Alexs Pate, Founder of the Innocent Classroom Approach

10 May 2024

Berkeley CA. May 2024 –  John Creger has a penchant for collecting and befriending remarkable people. (Just look at the members of the Personal Creed Organization!) Recently John had the pleasure of collecting yet another remarkable friend. In the fall of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, John discovered a book on teaching called The Innocent Classroom: Dismantling Racial Bias to Support Students of Color. Author Alexs Pate, a novelist known for his bestselling Amistad, the story of a slave ship rebellion adapted into a Steven Spielberg film, introduces the powerful notion of the relationship gap. Pate argues that disengaged students, particularly disengaged students of color who are often targets society’s stereotypes about them, are “taught by the whispers of the world who to be.” 

Rather than more efforts to “close the achievement gap,” Pate argues that students marginalized at the edges of our classrooms need teachers who care enough to close what Pate calls the relationship gap with them. Over more than a decade, Pate and his organization have trained over 12,000 teachers in an approach that guides them to identify what an individual student most needs to begin a trusting relationship with them as a teacher, and then find ways to engage with them in learning. John immediately began piloting the Innocent Classroom approach in his classes. By his third year adapting the approach with his own students, John was training teachers in Fremont in the approach. Recently, after training the staff at Kitayama Elementary in Union City, John reached out to the Innocent Classroom organization for guidance on next steps, and was delighted to hear back from Alexs Pate himself. 

During a long rewarding phone call, John and Alexs established a warm connection and look forward to supporting one another’s work. John will be alerting local educators about the Innocent Classroom approach and aiming to connect Alexs with speaking engagements. Alexs loves what he has learned about the Personal Creed Project, and is happy to support the PCO in any way he can. The PCO is fortunate to have collected an ally like Alexs Pate, who has shown us how to bring an inspiring dream to reality.