“We will do what we always do. We will meet the kids at the door and go from there!”
—Amy Lesan, elementary school coordinator, Corvallis School District, Oregon
At Collaborative Classroom, we work with many amazing educators across the country who are using our programs to make the world a better place. One thing that always strikes me about the people we work with is that we share a belief in supporting all children to develop as caring and responsible critical thinkers in the context of an inclusive community. As we move into another uncertain year, we can take stock of ways we were successful in the distance learning endeavor and apply what we learned.
When Elementary School Coordinator Amy Lesan shared the work Corvallis School District in Oregon is doing to make equity a central consideration during distance learning, I knew I had to share. Educational inequity is becoming even more pronounced across the country as we struggle with the demands of remote learning.
Amy stressed the importance of developing an “equity lens” for making decisions around distance learning. In her words:
“When we (the elementary principal team) had the realization that we weren’t returning to school this year and we would be continuing distance learning, our immediate response was quite visceral. Knowing that the intense work we do every day in our brick and mortar buildings to reduce barriers for our most marginalized students and families was at risk, we set to work in developing a framework and lens that we could use to make decisions about building distance learning for our elementary students.”
Amy then shared some of Corvallis’ best practices for keeping equity at the forefront when making decisions around and executing distance learning.
While we engage in distance learning, how can we strategically hold our most marginalized and vulnerable student groups at the core of our instruction?
“When we use the compass, we are referring to the Courageous Conversations About Race Protocol. When we have conversations about race, we introduce the compass and ask people to place themselves on it and use it as a tool to engage with/understand where others are entering the conversation. Ideally, we are all getting to the center, which requires moving across the compass. We’ve also come to understand that there is another component of the compass, one that we need to be equally aware of—the shadow side. It is important to understand the negative components to help us get to a place of understanding and action.”
“Using primarily the work of Robin DiAngelo, we ask our white colleagues to understand the detours people take to avoid conversations about race. This is a critical step in moving any work around equity forward. This is a video we’ve used to help our staff deepen their understanding of whiteness. We have also read DiAngelo’s book White Fragility to help us see when people are taking us on a detour.
Instruction
Students/Families
When engaging in this planning process, the Corvallis team relied on their previous learning with Courageous Conversations and Pacific Educational Group, and more recently, Culturally Responsive Teaching.
Like Corvallis School District, Collaborative Classroom is dedicated to transforming the school experience, developing students, and empowering educators by deepening their teaching practices. To learn more, please read our blogs, “A Conversation About Instructional Equity with Zarretta Hammond,” “Supporting All Readers Before and During COVID-19: A Conversation with Pajaro Valley Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez and Linda Diamond of CORE” and “Resources for Reconnecting and Accelerating Student Learning.”