As I sit here, finishing up my COVID quarantine, I am preparing for round seven of an interview process. In a profession where there is so much at stake- education- I have to show a committee that I have what it takes. A school leadership position is complex, so one has to show she/he has what it takes in thousands of arenas.
So I am preparing. In between naps and drinking lots of fluids... and one of the areas they will be exploring are my thoughts around equity.
It is more than an interview question to me. It is more than something you cram for...
It is about integrity.
It is about choices I have already made.
It is about what my hopes are for the future.
Schools sit in the center of every community. Children come in from all around. We are so important. Each child represents someone's treasure, someone's heart. There are hopes, dreams, and aspirations that follow each one. Even those who have homes with neglect or abuse- there is such potential in each child and they come walking through that door. We are not just called to teach, but to love.
And each child comes in with their own heart too. So much yet to grasp. Not only in academics, but about their concept of self. We get to inspire them to know themselves better and to know how things work so that they can maximize this gift of life.
What other places in our community have such potential energy? We invest in the hopes of the present and the community of the future. Our children will be happy, productive, compassionate... or they will be wasted by so many things that can trap them... and schools stand right there in the middle of it all.
So equity to me is about inspiring the hearts of every single child that walks through that door. The road to inspiration is never the same for each child. The journey begins with One of the Covey's Habits.
Wonder
This begins in my heart. Equity work begins in my heart. Am I wondering about things? One time I stood up in front of a staff meeting at a school in rural North Carolina and asked our predominately white faculty, "Do you know what it is like to be an African American male in your classrooms? Have you ever asked?" I did.
See, I was teaching 5th grade and when the principal was not on campus they pulled me for discipline cases. At our school, African American male students were always in the time out chairs outside of classrooms. Disproportionate statistics. They pulled me one day and as I am being escorted to the office to deal with this third grader I am getting an emotional earful. He did this, you need to deal with him sternly, and on and on... I walked into a room and looked down at a young African American male student who was sweating and breathing so hard we had to wait a few minutes for him to catch his breath. He had on some awesome khaki pants and a white button down shirt. I thought that looked pretty sharp except I noticed he had ink pen writing all over his thighs. My brain immediately went to two things... possible boredom and lack of supervision. I also knew he had one of the worst teachers I have ever known. A late hire to reduce class sizes- who didn't even know he was supposed to stay with his class during a field trip.
Was I stern? No, I was warm. Was I gonna get em? Know I was going to seek first to understand. I felt wonder. I felt compassion. I was a role model for how to handle stressful situations even right now in this discipline context. The first words out of my mouth were, "So do you remember me? I waved at you in the hall- I teach 5th grade here." He said yes. I then asked my wondering question... "Son, how does school feel to you?" His response stunned me.
"It feels like prison."
This tear, that is forming on my eyelid even 15 years after the fact... that is an equity tear. I wondered how we can create a system where a group in this building feels so heavy about our place. He wasn't the only voice. I had students who never passed a state test but were going home with all A's on their report cards. As I sat at a parent conference, where a mom was beaming with pride because her girl got an A in math... until I told her something no one had ever shared with her before.
"Mam, that is not really an A."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your daughter is in the lowest math class in our grade. She is learning math that is two years behind. What you see is not an A in 5th grade math but an A in 3rd grade math."
"How come no one ever told me this! What do I need to do?"
People can deny systemic racism until they are blue in the face but I have seen it with my own eyes. It was experiences like this that made me go to my principal and ask permission to keep all my students and stop sending them to these tracking classes. He let me. And students who never passed a state test in their lives finally got to feel what it was like to be successful.
That's equity. It took a lot to get from here to there- I had to examine my teaching style and expectations. I did something practical that every educator should do... wonder about your non-verbals. Facial expressions say a lot and we are unaware of them!!! So I wondered how my face looked when I spoke to the blonde haired, blue eyed gifted students when they scored an 80 on a test. "You know you can do better than that." Then I took that face and applied it like make up when I spoke with my brown haired and brown eyed student who never passed a state test in his life... "You can do better than that."
I wondered how t-shirt companies and shoe companies can motivate people to "Just Do it." So I made a T-shirt that made people angry. It said, "R U A 4... Yet?"
See we took weekly assessments and getting a 5 was the highest you can get. Students wanted the T-shirts and they worked for them. It was my expectation that all of us as a class would reach this level... This is equity work. Raising expectations. Believing in students. Wondering about how other industries have reached our students.
We wrote letters to colleges- I taught them how to ask questions. Raise their eyes to some potential futures they might not have seen. YOU should have seen the kids when they ran up to me at school with a letter they received! The smart schools sent a poster, pennant, or t-shirt. But my favorite part was reading the letters to the class... "Dear Nolan, thank you so much for taking the time to write to us. We know you are in 5th grade right now but you are the kind of student we are hoping for and we want you to reach out to us when you are ready for college." There is that equity tear again...
In that little school in North Carolina I proved that the Achievement Gap was not unbeatable. I was angered that there was a persistent problem with academic growth and achievement for our children with color and with poverty. We hear the public outcry for our environment, for our rain forests, for the whales and even horned frogs... but why wasn't this issue elevated to the top? HOW MANY LIVES HAVE WE WASTED IN OUR BROKEN SYSTEMS!!!!
So I wondered, are there any other people who have looked for answers? Then, there in the middle of Statesville, NC my life changed forever. My students inspired me to enroll in a PhD program.
Off to Denver I went to study this crisis. And I found Hope. Have you heard of Hope Theory? It breaks a system because it empowers the students.
Empowerment is the Answer to the Achievement Gap.
Empowerment starts with wonder, the educator is wondering about a student's interests, passions, abilities, and preferences. The student is wondering about the world and how they fit in. So we create systems that allow students to set personal goals, create multiple pathways to achievement and provide support to develop their agency and self-efficacy. That is equity.
I created Data folders that we called Hope Folders that did just that. As I began to lead schools I helped communities work smarter around mathematics development- increasing their collaborative density and the result has been pretty amazing. Every school where I have led started off with an achievement gap and then it vanished. Minority students showed as much growth as every other group. Why? Because equity is more that an interview question- it is about integrity. It is about choices.
To earn my PhD was extremely hard. Many in my cohort dropped out. I thought about quitting when my twins were stillborn at 21 weeks. One of them we named Hope. And guess what my dissertation is titled? "Hope's Voice." I never told anyone about that until today... so I could not quit. I don't know if you are understanding me... I was so sick of school that I didn't even want to attend graduation and get my degree.
Well, here is the magic of those years. I learned about Roses Growing in Concrete by Jeffrey Andrade. I learned about Teacher-Student Relationship Quality (TSRQ) from Pedro Noguera. My process for research involved working with some awesome high schoolers. Students went into high schools in Denver and Aurora and interviewed students that looked like them- ie. Hispanic female students had a hispanic female interviewer. I was able to find out what inspired students and what they found as barriers. Hope was my foundational theory. I learned so much- I am thankful for my professors and advisors who never gave up on me. I graduated with clarity and focus on how systems can be better and how we can exterminate this Achievement Gap for good.
I am still on my learning journey- I still want to see what others have found to inspire our students and increase growth and maximize potential. All the while, guarding the heart of our community and not losing the child in the age of accountability.
So, what is equity to me?
It has been my life. Because I know EVERY student under my care has been honored for who THEY are. I wondered how to reach, teach, and inspire their hearts as well as their minds. I rallied educators to grow and see themselves as part of the solution and I connected with families in many ways so they felt their value as part of the process.
Thank you for sharing this time with me today and I hope you can continue your growth along with me.
Please contact me for anything I can do to support you.
Doc
