Affirming Diversity In The Classroom Why it Matters to Your Students
this
is a hundred dollar bill and remembering
its value is the most important aspect
of our conversation today
my name is nadaya herron and i’m an
educator
and like you i am exhausted
i’m exhausted from the zoom meetings the
conference calls
the memos and the email threads about
race
our country is having a reckoning
following the death of george floyd a
reckoning with systemic racism
all this time i couldn’t help but think
do we as educators lack
the capability to better serve our
students when it comes to diversity
equity and inclusion in our classrooms
the truth is much darker and much more
complex than we care to realize
we lack the will and even the motivation
to try
we lack the consciousness to take
responsibility for the collective
failings
of inequity and social injustice so
deeply ingrained in our educational
system
oh i’m exhausted though because i care
and you should too you should care
because classrooms have long been the
battleground
in the struggle for social injustice and
students
oh they have consistently been leaders
on the front lines
for example in 1947
a courageous mexican-american farming
family
out of california california
we are always making trouble but good
trouble
this family they dared to challenge the
law and the consciousness of the
american justice system
and they won they fought for equal
schooling for their three children
this mendez v westminster case
was able to lay the foundation for
thurgood marshall
to argue the brown v board of education
case in front of the supreme court
and that is the case that upended
segregated classrooms across this nation
and yeah that’s great
but 67 years later we are still
waiting on equality in the classroom
wildly grasping
at diversity through a haze of
racial tension and virtue signaling
as inequality persists
oh you should care because we know that
the research
says that students internalize the
unfair treatment that they experience
in the classroom when you see them as
limited
small subhuman they begin to believe the
same about themselves
we must not tolerate such conduct from a
professional segment of persons
entrusted to educate enlighten and
inspire
the truth is if our classrooms are the
symbolic barometer
for the future health of our nation then
instructors must intentionally embody
their role in the health of said nation
or risk ideological genocide
we must have equality in our classrooms
and restructure
the function of those who refuse to
change
after all classrooms are becoming more
racially and ethnically diverse
according to the u.s census in 2018
of the undergraduate student population
52.9 percent were white
20.9 were hispanic 15.1 were black
7.6 were asian and everybody else
identified as other
keep up that same year according to the
national center for education statistics
of the full-time professors 75 percent
were white 12 percent were asian and for
hispanic
and african american full-time
professors they represented 6
respectively there is a glaring
gap between the faculty
and the student population that we claim
to serve these statistics speak to the
chasms
and polarization that have long impeded
meaningful progress
in the aim of social justice and
mobilizing for change in our classrooms
moreover this profound gap is the primer
for a slurry
of potentially harmful interactions
similar to what we saw with the
professor
whose response regarding a simple
question surrounding the
recent unrest earned him a suspension
and caused to be fired
furthermore it led to a breakdown of
trust
and a loss of that relationship that
sacred relationship between
teacher and pupil if academic minds can
come together and solve pure vermont’s
last theorem then surely we can solve
this issue of
racism in our lifetime if we can put a
man on the moon
then certainly we can address inequity
and social injustice in our classrooms
we can begin by closing the
representation gap
in institutions of higher learning
across this country
you should care because the future of
our nation will look like the student
population
that we serve today their tomorrow
rest upon our shoulders
now if a black student walks into your
classroom
know that they have defied the odds know
that they continue to participate in a
system
designed for their failure a system
that created laws to prevent them from
gaining wealth
and then would criminalize their poverty
a system
that would prevent them from reading
making it illegal for them to read and
then punish them for being illiterate a
system
designed to send them from the classroom
to the prison pipeline a uniquely
american system that assaults them on
every front from disparities in their
health care to confinement in
impoverished neighborhoods
to disproportionate exposure to inferior
schoolings to significantly
greater dangers and encounters with law
enforcement and i could go
on from the labor market discrimination
that’s waiting for them
on the other side of graduation to a
television media
and this one is important to a
television media that manufactures
and reinforces disparaging portraits of
their identity by telling you that they
as black people are sub-human validating
the abuse
that they receive know that when these
students
sign their names on the papers and
assignments that they turn into you
they’re not really signing their names
they’re actually signing the names of
the person who owned their great
great grandparent in slavery pause
for just a second and realize how deep
the veins of systemic racism run
many are going to be defeated before
they even walk through the door
but they’re still coming they are
walking through your classroom doors
and many are met with instructors who
express dissent for their skin through
harmful microaggressions
or pathologizing of their culture these
affronts are
often coupled with assumptions of
criminality resulting in over-policing
on our college campuses and universities
black people portrayed as violent in
america when more often than not we are
on the receiving end of said violence
they face ascriptions of their
intelligence while they’re more
accurately experiencing historic growth
in education
in 2015 a report by nielsen documented
that high school graduation rates and
the percentage of black high school
graduates enrolled in college
jumped to historic heights outpacing
that of any other ethnic group
outpacing that of the total population
period
but just because they’re brilliant
doesn’t mean that they don’t feel
know that ironically the first time many
of them experience racism was in the
classroom and know that they will more
than likely
continue to experience the weight and
trauma of racism throughout their
lifetime
but i know this too really has nothing
to do with you
so the question remains why should you
care
as the nation recovers from the
polarizing events that follow the death
of george floyd and we return to our
campuses
classrooms and community as educators
we must acknowledge acknowledge some
pretty
daunting realities this is not just
about the death of george floyd
we must acknowledge that his death is
only a singular occurrence in a scathing
epidemic of collective
race-based violence and systemic
oppression perpetrated
on black persons in this country since
its inception
we must cease and our failure to
recognize the undeniable truth america
is a great nation but it was built on a
foundation
of hate that encompassed slavery white
supremacy
and mass genocide a foundation that
cannot stand
if you choose to if we choose to
will we continue to be passive
participants
in a culture of silence in our
classrooms
or will we begin to develop a
consciousness to be a part of something
bigger than ourselves
now i understand no no you are not
responsible for something that happened
centuries ago that you have nothing to
do with
but you do have the opportunity to be a
part of a solution for what’s going on
right now
contemporary oppression contemporary
marginal marginalization
and contemporary brutal violence we are
dying today
you have the opportunity to be a part of
a kind of justice
that will ripple through the generations
the academic community must we must
adopt an
iterative process of developing and
enforcing meaningful strategies in the
aim of peace
from systemic violence and racism aimed
at minoritized communities
more specifically african-american
people in our educational system
and society as a whole we
are here today because a man propelled
by centuries
of racial injustice kneeled on another
man’s neck
for nine minutes and 29 seconds
now there were three other people there
and had one
taken one of those seconds to speak up
we might not be here today
i’m not asking you to abandon any
long-held religious or political beliefs
i’m just asking you no i am begging you
to speak
up inequality persists in our classrooms
and it is time that we adjust our
behavior accordingly
this will require collective effort of
deliberative engagement
authentic dialogic interaction with
inter-organizational
interdivisional and interdisciplinary
alignment
the future of this country will be
decided in our classrooms
the future of this country educators it
will be
shaped by you and that’s why it
is time to care now
i did not forget about this hundred
dollar bill to the african-american
student
under the sound of my voice like this
hundred dollar bill you may have been
walked on stepped over you may feel
overlooked
but you must never forget your value
you see i didn’t forget this hundred
dollar bill because it still has its
value
you must never forget your value so that
in your success
you may pay homage to the generation of
black folks that came before you
and shed their blood that their progeny
might know true freedom
you must never forget your value that
you may give hope
and inspire action in the next
generation that’s coming up behind you
that they may take the torch of progress
that they may take the tenets of black
genius and run with it without restraint
no
you must never forget your value
remember that you are seen you are
supported
you are loved you you are
invaluable my name
is nadaya heron and i thank you so much
for listening