My first day as a teacher, in an urban school very different from the suburban one I attended, I asked all the students to line up in groups of three so I could take their pictures. I was worried about learning their names and thought this would help. However, several students refused, and I stood there, confused. Why wouldn’t they want me to do this?
What I didn’t understand then was the potential threat my students felt from this unknown white man, who had yet to build a relationship with them, taking their picture. Many students at the school were from immigrant families, and their previous experience with white men demanding to take their picture may have been through Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There may have been a student who had already had an encounter with the criminal justice system. There may have been a kid who felt uncomfortable with his or her appearance. There were a million things I did wrong in those first few months — because I had never been prompted to develop the right skills to bridge those cultural divides.
Illinois now has an opportunity to set the standard for all teacher preparation programs in the state to ensure that their candidates develop the skills to be responsive, supportive and affirming to all their students. Over the past two years, I worked with a team of Illinois educators, including Teach Plus Policy Fellows in the teacher leadership program I direct, to develop the new Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards, which await final approval later this month. The guidelines, proposed by the Illinois State Board of Education, should be approved and implemented faithfully by our schools of education.
These standards outline best practices for educators, so that students from all backgrounds feel welcome. They encourage teachers to self-reflect, get to know their students’ families, connect the curriculum to students’ lives and encourage student leadership. Great teachers already do this, and the standards are about offering more support for these best practices.
For example, as I became more adept and culturally inclusive as a teacher, I learned how to connect our curriculum to students’ lives and the world beyond their neighborhood. I challenged my theater students to adapt “The House on Mango Street,” a book about a young Mexican American woman growing up in Chicago, to the stage. The content connected with the lives of my students, but our unit did not end there. We practiced the process of adaptation by choosing Greek myths from Edith Hamilton’s “Mythology” — a “classic” by anyone’s definition. A culturally responsive teacher will connect with students’ lives, but will also open doors to new worlds.
Even in schools where the staff and students are all from the same background, these standards are important. They encourage a curriculum where students “become exposed to other cultures within their schools and both their local and global communities.” Particularly in all-white schools, exposing students to the many backgrounds that make up America will prepare them to succeed.
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My challenges during my first year of teaching are hardly unique. According to the Illinois Report Card, 82% of current teachers are white, while 52% of the pupils are students of color. Many new teachers enter classrooms today unprepared for the diverse students that they will teach. These standards will help prepare our new teachers to be the best they can for all their students.
Despite the need for these standards, opponents have raised several objections. One claim is that these standards force a specific point of view on students. On the contrary, the standards encourage careful, fact-based examination of our history. They will help make schools more — not less — inclusive of different viewpoints, wherever those viewpoints land on the political spectrum.
Another claim is that the standards require schools to address “controversial” topics like race and racism. It’s true that the standards acknowledge the challenges that our country has, and continues to have, around racial equity. Those issues appear on the pages of newspapers every day, so we educators cannot ignore them. These standards will give educators the tools they need to address these important topics.
Illinois’ new standards will better prepare teachers to support and educate all of their students, regardless of background. By doing so, we can create an America that finally honors the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. With these standards, we can take one more step toward a world that empowers children of every background to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That’s an outcome we should all support.
Josh Kaufmann is senior executive director of Teach Plus Illinois.
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