3D Glasses For Educational Equity
You can’t fix what you can’t see. A case for the urgency of diversity in education leadership.
I don’t enjoy 3D movies. It’s less about putting on glasses touched by dozens of people — will we ever do that again after the pandemic? — and more about the disorienting experience. Things move too fast, too aggressively. They make me anxious waiting for the next unexpected assault. Take the glasses off and all of the sudden things look a bit blurry, but maybe not so scary. You either put the glasses on and see it all with assaulting clarity or take them off and lose the edge and details of the story.
When it comes to the pervasive educational inequity that impacts disproportionately poor, Black and brown kids, I think that many educators are either intentionally missing the point or simply can’t see it. The fact that there is a debate over culturally responsive pedagogy, race consciousness, and so many other equity intended efforts reveals the variety of realities, some that run on entirely parallel tracks. For anyone who has experienced some level of oppression, the causes, roots, and even solutions for these inequities are at times so obvious, it is indeed like wearing 3D glasses, being able to see with great clarity and frequently in assaulting ways the realities that give shape and maintain these inequities.
The fact that there is a debate over culturally responsive pedagogy, race consciousness, and so many other equity intended efforts reveals the variety of realities, some that run on entirely parallel tracks.
Given the field of education is significantly populated by white women, let me illustrate my point in the safest possible context: gender inequality in leadership roles. Women in leadership positions have no option but to walk into work worlds that are dominated by men and where men continue to have more access to opportunities, earn more and overall be more successful than women. For most women, the only way to enter the rarefied senior leadership world and survive has been to model our behaviors after the dominant male ways. You know, lean in, make ourselves big, assimilate. But when we do lean in, we know exactly what we are doing. We understand the reasons why we needed to adjust behavior to get access to exercising power. We have our 3D glasses on and can see, feel, and act on the norms of behavior and the values of the organization. We are painfully aware of what somehow seems invisible to our male counterparts. “What norms?” They say. “I’m only successful because of my own efforts!” They claim. “Can you explain to me again this inequitable treatment you speak of?” They ask. Again. It is like explaining a 3D movie to someone refusing to wear the glasses, you know, because it’s too aggressive, too jarring, too much.
The system demands we operate as if we can’t see the gaps and unequal treatment. The message is: lean in, assimilate, and all will be fine.
I see these same dynamics playing out in relation to educational inequities. Educators who do not share the background and experiences of the students most impacted by these inequities can’t see them and many refuse to wear the 3D glasses to get a glimpse. Instead they insist that everyone has a fair shot in their system or demand that the issues be explained to them again and again. The system demands we operate as if we can’t see the gaps and unequal treatment. The message is: lean in (e.g., work hard), assimilate (e.g., ace the same tests that were designed for the already privileged and powerful), and all will be fine.
For many of us the experience of being the “other” has granted us the gift or curse of these 3D glasses that enable us to see the world as is, one where there are some people less bound by rules and more free to be their full selves while others have to continuously battle to make it into their space and assimilate. It’s like being the second child. You know nothing but a world in which there is an older sibling. The world is naturally shared and it demands assimilation and cooperation. All we know is to hustle up, harder, differently because that is the only pathway to success. Made all the worse by only being celebrated when we’ve managed to achieve that inauthentic ideal.
All we know is to hustle up, harder, differently because that is the only pathway to success.
These hypothetical equity 3D glasses allow us to see more easily the challenges and gaps in access to opportunity. For example, they allow us to see not only the data on disproportionate discipline action on Black boys and girls, but to also see and feel the doubt, shame, and frustration of children whose bodies are constantly controlled and under threat of punishment by adults. These lenses make it jump at us how the COVID pandemic, which disproportionately killed Black and Latinx people in the US, must also have a deep emotional and psychological well-being impact on the children of these families, because these are our families.
I understand why some educators would prefer to avoid seeing their work through these lenses because it can indeed be overwhelming. They know some of that water will literally splash on them.
For me the educational landscape in the US is inevitably in 3D. Sometimes exhaustingly and jarringly so. And every day I discover a new dimension that I didn’t get before. At times I wish I could just put the lenses aside, but alas, I can’t. I understand why some educators would prefer to avoid seeing their work through these lenses because it can indeed be overwhelming. They know some of that water will literally splash on them. But, our commitment is to children and their potential, not to our comfort.
All educators must commit to a deeper and more complex understanding of educational inequities, so we can all drive for better and more effective solutions and spend less time debating the contours of reality. Even as our country recons with a new wave of social justice consciousness, the extent to which education leaders will go to pretend there is no alternative to their reality is exhausting. I wish it were as easy as lending a pair of 3D glasses to a clueless colleague. However, the least that we can expect, or demand, is the recognition that those that share the background of our students have authentic insights that matter. It might allow us to come together in the realization that the ultimate goal of education is not assimilation but liberation to be your best.
