# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
UN: 'Inclusive, equitable and quality education' crucial to achieving sustainable development

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At a General Assembly high-level event, top UN officials called for greater efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 and ensure inclusive, quality and equitable education for all children, youth and adults throughout their lives. Read more on UN News: http://bit.ly/2s32Zux

# data[].attributes.body
White teachers in a colorful world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's Note: This blog was co-written by Molly Tansey and Melissa Katz and originally published on April 15, 2015, by the Young Teachers Collective.
This past summer Mia McKenzie of Black Girl Dangerous published a piece entitled "All the White Teachers I Wish I Never Had." In the piece, she discusses how during her early school years her entire world was Black, filled with family, friends and teachers who supported her academic curiosity.

"As a very bright, gifted Black girl, having Black teachers, mostly Black women, who saw my giftedness and encouraged and nurtured it, meant everything. These were teachers who could look at me and see themselves. They could see their children, their hopes, their dreams. These were teachers who could be as proud of me when I did well as my own family was, who could understand me when I talked about my life, and who knew how to protect the spirit of a gifted Blackgirlchild in a world they knew would try to tear her apart every chance it got."

Ideally, every young student of color would have a teacher who looked like them and could understand all of the little things about their lives that are hidden to everyone else. Promoting a diverse teaching force is absolutely essential to the success of so many children. But we still find ourselves in a system where students of color make up more than half of the student population, but teachers of color only account for eighteen percent of the work force.

Let that sink in. Before we can even discuss what it means to be a white teacher who truly serves their students, we have to explore the implications of those numbers. Those numbers mean that the majority of students of color can go through their entire school careers having only one or two teachers that look like them. Imagine for a second that nearly every single person whose responsibility it is to impart formal knowledge does not look like you? Not only is that message harmful, but it is just one of many damaging message students of color are forced to endure. So while I understand that there are good white teachers, that's not the only issue here. White educators are not teaching in isolation. Our overwhelming presence in schools and classrooms across the country in and of itself requires that we reevaluate the way we engage with students. Because the reality is that regardless of our intentions, we are capable of inflicting harm, both by what we do and what we don't do. For too many students of color, white teachers can be just another point of "white authority" in their lives, especially if their experiences, voices, and perspectives aren't valued.

Furthermore, in a school system where students are being placed under immense amounts of pressure to do well on standardized tests, and where they have to stand by and watch as their community schools are systematically eliminated, it is more important than ever that they are able to come into a classroom that feels safe. They need to know that regardless of their grades and scores, we are still here for them . . . that we continue to believe they are capable of great things. They need to be shown kindness and compassion. They need to have a safe place to have hard conversations and explore all of the issues that feel relevant to them. They need to be heard, but even more crucially? They need to feel loved. This may seem simple. You may be thinking, well duh. But every single white teacher in America has been raised in a society that feeds us stereotypes of people of color and undermines their humanity, that continuously devalues Black life, and that created an entire socio-economic system based on the subjugation of others. You cannot grow up white in this society without developing deeply embedded biases. When our own privilege has been built up by oppressing those who look like our students, being a good teacher takes on an entirely different meaning.

So how do we make sure that we really are validating students' experiences, hearing their voices, and ensuring that their perspectives are valued? How can we be the educators they need us to be? Too often, white educators feel as though not talking about race and privilege is the best route to take, inside and outside of the classroom. As white educators, we have to step outside of our comfort zones and have these conversations-embrace feeling uncomfortable and push ourselves to stay in this place to have conversations that matter. These issues affect the everyday lives of students, but even further they impact the very way that students are able to engage in the classroom. Ignoring that reality, or suppressing these topics when they come up, is doing a disservice to your students and yourself. Conversations about race and privilege will never be perfect, or easy, but there is a beauty in understanding that they can teach you just as much, if not more, than you can teach them.

Supporting students of color in your classroom, though, is about more than having conversations about race and privilege. It is about having high expectations for every single student that walks through your door. And when a student isn't doing well in class or has disengaged almost entirely? It's about working hard to figure out the root causes of the problem before ever considering discipline and punishment. We cannot be furthering the reach of the school-to-prison pipeline. In fact, when students of color face harsher punishment for the same infractions as white students, and those infractions can lead them straight into the juvenile justice system, we need to be actively working against it. Supporting students of color in your classroom means finding and presenting texts that they can see themselves in, that reflect their own lived experiences, whatever those may be. It's about helping them fill in all of the stories that are missing from their history textbooks-the stories that show strength and resilience and that challenge the dominant narrative. It's about going out of your way to make sure you are not the only person in front of them imparting knowledge. It is understanding that as a white educator teaching students of color you have limitations. Mitigate those limitations. Bring in people from outside when you can. You will not always be the best person for them to have hard conversations with. Recognizing that and providing them the space to explore those issues without you is crucial. Supporting them will sometimes mean stepping back, and that's okay.

But, and this is important, there is a flip side to the conversation about teaching while white. We cannot talk about the way we educate students of color without talking about the way in which we educate white students. We have to teach all students - especially our white students - to think critically about issues of privilege, race, justice, and oppression. We need to have hard conversations with our white students as much as we need to have them with students of color. Sharing everything that gets left out of history textbooks, having them read books by people who do not look like them and whose experiences do not reflect their own, helping them challenge stereotypes - all of these are crucial, but they're almost always left out of the discussion on educating in majority white districts and classrooms. But it is imperative that we do what we can to ensure our white students walk out of our classrooms with a perspective of the world that interrogates issues like institutional racism and structural oppression, as well as the tools they need to take action and challenge them.

Further, what we expect of our students we must also expect of ourselves. As white teachers, we have a responsibility to examine and think critically about race, justice, and our own privilege, and most importantly - how these play out in the classroom as teachers. As educators for social justice, we need to be having these conversations with our white colleagues, too. We need to push them just as much as we push ourselves, and as Melinda Anderson points out, this needs to start in our teacher education programs. Before we can ever hope to be good educators inside the classroom, we have to educate ourselves outside the classroom. And we cannot rely on teachers of color to be our source of that education. It is not their responsibility to teach us about issues of race, privilege, justice, and oppression. We have to do that. We have to find resources, do research, ask questions, and challenge our own assumptions. This is just the beginning of an extremely important conversation. It is our hope that this piece will spark a dialogue amongst white educators about how we can do better. Trust us, we understand how incredibly overwhelming these conversations can be, but our students deserve no less. Because, quite frankly, if we're not doing all of this, then we're not doing our jobs.

-

Further resources: Training Module: Developing Cultural Competency Among School Staff provided by Philly Tag At the Urban Teaching Matters Conference in New Jersey last Month hosted by the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, one of the workshops focused on being a white teacher in an urban area. The question at the center of the workshop was: how can white teachers effectively teach students of color? Below are some suggestions for white teachers looking to foster future discussions around the issues of race in the classroom:

Need to move past personal concerns about being "labeled racist" and go to larger institutional discussions

It's ok to screw up, but acknowledge the privilege you're entering the conversation with and don't pretend to be someone you're not in the conversation

Colorblindness can be used as a shield for to acknowledging power and privilege\not acknowledge systematic differences and oppression

Wrestle with your own guilt of unearned privilege on your own time; face it and feel the guilt and then move on and use it to explore the structural implications behind norms

Racism = racial prejudice + power, both structural and institutional

Don't look at students in front of you as having deficits: deficit model as in "your life doesn't look like mine"

Acknowledge your assumptions when entering the classroom

Listen to learn, don't just listen to respond

Additionally, below are questions on critical multicultural education from the "Looking Within: Tackling injustice in pre-service education" at NYCORE (New York Collective of Radical Educators) Conference that could be helpful in fostering more discussions around the issues of race in the classroom:
Tansey is a graduate of the University of Virginia who will enter the master's in teaching program at the University of Georgia in fall 2015. Katz is an undergraduate student at the College of New Jersey, studying urban elementary education.

1. How can we maintain our integrity and humanity as educators within a sociopolitical, historical, and cultural context of institutionalized oppression and hegemony that work to preserve unequal power structures in our society?

2. What are the possibilities for working toward equity and justice within an education system that reinforces and reproduces social inequalities?

3. In what ways are we complicit with systems of oppression? How do we contribute to or collude with oppressive practices in classrooms, schools, and the system at large?

4. In what ways are we engaged, individually and collectively, in the struggle against oppressive systems? How can we stay grounded and critically hopeful through our acts of resistance?

5. What historical and current examples of resistance, anti-oppression, and liberation exist within marginalized communities and how can these tools be utilized within our role as teachers?

Reading list:

1. Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education by Ali Michael

2. Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences that Make a Difference by Howard Carlton Stevenson, Jr.

3. Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit

4. Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit

5. The Dream-Keepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings

6. The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools by Jeffrey M. Duncan-Andrade and Ernest Morrell

7. Disposable Youth, Racialized Memories, and the Culture of Cruelty by Henry Giroux

8. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by Bell Hooks

9. The Latinization of U.S. Schools: Successful Teaching and Learning in Shifting Cultural Contexts by Jason Irizarry

10. Holler if You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students by Gregory Michie

11. This is Not a Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class and Education by Jose Vilson

12. Rethinking Multicultural Education: Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice by Wayne Au

Conferences/Organizations with relevant workshops:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editor's Note: This blog was co-written by Molly Tansey and Melissa Katz and originally published on April 15, 2015, by the Young Teachers Collective . This past summer Mia McKenzie of Black Girl Dangerous published a piece entitled "All the White Teachers I Wish I Never Had."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Inclusive education happens when children with and without disabilities participate and learn together in the same classes. Research shows that when a child with disabilities attends classes alongside peers who do not have disabilities, good things happen.

For a long time, children with disabilities were educated in separate classes or in separate schools. People got used to the idea that special education meant separate education. But we now know that when children are educated together, positive academic and social outcomes occur for all the children involved.

We also know that simply placing children with and without disabilities together does not produce positive outcomes. Inclusive education occurs when there is ongoing advocacy, planning, support and commitment.

These are the principles that guide quality inclusive education:

Inclusive education is based on the simple idea that every child and family is valued equally and deserves the same opportunities and experiences. Inclusive education is about children with disabilities - whether the disability is mild or severe, hidden or obvious - participating in everyday activities, just like they would if their disability were not present. It's about building friendships, membership and having opportunities just like everyone else.

All children learn in different ways.

Inclusion is about providing the help children need to learn and participate in meaningful ways. Sometimes, help from friends or teachers works best. Other times, specially designed materials or technology can help. The key is to give only as much help as needed.

It is every child's right to be included.

Inclusive education is a child's right, not a privilege. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act clearly states that all children with disabilities should be educated with non-disabled children their own age and have access to the general education curriculum.

Learn more about inclusive education:

Benefits of Inclusive Education

Common Misconceptions About Inclusive Education

Making Inclusion a Reality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Inclusive education happens when children with and without disabilities participate and learn together in the same classes. Research shows that when a child with disabilities attends classes alongside peers who do not have disabilities, good things happen. For a long time, children with disabilities were educated in separate classes or in separate schools.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
BY Nicole Eredics

48,798 views

Inclusive education is largely based on an attitude towards educating students with special needs. Essentially, it does not differentiate between students who are typically developing and students who are not. It is about educating all students, alongside same-age peers and peers with varying abilities, in a general education classroom.

Inclusive education is reliant on student access to curriculum. Schools must create opportunities using activities, space and materials so that all students can learn. If you are working in an inclusive classroom or are on the journey to becoming one, here are 10 items that can make your classroom more inclusive:

1. A Large Table

There is no piece of furniture more important in an inclusive classroom than a table large enough for small groups of students. Having a table allows the teacher to bring students together and provide them with various types of instructional programming that meet the needs of the group. In addition, students can meet at the table to work together on projects, have discussions or use as an alternate work space. The table is usually placed in a prominent area of the room, and facilitates many opportunities for students to be members of a group.

2. Technology

Technology is vital to the 21st century classroom. Not only does it allow students to keep up with our changing world, it provides accessibility to the curriculum for learners with special needs. Whether it be a computer, iPad, audio/visual equipment or assistive devices, technology can play various roles in the inclusive classroom. It can offer educational software, provide an accessible curriculum to children with special needs and help differentiate lessons. Highly engaging, technology appeals to most groups of students and supports inclusion in numerous ways.

3. Manipulatives

Inclusive classrooms provide curriculum for different types of learners. For some learners, they prefer a "hands-on" approach to help them understand lessons. Manipulatives can support this process by allowing students to demonstrate their knowledge, develop new levels of understanding and explore deeper concepts. Manipulatives can be easily grouped, placed into plastic containers and put on shelves around the room. Useful for all ages, manipulatives are an easy way to make a classroom more inclusive.

4. Visual Aides

Visual aides are, undoubtedly, very important items in the inclusive classroom. They attract student interest, explain an idea or help a student understand a lesson. Visual aides come in many forms and there should be a variety available in a classroom to facilitate inclusion.

Some examples include: schedules, posters, number lines, charts, diagrams, graphic organizers and different types of paper such as lined, plain or graph. A visual aide can also be a SMART Board, television or iPad. Inclusive classrooms always have numerous types of visual aides handy to help deliver, accommodate or modify a lesson.

5. Positive Behavior Management System

A positive behavior management system can support and maintain a safe, optimal learning environment. It allows the teacher to highlight and reinforce the strengths of individual learners. In addition, it provides students with cues to good behavior.

Supporting student behavior, maintaining a calm learning environment and providing predictable routines assist in giving all learners optimal learning conditions. For a detailed description of a positive behavior management system used in inclusive classrooms, you can refer to My Secret Strategy to Successful Classroom Management.

6. High-Interest Leveled Books

Inclusive classrooms recognize that students learn in different ways in different rates. Not only do teachers want to provide lessons that address the varying abilities, but also provide classroom materials that all students can use. As well as textbooks, an inclusive classroom should also provide books that can be read for enjoyment. Offering books (or audio books) that are age-appropriate, interesting and can be read by readers at different levels are an important way of making a classroom more inclusive.

7. Job Chart

A Job Chart serves several purposes in a classroom. First, it helps keep the classroom running smoothly. Second, it enlists the help of the students and makes the workload lighter. Finally, and most importantly, it allows all students to contribute to the successful operation of the classroom. Class jobs are usually rotated weekly, with students participating in the best way they can for the betterment of the group. Often overlooked, yet very effective, a class job chart can include every student in the classroom in numerous ways.

8.Popsicle Sticks

Teachers need to have a method of choosing students for classroom-based activities in a fair manner. There are many strategies for this, but one simple and easy way that ensures all children in the classroom have an opportunity to be included is called Popsicle Sticks. This method involves putting each child's name on a popsicle stick (found at craft stores) and placing all the sticks in a jar. Whenever the teacher requires students to make teams, complete a task, or answer a question, a popsicle stick is randomly chosen from the jar. This strategy ensures that every child in the classroom has a chance of being asked to complete the task and done so in an unbiased manner.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Items That Can Make Your Classroom More Inclusive - Friendship Circle - Special Needs Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Inclusive education is largely based on an attitude towards educating students with special needs. Essentially, it does not differentiate between students who are typically developing and students who are not. It is about educating all students, alongside same-age peers and peers with varying abilities, in a general education classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
Just a cool website...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Isidora Romero, 26, and Jennifer Gutierrez, 26, played the part of Communist, feminist, vegan teachers in a skit performed for their high school students in Santiago, Chile. That is also their role in real life.
Continue reading →
By: Daniel Bergerson
Education is Chile's number one conflict, and the writing is on the wall. For the past ten years in Chile, young people have been leading the fight to restore education as a social right guaranteed by the state rather than a commodity bought and sold on the market. From university buildings to bathroom stalls, popular art connects the collective memory of resistance to the dictatorship with the ongoing student movement.

By: Martha Aguirre
Tomorrow the Chicago Teachers Union will either accept Rahm Emanuel's contract or go on strike. As a product of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), I am no stranger to massive strikes.

Reflection comes in many forms, including but not limited to classroom stories, free-verse poetry, movement updates, visual art, activist interviews, pedagogical narratives, statistical analyses, learner portraits, flash memoirs, how-to articles, photo essays, open letters, children's stories, research summaries, lesson plans, and more. If you would like guidance with your reflection, consider these lenses and prompts adapted from The Reflective Educator's Guide to Classroom Research.

By: Evan Taylor They don't wanna see me love you They don't wanna see me love you They don't wanna see me love you They don't wanna see me love you || Kanye West || FML || Black women and girls were grandmasters even before chess was invented They have always sacrificed everything to save...

By: Evan Taylor Now I can't pledge allegiance to your flag Cause I can't find no reconciliation with your past When there was nothing equal for my people in your math You forced us in the ghetto and then you took our dads" -Lupe Fiasco, "Strange Fruition" They schools ain't teachin us, what we need...

in Experiences, Social Justice.

By: Elijah Eiler "Mr. E, when are you going to cut your hair?" A student of mine in seventh grade looked at me, half laughing, half not, not meaning to make a joke but just asking an honest question. "What?" I said, returning his half laugh and pushing my bangs back. "I like my hair."...

in Experiences, Social Justice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Isidora Romero, 26, and Jennifer Gutierrez, 26, played the part of Communist, feminist, vegan teachers in a skit performed for their high school students in Santiago, Chile. That is also their role in real life. Continue reading → By: Daniel Bergerson Education is Chile's number one conflict, and the writing is on the wall.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Urban-education programs prepare them for imperative contemporary conversations with students.

Reuters

After a rash of police killings last summer, H. Richard Milner, a professor of urban education at the University of Pittsburgh, set out to answer a question that had been gnawing at him for some time. As a noted expert on race in education, he frequently received calls from journalists seeking comment on how to help teachers talk about race in the classroom, typically following the fatal police shooting of a black victim. And he always thought the questioning was misguided and inadequate. "Rather than asking me how to help teachers ... we should be asking teachers if they believe race is salient ... something [they] should be interrogating and thinking about [in the classroom]."

So in early fall 2016, he surveyed 450 pre-service and current public-school teachers on their beliefs about race. Despite the small sample size, the preliminary findings from the nationally representative group revealed an intriguing disconnect. Teachers overwhelmingly agreed that race should be discussed in classrooms; they felt woefully unprepared to lead such
conversations; and they strongly rejected discussing racial violence, which Milner called "central to working with ... black and brown students" who are frequently the victims of police shootings. "Basically, teachers said, 'You've twisted my arm. We should talk about race. Nope, I don't feel prepared to do
that. And I'm definitely not going to [talk about] violence against black bodies.' That's where we are in 2017."

Understanding the opportunity and achievement gaps in U.S. universities
Read more

With a profession that's characteristically white, female, and middle class-and with students of color and children in poverty rapidly making up the majority of the public-school population-it's become a necessity to have teachers equipped and willing to talk about race and racism. The mere mention of these topics can be awkward and difficult, yet various research findings point to the need to confront the discomfort to improve student learning. Increasingly, that duty has fallen to urban-education programs-a special category of teacher preparation that is reimagining how teaching candidates are prepared and disrupting the race and class stereotypes surrounding urban students and communities.

The dictionary definition of "urban" relates specifically to cities and people who live in them, but population shifts have rendered the term somewhat imprecise. According to federal education data from 2013, some 14 million students (29 percent of total enrollment) attended public schools in cities during the 2010-11 school year. The city classification, however, ranged from urban areas with a population of less than 100,000 to those with 250,000 residents or more-and spanned school districts as geographically diverse as Anchorage, Alaska, and Baltimore to Nashville and New York.

More commonly, urban schooling is defined by bleak statistics and the prejudices encoded in the adjective "urban" rather than official government categories. A 2015 report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education offered a stark glimpse of the state of urban public schools, including one in four students not graduating from high school in four years. Additionally, a study probing the intersections of race and teaching found the word urban was regularly used as shorthand for unfavorable characteristics associated with students of color.

"People generally [believe] that if it's urban, it's negative," said Milner, the director of Pitt's Center for Urban Education, noting that includes student teachers from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Much of his work-in this case, training undergraduates-is concentrated on cultivating "the skills, the attitudes, and the dispositions" to be effective in urban environments. "That means we think about this notion of urban [and] teachers' belief systems about who these students are and what their capacity happens to be."

This article is part of our Next America: Higher Education project, which is supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Teachers Are Learning to Discuss Racism in Class

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Urban-education programs prepare them for imperative contemporary conversations with students. After a rash of police killings last summer, H. Richard Milner, a professor of urban education at the University of Pittsburgh, set out to answer a question that had been gnawing at him for some time.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love? (Official Music Video)

# data[].attributes.body
A brief rundown of events leading towards Equitable Education...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Pages from The History of Inequality in Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
INCLUSIVE, EQUITABLE & QUALITY EDUCATION

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Universal access to quality education is not a privilege - it is a basic human right. And today, more children than ever are enrolling in primary school at the appropriate ages, contributing to a primary school net enrolment ratio of around 93 per cent worldwide.

# data[].attributes.body
Understanding white privilege

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Undoing Racism - Understanding White Privilege - Kendall

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
6 Ways to Implement a Real Multicultural Education in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Multicultural education is about more than a classroom with varied skin color.