“Equity and excellence go hand in hand… In a truly equitable system. In a truly equitable system, factors such as race, gender, and socio-economic status do not prevent students from achieving ambitious outcomes. Our experiences shoes that barriers can be removed when all education partners create the conditions needed for success."
– Ontario Ministry of Education Reach Every Student: Energizing Ontario Education
During the first few sessions of Diversity Issues In Schooling , we have discussed what we thought certain words mean. When asked what we though equity means, I was unable to come up with a very extensive definition. In fact, I had heard the word many times in my university career, however it had no meaning to me. It makes a little difference to differentiate it from equality but not much. Until I saw the following photo;
This photo truly exemplifies what it means to create equity for me. We were able to read the definition from The Educator’s Equity Workbook (2013) that defines equity as;
“A condition or state of fair, inclusive, and respectful treatment of ALL people. Equity does not mean treating people without regard for individual differences.”
Looking at the dimensions of diversity listed in the course syllabus and the Educator’s Equity workbook including, but not limited to, ancestry, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, physical and intellectual ability, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and socio-economic status I have come to a number of realizations. For one, as we began with talking about being a reflective practitioner, which I have only briefly began to encapsulate, and Metacognition (“Thinking about your thinking”), I came to the realization that I have a long way to go and this journey will never end. Secondly, this is when I knew being involved in the conversations and activities that will take place in the class will be transformative.
My feelings about my own limited knowledge of these deep, complex, and interconnected topics have made me excited, yet ashamed. However this just motivates me to think critically about diversity issues as I hear about and see them for myself during my time as a teacher candidate and for the rest of my career. A quote from the article Preparing For Culturally Responsive Teaching stating “We can’t teach what we don’t know” (Gay, 2001) resonated with me and these thoughts I have. The article goes on to explain that this not only applies to subject matter, but also to student populations.
How can I teacher my students in a way that allows them to reach their fullest potential if I am unable to recognize and begin to understand the complexities of their diverse backgrounds?
No comments:
Post a Comment