{"id":786,"date":"2023-04-26T11:03:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T15:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/?p=786"},"modified":"2023-04-26T21:55:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T01:55:18","slug":"equitable-teaching-takes-time-and-practice-here-are-strategies-to-help-by-sharon-m-ravitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/teaching\/equitable-teaching-takes-time-and-practice-here-are-strategies-to-help-by-sharon-m-ravitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Equitable Teaching Takes Time and Practice. Here Are Strategies to Help. by Sharon M. Ravitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Equitable Teaching Takes Time and Practice. Here Are Strategies to Help.<\/h4>\n

How to Prepare Yourself\u2014and Your Students\u2014to Discuss Race, Identity, and Equity<\/h4>\n
by Sharon M. Ravitch<\/div>\n
March 15, 2021<\/div>\n
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Excerpt:<\/strong><\/div>\n
… Since March 14, 2020, I have worked with over 50 teaching teams in higher education and K\u201312 as part of intensive professional development programs to help educators embrace this practice mindset, communicate equitably, and enact culturally responsive teaching practices. Together, these practices comprise a pedagogical framework I call flux pedagogy.<\/a>\u00a0In this work\u2014and everywhere I go, really\u2014I note that building critical awareness and becoming an equitable teacher takes time and practice; self-development is a marathon, not a sprint.<\/div>\n
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Understand and Challenge Your Own Invisible Logics<\/h3>\n

This entire conversation hinges on our awareness of our socialized beliefs and ways of thinking (or \u201cinvisible logics<\/a>\u201d), and the implicit biases they form within us. These include\u00a0deficit-based beliefs<\/a>\u00a0that invisibly shape our curriculum, pedagogy, and communication approaches. We might, for example, design courses with a universal student in mind (a white normative default) or assume students can afford multiple expensive textbooks or have privacy and autonomy in the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Focus on Our Own Racial Literacy<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s no panacea for managing the stress and tension that often emerges during classroom conversations about racism, inequity, and injustice. And it takes practice to be able to approach these moments instinctively with our most present, authentic, and effective selves. I find the best place to start is to improve our\u00a0racial literacy<\/a>. Dr. Howard Stevenson\u00a0defines racial literacy as<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthe ability to read and recast, or reduce and resolve, racially stressful encounters during face-to-face interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plan for What You\u2019ll Do When Tension Arises<\/h3>\n

Just as emergency and relief professionals have a plan for what to do when disaster strikes, you and your students should be ready with techniques to diffuse tense situations when they happen. I recommend teaching students (first practice yourself!) how to manage racially stressful encounters by introducing Dr. Stevenson\u2019s\u00a0CLCBE Racial Stress and Mindfulness and Management Model<\/a>\u2014Calculate, Locate, Communicate, Breathe, and Exhale.<\/p>\n

When You Start to Get Uncomfortable, Instead Get Curious<\/h4>\n

We need to work with and through discomfort to be racially literate. When we can identify the early moments in which our bodies\u00a0begin<\/i>\u00a0to react in times of identity-based stress, we can catch feelings before they swell and overwhelm us. We can learn to\u00a0create a space between stimulus (an event) and response (our reaction to the event)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Creating Possibilities for Productive Conversations<\/h4>\n

I am an advocate of using Dr. Stevenson\u2019s Affection, Protection, Correction, Connection racial socialization framework to help educators and students make difficult and important conversations about uncomfortable topics possible and productive. Here are helpful prompts for each phase of the framework:<\/p>\n