I recently listened to a conversation between educator Jasmine Lane (@MsJasmineMN) and brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart (@citizenstewart) that got me thinking about how these two conversations come together. Their conversation is frank and probably a bit controversial. A highlight moment was, “Having white teachers sit in a circle and read White Fragility is easier than admitting that many of them may not be equipped pedagogically to help our kids succeed.”
Sit with that.
When I first got into education, first as an AmeriCorps volunteer and then into graduate school and student teaching, I was way more interested in “We must abolish racist systems and racist individual behaviors in education” than “How do we most effectively teach content and literacy to students with evidence based pedagogy?” I was involved in racial justice training and activism, trying to push some of my white coworkers and fellow grad students, but I wasn’t really thinking about how much skill it takes to be a teacher from whom students really learn.
But once I was alone in a classroom and school where students of color predominated, I realized that I didn’t really know how to teach. Fortunately, I’d had a really good mentor teacher that I could at least try to mimic. Still, despite all my efforts to be… and some of you will cringe here…an ally, I wasn’t prepared to teach effectively.
I’ve done a lot of thinking (sometimes on point, sometimes misguided) about really important topics like culturally responsive teaching, anti-racism, trauma-informed teaching, social emotional learning, and relationship building. I’m glad I’ve put years of thought into these things. But after five years of classroom teaching, I have to admit that I’ve sometimes put energy into these topics at the expense of learning and developing evidence- and science-based pedagogical knowledge and skills.
I mean, I definitely try to teach kids. However, I don’t think I’m great at it, and I think I’ve fallen for some misguided pedagogical fads and theories, because I wasn’t confident enough in or even aware of evidence- and science-based pedagogy. I think that’s partly on me, and partly on my grad program and the subsequent professional development I’ve received.
So, after listening to Jasmine Lane and Citizen Stewart, I sketched this graphic (woefully under-utilizing the potential of Procreate and an Apple Pencil!):
On the left is a teacher pathway that focuses on relationship building, antiracism, social-emotional learning, and trauma-informed and culturally responsive teaching at the expense of the fundamental work of teaching content and literacy in ways that students will actually learn. We can become so invested in these things, that we lose sight of what we’re meant to be doing in schools. On the right, the same topics are being considered. However, they’re in place to support the essential work: teaching content and literacy to kids effectively.
I must remember that I’m in schools to teach kids language, reading, writing, and content about world history and government. For those of us, especially us white teachers, who care about social justice, schools cannot be places in which we merely try to act out our social justice fantasies and projections. That won’t help students learn.
We must continue to participate in the work of building relationships and ending racism, while remembering why they’re important to the work we’re paid–however inadequately–to do. I build relationships with students so that they feel safe to take risks, hear my feedback, ask questions and stay after school for support. I educate myself in antiracism so that I eliminate biases and prejudices that may make me have low expectations for my students, or discipline them in ways that force them out of school and disrupt their learning. I educate myself on trauma so that I have more compassion and patience for students who seem to struggle with executive functioning and memory because I know toxic stress negatively impacts those parts of the brain. I learn about students’ language and culture so that I better understand schemas they come to school with, and use my knowledge of those schemas to teach new language and content.
And maybe I stop focusing quite so much on students’ social emotional skills (they are kids, after all) and focus as much if not more on my own social emotional skills so that I don’t burn out. Maybe I make space and give myself time to be a great teacher.
I do all of this so that I have a strong foundation from which to actively teach students content and literacy. This summer, I’m going to continue doing the pedagogical research and honing the pedagogical skills to do just that.
This piece first ran in its original version here.
Years ago, I talked to a kindergarten teacher at a Los Angeles elementary school. She said she’d taught fourth grade for several years. Students who’d been in Mrs. A’s third-grade class were a year behind students who’d had Mrs. B. Mrs. A believed students –nearly all from Mexican immigrant families — needed a warm, supportive, fun environment. “She hugs them,” said my informant. “But she doesn’t teach them.” Mrs. B taught third-grade reading, writing, math, etc.
My informant switched to kindergarten.
Teachers must be welcoming, supportive, and respectful of students’ backgrounds, but we are not social workers, psychologists, or (in our school roles) leaders of social justice movements. It is developmentally inappropriate (not to mention a huge example of mission creep) to immerse children and young teens in frequent advocacy sessions. They don’t like it, they are too young to participate on an equal footing with adult teachers, and it is in some ways a usurpation of roles that really belong to other people in their lives.
Amen to this. Science-based reading instruction is what all kids need.