Understanding the Current State: Reflections from the STEM Equity Initiative
I suppose everyone has an opinion about the recent presidential election. After a few days of reflection, here are mine. I work with teachers, counselors, and administrators across Pennsylvania in comprehensive high schools and Career and Tech Centers, Community Colleges, and other post-secondary institutions. My goal in my work through the STEM Equity Initiative is simple. Do my best to support educators in their efforts to support their students. Years ago, I started this work with a lot of assumptions and my own biases. Years of walking into in rural, urban, and suburban schools and talking to the people who represented the institution taught me some very important lessons.
Individuals that go into education do it for the love of their discipline and the love of their students. Like all career fields, there are a few bad apples, but if you want to find a group of caring, dedicated, hardworking individuals, go to a school!
Student challenges are complex. While some look to issues of historical bias and a lack of effective practices, the real issues addressing the school may be very different. What I know from talking to hundreds of educators this fall is that the number one problem in most high schools today is student mental health. Asking a few counselors (some of whom are career counselors and not trained to address mental health) to handle the mental health challenges of hundreds of students is overwhelming, yet I never spoke to a counselor or teacher who wasn’t willing to do their best to provide the care their students needed.
Potential solutions must be identified in partnerships with schools. Consultants need to listen to their challenges and entrenched barriers. Offering a helping hand to make things easier should be identified by them, and not another pre-solution that simply adds more work!
We need to respect educators enough to learn about them and their situation. We need to understand the current state before we offer help. We may find that the help they may benefit from may come from someone else. Consultants need to appreciate that they enter a building in the middle of the story, not at the beginning.
Before consultants present an educational solution, they need to “onboard” their school community. Well intended cultural training has backfired when it is not done in partnership with the educators to both understand its value and appreciate the schools’ educational community and their needs and priorities. Like our students, we need to provide learning opportunities when and where they are and not expect them to meet us where we are. If we assume we know who they are and get it wrong, then we are wasting their very precious time.
Republican or Democrat, Independent or other is not important when working with educators. I have found over my decades of work they are generally loving, caring, exhausted, determined people who are focused first on their students. The conflicts that exist are often around a lack of our own understanding or communication. As a consultant, I start first by listening and learning to address my own mindset to care for those who truly care for our students.