This week’s learning in my grad class revolved around equity in education. The following are stories, blogs, or videos that I found relevant to the discussion.
- In my initial Google search I came across an article explaining the use of “equity sticks” in the classroom. For anyone who is not familiar with the concept, the idea is to write each student’s name on a popsicle stick then place them all in a jar. When deciding who to call on in class, the teacher just pulls a random popsicle stick out of the jar and calls on the person whose name is on it. The teacher continues to do this until everyone in the class has been called on, then the process begins again. Rightfully so, there is a decent amount of criticism of this technique in the comments that follow the post. My issue with it is calling the sticks “equity” sticks. Participation is only one step in the equity process.
- There were links in the “equity stick” article to an division of the Rockville, MD school district call the Equity Initiatives Unit. Watching the videos on their site, I noticed that most of their focus seemed to be on making lessons more culturally and racially aware. This is certainly a core tenet of equity in the education process.
- Engagement of students in the classroom is (to me) the “Holy Grail” of education. Motivation goes hand in hand with it as important topics concerning equity. Upon delving deeper into the topic of culturally diverse teaching, I discovered the website for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). An article on their site has a good summary of motivation practices, and reminds the reader that motivation doesn’t need to be fully external to the students but should be engendered to develop from within them.
- When speaking of equity it is important to not overlook issues of gender. All students deserve respect and attention. This page of the feminist.org website is a blog that pulls together stories of gender inequity into one location for easy viewing.
- The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has drafted a document detailing how schools in all countries can follow 10 steps to equity in education. Two important items in their list that I don’t see highlighted elsewhere are second chances for student who fail and/or are failing and assisting parents to be more helpful to students when they are away from school.
- As a future math educator I am always attempting to connect my college learning to my subject matter. The National Council of Teacher of Mathematics has a page on their website that specifically addresses equity in mathematics. One topic of note is that of persistence in math learning. In an interview I did for another class with a high school math teacher, he mentioned a correlation between higher-paying tech jobs and the amount of math education that a student receives. This is a point I will remember to tell my future students as each year begins.
- Sometimes a video conveys a point more than just reading an article or a blog. Here is a YouTube link to success stories of students from a high school in Australia where students are succeeding despite the hardships of low socioeconomic status.
Thanks for reading!
-Eric L