Education Equity

Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Equity

Why we should talk to children about race

Amanda Williams, University of Bristol

It’s a situation that many parents dread. Encountering a black man in the street for the first time, a white child might loudly ask something like: “Mummy, why does that man have dirty skin?” After cringing, shushing, or offering a distraction, parents may wonder where this kind of question has come from, how to deal with the situation or indeed avoid it in the future.

From a surprisingly early age, children can distinguish between faces from different racial groups. By the time they are three months old, experiments have shown that white, black, and Asian infants tend to look longer at faces from their own racial group or familiar racial groups compared to faces from other, less familiar racial groups. By three to four years old, children can consistently and accurately identify others by race. The ability to differentiate between people on the basis of race improves with age, with teenagers and adults automatically and effortlessly categorising others on the basis of skin colour.

Choosing to be colourblind

In many societies there is a widespread belief that individuals should receive the same treatment regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, and ability. Partly in an attempt to appear egalitarian, many adults adopt a “colourblind” approach to race – avoiding mentioning race under the guise that if one doesn’t “see” race, then one cannot be considered racist. For example, in studies using a photo identification game, white participants asked to identify a particular face from an array of faces are less likely to use race to describe the faces, particularly when paired in the task with a black partner.

The norms enforced by this behaviour have now become so entrenched that adults tend to find situations that force them to talk about race extremely uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking, leading to a complete avoidance of the topic in social interactions.

Even when interacting with their young children, parents avoid race. In one study that observed the way parents read a storybook created to raise issues about race relations and racial prejudice with their four to five-year-olds, the majority of parents tended not to mention race, despite it being the theme of the book.

Let’s talk about race. www.shutterstock.com

But ignoring race does not make it go away. Like adults and older children, young children are aware of race even if no one seems to be talking about it. This may lead young children to ask questions about racial differences, which are sometimes embarrassing and untimely, in order to gain a better understanding of the world around them.

Only after having acquired a better understanding of social norms regarding race, at around ten years old, do children also begin to show colourblind behaviour and avoid using race to identify the target in a photo identification task. Like adults, older children avoid mentioning race even at the expense of how well they might perform in the task at hand.

But taking a colourblind approach to race is not the best way to promote equality and reduce racial prejudice. Studies with white people who avoid talking about race show less friendly behaviour when playing a photo identification task with a black partner compared to a white partner. Like adults, nine to 12-year-olds also tend to find situations where they have to talk about race uncomfortable, nerve-wracking, and unpleasant.

A new approach

But if colourblindness – and the tendency to avoid talking about race – impacts on relationships between diverse people, what approach should we take in order to resolve racial inequalities? The answer lies in embracing and celebrating our racial differences instead of minimising or even altogether ignoring them.

Fully recognising the multiculturalism in our society appears to be a better strategy. For example, in one study children who were read a story that placed value in racial diversity were found to be more likely to identify acts of racial discrimination and more likely to sit next to racially diverse peers in the school lunch room. In another study, white adults who adopted a multicultural approach (as opposed to a colourblind approach) showed less prejudiced behaviour when conversing with an Asian partner about racism and diversity.

We need to see the world in colour. www.shutterstock.com

Our concerns about discussing race can be reduced by placing more value in racial diversity, resulting in less stressful and more successful interactions with people from racial groups different from our own. As a caveat, most of the research mentioned in this article has focused primarily on the reactions of white participants. So there is more work to do researching attitudes and behaviour in diverse contexts with individuals who identify as racial minority group members.

For children, curiosity about their surroundings and the people they meet comes naturally. Rather than brushing aside children’s questions about race in an attempt to avoid social embarrassment, we ought to embrace and celebrate the differences that make us unique, remarkable, and that colour the world we live in.

Talking with children about race from an early age may not only derail embarrassing questions, but may, more importantly, serve to increase children’s comfort when interacting with people from different racial and ethnic groups – and increase the comfort of those they are interacting with too.

Given that we live in a society that is becoming increasingly diverse, children will be expected to interact with individuals from many racial and ethnic backgrounds. Children need to be prepared for this future – one way to do this is to encourage them to see this diversity as a positive feature of their worlds. It’s time to talk about race.

The Conversation

Amanda Williams, Lecturer in Psychology of Education, University of Bristol

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Equity, Matthew Lynch

Ask An Expert: Disrupting the School-to-Prison Cycle

Question: Dr. Lynch, I am a youth counselor in Philadelphia, PA. Everyday I witness the public school system fail our children. The end result is that many of them drop out and end up in prison. What can activists like myself do to end the school to prison pipeline? Nate T.

Answer: Nate, thank you for sending this question my way. Though all people are genetically predisposed, it is ultimately the environment that encompasses the formative years that shapes lives. Some of that comes from home environments, and the rest from society. Our nation’s public schools play an integral role in fostering talents, but also in building our children’s internal worth.

When one student is causing a classroom disruption, the traditional way to address the issue has been removal – whether the removal is for five minutes, five days or permanently. Separating the “good” students and the “bad” ones has always seemed the fair, judicious approach. On an individual level this form of discipline may seem necessary to preserve the educational experience for others. If all children came from homes that implemented a cause-and-effect approach to discipline, this might be the right answer. Unfortunately, an increasing number of students come from broken homes, or ones where parents have not the desire or time to discipline. For these students, removal from education is simply another form of abandonment and leads to the phenomenon called the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Children are just as much a product of their environments as the expectations placed on them. Parents on a first-name basis with law enforcement officials certainly influence the behavior of their children, but school authorities with preconceived negative associations create an expectation of failure too. Increasingly, educators are learning how to recognize the signs of textbook learning disabilities like ADHD or dyslexia. But what about the indirect impact that factors like poverty, abuse, neglect or simply living in the wrong neighborhood have on a student’s ability to learn? Where are the intervention programs that keep these students on academic track without removing them from the school setting?

The term “zero tolerance” may sound like the best way to handle all offenses in public schools, but it really does a disservice to students. Not every infraction is a black and white issue and not every misstep by a student is a result of direct defiance. Often students with legitimate learning disabilities or social impairment are labeled as “disruptions” and removed from classroom settings under the guise of preserving the learning experience for other, “better” students. I suppose there is an argument to be made for protecting straight-and-narrow students from the sins of others, but at what cost? Schools are the first line of defense against this early form of pigeonholing, but the community needs to embrace the concept. Students with discipline problems are individuals that need customized learning experiences to succeed academically, in the years ahead.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Equity, Matthew Lynch

Technology and Mentorship: Addressing the Problem of Urban Students

Students in urban schools tend to have stereotypes attached to them. Rather than see these students as individual learners, many urban kids and their schools are often thrown into the “lost cause” category. Problems like deteriorating buildings and overcrowding often become too overwhelming for reformers.

In a 2009 article in the Harvard Political Review, writers Tiffany Wen and Jyoti Jasrasaria discuss the “myths of urban education.” The article points out that many people are quick to label urban schools as lost causes without actually investigating individual issues or how they can be resolved. The authors also shed light on the juxtaposition of the basic American ideal that anyone from anywhere can make it big with some hard work and the reality of urban schools. If urban students are truly not at a disadvantage, per the American dream, then why do they graduate from high school at a rate of nearly 20 percent lower than their suburban counterparts?

Overcrowding as enemy

In an Education Week guest blog post, urban music teacher Mike Albertson said that “overcrowded classrooms are one of the most common qualities of urban schools.”

He went on to say that the students themselves are not the actual problem in urban schools but that the overcrowded conditions are to blame for many perceived behavior issues and academic disengagement. More likely, it is a combination of high student-to-teacher ratios and behavior problems.

Studies have found a correlation between overcrowding and lower math and reading scores. Teachers also cite overcrowding as a definite contributor to student behavior problems. Too many kids in classrooms means too little individual instruction. It also means that academic time is spent dealing with issues that distract from education. Overcrowding is only one problem that contributes to urban student disadvantages but one that deserves the spotlight.

Bridging the Urban-Suburban Gap

As with all aspects of K-12 improvement, finding the answers to higher achievement for urban students is a complicated process. I believe that technology can work to teacher and student advantages though. The implications of mobile technology in K-12 classrooms are still being realized but one thing is certain: more individualized learning is now possible. In cases where overcrowding is detrimental to learning experiences, mobile technology can serve as a placeholder teacher in terms of directing students and keeping them engaged in learning when the physical teacher is unavailable.

More student guidance is also necessary. Statistics tell us that not only do urban students more often come from tumultuous home lives, but they are often punished more harshly for the same infractions than suburban peers. Over 68 percent of all incarcerated adult American men do not have a high school diploma.

Removal from school, while potentially the easiest short term solution, feeds the school-to-prison cycle that is built primarily in urban schools. Mentorship programs would go a long way toward directing urban students toward higher academic engagement and graduation rates. Many colleges have implemented mentorship programs for at-risk students, like first-generation college students, so why can’t K-12 schools do the same?

With budget cuts a perennial complaint, though, more money for K-12 mentorship initiatives is unlikely. The bottom line is that urban students need more individual attention in order for their academic outlooks to improve. Technology has the potential to reach a wider number of students but the human connection is what will have a lasting positive impact on urban students.

What is the key to urban school improvement?

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Single-Sex Classrooms Making a Comeback for All the Wrong Reasons

There is a debate about equity in education that extends beyond zip codes, race and socioeconomic status and cuts right to the heart of something predetermined: sex. The controversy over whether or not single-sex schooling models actually make an academic difference is one that has raged for the better half of a century. Early reasons for separating young men and young women in their studies were simple enough – there was a cultural belief that removing the distraction of the opposite sex would lead to greater focus and higher academic gains. As the country moved away from the “separate but equal” mentality in all facets of life, the virtues of single-sex schooling faded too. In some eyes, separating young women and young men was not just pointless but was sexist.

The back-and-forth over single-sex schooling never completely faded from the educational landscape, though, and neither did all-girls or all-boys schools. In recent years, it seems that the argument FOR single-sex schooling is making a comeback for many of the same reasons it was born in the first place. Around 500 public schools in the U.S. now offer some form of all-girls or all-boys schooling, either in entirety or in individual classrooms. It is a fact that young women, even those who show strong propensities toward STEM topics, lose interest in math, science and affiliated fields around middle school. This is also a sensitive age where young women traditionally start to put more stock in what the opposite sex thinks about them. This is enough to make some people like former New York City mayoral hopeful

Christine Quinn spearhead campaigns to open public magnet middle schools for girls where they can pursue STEM topics without a loss of self-confidence around men.
But is the loss of interest in traditionally non-glamorous topics like engineering, science and math really related to the presence of the opposite sex? It seems that would be a simple answer but of course, nothing simple can ever be accepted at face value. This idea that young women are dropping non-feminine topics at an impressionable age because of the opposite sex is flawed.

It is possible that outside factors like parental influence weigh on what a young woman pursues as she gets older. This can be a direct effect when a parent steers a child in a certain direction, or it can be the indirect effect of seeing the roles a mother and father play in their own homes. If father is an engineer, and mother is a preschool teacher, it is possible that a young woman will relate more fully to her mother’s path, even if she has an interest like dad in engineering topics. A preschool teacher is a noble career, of course, but one that is also dominated by females. In 2011, only 2.3 percent of U.S. preschool teachers were male. In this example case, even a young woman who attends an all-girls STEM school may end up taking the young childhood education path for reasons that have nothing to do with her feelings about the opposite sex.

And what about LGBT students? The number of K-12 students who identify themselves as non-heterosexual in one way or another is rising. One of the arguments for single-sex schooling is that it takes away the tingly, budding attraction emotions in young people but it becomes irrelevant if a student has no interest in the opposite sex anyway.

The American Civil Liberties Union has even come out against single-sex schools, particularly in cases where those schools are public ones, in its “Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes” campaign. The ACLU believes that separating young women and young men is a slippery slope and one that could inadvertently bring unfair outcomes to the students. It seems that there must be a better way to encourage young women, and men, in their academic studies without implementing the archaic practice of total separation in classrooms.

Are you in favor of, or against, single-sex schooling models?

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Equity, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

4 Reasons Why Classrooms Need Diversity Education

School climate and school culture directly impact student success. As a result, it is particularly important for the school culture (and the classroom culture) to reflect, acknowledge, and celebrate diversity. Taking these feel-good ideals and making them a reality can be tough for educators, especially with so many other initiatives on their ever-tighter schedules.

But I think that this is so important that as an educator, you must take the time to do it. How to celebrate diversity in the classroom is another article, but for now, I want you to begin your journey with knowing exactly why it’s important.

1. Because the idea of “diversity” is not even that straightforward. Not only must schools recognize diversity evident among broad racial and ethnic groups (e.g., Asian or Hispanic), but the diversity within these groups must be recognized as well. For example Chinese and Japanese students may share common cultural characteristics as a result of being Asian, but will also have distinctly Chinese and Japanese cultural characteristics that differ from each other. The same is true of Caucasian students who come from vastly different family backgrounds, even from the same neighborhoods. In the interest of treating students equally, giving them equal chances for success, and equal access to the curriculum, teachers and administrators must recognize the uniqueness and individuality of their students.

2. Teachers have a particular responsibility to recognize and structure their lessons to reflect student differences. This encourages students to recognize themselves and others as individuals. It also encourages the appreciation of a diverse school population, and brings a sense of connection between disparate cultural heritages within a single school’s culture. It is certainly in the best interest of students and teachers to focus on the richness of our diversity. Recognizing and acknowledging our differences is part of treating students fairly and equally.

3. So that you can facilitate the process of learning overall. One reason for seeking out and acknowledging cultural differences among students is the idea that learning involves transfer of information from prior knowledge and experiences. To assist in this transfer process, it is important to acknowledge the students’ background, and to validate and incorporate their previous knowledge into the process of acquiring new information. All students begin school with a framework of skills and information based on their home cultures. This may include a rudimentary understanding of the alphabet, numbers, computer functions, some basic knowledge of a second language, or the ability to spell and write their names. It also includes a set of habits, etiquette and social expectations derived from the home.

4. So that you can help students assimilate what they learn with what they already know. If a student cannot relate new information to his own experiences, or connect the new material to a familiar concept, he may perceive the new information as frustrating, difficult or dismiss it completely, believing it to be in conflict with his already tenuous understanding of the world. Teachers have the responsibility to seek out cultural building blocks students already possess, in order to help build a framework for understanding. Some educational pedagogy refers to this process as “scaffolding.” Recognition of a student’s cultural differences provides a positive basis for effective learning, and a “safe” classroom environment. Every group of students will respond differently to curriculum and teachers must constantly adjust to be sure their methods are diverse, both in theory and in practice.

What are some easy ways you’ve found to promote diversity in your classroom? Leave a comment below.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about how you can celebrate diversity in class, here are some tips I have for you.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Adopting a New Paradigm in K-12 Education

Substantial educational change will never occur until we as a country decide that enough is enough and make a commitment to change, no matter what it takes. When America realizes all children deserve a stellar education regardless of who their parents are, what their socioeconomic status is, or where they happen to live, we will be able to reform our education system. The American K-12 education treats minority students in under performing urban environments like collateral damage.

The disheartening reality is that America has billions of dollars to fight a two-front war, but cannot or will not properly educate its children. If a hostile country attacked the U. S., it would take less than 24 hours for American troops to be mobilized into battle. However, we seem unable to mobilize a sea of educated teachers and administrators to wage war against academic mediocrity, which is a bigger threat to our national security than Iran or North Korea.

The structure of schools in the U.S. is no longer able to meet the educational needs of children today. No longer are the poor restricted to the prospect of becoming manual laborers in a local factory or simply entering just another blue-collar job. Nor are the benefits of education confined to the elite in society. Times have changed and it would only be natural to expect that the demands on our education system have changed as well. No longer can we rest assured that the best and brightest members of our society will educate our children.

Educational change will never occur if school systems are expected to implement change on their own. State and federal governments need to oversee changes to ensure that local school districts are held accountable for needed changes. School administrators often seem to buy in when educational reform is suggested, but somehow genuine change in education is rarely implemented.

Over the last century, many reform movements have come and gone, but in the end it seems there have been no substantial changes. Some might even believe the American educational system is now worse off than ever. From Bush’s No Child Left Behind to Obama’s Race to the Top, presidents have shown an inability to tackle the real issues of education reform. Reform is primarily used as campaign rhetoric, and when it comes time to take real action, the politicians simply unveil a grandiose plan with all the bells and whistles amounting to a dog and pony show.

America’s schools were originally intended to ensure that all citizens were literate. The founding purpose for American schools has long been obsolete, and Americans must have the courage to realize that in order for us to remain a world power, we must institute change. The risks have never been greater; the future of our country and its children is at stake. Americans cannot continue to allow the educational system to operate in its current state. While there is no magic formula or configuration to solve the problems our schools face, we must engender change, and we must do it now!

On the surface, the concept of sustaining school reform is an oxymoron, simply because change is inevitable. In many ways, what is needed is sustainable change! In other words, schools must change to meet the current needs of children and youth in order to support their development into contributing and productive adults. As the needs of our society shifts, our education system must adapt to ensure that it prepares an educated populous to meet society’s needs.

Education reform is possible, but it depends on what the nation is willing to do to achieve its educational goals. Will America develop and pass effective educational legislation aimed at creating viable solutions to the problem at hand? Or will America continue to develop legislation, such as No Child Left Behind, that operates under the fallacy that 100% of our students will be proficient in their core subjects by 2014? The bar for education should be set higher, but there has to be exceptions and differentiated goals in order to effectively accommodate all the differences among teachers, students, administrators, and school cultures.

Our youngsters are the future of this great country, and our educators must do their part to help put America back on top as a major world power in both economics and education. Lasting and beneficial change in our schools will require hard work from a committed group of stakeholders — teachers, administrators, parents, policymakers, and community members alike. Ultimately, it is the children who matter most. At the end of the day, they are the reasons why we must champion the work of public education and adopt a new paradigm.

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