Noncy Fields, 5th-grade elementary teacher and alumni Teaching for Black Lives study group member, and Jake Engels, educator and Teach Truth event host in Ypsilanti, Michigan, created a study group for Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. They collaborated with consultant Chad L. Williams and the Michigan Education Association’s Center for Leadership and Learning (MEA teachers union) to design content for an online Original Sins book study for teachers within the local union and state-wide. For outreach, they promoted the book club at the welcome back to school event for Ann Arbor teachers and advertised it on the various statewide online platforms of the MEA teachers union as well as local Ann Arbor Education Association social media.
Educators can sign up, read the book, and respond to reflective questions through the MEA Learning Portal (accessible to all MEA teachers in Michigan). As an extension, an in-person session of the study group was held on November 18, 2025, in partnership with University of Michigan Museum of Art Curator Grace Vandervliet. The evening began at the Future Cache installation by Andrea Carlson, where Grace led a guided tour through the exhibit that echoed the book’s central questions about Indigenous people, land, memory, and whose stories are centered. Standing in front of the artwork, participants made powerful connections between Original Sins and the visual narratives on the walls — thinking aloud about how to invite students into these same kinds of critical conversations.
While sitting in a circle inside Future Cache, Noncy led a group discussion on how Original Sins encourages educators to think about how to reshape curriculum, orchestra meaningful classroom discussions, and dream about the future of education. As a wrap-up, Jake asked educators to reflect on what commitment(s) they will carry forward: a truth they are leaving with or a question they want to keep asking.
The photos shared capture these moments — educators in conversation, closely observing the artwork while discussing the past and future of the educational system.
Participants shared several powerful reflections that spoke to the depth of the evening’s impact. Many named the urgent need “to organize to make meaningful decisions that disrupt white supremacy and oppression in the systems we teach in,” while others emphasized “the need for community amongst educators to support agitation and defiance in the system.” Educators also identified concrete commitments moving forward, including incorporating Indigenous science into their teaching and seeking continued collaboration, with one participant asking how we might “support each other going forward.”