Equity Challenge Education Day 4 - United Way of Westchester and Putnam

Education Day 4: Teacher Impact

Yesterday we challenged ourselves to look deeper into the ways in which school disciplinary policies disproportionately affect children of color and Black girls. Today, let’s take a look at the early impact teachers have on student’s educational outcomes and their likelihood to attend college. Unconscious biases in white teachers, who favor a “colorblind” approach may cause unintentional harm to their students, while the early acknowledgment of differences can prepare students for a diverse world. Positive outcomes sparked by same-race role models can potentially shrink the education achievement gap and usher more Black and brown students into colleges and universities.

Black students who had just one black teacher by third grade were 13% more likely to enroll in college. Check out this quick article on how the role-model effect can potentially shrink the educational achievement gap.

K-6 classrooms are lead by a primarily white, female teacher population, who’s inherent biases often come into play in their approaches to children and teaching. Read this interview with Dr. Robin DiAngelo, YWCA’s 2020 It’s Time for Equity speaker, on white fragility in teaching and education.

Watch this quick video that illustrates how some California preschools are getting children to participate in conversations about racial differences at an early age.

Reflect

When was the first time you had a teacher who was not the same race as you? Have you ever?

These articles were curated by a local committee to be used as a list of resources pertinent to DEI topics. The 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge Committee would like to thank and give attribution to those who created the content above, which reflects their individual perspectives. We do not support nor endorse any advertisements associated with the above content.