Diversity in Education

I want to recommend the recent episode of Revisionist History for this week's post.* In it, Malcolm Gladwell dives deeper into Brown vs Board of Ed (which should be interesting after our School Law studies) and points out that when we say we integrated schools, we really mean that we integrated students, not staff. He then goes on to analyze the impact that having a diverse student population being taught primarily by white teachers. Fascinating and powerful stuff.

One of the takeaways for me was that having a diverse staff is of the utmost importance. This is supported by recent research shows that people inherently empathize more with those from their own race**. You can even look at some syntax studies that show that people communicate better with those from their own race***. In short, having a majority white staff lead a diverse student body is problematic. Okay, so what should a principal do with that knowledge?

How do we have a more diverse staff? It's not as simple as just hiring more diversity, as you can't hire someone for the color of their skin. So how do we make our schools such a place where people from all backgrounds would want to work? Where they would seek to interview, so that as we select the best teachers we naturally diversify our staff?

This is typically the point in a post where I would then provide answers for the questions I just posed. But I don't have them. I'm hoping y'all do. Send me message if you have any ideas.

* In truth, every episode of Revisionist History is fantastic. Highly recommended.

** Check out Project Implicit for an example that you could use with staff

*** One fascinating way to demonstrate this is to play Taboo with your staff. Load up the deck with culturally specific terms. You’ll find that the groups that win are the ones with the same background. This shows that we don’t all simply speak English, but our own particular dialect. Therefore students who don’t have staff from similar demographics are at a disadvantage.