Saturday, May 30, 2020

Leading with Love: Being Culturally Responsive Requires Addressing Systemic Racism


Considered by many to be the father of the common school movement, Horace Mann believed the public education system should be “common in the highest sense, as the air and light were common; because it was not  only the cheapest but the best, not only accessible to all, but as a general rule, enjoyed by all” (Reese, 2005, p. 11).  By satisfying every students’ basic needs an effective teacher leader addresses the need for intrinsic motivation.  Thereafter, the school’s core beliefs and core values can promote capitalization of interest and relevance, providing realistic choices among tasks, teaching skills necessary for success, focusing on mastery, helping students set appropriate goals, providing appropriate feedback, limiting use of external constraints in teaching, and fostering relatedness in the classroom.
This is a perfect rationale for promoting culturally responsive teaching practices.  Teacher leaders need to advocate for the currently unheard voices of their students. A social justice mindset recognizes social conditions creating an opportunity gap are leading indicators in education and must be addressed if we ever want to truly mitigate the trailing indicator known as the achievement gap. To various extent, teacher preparation standards implicitly encourage culturally responsive teaching practices. For instance, a teacher may be expected to:
·         Connect disciplinary knowledge to other subject areas and to everyday life;
·         Link new ideas to familiar ideas: making connections to a student's experiences;
·         Use a student's thinking and experiences as a resource in planning instructional activities;
·         Understand how a student's learning is influenced by individual experiences, talents, and prior learning, as well as language, culture, family, and community values;
·         Understand how to recognize and deal with dehumanizing biases, discrimination, prejudices, and institutional and personal racism and sexism;
·         Understand cultural and community diversity, knowing how to learn about and incorporate a student's experiences, cultures, and community resources into instruction;
·         Know about community and cultural norms

For this discussion, it is crucial to recognize  Bloom’s taxonomy (1949) rates understanding and remembering as lower-order thinking skills (LOTS).  It is time for teacher candidates and practicing teachers to be able to evaluate systemic racism and actively create lessons that name, claim, and eliminate systemic racism by synthesizing community dynamics and best practices for promoting social justice.  Evaluating, creating, and synthesizing require higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). To promote high expectations, develop critical thinking skills, and achieve the learning for all mission, teachers should plan more HOTS rather than LOTS.
 The teaching force in the United States is mostly white and female.  This is true even in minority-based communities.  Regardless of race or composition of the community, it is time to expect all teachers to explicitly describe how they plan to bring multiple perspectives to subject matter discussions, including how they will attend to diverse student's personal, family, and community experiences and cultural norms.
Systemic racism impacts opportunities for inclusive educational practices and the over-representation of minority-populations endemic in special education.  As life-long learners, teachers need to become competent in developing effective instruction that includes modeling, practice, feedback, and reinforcement (Joyce & Showers, 2002).  In relation to addressing systemic racism, administrators need to support development of professional learning communities (PLC) designed to help teachers transition from providing LOTS to planning for HOTS.   Through effective collaboration, the PLC not only can examine school climate using the Five P structure based on Invitational Education theory (Schmidt, 2007) but create direct teaching that will address inequality and systemic racism.
Systemic inequality based on racism, the original sin of these United States, will not be adequately addressed by having one-month a year dedicated to a race’s history.  The 240-years old systems of oppression and culture of hate that began with acceptance or compromise of slavery by many of the Constitution’s Founding Fathers needs to be honestly discussed and openly addressed. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but by the silence over that by the good people” (M.L. King Jr., 1963).
Racism is grounded in hate.  Therefore, when a society fails to address systemic racism it encourages hatred.  Where can teachers and ALL stakeholders begin? Use your voice and advocacy to lead with love!
Accept the following challenge:
Begin each day by reflecting upon how you will treat others the way you expect to be treated: With love! Further reflect upon the tenets of love, for instance as described in 1 COR 13:4-7: Love is patient and kind. Love is NOT prone to jealousy, pettiness, or anger. Love does NOT enjoy bad things. It does NOT exhibit rudeness, selfishness, or resentment.
 Love seeks the good within people and the truth in things. Love willingly invites forgiveness, trust, hope, and the desire to endure...
Then, commit to exhibiting these tenets throughout the balance of the day.  As in all things, you will not exhibit perfection. However, intentional planning to exhibit love-based actions today adds a concrete plan to your perfect goal.  The result will be YOU being more ready to communicate based on love.
When leading with love we invite others to reach their human potential.  We communicate the antithesis to hate-based systemic racism. We thereby make better possible.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Be well.



To cite:
Anderson, C.J. (May 31, 2020) Leading with love: Being culturally responsive requires addressing systemic racism.
 [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

References:
Joyce, B.R. & Showers, B. (2002). Student achievement through staff development.
                Arlington, VA: ASCD. ISBN: 0871206749
Schmidt, J. J. (2007). Elements of diversity in invitational practice and research. Journal
                of Invitational Theory & Practice, 13, 16-23. Retrieved from:
                https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ791537.pdf

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