Language & Social Justice

In this week's episode, Dr, Tami shares key concepts about how we use language inside learning spaces as a social justice and DEI issue.  Connecting back to Episode 16, she shares key action steps to reflect on the current status of how language is used in your learning environment with some key actionable steps to foster and build a nurturing socially just environment. 

Ideas explored in this episode include: 

• Power of Affirming Language
• Moving Beyond Assumptions
• Valuing Student Voices
• Empowering Language for Student Agency

Book: Choice Words by Peter Johnston

Creator Content Referenced:
Art Student
Band-Aid
Dawn Staley

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Transcript

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0:32

Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the equity hour with me, your host, Dr. Tami Dean. I am so excited to talk about our episode today. It's been something I have been. Thinking about quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. With some of our previous episodes. And so I'm really excited today to talk to you. About the power in language. And how as educators. And really as just humans moving through the world. How we choose to use our voice and our language is really important. I just want to start off with a couple of things that I've seen recently. And I apologize if I, if I find these videos again, I will link. To the creators where I saw these. I was. Scrolling the other day. And I saw a video, it was super powerful. It was about a teenager. She was in high school talking about how she hung out in the art room. She was pregnant during a certain time. The day, I can't remember what it is at this point, but that's really irrelevant. So what happens in this art room is while she's there, this art teacher. Speaks positive words into her and what she's doing as an artist and affirms that she is capable and able to do what it is she wants to do. And in this video, you see this trajectory of her art and the growth in her talent. Come to life. And at the end, she owns a, it looks like her own art studio where she's sharing that love of art with other young students at this point. Super inspiring. Right. Another one that I just recently saw I'm actually today. It's a great. Example of allyship. This teacher was talking about a kit she had in her classroom, and someone had asked in her comments, why would you have bandaids of various shades? Because no, band-aid. Matches. Identically to someone's skin tone and she, so. Eloquently. Showed her markers. She had a regular pack of Crayola markers and she had her skin tone markers. She had the crayons and then she had the other crayons how important it is to be able to at least. Acknowledge. Difference and have things available, right. To others and it's no different than if I wanted to go draw myself. How many I find the shade closest to who I am to represent who I am. Same thing with the band-aid. Right. So it's comprehensive. It's not just one thing is what I loved about this video. Because I think when we get into this equity work, It becomes, I did this one thing or I got this one book or I celebrated black history month. Or women's history month or whatever. And it becomes the one thing that I latch on to that I did. So why do I need to do all these other things? And not that those things are bad. As I've shared in previous episodes, That intent is not enough. How are you taking action consistently? Around these equity components. Okay. And then. The last one. You know, shout out to the NCAA women's tournament. It was so amazing. I don't know if you're a sports fan, but it was. Just so amazing to watch and to watch. The allyship and the other women uplifting each other. And. I think one of the most compelling examples. Of allyship over the course of. The tournament was an interview. With Dawn Staley and a reporter was trying to get her. To respond in a way she was asked about trans women and playing in women's sports. And if you haven't seen the. Interview, I highly recommend you go find it. I'll try to see if I can find probably a clip of it on YouTube and add it to the show notes. She unequivocally unequivocally. Says yes. They should be allowed to play. And she does this with saying. You're saying this because you know, I'm going to be inundated with people coming at me for saying this on the Eve of my, you know, biggest game of the year. And she says all of these things. But what a powerful moment. To stand as an ally. For trans women and trans women who want to participate in sports. So I say all of that. Because each of these people, these are just a handful of examples. I'm sure you've seen some as you go throughout your day. And I want you to try to notice. When you see the power of people's words and how they choose to support. Social justice and equity in day to day interactions. Only one of these. Well, I'm gonna guess two of them. Within a school, but at the time they weren't really. Like, oh, this is how I lesson plan. And this is how I set up my classroom. It's it's, it's just becomes a part of who they are. And so. That is the goal of what we do in the work with dragon fly, rising this podcast. My coaching consulting, all of those things is to get to ways in which we can Support and make this change in our spaces. It comes down to this question, right? Like, well, why does this matter? Why does any of this matter? It matters. Because as an educator, whether you're a teacher. Whether you're a coach, whether you're an administrator, whether you're in upper district leadership, we set. The stage. For inviting and building in the community. In which our learners and our educators. Exists on a day-to-day basis. And I've talked about community quite a bit on previous episodes. So I'm not going to go too much into that today, but if that's an area where you're starting, please head back and check out those previous episodes, I'll link them in the show notes. As I was just saying on episode 16, We sometimes. Unconsciously or with good intent. Make dependent learners. Versus. Encouraging and building capacity for all learners to think critically. And to be valued in their thinking to be valued for them to have the ability to ask questions. And for us to not place our preconceived ideas and bias around students. On them. As we engage with them. So, as I've said before, I believe it comes from. A positive place. And as you're thinking about it and reflecting. It's an opportunity to do differently. And to make change. As we're thinking about language, I just, I also want to share a really powerful book for me. And I highly recommend you read it. It's. A short digestible read. I've read it. Many times. I had. My students read it. I highly recommend the book choice words by Peter Johnston. He very eloquently provides some examples from classrooms and how language. Truly sets the tone for the learning that takes place in the environment and whose voice is valued and whose voice has really heard. If we are looking and I believe we are as educators. To develop and build thinkers. Then we need to provide an environment. Where students have the opportunity. To ask and answer the questions. What we've historically set up and it seems. The pendulum is shifting back this way. Unfortunately, in my opinion. Where the teacher is, the one that asks all the questions and then the students answer them. Often that IRE right. So I ask a question and you have to guess what's in my head. And then I ask another question. If you're not trying to set your classroom up, To be the space in which the teacher asks the questions, all the questions and the students just answer. Then you need to rethink how you're structuring your classroom. And ask yourself where and how am I giving students opportunity to ask questions? And then find the answers. Because honestly, that is what life is. I have questions. I have a need. I need to figure out how to go find the answer. Life is not someone asked me a question. And then I got to guess what the answer is, right? So we need to be building and, and fostering thinking. And engagement and ideas within our students because they have them. They have them. And they often think of things that we may not even think about ourselves because they have a different worldview and a perspective, and they may not be. Oh, what's the word I'm looking for. Closed off to ideas that we may be closed off to you because of our life experience as adults. So. A huge part of this. Is not falling into assumptions. So I'm going to say that again. We cannot fall into assumptions about students. What they bring to the classroom? What they're capable of. Because when we make these assumptions, Well, you know what the saying is about assumptions, right? So I'm not go there, but it's the same is true about your students. So we don't want to be making assumptions. Assumptions are often rooted in either. Implicit bias or over bias and stereotypes. So stop making assumptions. When we do that. We can also start thinking about how language. Positions people both intentionally and unintentionally. So coming back to the I'm the teacher, this is my classroom and I'm the one that asks the questions as students are ones that answer we have now set up. This power position. Where the teacher is the only one with the right answer. Or the answer. How we use languages. important what do you notice? What questions do you have? How can you find the answer? Where can you go? We need to build in open language because how we use language. Believe it or not. Is a social justice issue. Because classrooms tend to have value late in. Judgment types of language. I use this example a lot when I was teaching. Pre-service teachers that were looking to become teachers. And again, it comes back to there's. There's not always a malicious intent, let's say I'm walking around the classroom. And I'm just commenting about students and their work. And I'm like, nice job. Nice job. Good job. Excellent. Very good. Oh, that's wonderful. And in my mind, I'm just trying to change up what I'm saying. So I'm not saying though. Same thing. So there's really no difference to me. In. Why I'm using, you're saying certain words. To the students. That can mean something totally different. And I'm going to tell you every time I did this example, and I wouldn't tell them what I was doing, I was just doing it. I would ask them how they felt. And they didn't feel good. They're like, I'm wondering why. You know, Sam got an excellent and I only got a good job. Rather than value judgments. Like I like, I love teachers also tend to do this very much. I love how so-and-so is standing in line. That's still a value judgment. Rather. Rephrase that because the like, our love is you. Putting judgment on something. I'm going to need you to now shift your thinking into noticing and naming. Because this removes the assumption. I can focus on the child and what the child is actually doing. I noticed you used these three colors in your artwork. Tell me more about why you chose those. I see you used X, Y, or Z. Tell me more about that. I noticed you use these three resources. We're focusing on what is actually happening versus our feelings and judgment around the actions or learning that's taking place. And what this does. Is helps our students. I build trust. In their thoughts. In their questions. And intuitions. Around the world and thinking and learning and their processes. Right because all of our process is not the same. Now. I get it. If you're a math teacher and I got to file the order of operations, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking big picture. We want them. To be able to explain. How or why they got to this answer. Because that gives you insight. Into what they're doing well. And their strengths and takes an asset based approach. So you can build on those. Okay. And we want to build students' confidence around trusting their own feelings, their own thoughts and their own intuition. Because if we don't, we get back to the scenario where I talked about in episode 16, where we build these students, and this is typically lower quote unquote students that we've labeled lower. Right where they're always looking up to the teacher for the next step in the answer, because that is the type of climate you've set up. That is the culture you've set up. That is how you've been using language in your classroom and has set that up. This all leads to. Agency. Students and have a desire for agency. Just as we do as adults. As you're thinking about some of the ways that you can possibly. Shift your language. If you need to celebrate how you're noticing and naming, if you are. Consider where are the opportunities? To build in. Capacity and agency for students Remembering the value of productive struggle. The struggle is where the learning happens. The challenge is where the learning happens. That helps move us with a growth mindset. That helps us think about how did I do that? That helps me build language to explain how I did that. It also helps students advocate. For what they might not know. So I did and was able to do blah, blah, blah. I'm not sure how to do this. And it invites. A space where you don't need to know everything. 'cause I'm gonna tell you what your students already know how to do it all. You should be doing something else. Because then you're not really teaching, then you're just talking at them. And then you get disengagement and then that leads to behaviors and that's our whole spiral. Right. But we're going to talk about all that today. We're going to come back to. We want to consider and think about. How do we use language to set up an environment? That empowers students, they're thinking. There. Application of learning they're questioning. Using resources. And tools. Okay. And you, the educator are a resource and a tool in the classroom, as well as the other students. Keep this in mind. We are not fostering a banking model here. Students are not empty vessels that were just pouring. Learning into. We are nurturing. Thinkers. Creators. Engagers. Wonderings. And all of the wonderful things. That comes with the excitement of learning. All of this for me comes back to. Space and environment for joy. Language. Is a social justice issue. And it's an important one for us to be thinking about in our day to day interactions with students. I gave you a lot to chew on in this episode today in our short amount of time. I will drop a link to choice words by Peter Johnston. In the show notes, please take a look, check him out. The book is wonderful. Hit me up on Instagram. Let me know what you think. And looking forward to talking to you next time. Thank you so much.