Make equity a priority

By Stephanie Hirsh

Results, May 2002

Equity:
Staff development that improves the learning of all students prepares educators to understand and appreciate all students, create safe, orderly, and supportive learning environments, and hold high expectations for their academic achievement.

What does it mean to prepare educators to understand and appreciate all students--especially when most teachers have very different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures from their students? It is the responsibility of staff development to equip teachers with the tools they can use to develop their understanding and demonstrate their appreciation for students who are very unfamiliar to them.

My son attended a very diverse high school. More than half of the students were non-white and more than 35% were eligible for free or reduced price lunches. More than 90% of the teachers were white. And yet what I regularly saw were teachers successful at building connections with all students.

They spent time getting to know each student and, as a result, appreciated the strengths that each brought to their classrooms. Most students did not share their race, religion, or socioeconomic status. So, they invested additional hours studying their students' culture, discussing their experiences, and seeking their parents' help and support. Their interest in students was evident to them and their families; their sincerity created an atmosphere of respect and appreciation. They believed students were most likely to learn from teachers they respected and with whom they had a valued relationship.

These teachers possessed the knowledge, skills, and dispositions called for in the equity standard. School-based staff developers helped new teachers learn to use the knowledge of their students' culture as well as their students' interests and backgrounds to build meaningful and engaging lessons. They facilitated conversations where challenges were addressed, tough issues were discussed, and deeper understanding was built.

High quality staff development focused on issues of equity must first provide all educators with opportunities to understand their own attitudes regarding race, social class, and culture. Staff development can help educators understand how one's race, social class, and/or culture defines one's behaviors and expectations. While high quality learning experiences cannot substitute for one's background experiences, it can assist in developing one's ability to see things from differing perspectives.

Educators also need opportunities to explore how such differences influence relationships with colleagues. Specialized trainings and dialogues created to delve into these issues of race, culture, and socioeconomic status differences will contribute to increased sensitivity and empathy as well as a stronger school community.

The goal of the equity standard is that all teachers have the tools and outlook that enable them to see the strengths each student brings to the classroom and develop strategies for facilitating individual success. An additional tool is a powerful relationship with a colleague of a different culture and background. When teachers have these relationships, they will have another source for seeking input and assistance in reaching all students.

Maya Angelou said it best when she wrote:
This is the value of the teacher, who looks at a face and says there's something behind that and I want to reach that person, I want to influence that person, I want to encourage that person, I want to enrich, I want to call out that person who is behind that face, behind that color, behind that language, behind that tradition, behind that culture. I believe you can do it. I know what was done for me.