A Few Things Schools Can do to be Intentional in Diversity Work
There is currently a petition going around asking alumni of my high school to sign about holding our district accountable and asking that it be intentional about its Black history teaching, addressing systemic racism and White privilege. I applaud whoever started that and am glad someone was taking action steps to help. I wanted to add perspective, as a teacher myself, on what else should/could be added to these action steps...
- Textbooks/boxed curriculums need intentionality to diverse texts for diverse audiences.
Districts need to push back and NOT ADOPT and NOT PURCHASE curriculums that do not fit the needs of diverse learners. Every student should see, read, and learn about people, both real and fictional, who look like them. EVERY.STUDENT. Each story matters. If a district is fairly homogenous, these students desperately need the doors and windows into other perspective, cultures, and experiences. If schools don't spend MILLIONS of dollars buying programs that fall short here, these companies will need to reexamine how they create consumables for teachers and students and do better.
A while back my district was looking to possibly adopt an English Language Arts curriculum. As we looked through, researched, and piloted, it smacked me in the face how very diverse they WEREN'T. It was disgusting honestly.
The disappointed was felt by all of us. We did not purchase anything we looked through.
- Educational interview processes need to change.
During interviews, potential teachers, principals and staff members should be directly questioned about their community building, relationship building, and how to make ALL students feel welcome and listened to. How do they give students a voice? How do they advocate for students in poverty? in trauma? Teachers, for example, should be asked to describe, specifically, how they would/do talk about race with their students.
- School staff should undergo training examining their OWN biases.
We all have them. The more aware we are, the more we can build from there and do better. My teaching partner has said this for years and years and she is right. This is uncomfortable work, difficult work, but necessary.
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These actionable things help to ensure that students are getting diverse experiences and learning opportunities throughout their educational career and also sees that the adults taking care of these students are looking within themselves as well as opening up dialogue with their students. A district being intentional about these things would be one I'd be proud to work for and proud to send my sons to.
Again, there is so much more to do. Steps forward are steps forward.
**Please note there are SO many other things that need addressing in our educational system to help address Black history teaching and address systemic racism and White privilege. These are just a tiny, TINY few**
- Textbooks/boxed curriculums need intentionality to diverse texts for diverse audiences.
Districts need to push back and NOT ADOPT and NOT PURCHASE curriculums that do not fit the needs of diverse learners. Every student should see, read, and learn about people, both real and fictional, who look like them. EVERY.STUDENT. Each story matters. If a district is fairly homogenous, these students desperately need the doors and windows into other perspective, cultures, and experiences. If schools don't spend MILLIONS of dollars buying programs that fall short here, these companies will need to reexamine how they create consumables for teachers and students and do better.
A while back my district was looking to possibly adopt an English Language Arts curriculum. As we looked through, researched, and piloted, it smacked me in the face how very diverse they WEREN'T. It was disgusting honestly.
The disappointed was felt by all of us. We did not purchase anything we looked through.
- Educational interview processes need to change.
During interviews, potential teachers, principals and staff members should be directly questioned about their community building, relationship building, and how to make ALL students feel welcome and listened to. How do they give students a voice? How do they advocate for students in poverty? in trauma? Teachers, for example, should be asked to describe, specifically, how they would/do talk about race with their students.
- School staff should undergo training examining their OWN biases.
We all have them. The more aware we are, the more we can build from there and do better. My teaching partner has said this for years and years and she is right. This is uncomfortable work, difficult work, but necessary.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These actionable things help to ensure that students are getting diverse experiences and learning opportunities throughout their educational career and also sees that the adults taking care of these students are looking within themselves as well as opening up dialogue with their students. A district being intentional about these things would be one I'd be proud to work for and proud to send my sons to.
Again, there is so much more to do. Steps forward are steps forward.
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