Check Myself

I work hard to remember my own positionality as a white, cisgender woman when I am teaching and interacting with the world. It is important to remember that who am I shapes the way that I interact with the world and the way that the world interacts with me. I strive to create a classroom where students and adults that I work with feel comfortable naming dynamics and that together we can build a team of individuals who respect and accept each other.

As a teacher, I encourage students to use their knowledge to build new questions and answers about the world around them. This includes questions about organisms, plants, abiotic factors, the people who came before us, and the people in our group. Through structured conversations and activities, I give students the opportunity to speak from their own experience and heart to talk about challenges, truths, and questions. Some of these discussions lead to conversations about the ways that they have experienced agents of bias, such as marginalization, racism, and sexism.

At a young age, students begin to perceive and understand the dynamics of power in a group of people. Sometimes these dynamics are named overtly by students creating uncomfortable moments, but great jumping off points to talk about the ways that we affect each other. I have lead groups of students and adults with unbalanced gender or racial dynamics. It might occur in discussion, or team building exercises when one group dominates the conversation and leaves little room for the other.

An example of this happened when I was a teaching a teams course challenge where students were expected to come up with a plan on how to complete the goal and then relay that plan to me. As I observed them in discussion, I noticed that all of the boys were being heard and none of the girls were getting any air time. After they presented me with the plan, I had them hold up fingers behind their back; one finger if they felt heard, two fingers if they felt a little heard, and 3 fingers if they did not feel heard. The results were as I expected and when I reported back to the students that about half of their group did not feel heard, I asked how we might find a way for every voice to feel listened to.

The students decided it would be good to hear from every person in the circle before formulating their plan. They became much more aware of the air space they were taking up. I am continually amazed at students' abilities to make sweeping changes to a group dynamic with only the slightest nudge. Yes, there are groups that take more time and more nudging, and there are dynamics more complicated than boys dominating a conversation, but students are relentless at growing towards inclusion, empathy, and positive change.

Students weave a community agreement to represent and celebrate how differences can build an awesome team.