Becoming, always becoming, a MORE Equitable Educator: Reflections on my learning

Image of a woman with a handbag on a purple background.
 Text reads: MIT Teaching Systems lab Becoming a more equitable educator.

ABOUT THE COURSE AND MY ROLE

In my role as a community teaching assistant for the MIT Teaching Systems Lab course Becoming a More Equitable Educator, I have learned a lot, interacted with a great variety of educators, and written more than I could have ever imagined.

However, my learning, both from being a student in this course and from participating as a teaching assistant, has been wide ranging and also very action oriented. This is the place for me to talk about what I've done with some of that learning.

USING COMMUNITY ASSETS

image of a two people chatting on a computer and table. 
Text reads: Using community assets. Who are the experts in my community? 
What assets do I have?

During the course, educators are asked to develop a map of community assets. I did not realize that this asset map would serve as a foundation for a great deal of the work that I would do for this past year. I found allies and tapped into an amazing community of educators who had a lot to share about their own work in becoming more equitable.

I felt empowered- because of a new job and a strong sense of wanting to do something- to bring some educators together and create some trainings and resources to address equity in my teaching community. 

Here are some of those trainings and discussions:

Connecting with Students of Color with John Bracey

Understanding and Using Inclusive Language with Abelardo Almazán-Vázquez

Staying true to yourself (with Elicia Cárdenas)

This is equity related, just not directly. It is about making principled choices in teaching, albeit in a very specific context of comprehension based communicative language teaching. The more I explore this topic, the more I am sure that this is about equity.

A conversation on equity and engagement: what does it look like in 2020
with Bob Patrick, Meredith White, John Bracey, Dahiana Castro, and Elicia Cárdenas

Becoming an anti-racist educator: where to begin? by Elicia Cárdenas

EXAMINING OUR STATUS QUO

image: stack of books. Text reads: examining our status quo. 
What are commonly accepted practices that no longer fit with my goals of becoming more equitable? 

There are a lot of commonly accepted practices in world language classes, especially around assessment, that I felt like I needed to really dig into and ask if they were practices that were in line with my goals of becoming more equitable. It turns out that I had a lot to say about engagement, grading accuracy, participation, and more. I *still* have more to say, so when I write more, I will add it.

Title: Grammar teacher Goal: Language Acquisition

Addresses equity in our choice of pedagogy 

Things to Avoid: Grading Accuracy, Participation, and Engagement/Effort

The A Word: (Accountability)   Part 1 and Part 2: Reframing Accountability in a comprehension based classroom

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF SELF CARE IN EQUITY WORK

image of a woman with a large heart. Text reads: Understanding the role of self care. 
How does taking care of myself help me be more equitable? 

This idea has been slowly coalescing and is still in its infancy. It started with a truly transformative experience at the People of Color Conference in a session about the trauma of equity work. I realized that I was carrying around a great deal of trauma from my experiences in working as part of an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team. Like- A LOT. While that workshop was specifically focused on healing from trauma, it made me start to wonder:

How can taking care of myself and putting myself first help me be a more equitable educator? Here's what I came up with:

I can be my best self, more often.

If I am well rested and not stressed, I am less likely to react, and more likely to either notice a situation that is going off the rails before it happens or respond in a way that is kind and patient. Hangry me just snaps, gets annoyed, and kicks kids out or shamed them (we have all done it, and I am not proud of it). 

When I show up with my best self, I am much more likely to have an equity mindset. I am more likely to look at any student in any given moment with an asset based and context centered mindset.  

I can focus on what is important, more often. 

If I am taking care of myself and not spending every extra minute doing things that I hate (e.g. grading for the sake of grading, marking errors, etc.), I might also be taking more time to plan better lessons, to create time in my lessons to check in with students, creating or finding better resources, or (gasp) even connecting with other teachers to support my practice. 

This has played out for me in some really significant ways: by being more intentional about how I spend my contract hours, by setting clear boundaries with myself and with others (and still keeping my job!), and being intentional about how I spend my time at school, I found that I had a lot more energy to plan better lessons and find amazing resources, with which to plan better lessons. Prioritizing a manageable work-week was a game changer. Also, it made me sleep better, spend more time doing the things I love, which led to less stress and me being my best self.

I have more energy and resiliency.

I have more energy and resiliency to have hard conversations, to take risks as an educator, and to practice being aware (instead of avoidant).  

I started to explore this idea in a handful of earlier blog posts (What Matters Most and Simplify) but the difference between what I wrote then and what I am thinking now is that self care is not just a nice thing to do, it is vital to be able to engage in the day-to-day work of becoming a more equitable educator. 

Image: people dancing with joy. Text reads: I can be my best self, more often. I
 can focus on what is important, more often. I have more energy and resiliency.

CONCLUSION

What a funny thing to write! There is no end. It's not like I have magically reached "equitable". It is a life-long process. I am constantly learning and un-learning. I am exploring the intersection of anti-blackness, fatphobia, and the role of white supremacy in eating disorders and the thin ideal. I am examining my own intersectional identities as a white skinned chicana, as my family digs out evidence of our very near indigenous roots, and looking at my role as a descendent of colonizers and of those who were colonized.  I am grappling with social media activism (and its harm) and growing my own capacity to be a leader. These are not easy things. 

So, no conclusion, sorry! 

(The course from MIT Teaching Systems Lab ends on August 26, 2021.)

Things to avoid Part 1: Grading accuracy, participation, and engagement/effort

 

There was a discussion on a Facebook group page that asked for guidance regarding grades and grade books.  I was surprised to see the number of teachers who count things like accuracy, participation, and effort.   

Now, my thinking has changed a bit, especially on participation and effort, as I continue to decolonize my classroom, my teaching practice, and my curriculum in my journey to become a more equitable educator. 

 (Update on that: I am also a Teaching Assistant now for the MITx class, Becoming a More Equitable Educator, that was so impactful for me last year, and it is just as impactful going through it again and working with learners from ALL OVER THE GLOBE in their pursuit to become more equitable educators.  It is *free* and great.)  

I am really struggling with where classroom management, white supremacy and systems of oppression, and my classroom practice intersect, but I have no clarity, so I am going to keep struggling on that and asking questions and seeing what I can think of.

However, over the course of my work and collaborations with amazing educators, I have really come to understand more about the role that grading for effort, accuracy, and participation/engagement play in a comprehension based classroom. I don't think I have all the answers, but I have some strong thoughts! 

 In terms of grading for participation, effort, and accuracy, I would say that all of those concepts may allow teacher bias to strongly interfere with grades.  They create systems of  rewarding some students for being better at "playing school", and reinforce a "numbers=learning" mindset.  And of course, if some students get rewarded, other students are going to be penalized.  

As I continue to work with teachers on assessment and grading practices, this student (and caregiver) mindset about numbers (percentages, points) being the equivalent of learning is consistently the number one issue that teachers have, so it is worth considering how our classroom practices play into creating the situation in the first place.  Remember that effort and participation might look a lot like compliance, and grading for compliance is never a good idea. Read my previous posts about grading for accountability, which is another way to say compliance.

Grading for Accuracy 

Since students have no control over the rate at which they acquire, grading for accuracy on a daily basis is going to reward only faster processors and punish other students for not being faster processors.   

Research about Ordered Development tells us that language features (verbs, word order, what we think of as grammar, etc.) is acquired in an order that is independent of instruction. 

That is to say, it doesn't matter how many times or how creatively a Spanish teacher teaches the difference between ser and estar (to be and the other to be) or the difference between the preterite and imperfect past tenses, students will not produce them until their brain is ready, and when they have traversed the developmental stages of acquisition for that word (or language feature).  Furthermore, learners move through those stages in a non-linear fashion!   They may be able to use a feature accurately one day, then in another context revert back to an earlier phase of development.  This developmental order plays out in every language, for every language feature, no matter what the learner's first language is. We see it in first language development as well.  For more information about ordered development, there is a paywalled article in Hispania by Dr. Bill VanPatten, as well as his great books available from ACTFL: The Nature of Language and While We're On The Topic".   

Accuracy is probably the least important component of proficiency.  Consider: for those of you that have very young children, can they communicate with you?  Of course! It is usually imperfect and often adorable, but it is communication. For those of us who prefer four-legged furry friends, do you know when your dog or cat wants something? I sure do, and I speak terrible Dog and her English is just as poor. But we communicate! (Usually.)   

Why would we expect our students to communicate about something accurately after mere tens of hours of instruction? Even after hundreds of hours (600+) of instruction, the rather small percentage of students who reach a proficiency level of Intermediate Mid (ACTFL proficiency scale) can only do so much.  For example, they can handle concrete, familiar, and predictable situations but might have difficulty linking ideas and time frames, and they are not expected to be accurate speakers of the language.  Read about that study here, and my analysis of it when published:  What Standards Should I set for my students? 

In short, we should not grade students for accuracy, especially on a daily or weekly basis.  

Grading for Effort

Effort is another tricky concept. Many teachers say that if students are trying, then they are making the effort. But what does that look like? Does "trying" look the same across cultural contexts? Does my "trying" look the same as someone else's? And if the teacher sees someone trying, but doesn't see someone else, who gets the reward (the grade)?  

This goes right along with the familiar teacher practice of "well, little Johnny tried really hard so I will just bump up their grade because they deserve it."  Now, that is coming from a place of love and support, but wow- there are so many issues with that!  

First, if we bump up one kid's grade, why don't we bump up another? Who are we to judge how hard one kid tried and value that over another? Do we have the right to make those calls? 

Again, I guarantee that our implicit biases are going to come into play.  If we bump up the grade, do little Johnny and their caregivers have an inflated idea about what they can do in the language? Or does it mean that little Johnny gets credit despite not being able to meet a performance target?  

Grading for effort is a dangerous road, fraught with opportunities to let implicit biases reward students who understand the dominant cultural norms of the classroom and/or fit the teacher's definition of trying hard.  

Participation

Participation is also one of those concepts that needs to be carefully considered. The silent period (lasting 6 months to two years) is a documented stage of language acquisition. We also know that students do not need to be speaking in order to acquire language (they do need to be participating in communicative events, but that doesn't mean speaking!) 

Students who are not neuro-typical may demonstrate participation differently, as might students from other cultures. Again, teacher bias may strongly affect these grades, rewarding kids who are good at "playing school" and/or who understand the norms of the dominant culture.

But What About Engagement?

But wait! Don't you ask students to engage in class?  Don't you expect them to take risks and try to use the language?  

The answers to those concerns are COMPLICATED.

Engagement and participation are DIFFERENT in my book. Participation often looks like forcing kids to speak before the words come pouring out of them, or to speak in complete sentences. It also might be coupled with the belief that students must take risks in order to acquire language.  

I do not believe that students should feel like they are taking risks in speaking in my class.  My goal (and it *is* a high bar, I recognize) is that they feel like they have so much to say and they want to say it so badly that words just pour out.  

Engagement is something that I am really working through.  In order to meet the need for enough grades in a grade book, in my last school placement I asked students to self-assess on behaviors that support language acquisition, then I recorded that grade. (You can read more about what I used to do in this blog post: What goes in the Grade Book.)  After a while, I continued to ask students to self-assess, but recorded it less and less.  The practice was useful in some ways, but now I am really asking myself some hard questions about how I was rewarding those kids who played school (and penalizing others, including students from different cultural backgrounds and those who would be considered to be neurally diverse), and how I can try to reach the same goals (helping students self-regulate and attend to the input) while eliminating white supremacist culture in my classroom.  This is an ongoing exploration for me.  Whew!  

I truly believe that the way we grade can help us become more equitable educators, and that the way we grade should help all students believe that they are capable of successfully acquiring another language.