Description
Connecting with Our Students as They Are: Using an Equity Lens to Build Relationships and Engagement
Join Marceline DuBose and Tess Ormseth for this webinar series in which they examine how school systems can unwittingly promote or push against US dominant cultural norms, and how relationship-based inequities privilege some students and disadvantage others. The presenters illustrate how educators can create space for various ‘ways of being’ – or cultural norms – in a classroom.
Although some cultural norms can feel intangible, they are important to examine because equity and inequity show up in the intangible and unexamined. These norms include the ways that people experience time, communicate verbally, express emotions, prioritize relationships, and conceptualize their sense of control over their circumstances. They describe the lived experiences of our students, and they form the foundation on which we can connect with and engage learners authentically.
Society, schools, classrooms, and jobs privilege certain ends of these cultural spectrums over others. By looking closely at and dismantling beliefs about these norms, teachers are able to move toward a deeper connection with students and support their success.
“Connecting with our Students” is a robust series that will deepen not only our practices and relationships with students, but also will inform our interactions with colleagues, student families, supervisors, and ourselves.
Session #1 – Relationship Building with an Equity Lens: Participants will build a common foundation by using an equity lens to reassess practice. The first cultural spectrum–idea exchange rates, or the speed at which individuals exchange and build upon each other’s ideas–will be introduced.
Session #2 – Bridging Differences in our Teaching: We will consider the cultural spectrums of task/relationship orientation and clock/cyclical time as they relate to classroom practices.
Session #3 – Weaving Cultural Spectrums into our Practice: Two more cultural spectrums will be introduced during this session: how we express emotion and individualism/collectivism.
Session #4 – Expanding Benefit, Eliminating Disadvantage: Direct and indirect communication styles and locus of control are the last of the cultural spectrums to discuss.
