Addressing equity in education is good and hard work. When visiting schools, I’m inclined to pay close attention to issues of access, opportunity, fairness, resource allocation, and personnel deployment. I find each has a common thread, if done well—a commitment to equity.
Equity is both good and hard to leverage, in part the latter because some of us doing the work have not experienced existential inequity. This can result in mis-identification of other factors detracting from the school experience or student success when systemic inequity is more the problem.
Assistant principals can serve as champions of educational equity, as I share in All Other Duties As Assigned: The Assistant Principal’s Critical Role in Supporting Schools Inside and Out. I note, “Schools, as much as society, inherently contain a certain amount of power, privilege, domination, and inequity that has developed over time. You must safeguard against this,” (p. 134). Additionally, “In your role, you must honestly recognize whether your school has fallen short in terms of access, equity, diversity, and identity . . . Doing the right things has to do with who you are as a person and as an assistant principal” (p. 135).
In my book, I share specific strategies to address inequity, include leveling the playing field (p. 137), cultivating counterspace (p. 138), protecting safe zones and lifelines (p. 141), and doing difference differently (p. 142). These efforts take us to the edge of uncomfortability (“discomfort,” said more traditionally), and this is both good and hard. At that edge (of uncomfortability), I often see a few things occurring in circumstances where educators struggle to move critical conversations toward positive outcomes.
Observation One: Certain topics are hard to navigate with enough commitment to see the conversation through, toward a better place:
One such topic is microaggressions (I use the term assumptive aggressions), “…words or actions that discriminate, usually subtly or unintentionally, against marginalized groups” (p. 136). In discussions regarding microaggressions, a point of contention can involve whether the person committing such “meant so,” or not. Wise assistant principals recognize privilege as inherent in such point-making, and address with resolve. With candor and compassion, they share microaggressions are borne of pernicious assumptions that undergird our values, beliefs, and behaviors. While often unrecognizable to the person manifesting them, they do influence what we say and do. Other persons can see these assumptions rather clearly—to use a metaphor, they quack like a duck when the duck doesn’t even know it’s quacking.
Assumptions are borne of vicarious experiences; thus, the forces curating learned microaggressions are, by any definition, harmful. So, while one might say they did not intend to commit a microaggression, there is something inside of them—or something that has happened to them—that explains why the microaggression occurred. Once identified, one should become curious and commit to doing something about it, to reflect, reframe, and grow.
Observation Two: Dialogue on inequity in education can bring inequity to a critically equitable conversation. Not all persons with insistent perspective provide informed contribution:
At times, those who are the loudest or most frequent voices take conversations in the wrong direction. They can avoid a clear-and-specific naming of what they cannot or do not want to see (e.g. inequity), to be replaced by what they can or want to see (e.g. external circumstances deemed beyond their control for current states of affairs). Systems, policy, society, the media, children’s behavior, school readiness, and abrogation of traditional values and/or family responsibility are commonly attributed, as is an over-emphasis on high-stakes testing. Could these detours from conversations on inequity be indirect pleas, for greater self-efficacy in fostering interest, engagement, and success in schools (i.e., educator insecurity and a lack of confidence)?
Consider that the quieter voices in critical conversations are often pillars of equitable practice with potential for fostering collective efficacy in their colleagues. Voices not shared are, perhaps, inequity at another level—adult-to-adult. A compassionate, open, courageous, and vulnerable meeting facilitator is needed, honoring all voices equitably. Assistant principals can accept this call.
Observation Three: Sometimes the well-intentioned are not current on cultural humility, diversity, and social justice.
An example of this would be the person who says they do not see color, noting, “We have one race, the human race.” Or they say they don’t discriminate or harbor racist beliefs, because they have a black or brown friend. Some may even use pejorative terms without realizing they are antiquated, counterintuitive, and harmful. Others toss around opinions on Critical Race Theory without even knowing its definition. In addressing, it’s best to leverage compassion in educating. Someone without grace, jumping all over another who commits an insensitivity, does not further dignity or build trust.
Again, this is why assistant principals are key—guiding us into deeper understandings of difference and persons who have been marginalized or minoritized, and as well calling-out generational, systemic inequity that still exists. Research shows persons in the majority shy away from difficult conversations regarding race, a powerful illustration that we have a long way to go.
Addressing equity in education is good and hard work. Are you ready to take these conversations to the next, critical and equitable level?