Not Light, but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom

Matthew Kay's brand new book Not Light, But Fire: How to Facilitate Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom is one of the best books on teaching I've read. This book offers that powerful blend of big ideas and concrete applications/illustrations that mark the best pedagogical writing. While the examples all focus on race-related conversations, the book strikes me as directly useful for talking about other historically-difficult conversations as well--if not, in fact, any conversation that needs to be meaningful. As a result of reading this book, I see my work cut out for me in the years ahead as a teacher. But I also have been able to immediately implement certain practices in my classroom, such as scheduling in more time to help students make personal connections with the course and with each other. Probably the three biggest takeaways for me are: a reminder of how important it is to build community (versus merely declaring a "safe space"), an exhortation to push past the simple and obvious answers to get to the hard questions (we don't have to settle for everyone just trotting out the usual, predictable stances), and the practical insight of linking race-related conversations to larger threads that run through the entire course. Though Kay writes specifically about a high school context, almost everything in the book applies, with a little adjustment, for college as well, which is what I teach. I have always taught my courses for over ten years now with a heavy emphasis on discussion. In recent years, conversations specifically related to race have been an important part of many of my classes. I wish I had this book when I was starting out. I am glad to have it now.

So many books talk about the need for conversations about race in the classroom, and this book gives a solid foundation of HOW to have those conversations. I appreciate the author’s openness about what has worked and what hasn’t worked in his classroom. He also gives an important perspective of thinking about the purpose, planning and intent of having conversations about race with students. This is a great and important read for teachers in the classroom today.

In 25+ years of service as a classroom instructor and principal I must comment author Matthew R. Kay has developed a book that needs to be part of all teacher college preparatory programs, infused in Professional Learning Community’s, and on the shelf of every educator NOW. Not Light, But Fire provides not only pedagogical perspectives and methods of conducting crucial conversations on race it is filled with classroom strategies that can be implemented immediately. I purchased this book for myself and read it in 3 days; now I’ve purchased an additional copy for our Staff Professional Learning Library.

I am probably not the main target for this book, (I am an elementary school math specialist) but I just found so much of the book relevant to teaching in general. I learned a great deal about specific race issues, and I am amazed by the way Mr. Kay facilitates these conversations with students. One of the parts of the book that resonated with me was about names. I have always felt strongly that it is important to make the effort necessary to correctly pronounce others names, as names are a huge window into culture and identity. I think it should and will become a staple on every middle school/high teacher's bookshelf. It is valuable in and of itself to better understand race in America.

As educators, we walk a fine line between having students embroiled in heated arguments versus guiding students towards difficult yet productive discussions. Within this book Kay shows you just how to create a classroom environment that allows for the latter. That’s not to say he gives you an easy 1-2-3 step solution. Quite the contrary, Kay gives an honest rendering of his classroom in order to illuminate the many difficulties of trying to have these critical race conversations. He also shows the many positive moments that can play out and illuminate classrooms that are formatted to have such dialogue. Like any good coach, Kay does not stop at storytelling, he also offers up drills. In this way, he acknowledges that teachers have various muscles and skills that they need to strengthen along the way to work towards their goals of having meaningful race conversations. You are thinking: what the heck are you talking about drills? Well I can't tell you the details, you are just going to have to trust me and buy the book. As mentioned by other reviewers, if you have the opportunity to hear Kay speak: do it! He is invigorating and inspiring, just like this book.

I was assigned to read this book for one of my classes at my graduate program for teaching English to secondary education students and I absolutely loved it. The first thing I’d like to comment on is Mr. Kay’s decision to split the book into two parts—the first part having to do with the necessity of establishing a classroom environment that would allow for students to participate in meaningful race conversations and how to create those environments and the second part having to do with how to actually have race conversations with students. I found this format to be extremely powerful because it is absolutely true that no meaningful conversations can happen if the classroom environment does not permit them. Therefore, I really appreciated that Mr. Kay spent the time acknowledging this fact and providing helpful tips and suggestions from his own experience and practice to help us think about how we might set up our own classroom for these conversations rather than immediately diving into how to have the conversations. Upon opening the book, I was immediately struck by Mr. Kay’s discussion about “safe spaces.” The term is one that I have often heard and often used even to describe my goals for my future classroom yet I don’t believe I have ever learned about how exactly I could create these spaces. Prior to reading this book, a safe space for me was a space that was simply comfortable and accepting; it was a place where students could be vulnerable and share their thoughts and feelings without fear of being judged. Now, however, I realize that a safe space is that but also so much more. As Mr. Kay writes in suggesting how we might create these spaces, a safe space is a space in which everyone listens to each other both actively and patiently. It is also a space in which students must be aware of themselves and their classmates and must take both into consideration in order to offer everyone the space to speak if they wish to. Furthermore, a safe space is a space in which there is trust and community to enable something Mr. Kay accurately terms “house talk” to be had which describes the types of conversations that can occur between people who are very close to each other—the types of conversations like race conversations. The four topics of conversation Mr. Kay discusses are the N-word, the cultural significance of names, cultural appropriation, and pop-up conversations. I don’t want to give too much away about what Mr. Kay discusses here in my review but I just wanted to say that I am so grateful that Mr. Kay has written this book because I know that these conversations are difficult and challenging even with a classroom environment that enables them to be had. Moreover, I already know that I will inevitably struggle and perhaps even mess up at times, so I really do appreciate having this book to guide me in my endeavors to have these conversations with my students. Great read!

Please...if you are a teacher, read this book. It could change your experience in the classroom, and your students’ lives.

I think the author did a great job of giving concrete ideas for how to build relationships with students and to then take those relationships to have conversations about race. Many culturally responsive teacher trainings say we need to build these relationships but don't explain how. Similarly many ed books don't explain how to navigate these difficult conversations. Kay does both really well. I highly recommend this book to all educators - but especially to high school teachers.

Matthew Kay uses reflection about his own practice to arrive at some super practical strategies to lead conversations about race in the classroom. His reflections are vulnerable and make him an authentic voice to listen to, because you can tell he has been on the journey it takes to arrive in a place where these conversations happen more authentically. I appreciated the emphasis places on relationships and how he always returns back to this ever important point!

Kay is detailed and offers examples and classroom structures in the HOW to talk about race. I felt a little dwarfed by his massive presence.

Matthew Kay's brand new book Not Light, But Fire: How to Facilitate Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom is one of the best books on teaching I've read. This book offers that powerful blend of big ideas and concrete applications/illustrations that mark the best pedagogical writing. While the examples all focus on race-related conversations, the book strikes me as directly useful for talking about other historically-difficult conversations as well--if not, in fact, any conversation that needs to be meaningful. As a result of reading this book, I see my work cut out for me in the years ahead as a teacher. But I also have been able to immediately implement certain practices in my classroom, such as scheduling in more time to help students make personal connections with the course and with each other. Probably the three biggest takeaways for me are: a reminder of how important it is to build community (versus merely declaring a "safe space"), an exhortation to push past the simple and obvious answers to get to the hard questions (we don't have to settle for everyone just trotting out the usual, predictable stances), and the practical insight of linking race-related conversations to larger threads that run through the entire course. Though Kay writes specifically about a high school context, almost everything in the book applies, with a little adjustment, for college as well, which is what I teach. I have always taught my courses for over ten years now with a heavy emphasis on discussion. In recent years, conversations specifically related to race have been an important part of many of my classes. I wish I had this book when I was starting out. I am glad to have it now.

So many books talk about the need for conversations about race in the classroom, and this book gives a solid foundation of HOW to have those conversations. I appreciate the author’s openness about what has worked and what hasn’t worked in his classroom. He also gives an important perspective of thinking about the purpose, planning and intent of having conversations about race with students. This is a great and important read for teachers in the classroom today.

In 25+ years of service as a classroom instructor and principal I must comment author Matthew R. Kay has developed a book that needs to be part of all teacher college preparatory programs, infused in Professional Learning Community’s, and on the shelf of every educator NOW. Not Light, But Fire provides not only pedagogical perspectives and methods of conducting crucial conversations on race it is filled with classroom strategies that can be implemented immediately. I purchased this book for myself and read it in 3 days; now I’ve purchased an additional copy for our Staff Professional Learning Library.

I am probably not the main target for this book, (I am an elementary school math specialist) but I just found so much of the book relevant to teaching in general. I learned a great deal about specific race issues, and I am amazed by the way Mr. Kay facilitates these conversations with students. One of the parts of the book that resonated with me was about names. I have always felt strongly that it is important to make the effort necessary to correctly pronounce others names, as names are a huge window into culture and identity. I think it should and will become a staple on every middle school/high teacher's bookshelf. It is valuable in and of itself to better understand race in America.

As educators, we walk a fine line between having students embroiled in heated arguments versus guiding students towards difficult yet productive discussions. Within this book Kay shows you just how to create a classroom environment that allows for the latter. That’s not to say he gives you an easy 1-2-3 step solution. Quite the contrary, Kay gives an honest rendering of his classroom in order to illuminate the many difficulties of trying to have these critical race conversations. He also shows the many positive moments that can play out and illuminate classrooms that are formatted to have such dialogue. Like any good coach, Kay does not stop at storytelling, he also offers up drills. In this way, he acknowledges that teachers have various muscles and skills that they need to strengthen along the way to work towards their goals of having meaningful race conversations. You are thinking: what the heck are you talking about drills? Well I can't tell you the details, you are just going to have to trust me and buy the book. As mentioned by other reviewers, if you have the opportunity to hear Kay speak: do it! He is invigorating and inspiring, just like this book.

I was assigned to read this book for one of my classes at my graduate program for teaching English to secondary education students and I absolutely loved it. The first thing I’d like to comment on is Mr. Kay’s decision to split the book into two parts—the first part having to do with the necessity of establishing a classroom environment that would allow for students to participate in meaningful race conversations and how to create those environments and the second part having to do with how to actually have race conversations with students. I found this format to be extremely powerful because it is absolutely true that no meaningful conversations can happen if the classroom environment does not permit them. Therefore, I really appreciated that Mr. Kay spent the time acknowledging this fact and providing helpful tips and suggestions from his own experience and practice to help us think about how we might set up our own classroom for these conversations rather than immediately diving into how to have the conversations. Upon opening the book, I was immediately struck by Mr. Kay’s discussion about “safe spaces.” The term is one that I have often heard and often used even to describe my goals for my future classroom yet I don’t believe I have ever learned about how exactly I could create these spaces. Prior to reading this book, a safe space for me was a space that was simply comfortable and accepting; it was a place where students could be vulnerable and share their thoughts and feelings without fear of being judged. Now, however, I realize that a safe space is that but also so much more. As Mr. Kay writes in suggesting how we might create these spaces, a safe space is a space in which everyone listens to each other both actively and patiently. It is also a space in which students must be aware of themselves and their classmates and must take both into consideration in order to offer everyone the space to speak if they wish to. Furthermore, a safe space is a space in which there is trust and community to enable something Mr. Kay accurately terms “house talk” to be had which describes the types of conversations that can occur between people who are very close to each other—the types of conversations like race conversations. The four topics of conversation Mr. Kay discusses are the N-word, the cultural significance of names, cultural appropriation, and pop-up conversations. I don’t want to give too much away about what Mr. Kay discusses here in my review but I just wanted to say that I am so grateful that Mr. Kay has written this book because I know that these conversations are difficult and challenging even with a classroom environment that enables them to be had. Moreover, I already know that I will inevitably struggle and perhaps even mess up at times, so I really do appreciate having this book to guide me in my endeavors to have these conversations with my students. Great read!

Please...if you are a teacher, read this book. It could change your experience in the classroom, and your students’ lives.

I think the author did a great job of giving concrete ideas for how to build relationships with students and to then take those relationships to have conversations about race. Many culturally responsive teacher trainings say we need to build these relationships but don't explain how. Similarly many ed books don't explain how to navigate these difficult conversations. Kay does both really well. I highly recommend this book to all educators - but especially to high school teachers.

Matthew Kay uses reflection about his own practice to arrive at some super practical strategies to lead conversations about race in the classroom. His reflections are vulnerable and make him an authentic voice to listen to, because you can tell he has been on the journey it takes to arrive in a place where these conversations happen more authentically. I appreciated the emphasis places on relationships and how he always returns back to this ever important point!

Kay is detailed and offers examples and classroom structures in the HOW to talk about race. I felt a little dwarfed by his massive presence.

Excellent book, easy read, content is informative and practical. Very insightful and reflective. Helpful guide for teachers. The author displays his knowledge of pedagogy, research and common sense.

Great book to help teachers better understand race and work towards being more inclusive.

If you care about creating equity, read this book.

Amazing book- though provoking

Fantastic book!

Matthew r Kay is a teacher who openly speaks about indoctrination of his students. Fear of "conservative" parents listening in to his virtual classes. You cannot trust people like this.

I’m in love with Matthew’s book. He writes with clarity, passion, and backs up everything he says with experiences or history that hits you right in the chest. As an educator in the world today, we owe it to our students to listen to what Matthew Kay has to say. The book is fire from start to finish. Matthew wastes no time getting into the weeds of this issue, and really drives home in chapter 1 why we should care about having race conversations in our classes at all. "Talk is cheap," as Matthew states on page 1, and it's true. We spend so much time wasting air time on TV glossing over race issues, and never really ever solve anything. Indeed, it seems like we make it worse every week. Matthew wants to see a stop to meaningless conversations, and really get to the heart of it all, by confronting race with fire, not light. This isn't done with news articles or empty political rhetoric, and definitely not by simulations of racial prejudices in the classroom (examples abound in the book), but by setting up our classrooms to be safe and quality places for our students to work on these complicated issues in meaningful ways. In short, if we want to see race relations improve in the world, if we really want change to occur, it has to start in our classrooms. I believe this book is a great catalyst for that to occur. Educators, this book is a must buy.

I agree with another review here, who emphasized how this book is practical about race conversations, whereas other books simply emphasized the importance of race conversations. In my teacher preparation program, the latter is stressed over and over again, without actually equipping us with a framework to think about implementing those conversations. Kay seems to be aware of this: with his allusions to movies about teaching he seems to recognize that this is going to be the reflex teachers have when you don't actually hand them the tools to talk about race in class: thrilling moments where teachers stand on desks and students feel the emotional swell of a liberating moment. Unfortunately, that's not how things work in a classroom, and Kay lets us know that. He provides plenty of great examples and strategies that help build classroom culture that is then amenable to class conversations about race. My only edge at this book is sometimes it is a little too discursive. Sometimes I found myself enthralled with an anecdote that Kay was recounting, only to find myself lost as to what the point was that he made and is reinforcing, or the point he was trying to make. Great, practical book for teachers who want the tools to have meaningful race conversations in a responsible way.

I wholeheartedly recommend Not Light, But Fire to all educators, even those who have already read a great deal on this topic. I student-taught in Matt Kay’s classroom and witnessed versions of many of the conversations he describes. Even though much of it was familiar to me, I still could not put the book down. It’s a page turner! My thoughts on it fall into two categories: 1. I loved it as a teaching book. Too often, books about teaching can be condescending, repetitive, and dry. Even my personal favorites are not what I consider juicy reads. This book was vibrant and fascinating. I looked forward to sitting down with it each evening, not because it would develop me professionally, but simply because it was a pleasure to read. I loved how fluidly Kay moves between theory, media context, detailed classroom examples, and nuts and bolts tools for us to "put in our pocket[s]." This mix was powerfully illustrative and useful, and not just for race discussions. Most of the dialogic classroom principles and practices outlined could be fruitfully deployed in any kind of discussion. I loved how scholarly it was. Kay takes his audience seriously and does not waste a moment of our time pointing out the obvious. The fact that he writes about questions and mistakes from his practice as well as victories nicely models the curious, humble teacher stance that is so crucial in a dialogic classroom. Certain moments in the book helped me to rethink aspects of my approach that might come across as scolding. Part 1 brought me into crystal clarity about a lot of the techniques I had witnessed in Mr. Kay’s classes. I'd adopted many of them already, but it was incredibly useful to read his breakdown of the precise reasoning behind them. And the conversational studies in Part 2 were riveting! They helped me plot out how I might be able to achieve discussion goals that have thus far eluded me. 2. I loved it as a book about race conversations. In the height of the George Floyd uprising (at least in the early stages of it), I found myself getting frustrated at the focus of a lot of discourse in mainstream media and liberal social media. It seemed like the smug admonitions to read White Fragility and heed the call of corporate diversity consultants like Robin DiAngelo were creating a misleading problem of emphasis. The hype around that sort of writing seemed to me to be causing a lot of well-meaning white liberals to think that it's all about checking our privilege and listening, or making people feel heard. Of course those things are important, but the obsession with them shifts the focus to a solely symbolic, interpersonal realm. And while that realm matters, dwelling exclusively there can lead us to stagnation. Instead of concrete action, we get a bunch of congresspeople kneeling down in kente cloth. As we celebrate the Black Lives Matter street paintings, some of us stop asking why police are allowed to terrorize people in the name of protecting property. And the aforementioned privileged white liberals, some of whom earnestly want to do their part, are now stuck thinking that systemic racism is purely a matter of perverse psychology. This obscures the fact that while white people's bizarre racial fixations are worth interrogating, our perverse psychology has been carefully cultivated for centuries to serve an economic purpose. The white fragility conversation thrives in corporate media, so perhaps it makes sense that that conversation distracts us from the fact that corporate America profits from systems of racialized exploitation. Prop 22 in California comes to mind as just one of myriad current examples. Astronomical amounts of funding have emerged to push what is unquestionably a racist piece of legislation-- NAACP and Si Se Puede endorsements notwithstanding. If you think about who drives for Uber and Lyft, and also who depends on Uber and Lyft because public transit is crumbling and taxi drivers discriminate, it's clear that Prop 22 will do material harm to marginalized groups and further erode the sorts of solidarity America needs most. And who will benefit? A handful of shareholders and executives. And that's just one example. Racism doesn't spring up in a vacuum because white people are inherently sick. People get rich off of racism (and, apparently, anti-racism). Wall Street depends upon the precarious existence of minoritized people, and it isn’t a design flaw. Matt Kay’s book deftly cuts through all the noise, refocusing the conversation onto concrete experience and action. Not that he is prescribing what actions his students ought to take, of course. But he shows his reader how to host discussions that lead to movement. To borrow Kay’s Frederick Douglass reference, this book gives us the fire we need. He doesn’t simply help his students elucidate the ways they are different from one another. Rather, he offers them opportunities to empathize with each other by thinking critically about their individual and collective experiences. I think each of those opportunities increases the likelihood that they will become genuinely solidary in the struggle--the racial lift as he calls it. Classrooms like Mr. Kay’s give teachers and students alike the chance to better understand one another's humanity. They also give us the chance to allow ourselves to be more fully human, together. And that's hugely helpful towards the racial lift, if you think of racism as an ugly tool that distorts and dehumanizes all of us. This book made me feel profoundly grateful for the experience I had in Matt Kay’s classroom. I'm so glad to know that other teachers can now access that experience in all of its vivid complexity. I strongly recommend this book to all secondary teachers, and to administrators in charge of building-level continuing education. I also think it could be immensely useful for educators at the college and graduate level. In this time, we desperately need to engage our students in conversations about history, experience, and how we move forward. Not Light, But Fire is a must-read.