Meet Alexs Pate

Alexs Pate is President and CEO of Innocent Technologies and creator of the Innocent Classroom. He is a New York Times bestselling author who has written five novels, a children’s book, a book of nonfiction, and has curated numerous literary anthologies. His latest book The Innocent Classroom: Dismantling Racial Bias for Children of Color was published by ASCD (August 2020)

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Throughout his career Alexs has attacked racial stereotypes that limit the realities of people of color. He has worked to create worlds in which the humanity of everyone is recognized, known and finally assumed. Alexs founded Innocent Technologies to build the world in which we can live our authentic humanity, uninhibited by the stories about who we are supposed to be. The success of the Innocent Classroom has led to the development of Innocent Classroom for Early Childhood Educators and Innocent Care training for health care professionals to build quick connections with their patients.

Alexs leads his company through his vision for a world in which our children are free to achieve their unlimited potential, our people are free to live healthily and fully, and our individual humanity is prioritized and valued in the structures of society.

The Innocent Classroom: Dismantling Racial Bias to Support Students of Color

When children of color enter their classrooms each year, many often encounter low expectations, disconnection, and other barriers to their success. In The Innocent Classroom, Alexs Pate traces the roots of these disparities to pervasive negative stereotypes, which children are made aware of before they even walk through the school door. The cumulative weight of these stereotypes eventually takes shape as guilt, which inhibits students’ engagement, learning, and relationships and hurts their prospects for the future.

If guilt is the primary barrier for children of color in the classroom, then the solution, according to Pate, is to create an Innocent Classroom that neutralizes students’ guilt and restores their innocence. To do so, readers will embark on a relationship “construction project” in which they will deepen their understanding of how children of color are burdened with guilt; discover students’ “good,” or the motivation behind their behaviors, and develop strategic responses to that good; and nurture, protect, and advocate for students’ innocence.

Ultimately, students will reclaim their innocence and begin to make choices that will lead to their success. Teachers will renew their commitment to their students. And the current ineffective system can give way to one that reflects a more enlightened understanding of who our children are–and what they are capable of.

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