3.1 Equity in Teaching

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What is Those Who Can't Do?

My name is Gina and this is my husband Matt. We are teachers in the LA area. And we want to share with you our thoughts and experiences in the educational world.

When does education finally become the perfect version of itself?

Most educators, myself included, think of our classrooms as a Rubik’s Cube. The solution to our problems is simple and we already know what to do to find all six sides, but it’s still fun to mix up and make the uninitiated question how we even got one side solved, let alone the whole group.

This leaves a sort of mystique to our existence. It’s a “Oh god bless you..” “For real, you are angels..” and the one we all love to hear the most “I could never do what you do.” It makes teaching a calling, and divine “Blues Brother’s” mission, and we LOVE that. Because we aren’t making any money to demystify it for others.

It’s a cliche we love to drown in, because, like it or not, our job is secure. The sharks in the water are nothing more than a piece of wood we made up to soothe ourselves into behaving as if we are in a constant crisis.

And the problem is just that: we can better maintain control by placing students in a state of constant crisis. The boy who cried wolf got a kick out of it, regardless of if you thought he was two coconuts short of a fruit salad. Kids need to be entertained because they, like us, are losing their sense of wonder.

So it’s on teachers to introduce a new crisis. And the current crisis, I’m talking, snowstorm in Los Angeles, is grades.

Grades are where you take the stickers off the Rubik and put them back on in the correct order. You are forced to skip the steps to reshuffle correctly, and make guesswork inconsequential, because there aren’t enough hours in the day. The obvious solution is to identify more problems, and that makes teacher’s jobs much more difficult. Which we love. Because we get to be in a constant crisis, in a state of decay, atomically unsound but theoretically existing.

So the grades we have are your typical 0-100 scale, found culturally in everything from sports betting to politics to food service. You walk in a brand new restaurant with a D in its window, you expect to be served tasty delights that will light your toilet up later. Everyone knows how A thru F works.

And a crisis it would be if the reigning system were to face a coup, a revolution so diabolical it could only have come from the inside. Teachers are upending this system and crucifying it as “inequitable.”

Equity is an interesting word. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing because it presupposes that exterior factors ARE causing the chaos around us, not our own disorderly conduct. It removes agency from the students and the teachers alike, and presupposes that every student, in a vacuum, would perform the same if given a fair shake.

So we have pivoted to this new system. Its a 1-4 scale, with a dormant 0 down at the bottom. The 0, is, of course, still there. Meaning that there are FIVE levels. Count them. Five.

These five levels, however, are the SAME five levels we already have. A kid in kindergarten with a 1 knows they are about to lose their gaming privileges just the same as if they saw a D. Just the same as that that brand new restaurant knows it’s going to redecorate your plumbing.

If the rankings aren’t changing, that begs the question, WHAT IS?

Equity is being sold as a new grading scale, but its a paradigm shift. Because, as stated previously, its a boy who cried wolf in sheep’s clothing. You can point to the sheep and scream your heart out, but at the end of the day, the solution was obvious all along.

Change the mindset. A Rubik’s Cube is a cerebral puzzle, and so is this system. The solution is obvious. Treat. kids. fair. A teacher in the 0-100 system can still act fairly to students, without resorting to induced chaos. An understanding of what “present Levels” and “proficiency” means goes a lot further than introducing a new system.

The issue is that the rollout of this system has been combative. It ACCUSES the teachers of crying wolf, ignoring the actual wolf completely. It’s blaming the wrong person, and reshuffling the cube without asking.

Not to mix a metaphor, but nobody thinks a wolf is capable of solving a Rubik’s Cube. But a boy just might be, given a fair shake.

Teaching is about avoiding the work. Equity increases it. But equity is the best way to approach it, even if it means ignoring the math.

This series wants to explore the issue of equity in teaching, and frame a solution that is more utilitarian than pedestrian. Jump on board for future episodes. If you enjoyed, drop a like so I can make more.