they privileged? Where are spaces where they go, where their privilege happens and they are not aware of it?”

For teachers who are going to teach students with different racial identities, they must be aware of how they see race because it influences how they interact and work with children, Varner said.

“There is a belief that students need to be molded and fixed and need a clear idea about the world,” Mitchell said. “But teachers must first do soul searching about themselves before they enter an educational setting.”

For some minority students, they have not felt a racial misunderstanding with their white teachers, however.

“I have never felt a disconnect with my teachers,” said education sophomore Britini Wells. “And the majority of my teachers have been white. I’ve always gone to schools where it’s been very diverse or mostly white. From my experience, they have taken more interest in my education.”

Communication studies junior Danyelle Mackie said most of her teachers have been white, but she never felt disconnected because of race.

“I felt more connected to them because they have offered me the most help,” Mackie said.

Varner draws on personal experiences to develop his theory on what white racial identity is, crediting his experiences growing up and teaching in Rochester, N.Y., as a driving force in developing his theories on race.

The tension around race has been present throughout Varner’s life, he said, from going to school with kids and having teachers of different races to coming home to parents who struggled with their own views on race. That has helped him realize race is a part of his life like it is a part of every one else’s life, Varner said. 

“The point of the book, in terms of white racial identity, is a lifelong project for everybody around race and identity,” Varner said. “I am interested in white racial identity because I have experience with it and I have lived through it.”