My introduction to diversity growing up in Southwest Minnesota was the once-a-year Scandinavian festivals that celebrated each rural town’s heritage. Other than that, I knew very little of people who were different than me until a powerful encounter at the age of fifteen when I traveled to Mexico for the very first time. My ignorance was exposed, a new passion ignited, and I could no longer be content with the monochromatic world in which I lived. At the age of 19, I packed my bags and moved to Mexico, determined to not only learn the language, but also become a part of the culture to the point where it, too, became a part of me. My life experience and my future hopes for my own children are what drive me to strive for a better future in education for students of all races and ethnicities.
Deal and Peterson (2009) point out, “Children, in fact, spend more than fourteen thousand hours inside a school building over twelve years of schooling” (p. 37). That’s an incredible amount of time for schools to influence the life of a child, which means we, as leaders in education, have an incredible responsibility! Our charge to educate the whole child and our commitment to the success of every individual child will not change, but our demographics will continue to evolve and our diversity will only increase. Thus, the intensifying need for culturally competent teachers who understand equitable and inclusive practices goes without saying. We are challenged to respond to the interests and needs of our diverse community and to understand the importance of the role we play in promoting equity and excellence in our schools.
As a leader, I believe that we must inspire our communities to get involved in education. We cannot attempt to face this task alone, and both parents and community members must understand how much we need them when it comes to preparing our children for the future. As a school, we must have open doors that draw people in and cause them to want to stay. We need to embrace every family and every child, as together we believe that they have what it takes to achieve!
When it comes to our students with the greatest needs, every teacher must be held accountable to understand those needs and teach accordingly. How are they to gain experience working with particular groups of students if we continue to marginalize and remove these students from the classroom in order to “fix them” in smaller, isolated settings? Frattura and Capper (2007) make a powerful point, “When the same student or group of students is routinely removed from the classroom to receive instruction elsewhere, the classroom teacher is released from the responsibility for learning how to teach not only those students, but all future students with similar needs over the rest of that teacher’s career” (Loc. 532). As leaders who recognize this remarkable need for change, we must train our teachers to overcome their fears of the underachieving and underserved and give them the tools and strategies they need to provide the education all students deserve.
We must care for instead of about the personal well-being and academic success of our students as Geneva Gay (2010) explains, “While caring about conveys feelings of concern for one’s state of being, caring for is active engagement in doing something to positively affect it” (p. 47). Ultimately, we must take our concern, commitment, compassion, and responsibility, and turn it into action. I could have chosen to stay in my quaint little town and remained part of the uncontested majority, but I chose to go beyond what was comfortable, that I might become a leader that inspires great change. I will advocate for equity and will strive for nothing less than to show that I truly care for each and every family, student and staff member that I serve.
REFERENCES:
Deal, T. E. & Peterson, K. D. (2009). Shaping School Culture: Pitfalls, Paradoxes, and Promises. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Gay, Geneva (2010). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Frattura, E. M. & Capper, C. A. (2007). Leading for Social Justice: Transforming Schools for All Learners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Deal and Peterson (2009) point out, “Children, in fact, spend more than fourteen thousand hours inside a school building over twelve years of schooling” (p. 37). That’s an incredible amount of time for schools to influence the life of a child, which means we, as leaders in education, have an incredible responsibility! Our charge to educate the whole child and our commitment to the success of every individual child will not change, but our demographics will continue to evolve and our diversity will only increase. Thus, the intensifying need for culturally competent teachers who understand equitable and inclusive practices goes without saying. We are challenged to respond to the interests and needs of our diverse community and to understand the importance of the role we play in promoting equity and excellence in our schools.
As a leader, I believe that we must inspire our communities to get involved in education. We cannot attempt to face this task alone, and both parents and community members must understand how much we need them when it comes to preparing our children for the future. As a school, we must have open doors that draw people in and cause them to want to stay. We need to embrace every family and every child, as together we believe that they have what it takes to achieve!
When it comes to our students with the greatest needs, every teacher must be held accountable to understand those needs and teach accordingly. How are they to gain experience working with particular groups of students if we continue to marginalize and remove these students from the classroom in order to “fix them” in smaller, isolated settings? Frattura and Capper (2007) make a powerful point, “When the same student or group of students is routinely removed from the classroom to receive instruction elsewhere, the classroom teacher is released from the responsibility for learning how to teach not only those students, but all future students with similar needs over the rest of that teacher’s career” (Loc. 532). As leaders who recognize this remarkable need for change, we must train our teachers to overcome their fears of the underachieving and underserved and give them the tools and strategies they need to provide the education all students deserve.
We must care for instead of about the personal well-being and academic success of our students as Geneva Gay (2010) explains, “While caring about conveys feelings of concern for one’s state of being, caring for is active engagement in doing something to positively affect it” (p. 47). Ultimately, we must take our concern, commitment, compassion, and responsibility, and turn it into action. I could have chosen to stay in my quaint little town and remained part of the uncontested majority, but I chose to go beyond what was comfortable, that I might become a leader that inspires great change. I will advocate for equity and will strive for nothing less than to show that I truly care for each and every family, student and staff member that I serve.
REFERENCES:
Deal, T. E. & Peterson, K. D. (2009). Shaping School Culture: Pitfalls, Paradoxes, and Promises. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Gay, Geneva (2010). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Frattura, E. M. & Capper, C. A. (2007). Leading for Social Justice: Transforming Schools for All Learners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.