“Effective urban educators are committed to meeting the needs of a diverse population.”
As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.
- bell hooks. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.
It is still common today to ‘address’ the idea of diversity in the classroom with solutions like ‘Multicultural Food Night,’ and ‘Heritage Festivals.’ There is nothing inherently wrong with these events; the issue is that the conversation around diversity frequently stagnates as soon as they are implemented. Our commitment to diversity in our classrooms and our schools must extend beyond a few nights or events a year. As an educator committed to equity for diverse learners, I know that I need to cultivate an environment in my classroom that is exactly that: a group of humans in community that care about others around them, about truly hearing others’ voices, and about lifting up those whose voices have been previously quieted, undervalued, and underrepresented.
In my Art classroom, I have two starting points for cultivating this— specifically starting points, because this cultivation must be an ever-evolving, ongoing process.
First, striving to authentically connect with my students. In a classroom, a teacher must model how they want students to navigate their community and their subject area. If I don’t take time to learn about my students, their lives, and their experiences, then how will I create a curriculum that means something to them? That they are excited to learn about? That they see reflections of themselves within? In the Photo 2 classroom at Dakota High School during my second student teaching placement, my mentor teacher expressed to me that she wanted the Photo 2 students to spend more time looking at and talking about photographs in a more critical and analytical way. The video to the left shows me introducing “Let’s Look at a Photograph,” as it started to be referred to. My goal was not just to have students looking analytically at photographs; rather, I wanted them to decide what photographs we would look at each day. My thought was that they would be more engaged this way, and overall, I believe this was the case. The majority of students participated daily in discussion, and everyone did their part in having an image ready on their assigned day. Moving forward, I think I would also have a brainstorming session with the students to come up with ideas for what we talk about with regard to the photographs, i.e. what they want to get out of these discussions.
This first starting point leads into the second: that I, as the teacher, must select the content and artists that we study in a way that models my intention for our classroom community. Below is my ongoing ‘consideration list’ for when I am selecting content and artists for my classroom.
If this content and/or technique was popularized by Western/Eurocentric artists, is there an overlooked or erased history due to colonization that we can talk about?
Are there current, working artists that are studying or using this content and/or technique? In particular, are there artists belonging to a marginalized group studying or using this content and/or technique, so that we can lift up those voices?
Is there any way to tie this content and/or technique to a social justice movement? To a particular issue that is relevant to my students?
Is there a problematic history associated with this content or artist, and can that be used in discussion to bring awareness to a systemic issue?
These questions are where I would like to begin, as an educator, not where I would like to stagnate. Educators who are committed to equity must be ready to remain informed and educated about many things that might not seem to directly relate to their content area, most importantly the ongoing research and conversation surrounding inequity and marginalization, as well as the social justice movements that rise out of these issues.