Achieving equitable classrooms, schools, and communities is vitally important, yet much easier said than done.
While educators and education leaders may sometimes feel powerless to affect change on a large scale, they do have control over their local environments — classrooms, schools, and districts. It is here where equity work can, and should, begin.
Below is a video of Rachel Lotan, the Stanford education professor who is director of both the Stanford Teacher Education Program and the Program for Complex Instruction. In it she outlines some of the basics of equitable education as well as some ideas for reframing how we view and envision our systems of education in order to move toward greater equity.
Hat tip to David Cohen, founder of Accomplished California Teachers multi-author blog, for originally sharing this valuable resource. See below for more resources on equity in education and add your own in the comments below.
For more information about equity work, check out these valuable resources:
- Pacific Educational Group for anti-racism training and resources.
- Courageous Conversations–a great book as a foundation and road map for engaging in constructive dialogue toward greater equity. (You can unpack and explore some of the general tenets of the book here on the Teaching Tolerance website.)
- National Equity Project — a national non-profit organization doing work to increase local capacity to engage in equity work.
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Ten Steps to Equity in Education pdf. (You can visit the OECD site here.)
- Education Northwest’s Equity Resources (some of this content is a little outdated, but there are still some relevant and useful materials).
Image: Young FoEE, flickr
