Building Safe and Inculsive Classrooms

             I loved this week’s reading by Mara Sapon-Shevin titled, Building a Safe Community for Learning.  I couldn’t agree with her more about the importance of creating safe and inclusive classrooms for our students.  In fact, this has been a major component of what I envision my future classrooms to look like.  I am dedicated and determined to create with my students a community that helps them truly get to know and appreciated one another.  I want my students to feel safe and encouraged to take intellectual risks and chances in their learning.  I want my students to feel supported enough, by each other, that they ask and answer questions even when they aren’t sure of the answer.  I remember so many times in my early education when the teacher would ask a question and I was afraid to give an answer in case I was wrong.  I didn’t want to be embarrassed or made fun of if the answer I gave was incorrect.  This is one of the many reasons why I want to create a community, with my students, that gives them “the safety to learn and to fail” that Sapon-Shevin writes of.  I know that I learn a great deal from both my failures and successes.  My students and I need to be willing to explore and learn what is unfamiliar and confusing together. 

            I have envisioned my first day as a teacher for quite some time.  As I see that day now I am talking to my students letting them know who I am, what I expect of them, how excited I am to get to know them.  I want to sit in a circle, with the desks moved away, and just talk to them about what they envision the year to look like, what their interests are and what they are most and least excited about.  I want to find out their hopes and dreams and what they expect from me.  I also want to create our community rules and guidelines together as a group.  I feel that creating the classroom norms together will allow them to feel part of it and take pride in upholding our expectations of each other.  I know, as Mara writes in her article, that a community cannot be built in one or two days, but I feel it is imperative to start the building process from day one.  I want my students to feel that they are part of the decision making process, which I hope will lead them to take responsibility for themselves and their classmates.

Going Beyond the Walls

While putting pictures of people of color on the walls of our classrooms is important and necessary, it is in no way enough.  Children of color, and I would argue white children as well, need to be taught about the multiple histories and great minds that make up this country.  Instead of only teaching and learning about black history during February, we need to incorporate it into the curriculum all year long.  Instead of teaching history solely through a white lens we need to make sure we are continuously changing the lens from which we teach.

 It is our job and obligation as teachers to make sure all of our students feel empowered, included, relevant, inspired, and represented in the learning process.  To achieve this, especially as white teachers, we need to make sure we do our “homework”.  We need to take the time to learn about racially marginalized groups and their histories.  We need to read, read, and read some more about what people of color have to say, historically and currently, about their experiences in education and society in general.  As white teachers, of children of color, we need to be willing to reflect on our own biases and preconceived notions, resist becoming defensive and truly listen, learn and grow towards providing more equity and inclusivity for all students of all races.     

   

Being Conciously Aware of the Walls in our Clasrooms

This past weekend I had the "joy" of taking the West-E which was administered at a high school.  After being congregated with everyone in a general area we were eventually directed and split off into classrooms where we would eventually take the test.  Once entering the room and finding my seat we had to wait about 20 minutes or so until we could actually begin the test.  While I waited I began to scan the room and imagine that I was a high school student taking a class in this specific classroom.  I could very clearly see that the classroom had a focus on Literature.  There were posters on the wall depicting people reading and or famous authors.  I even noticed a textbook off to the side that had Literature in the title. 

As I sat there and tried to envision myself as a student in this classroom it actually made me kind of sad.  The classroom was extremely dreary and had no sign of life.  There were about 14 posters on the wall and each one looked like it had been there since the late 80's to early 90's.  What I noticed most, other than the fact that the classroom in general felt dirty, lifeless and an inadequate learning environment, was that 13 out of the 14 posters had pictures of white males on them.  There was one poster that was of Maya Angelou.  1out of 14 posters was a picture of a woman of color.  There were no other visual representations of women or people of color.  This made me wonder what the students that sit in this class everyday, who are not white males, feel about their inclusion in this classroom and subject. 

I believe, with my whole heart, that as teachers we should be aware of not only what we teach verbally but of the non verbal messages we send as well.  To create a classroom environment that is truly inclusive we need to be conscious of what we put on the walls of our classrooms.  Children are, as we all know, extremely perceptive and as teachers I find it imperative that we take every opportunity to make all of our students feel included.  What do you plan to put on the walls of your classroom?  How important do you feel the physical classroom environment is to you future students' learning?   

Should we as teachers adopt a colorblind lens?

The idea of being colorblind in our society is not only unrealistic but hurtful.  It assumes and takes the stand that race does not matter.  Instead of acknowledging our country’s past of slavery, racism and oppression it exclaims that there is a level playing field providing equal opportunities to everyone, regardless of race.  It denies that there are unfair obstacles and unearned privileges imbedded in our country’s institutions.  All of this week’s readings address this issue and how imperative it is that teachers acknowledge they see color.  The majority of our country’s school teachers are white middle class women, while the student population is quite racially and culturally diverse.  This means that as teachers we need to be prepared to teach children that very likely have different experiences, values and ideas.  We need to become “racially aware”.  Howard explains that, “racial awareness is the willingness of educators to listen to students talk about their racialized experiences, to probe for deeper clarity about these experiences, and to seek ways to learn from them” (122).

As teachers, it is imperative that we are aware of the privileges attached to being white.  As Howard suggests we should realize that becoming racially aware is a lifelong process which has no end point.  This is true for other differences you may have with your students as well, such as class, gender, physical abilities and or sexual orientation.  We need to be accepting and understanding of all of our students not just the ones that seem most like us.  To do this we need to, as Howard suggests, be willing to listen “to the stories, experiences, histories, struggles, and setbacks of marginalized groups” (119).  Understanding of the historical context and content of our schools and students is an extremely important journey that will lead to being a more thoughtful, compassionate, equitable, productive, engaging and effective teacher. 

As one of my professors always says, “we are all unfinished”.  This statement means so much to me because it stresses it is never too late to change or adapt who we are.  It stresses the potential for everyone to be lifelong learners, and that we all have the opportunity to reflect on who we are and who we want to be, no matter our age.  This idea is addressed many times throughout our readings.  Howard and Ayers both stress the importance that teaching is about constantly evolving to the needs of our students; to be ok with feeling uncomfortable and not knowing all the answers.  Part of the fun of being a teacher is exploring and discovering along with your students and understanding and embracing that learning is a two way street.               

     

           

Why teach?

What I found most intriguing about Chapter 1, in William Ayers book To Teach the Journey of a Teacher, is how he highlights the many reasons one should not, or would not, want to teach.  Most of the motives highlighted are the reasons why I want and need to teach.  I want to teach because I have a passion for children, learning and racial and social justice.  I want to face the challenges Ayers describes and create a learning environment that is inclusive, safe, inspiring, kind, multi-perspective and multi-cultural.  I want to challenge myself to acknowledge my own preconceived notions and fight against them; to be open to learning from my students and colleagues.  As Ayers puts it “the complexity of teaching can be excruciating, and for some that may be a sufficient reason not to teach (for others, it is of teaching’s most compelling allures).  He also writes that at the beginning of his teaching career he was on a “mission for change”.  Well I am on a “mission for change”.

            The trend of resegregation our public schools are facing today is disheartening.  It’s as though we are moving back in time instead of diving forward.  Racial equity and social justice should be at the forefront of issues being addressed by educators, parents, politicians and society.  Instead we as a society are being pushed towards the ideas of colorblindness and that race doesn’t matter.  The U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2007 in the PICS v. Seattle School District case ruled that race cannot be used as a factor in deciding where students enroll in school, even if the goal is integration and racial equity in schools required by the decision in Brown v. Board.  Messages such as this one take the stance that race doesn’t matter anymore; that we have fixed the problem and should move on to the next.  Reading the articles form Rethinking Our Classrooms and the chapter from Tyrone Howard’s Why Race and Culture Matter address many reasons why it is imperative that teachers do not adopt a colorblind lens.