CPM200

Kinloch, V., Burkhard, T., & Graham, D. (2020). Storying youth lives: centering equity in teaching and teacher education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), 33(1), 66–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1678779

This article centers around how incorporating the practice of “storying” with teaching to increase equity and creativity in the classroom. They describe storying as the process of critically listening to the narratives and experiences of students and other teachers in order to learn from and guage best practices. It is a hands-on approach that works to apply many different theories and mindsets laid out in equitable education research and publications. They also describe the way this process helps teachers be “answerable,” or, responsible for their methods of teaching, especially with regards to students of color, who had been systematically harmed through the lack of answer-ability in education (naming the nameless).

They explain that equity pedagogy is not only teaching with the awareness of historical and systemic inequalities, but also teaching students to recognize and criticize these institutions to keep them from being complacent in a broken system. Storying helps students identify and connect their struggles to the broader community and world through shared experience and relationships (equity in education).

The importance of rejecting color-blind ideologies from school is also prevalent in the process of story because “relationships are forged in light of, and because of, human differences.” Color blindness seeks to ignore or hide the differences in experiences of different groups of people caused by racial oppression, and this particularly is harmful to students of color because it does not address the educational debt they are owed (storying as method and practice).

The article argues that storying is necessary because it gives students more agency in the classroom. Teachers step down from the soapbox and become the “listeners, learnings, and advocates” for their students. This change in power dynamics within the classroom itself lends to an equitable goal of humanizing students and rejects the traditional factory schooling model. They focus on the experience of one classroom in particular, taught by Valerie, and one student’s experience in the class, named Damya. Valerie collaborated with all of her students in designing the curriculum. They agreed on the materials and artifacts they would study, as well as what kinds of assignments and project they would do throughout the year. The students shared narratives, poetry, and stories with each other and deep discussions inequality and oppression were wrought from their contents (youth stories and storying equity).

The article emphasizes a concrete way that teachers can uplift and empower their students through sharing and analyzing personal experiences.

Reaction: This article was very informative on another concrete answer to my initial question of how to be an advocate for students in my class in constructive and productive ways. I can already see lesson plans forming in my mind that center around the process of storying. The authors use real dialogue from a progressive classroom to document how effective storying was in facilitating deep discussions and creating an equitable classroom dynamic. I also was reminded of the importance of teacher as facilitator and listener. The way that Valerie gave her students agency in the construction of their own learning and even the design of the lesson plans shows her commitment to equitable and culturally relevant learning.

Turner. (Ed.) (2013). Access, Readiness, and the Ethical Imperative of Advocacy. The Ethics of Digital Literacy (pp. 12-18). Lanham M.D. Rowman & Littlefield.

Summary: This chapter talks about how teachers can address the unequal access to technology in schools through teaching digital literacy. Turner provides the reader with a scenario in which a teacher in an urban setting navigates teaching her students digital literacy skills with the limited access to technology provided by the school. The teacher designs a project where her students are to create a public service announcement on a school or community issue they care about using different video-editing apps on their their cellphones. In order to get permission for the students to bring and use their cellphones in class, she had to advocate for them directly to the principal, presenting the entire plan of action and rationale, which is approved.

The teacher has the students examine analyze “mentor texts” and examples of PSAs before creating their own in order to scaffold their learning and set them up for effective use of the media. The turning point in the scenario happens when the teacher allows the students to lead their own learning in discovering how to use the technology and edit their videos because she realizes that she is not the expert in this field. The students also had to write a reflection on their PSA and the experience, using argumentation, evidence, and MLA citations. The project ended up engaging students who usually showed little interest in English class because it asked them to speak on something they were passionate about. The learning was dynamic rather than laborious (snapshot).

Turner highlights the qualities this teacher displays when being an advocate for her students, such as never assuming that they have at-home access to technology to complete assignments. She accounted for every aspect of technology required for the project. Turner pulls key questions when advocating, which ask how the technology is necessary to develop the skills needed for students to reach certain goals, and how the school can help the students achieve these goals through supports or supplements. Knowing these answers are imperative to being able to advocate for your students and get results (advocacy).

Turner then describes the way the teacher discovered empowerment through relinquishing control and admitting that she didn’t have all the answers for how to use the technology. The students were able to collaborate and figure it out on their own. This taught her that rather than worrying about being an expert at all aspects of a digital assignment, she just has to effectively facilitate a space where students can become masters of different technological tools through ethical use and discovery, which builds digital literacy in and of itself (empowerment).

Reaction:

This chapter really helped provide one example of an answer to my question about how to be an advocate from the previous citation by Wilson. I got a concrete example of the process involved in finding an equitable solution by creating a well-thought out and rationalized plan of action to present to the principal for approval. It centers around students being the priority, rather than administration convenience and complacency. I hope to connect this chapter to the piece by Ethan Chang as well, because it is a classroom version of what InnovateEquity was doing in Oakland, creating equitable solutions through representation and advocacy. I also learned what calling a school “Title 1” means because it was used in this article… although I had to look it up. It means that at least 40% of the students in the school are in poverty and the school receives federal funds linked to raising test scores, retention, graduation, and attendance.

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Wilson, M. A. F., Yull, D. G., & Massey, S. G. (2020). Race and the politics of educational exclusion: explaining the persistence of disproportionate disciplinary practices in an urban school district. Race, Ethnicity & Education, 23(1), 134–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2018.1511535

Summary: This article combines case study analysis with application of critical race theory and critical pedagogy with the goal of identifying barriers to equitable access to education on the basis of race and socioeconomic status (abstract).

Wilson gives a brief history of the disparate affects which zero tolerance policies and subsequently the school-to-prison pipeline has had on students and communities of color. While Ladson-Billings’ addresses the deficit language present in the discourse surrounding the idea of the “Achievement Gap,” Wilson cites the “discipline gap” as being one of the factors in creating unequal access to education. She cites studies that prove that students of color are disproportionately sent to the office, suspended, and expelled for the same behavior as white students. This is due to racism and deficit ideologies and contribute to the gap in achievement between white and minority students (introduction).

Wilson gives an account of her team’s experience conducting an ethnographic analysis of the discipline gap in Rivertown, NY, by comparing the stories from parents and students of color with those of administrators in the Riverstown school district to show resistance for school officials to admit the racial disparity in discipline. Wilson has been working with a different education stakeholders in this town to improve school and district accountability for their discipline practices and implement restorative justice reform (introduction).

Wilson describes how her use of Critical Race Theory in the study helped her and her team to understand why disciplinary measures are still racially disparate despite preventative litigation. She explains that CRT focuses on the permeation of racism into all systems and institutions and thus “challenges racial liberalism and colorblind ideology” by exposing the still existing racist attitudes and traditions of the people in power. The teams’s initial question they posed using CRT was, “Given the stark racial disproportionality in discipline that persists in Rivertown, why is the school district so resistant to discussing the implications of the data, let alone beginning to implement systemic change?” Along with CRT, Wilson describes interest conversion and how it was used in the study. Interest conversion is a principal which explains that there must be some selfish incentive in order for white people to give up -at least some of- their privilege, resulting in equitable outcomes for minorities. Wilson believes that using interest conversion to seek equitable outcomes rarely works or lasts, as was attempted and failed in Rivertown (section one).

One challenge on the team’s road to achieving equitable disciplinary solutions was that the school administration and district officials chalked up the racially disparate suspension and discipline rates to there being higher levels of behavioral issues from students in poverty, and that race had nothing to do with it. However, the team gathered data of all of the suspension rates in the district and organized them by both black vs. white and economically advantaged vs. disadvantaged to show that even within the data on just economically disadvantaged students, black students were suspended at a much higher rate than white students, thus disproving the notion that racism doesn’t influence the racial disparity in discipline (section seven).

Wilson argues that Critical Race Theory is more of a lens to see the underlying causes of disparities and inequities rather than a framework for taking action. She proposes that the best way to affect change is with the “stick and carrot approach” where the White stakeholders in power are challenged into an interest conversion position where they have little choice but to make policy change in favor of racial justice due monetary and political pressure (section eight).

Response: This article taught me so many valuable terms and concepts surrounding racial activism both within schools and in broader society. I found it incredibly interesting to hear the way the new Rivertown superintendent- who worked to implement restorative justice reforms and equitable access to education- was so aggressively shunned and protested by the teachers within the school district. It is already sparking many questions for me, such as; how, as a future educator, do you apply these critical social justice approaches to affect positive change within the context of the classroom, school, and community you serve. To more bluntly phrase that, how can I be an educational activist and also not fear getting fired? Are the two mutually exclusive in some cases? I also am curious to find instances in other school districts that were more successful in creating change surrounding disciplinary measures. It is crazy to me that teachers in this district actually protested against a leader who was merely advocating for the rights of minority students.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2008). A Letter to Our Next President. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(3), 235–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487108317466

Summary:

Ladson-Billings aims to inform the future president, and also the public, about the longtime problem of educational inequity on the basis of race and class and its detrimental effects on the nation as a whole. She also breaks down the issue with naming this problem an “achievement gap,” and proposes instead the term “education debt.” The term”achievement gap”‘s popularity in political jargon she explains, perpetuates the false idea that schools, parents, and communities of color in which there are higher rates of student under-performance are to blame for these inequities and are responsible for the solution. This belief ignores the greater systemic issues of racism and class-ism that have created the systems of inequity that cause unequal access to education in the first place. These systems of inequity include legislation like NCLB which is built upon the false idea that linking funding to achievement will produce a greater urgency for schools to improve student performance. The deficit thinking that comes with these policies, such as emphasis on grit and parent involvement assume that there is something culturally linked to student under-performance which mindset and monetary incentive can fix. These beliefs and policies have enormous detriment to communities, schools, and students because they do nothing to address the real causes of educational inequity like racism and discrimination. Ladson-Billings believes that naming this crisis of inequity the “education debt” recognizes the historical, financial, sociopolitical, and moral debt the entire country and government owe to minorities and students in poverty, while simultaneously crushing the myth of merit and recognizing the responsibility of the government to solve the inequities these students face (236).

Ladson-Billings breaks down the different components of the education debt. The historical debt, she explains, began with slavery and the systematic exclusion of black people, women, and other minorities from receiving an education which, for brown people, still continues today. She then connects the historical debt to hugely unequal funding to schools on the basis of race which perpetuates a high lack of resources and experienced teachers in minority schools and a $10,000 difference in funding per student between minorities and whites. Another component of the education debt is systemic voting discrimination, which has protected the special interests of the elite whites and excluded minorities from policy and decision making on a community and national scale. This “sociopolitical debt” is the reason why although Brown v. Board happened over fifty years ago, public schools are actually undergoing a process of re-segregation because of the lack of equitable and culturally aware policy making (238).

Ladson-Billings concludes by urging the future president to begin a plan to repay the debt owed to these undeserved communities, schools, and students in order to bridge the educational inequities that cause the achievement gap to persist.

Response:

This source was eye-opening and I think will be highly useful in my project considering it touches on all of the systemic issues surrounding educational inequality, which my own goal is to learn about. I want to bridge these broad concepts with community involvement and progressive pedagogy to learn how, as a future educator, I can both strive to combat these systems of inequality and create an equitable learning environment. This article connects well to Ethan Chang’s evaluation of InnovateEquity because it is a macro view of the micro causes and effects addressed in their goal to equitably improve downtown Oakland. Overall, I think this article helps put me in the mindset of being critically aware of deficit ideologies that affect schooling that will help me form unbiased opinions and plans of action for my future classroom.

Chang, E. (2019). Bridging an engagement gap: towards equitable, community-based technology leadership practice. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 22(5), 536–554. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2018.1492504

Summary: Ethan Chang argues that too much of the current research on unequal access to technology in the classroom revolves around the idea that technology is solely important for student’s future financial success and bridging the “achievement gap”. He explains that this creates an unfair monetizing of underprivileged student’s education which ignores the possibilities technology presents for student-community representation and ultimately attempts to prepare students for passive participation in our unequal economic system rather than give them the tools and outlets to change this system (abstract). Chang believes that technology in the classroom should be taught centered around its capacity for engaging students in civic and community affairs in order to gain digital literacy rather than just digital skills. He also advocates for using technology in the classroom to showcase and utilize the student’s and community’s unique “cultural assets.” In short, Chang ultimately wants to highlight that the goal of many of his colleagues of bringing technology into the underprivileged classroom in order to fulfill “‘achievement’ aims,” within the classroom only, is a deficit ideology that limits the potential for technology leadership in the classroom to help address community and systemic inequities that are the root of the broad issue of unequal access to technology in the first place (section two). His main place of inspiration for this equitable view on technology in the classroom from a research group based in Oakland, CA, which he called InnovateEquity, who aim to use technology to “foster equitable educational and community changes.”

Through his work in gathering research on the qualities an equity and advocacy based leader exemplifies, such as, “framing disparities and action…construction and enactment of leadership… [creating] an inquiry culture…connecting with external partners… [and] collaborating with families and communities”, Chang developed a plan for researching and measuring how Innovate Equity utilizes these leadership qualities in their approach to building a community and education improvement vision in downtown Oakland (section three).

Chang’s first observation was InnovateEquity’s close consideration for the historical and cultural strengths of Oakland in order to preserve its “soul” in the new equitable improvement plan. The organization used community advocates and field research to gather the most pressing concerns facing the community and brainstorm equitable solutions. They combined their quantitative data with observations and analysis to create an online platform that tracked the assets of Oakland called CommunitiTech. Chang notes that while this platform helped them make sense of their findings, it was not the epicenter of InnovateEquity’s plan of action- this remained largely in face to face collaboration and communication with community leaders. InnovateEquity placed a major emphasis on gaining a diverse set of stakeholders to participate in the process of creating the new vision for Downtown Oakland that included every previously marginalized group in the area. They also focused on importance of building relational trust with these community members in order to create long lasting connections (section four).

While the concerns and goals decided by the community leaders weren’t directly related to education (gentrification, healthcare, youth spaces, and law enforcement reform), they all seriously affect “educational reform policy” (section five).

This case study should be helpful in my research because it opened my eyes to the way leaders can go about sourcing information and creating solutions using technology in equitable and culturally conscious ways. This relates to teaching because I believe technology in the classroom should always be purposeful and meet an equitable goal, and this study shows me ways to develop effective strategies that connect my students with civic engagement and opportunities through the tools afforded by digital literacy. Through reading this, I learned about the importance of protesting and refraining from the ideas that technology serves a single purpose in schools to prepare students for the workplace. The study also illuminated to me the importance for recognizing the complex ways in which community issues and educational inequities are interconnected. I want to further use this study and others to explore the ways that educators can positively influence and impact their communities both inside and outside of the school and classroom.

I am a student at Kutztown University.