Let Them Be Heard

 Dearest Gentle Teachers, 

How are you doing? Are you starting to feel a sense of normalcy now that the first quarter is wrapping up soon? Hopefully that is the case for everyone, students and teachers. I can only assume that the beginning of the year is hectic when it comes to lesson planning, even more so for new teachers. I will be experiencing it personally soon, but from observing an experienced teacher, I know that it can be stressful and full of chaos. 

Although I am not a teacher yet I do know that teachers, more often than not, 'borrow' work from other teachers to help them plan units and lessons. When doing so, how often do you stop to truly look at the work you are borrowing and asking some questions? Does the work show bias? Is it going to be a mirror, window, or sliding glass door for your students? Will it help broaden a students understanding? While, I'm sure that you are getting this work with every intention on it being meaningful for students, but how often do you stop to critique it? And if you aren't borrowing, how often do you critique or accept feedback from others over your own work? 

My Mirror

I am white. I grew up reading about the adventures that Jack and Annie took in the Magic Treehouse and the troubles that Junie B. Jones would get into. I remember A Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter and the way I fell in love with the characters and their stories. And then in high school I read things like The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men and then of course talked about them and completed work over them. Almost always I was able to find a character that I could relate to. I was able to look into a mirror while reading or at least somewhat envision myself in those stories. I don't remember a time that I couldn't. Even when I read for pleasure I always picked books that had me look into a mirror. I didn't know about the mirror, window, and sliding glass door phrase then. No one had mentioned it to me. Maybe briefly in high school, but obviously not enough for me to remember it. 

When you think about your childhood and the years of academia that you've gone through, do you have similar experiences as me? Or do you have the complete opposite? If they were similar experiences, I want you to stop and think with me for just a second. How did that make you feel? Great, I'm assuming. Always able to put yourself into whatever story you're reading, or imagining yourself as the main character, or just simply seeing certain traits that remind you of you. But (there's always a but, right?) what about your peers? The ones who don't have the same background as you? The same skin color? The same gender? The same culture? How do you think they felt during their reading of the same things that you were assigned to read? 

When I was in high school, I never really thought about how I always had a mirror in literature. I held stereotypes, prejudices, and biases that were so negative against others. I was never openly disrespectful to anyone, I never displayed these stereotypes, prejudices, or biases other than when conversating with close friends. Friends who were white. Friends who most often had the same thinking as I did. Reading this, you might think that I went to a small town school with a mostly white student population. But that would be wrong. I went to what is one of the most diverse schools in my state. So how could I go to such a school but still think the way I did? How is that even possible? 

It's simple. While I know this wasn't the only reason I thought this way, I know that it played such a huge role, which is that I always had a mirror in literature and I never ever had a window. 

*Note: This is not a hit at my ELA teachers throughout the years, because they were great and offered me a safe place, but it is a way for me to acknowledge my own biases and the reasoning behind them. 

Windows

We are starting to have fall weather here, which means it is the perfect time to give your air conditioner a break and open those windows up. Literally and metaphorically. What books do you have in your personal library? What about your classroom library? Who are the authors? What culture is shown in them? If you start to see some repetition in the choices you make for your personal literature and literature that you teach, it may be time to shake some things up. Step out of the comfort zone you have found yourself in and explore more. Find your window, actually find several windows. Find ways that you can look through your students' windows (please don't do this literally). There are several authors out there that provide this window, some of my favorites are: Huda Fahmy, Kwame Alexander, Sabaa Tahir, Emily X. R. Pan, and Jason Reynolds. After you've found your windows, you can start to open up new ones for your students. But what's even more special is that you can start finding mirrors for your students. 

"Giving Students A Voice"

While finding texts that allow for all students to eventually see a mirror and windows is essential in a productive, anti-bias learning environment, we need to look at the overall picture. I have fallen victim to the thought process of giving my students a voice. We don't give students a voice, they have one. We allow for students to be Heard. "Dr. Lyiscott (2017) points out: 'When we operate with the mindset that we are "giving" students voice, we align ourselves with a deeply problematic and historical orientation. So much of the rationale for oppression through slavery, colonialism, and imperialism had to do with "giving" civilization to people who were "less fortunate." In Get Free by Ebarvia (2024) she reiterates how it was never about giving our students voices, but about giving them the space for their voices to be heard. We need to encourage students to bring their own identities into their work. We can allow students to compose essays, multimedia projects, oral presentations and visual storytelling. Finding mirrors and windows in our peers can be a critical way of snuffing any prejudices, biases, or stereotypes that we may have. 

Becoming A Literacy Teacher

To be able to snuff any biases that students have, they first need to know how to identify them. If you read my previous post The Perfect Student, then you know how to identify bias for yourself. But how do we teach that to our students? Ebarvia talks about the framing effect, and "how we introduce an issue or topic affects the way we interpret all subsequent information and make decisions" (2024). Which seems pretty obvious, right? Although it is something so obvious, it is often overlooked and not thought of before talking about an issue or new topic. Don't position your students to be passive learners. Present a new topic in a way that can use student knowledge to an advantage. Create a way for multiple perspectives to be included. Teach your students bias through your everyday teaching. Shift from being a literature teacher to being a literacy teacher. 

"A literature teacher teaches books and everything that they have to offer. A literacy teacher, on the other hand, teaches not what, but how: how to read, think, wonder, critique, evaluate, interrogate, compose, deconstruct, unpack, analyze, question, compare, contrast, synthesize, recommend, and act" (Ebarvia 2024). Studying bias in class can become powerful for your students. 

*Note: While this is geared toward ELA educators, this can benefit every kind of educator. Understanding bias and helping our students understand bias is important.

Yours Truly, 

Lady Ace

Citations

Ebarvia, Tricia. Get Free Antibias Literacy Instruction For Stronger Readers, Writers, And Thinkers. Corwin , 2024.