Is Schooling Equitable?

 

I think initially this is a hard question to answer because what are the metrics. I think the problem is when families are choosing schools, they are trying to find the “best” possible school to send their kids. Though this can become challenging because I find a lot of time this question forms out of biases. Whether it is biases of class, race, or quality of education these are the lenses that end up unfortunately driving these decisions. The question of whether a school is equitable really boils down to then how are we as teachers, or future teachers, practicing inclusivity inside the classroom. Are we educating our students honestly? Are we staying open-minded and humble to recognize our own biases? Are we creating safe places to have discussions about race and other perspectives? I think it is important for us as teachers to create a curriculum that does not include these biases and helps student's see from multiple different perspectives. For example, if students are entering the world believing that literature is one-sided and have only read books that account for a percentage of the population, then how do we expect them to empathize with other people. I know my experience as a reader has included books from authors around the world. I was glad to watch the Ted Talk from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as her book, Purple Hibiscus, is one of my favorites. I believe teachers are responsible for whether schooling is equitable. Not how many resources the state provides, not how wealthy the families of the student population are, not how well students do on standardized tests (because can’t that be boiled down to wealth as well, students taking prep courses outside of class), and definitely not the race of the student body. Teachers and in turn student’s engagement are responsible for creating an equitable learning environment.