As an educator, schools are not equitable. They are still growing and learning the best practices for instructing the students. Each year new ways of teaching are brought to the forefront of education to help teachers teach with equity. In the meantime, there are quite a few aspects of teaching that still need fixing. I chose this image because equity is not about fairness. It is not about giving each person equal accommodations or teaching only one way. It is about giving each student what they need in order to be successful.
In the TedTalk, “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, we learn that schools have taught that Africa is full of impoverished, uneducated, overpopulated families. Ms. Adichie described what it was like to attend college in the United States and be treated like she was less than just because she came from Africa. The teachings put an image into the mind of her roommate as to who she was. She wanted to show others that there was more beauty in Africa than what they saw on infomercials and the news. It is the single story that is being told by the education system that is not being fully told from multiple angles.
I particularly love the video of Rita Pierson telling teachers they need to be a champion for their students. The ones that are hard to like. I can relate so much to this video. I worked in a local middle school where most of the support staff and many teachers did not care for a specific group of kids, an entire grade level to be exact. This group of kids would always push back and refuse to do work in class or make the support staff complain about them. Long story short, these were my “babies.” I fought for them to prove how smart they were and for them to know that someone would always believe in them. Today those rough students are sophomores at our high school. I will often run into them while out and about throughout town and they always come up and tell me what they are doing in school now or that they did get a respectable job. I promised all of them that I would be in the front row at graduation hollering for them so that no one ever had to experience what it was like to not have someone cheering them on.
School is only equitable if educators learn to respect their students and learn about their cultures, lives, and what makes them so unique. Educators must remember to not be judgmental about the “harder to love” students.
Hey Chavon, I love your first paragraph because it’s everything that I think. We want our students to be successful but how do you accommodate for 24+ students in your classroom? I think our education fails us as teachers and students because we don’t have the help. We do get new teaching styles every year but I feel like it’s the same thing over and over. Nothing really changes. People still lack respect for different cultures. We still aren’t touching certain topics and going into detail about them. We still very much teach a white man's story for history. As you said in your second paragraph the Ted talk “the danger of a single story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie she started college in America and felt like she was less than because she came from Africa because all we learn about Africa and its culture is they are not well educated. The standards we have in place are wrong. They aren’t even teaching us anything.
ReplyDeleteHi Teresa, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie brought up a valid point when she talked about how people lump all of Africa as one country instead of a continent with many different countries within it. It really made me sit and think about all the times I have heard Africa referred to as if it were a country. As an educator we need to do better for the students. We need to teach them that what we thought we knew is not the way the world is. We can’t be judgmental about someone when we meet them because we don’t know their culture.
DeleteHi Chavon!
ReplyDeleteI personally love the Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I have seen it many times over and every time I watch it I feel like I learn something new. The danger of a single story is that some people develop a single sided perspective about a group of people, and that group more often than not being the minority. I feel as if every educator needs to view Adichie's story. This Ted Talk teaches one to put their feet in to others shoes and try and grasp their full picture. I also enjoyed the photo you included in the first paragraph. It is one that I have seen many times but it is so helpful to understand the difference between equality and equity. I do have a question though. How long do you think that it will take for the education profession to teach with equity? I feel like this may be past our time and we have not even begun teaching yet.
Hi Channing,
DeleteI agree that the education system has a long way to go, but it will get there. I believe that with all my heart. I work in a district where most of the students are Hispanic or African American. Many teachers are rough on them and don't want to branch out and learn a little bit about why the students are the way that they are. They just label them as difficult or unruly. Those teachers have their reasons for teaching and I highly doubt it is for the students. When we teach for the students we build those relationships on understanding where they are coming from and what is making them tick. There is always a reason why a student is falling behind and the answer is usually not because they are "bad" kids. I had middle schoolers that would go to work with their dad in the evenings, weekends, and holidays just to help the family make ends meet. Never mind the students that take care of siblings all night because their parents work nights. This makes them tired and unable to focus and stay awake thus labeling them the "bad" kids. I think when teachers are able to take that time to know there students the changes will start to happen.
Hey Chavon, I like your post! I agree with your idea of equity toward students in schools to be more on striving to provide the necessity for them to be successful. That being support or a variation of solutions rather than applying only one to all their students’ problems/ struggles. I was so captivated and shocked by your experience when working in a local middle school. Schools and their staff/teachers shouldn’t act in such a way that derives from prioritizing most of their students except a large group or grade. This leads for there to be a lack of respect between both sides of the matter and more of a disadvantage for these students to gain a sufficient education. Conveying that one source or component to teaching and learning of students can cause an unfair opportunity for children to grasp skills and achieve in aspects. Moreover, you’ve mentioned how teachers and other school staff pass by the importance of being informed of their students’ backgrounds. While they are knowledgeable of certain topics of cultures/backgrounds, it is not enough to be well informed on students and how to dedicate themselves to help, at most, all their students’ academic performance.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrea,
DeleteYou would be amazed what building relational trust with the students can do for them. These students that wouldn't work for others and failed classes, especially in our quarantine year of 2020-2021, in a matter of time, but working with them and making it a priority to put them above anything showed them that I did in fact care about them as more than a body in my classroom. They all showed passing grades from what appeared to be unrecoverable failure. I didn't do anything other than talk to them like humans and let them know that I was there to help them be successful. Will all of those kids graduate from high school? Probably not, but not from academic failure, mostly it is from familial and cultural failure. They have to be met where they are at to be helped to be successful and it can't just be put on the support staff to build these relational trust boundaries with the students.
Hi Chavon!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love the picture you included. I really think that reveals the importance of equity in all aspects. I completely agree that it is not about giving students the same accommodations but rather, personalized ones for each student to reach equal success. I think at surface level, most people would say that schools are equitable, but until you look further into it, you start to see all of the students that slip into the cracks due to disproportionate attention and opportunity. I think that you made some really great points such as the one about looking at a student’s story from every angle, not just one. I also really enjoyed the video “The Danger of a Single Story” because I felt that, as a white woman, I was able to look at the experiences of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from a different point of view. I think this is a tool we as future educators can use when we have students from different backgrounds and such.
Hi Meagan,
DeleteAs a white woman in a district that is dominantly minorities, it is hard for them to understand that I can relate to them. I can understand what they are going through. I grew up dirt poor and lived in KOA Campgrounds out of tents with my three siblings and both my parents. By the time I graduated from high school I had attended ten different schools in four states and seven cities. I was what would now be labeled "At Risk". When I found out that information it changed everything? I had amazing teachers growing up that always pushed me to do more than I thought I could do. My parents told me I would never be able to travel the world so I might as well read because that would be the only traveling I would do. I was told in high school by my counselor that I didn't have what it takes to be a teacher. I am in school now because my principal at the middle school and many assistant principals told me I would make an excellent teacher and to go back to school. It was two years of not believing them before I enrolled in school to pursue my lifelong dream. My point is that I came from absolutely nothing to going to college as an adult with a family of my own and working full time in a school.
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ReplyDeleteHello Chavon. Loved your post it was very insightful. I also love the Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I dont think I could even count the number of times I have watched it for different classes but it is never not amazing! I agree schools are not yet equitable. Even though there have been improvements there is still a long way to go. I LOVEDDD when you talked about equity in school/life is not about fairness it's about giving each person equal accommodations. I wish there was a way for it to just be fair for all students right off the bat because it makes me sad that some students dont enjoy school because teachers/admin are not treating them with the same respect they do for others. We as future teachers need to be open-minded and make sure we give students the space to fully embrace themselves and to also show every student respect.
ReplyDeleteHey Chavon. I really enjoyed reading your blog and I felt it was really well written and easy to follow whilst also allowing the reader to acknowledge your key points. First off I would like to agree with your first paragraph with how it is not about giving every student an equal accommodation but rather with how it is about giving each child what they need to be successful because as teachers it is our job to make every student we come in contact with the ability to do their own great things not the ability to try and shape every student into the same person that is just unreasonable. Secondly, I think it is amazing that you were able to reach those students in middle school and now as high schoolers they have learned to respect you because you fought for them. I think that is what teaching is all about, it's about showing students you care about them because that might be the only support they get.
ReplyDeleteHey Chavon, I think your perspective is really interesting as someone who is an educator. “The Danger of a Single Story” and the assumptions that people make about African people that Adichie mentioned also stood out to me because I have noticed people doing this in and out of classrooms growing up. People would often talk about Africa as if there was nothing there other than desert, starving children, and huts. This started to annoy me as I got older and realized this was not the case. One thing that I found especially irritating was when people would say "there's children starving in Africa" because it further perpetuated this rhetoric that Africa is poor and underdeveloped and in need of rescuing by us white people, when really we have children starving in America too. I also loved how you mentioned teachers respecting their students and their cultures. I think there needs to be a sense of mutual respect between teachers and students, not only the student respecting the teacher and I don't think this gets talked about enough.
ReplyDeleteHey Chavon, great job on your blog this week about the compelling question is school equitable! I completely agree with you on your opinion on this topic. I really enjoyed how you started off your blog by answering the compelling question right off the bat. I agree on how the schooling is not equitable and how soke teachers aren’t fair and putting their best foot forward in the classroom. Some teachers would rather teach what they want to teach then teach what they are supposed to. This can cause students to not gain the proper education that they deserve as students and cause unfairness to occur in the classroom environment. I believe that teachers should teach fair and unbiased and only focus on the students and what they need to learn. The school system needs to make sure that their teachers are teaching the proper way before it gets any worse. Great blog!
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