Dr. Johnson And The Equity Training Essay

Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom.

A school principal guiding his or her school towards more equitable practices may encounter a number of cascading issues that can ultimately affect the schools practices. In the following I will describe a possible cascading of events that may occur as a result of a principal initiating teacher professional development (PD) using Glenn Singleton’s 2014 book, entitled Courageous Conversations About Race. The first cascading event became evident during the first PD, where staff engagement was limited and what followed was during the next PD focused on Courageous Conversations several disgruntled teachers making a subliminal protest by simultaneously taking personal days to not participate. In fact, the teachers who called out had let the other

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

"If teachers across America would arise and make the personal commitment to do something about racism, beginning with their own selves, their eventual impact would, I believe, be tremendous" (Hacker 191).

The intersectionality of race and racism in education and how researchers’ conception of race may affect the research methods used are best understood multidimensionally (Feagin & Elias, 2013). This means that there is no one way to understand why race may affect the research method used, the way in which systemic racism may play a role in the researcher or the individuals they choose to study, the scope of the work that they select, and the way in which they report their findings. So far this term, we have read articles and text that describe race and racism through different lends on why there are discrepancies in the literature and research.

The role of an educator throughout an individual’s life is often downplayed. Their position as a teacher is to help students apply concepts of math, science, etc., in a classroom setting. Despite this, they are seen as pointless and temporary. However, there is an implicit role educators have when it comes to race, and the impact is enduring. Their “silence speak volumes,” and the “students are listening” (Pitts). In Jamilah Pitts’ article “Don’t Say Nothing” from the fall 2016 issue of Teaching Tolerance, she successfully uses pathos and call to action to show the negative effect an educator's silence has on students during moments of racial tension or violence.

How to minimize the hurts of non-white children once their belief on the theory of a society is fair and equality is completely collapsed when the reality is happening in the opposite. In the reading “Why the Myth of Meritocracy Hurts Kids of Color” Mildred Boveda, an assistant education professor at Arizona State University, said: “I will admit that it sometimes felt risky to tackle these difficult conversations, but this [research] underscores why we cannot equivocate when it comes to preparing our children to face injustices.” I agree with her opinion. Because finding the proper solutions to fully empower and equipping the best knowledge that can help children cope better is not easy, but it is the responsibility of the family, the school, and society. The three elements need to act and work together in an effort to dare to speak about the truths mentioned above.

Although, this theory began as a part of law sciences, nowadays, there is a great interest of CRT in the field of education, helping people to understand some forms of discrimination which face the non-white people in education (Delgado & Stefanic, 2001). Moreover, embraces a lot of academic fields such as history, political science, anthropology etc (Delgado & Stefanic, 2001). CRT main purpose is not only to understand the social structures that promote inequalities but to eliminate them, it is clear that CRT targets on

Significance. Recent events in the U.S. society have made clear that issues of race remain a pertinent predicament that needs to be resolved. In fact, data collected from the 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) on public and private school principals (NCES, 2016) revealed that 38% of the principals who took the survey reported racial tension between students taking place occasionally and another 2% reported that racial tension occurred frequently in their schools. In short, school leaders who continue to abide to colorblind ideology limit the potential for schools to become vehicles for the change our society needs.

everyday acts of violence and racism that members of oppressed races experience regularly. From the systematic literature review, Landson-Billings explains that adopting the critical race theory helps teachers realize that students from historically segregated ethnicities such as Hispanics and African-Americans generally expect to be treated differently compared to White students and have developed their attitudes based on these expectations. Landson-Billings argues that this false expectations maybe the root cause of lack of motivation on students to learn and underachievement in test scores and proficiency tests.

Bill Roberts, the CEO of an urban charter high school, reveals a school leader that holds to one “lack.” School leader Roberts demonstrates having a quality of not only having experience in working with students of color but also thinking about and having the language for talking about race and race-conscious practices. Robert stated that the school he has led for several years “mirrors the city” and the student demographic is around 50% African American and about 65-75% students on free and/or reduce lunch. Roberts recognizes a discrepancy between the cultural background between his teachers and students. Roberts makes the following comment about the discrepancy,

I realized that racism really is an issue of self-learning. Racism is unfortunately very deeply rooted, and we have to actively acknowledge there is a problem with our logic, find our motives, and learn. Roberts gave an example of a time he was asked to proofread a textbook for young students. Part of the book said something along the lines of, “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a wonderful leader for African Americans.” This wasn’t written with bad intentions, but this phrase subtly suggests to young minds that Martin Luther King, Jr. is only a leader to the African American population, and might not be one to them if they are of another race. Roberts’ speech showed me that often young children are subconsciously learning to put races in different boxes. These ideas become myths that we as adults believe and allow to cloud our thoughts of others. It is our job then, as a people who want to end racism, to deconstruct these myths and learn to see clearly. This visual that Roberts offered the crowd really stood out to me and helped me understand his perspective of racism and how deeply rooted it really

The case for the application and usefulness of critical race theory in school leadership has been examined in K-12 practices of school leadership (Parker & Villapando, 2007; Stovall, 2004). Critical race theory has five tenets in relation to education that informs perspectives, research methods, and pedagogy: (1) the centrality and intersectionality of race and racism, (2) the challenge to the dominant ideology, (3) the commitment to social justice, (4) the centrality of experiential knowledge, and (5) the interdisciplinary perspective (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) According to Stovall (2004), then, the use of a CRT lens by school leaders can provide the process to address issues of race and racism found in both internal and external school settings.

“Race is an emotionally loaded topic that can conjure up feelings such as anger, guilt, frustration, and many other neutral and negative emotions” (Banks 201). This opening statement from “Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching,” admits that racism exists today. Furthermore, the notion that one race is somehow superior to another seems especially active in the world of academics. Here, a diverse mix of people easily align toward for a common goal of graduation while simultaneously clashing in personal beliefs about race. Particularly, “Whites” often misjudge and hide offensive talk about race while “people with color” rarely make derogatory remarks about any racial group. Focusing on “Whites,” a “diaries” study suggests that the “color blind perspective” and “backstage racism” contribute to institutionalized racism at schools and proposes that educating teachers about these issues may reduce institutionalized racism at schools.

Another thing that was going on in my mind, was when Paris and I was ask to think about the time someone have been or say something raciest toward us. Therefore, the question stuck with me for the rest of the week, trying to remember when I felt judge or belittle due to my color of my skin. Even as I write about it it’s hard for me to think of an example.