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| Tim Paulson, Harper Middle School psychologist and president of the Davis Teachers Association, listens to Mel Lewis, facilitator and administrator and coordinator of the district’s “School Climate Activities.” |
A school recently hired some Hispanic teachers, and they speak only Spanish to one another in the lunchroom. This makes other staff members, who speak only English, feel uncomfortable. A teacher recently told some of the new hires they were “rude” for speaking Spanish in front of others who don’t understand the language. There is now tension on the once-peaceful campus.
The situation in this case is hypothetical. But for those sitting in the small discussion group — teachers, administrators, classified employees and a school psychologist — the scenario strikes a nerve. Some say they have encountered similar situations within the Davis Unified School District.
A white male classified employee who speaks only English wonders whether hearing people speak Spanish evokes different feelings than hearing people speak other languages, such as Mandarin, Italian or Swahili. He suggests that perhaps Californians feel “threatened” when they hear Spanish — in a way that doesn’t happen with other languages — since California is so close to the border and Latinos may soon be the majority population in the state.
A young white teacher in a bilingual program says that she frequently receives compliments such as, “Oh wow, you can speak and teach in Spanish so well, it’s amazing.” A Latina teacher, on the other hand, shares with others that she never gets compliments for her ability to teach lessons in English, a language that she did not choose to learn but rather had to learn.
A young white teacher confides that when staff in her lunchroom speak Spanish, she feels “guilt and envy,” since she is unable to communicate with them.
“Maybe we feel guilt and envy because it reminds us of the skills we don’t have,” suggests an African American male administrator. “And sometimes guilt and envy transition into disdain.”
Such probing conversations may seem somewhat unusual, but they occur regularly on the second Wednesday of each month at Davis High School as part of a professional development model sponsored by CTA that explores “unconscious biases.” The 35 participants believe that bringing hidden biases to the surface — and talking openly about them — will enable people to better meet the needs of their students and close the achievement gap in Davis, a community near Sacramento that has over recent years become much more diverse.
Members of the DTA met eight times last year with parents, administrators and community members in a pilot program to explore unconscious bias in a collaborative inquiry model. The program grew out of collaboration between CTA and the Equal Justice Society, a national organization that advocates legal strategies and public policy for social change. Together, the two organizations applied to the NEA Quality School Systems Department for special funding to conduct research on how pervasive unconscious bias is in the classroom.
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| Cesar Chavez Elementary teacher Sarah Fonte and counselor Cara Leppington. |
Building on that — and exploring the same culturally sensitive territory — is this year’s continuation of the Unconscious Bias Project sponsored by CTA’s Human Rights Department. There are purposely fewer participants this year in order to form a “working group,” consisting of teachers, administrators, support staff, classified staff and school board members.
CTA is working on a curriculum that can be replicated for professional development in other K-12 schools, universities and workplaces where “institutional racism” exists. It will be launched in the fall of 2008, says school psychologist Tim Paulson, president of the Davis Teachers Association and one of the project’s organizers.
“The project is entirely teacher-driven, and we’re very excited about it,” says Paulson. “These discussions are not happening anywhere else. And they should be.”
The conversation regarding Spanish in the lunchroom is one of several under way. Other groups discuss similar hypothetical and racially sensitive situations. One group focuses on a teacher who is irritated at a new student from the Caribbean who calls her “Miss.” The teacher doesn’t realize that in the culture of that student, he is showing her respect. She stops calling on the student because he won’t call her by her name, and the student stops doing the class work.
Another group looks at a student newly arrived from an Asian country who has an unusual name, which results in teasing from other students. The teacher gives the new student a nickname. The teasing stops, but the student becomes withdrawn.
In these groups, participants discuss ways that the teachers could have handled the situation better, in a way that is “culturally competent” and not traumatizing for students.
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| Montgomery Elementary teacher Cristina Sandoval and Davis Junior High teacher Cathy Haskell. |
Soon all participants pull their desks into a large circle to discuss the wider implications of racism and prejudice. The questions, asked by Mel Lewis, the district’s School Climate Activities coordinator, are probing. And the answers are sometimes painful.
“What is the difference between prejudice and racism?” asks Lewis. Most agree that everyone has some prejudices, but not everyone is a racist. Then Lewis asked a more difficult question: Can black people be racist? Some say yes. Others say no, that racism occurs only among whites, because they are the “elite” group with a feeling of entitlement that subjugates other races.
“There’s no right and wrong answer here,” says Lewis. “But the questions and answers here are becoming richer and richer.”
Those who participate in the project say they will use the information to help their students, and are also helping themselves along the way.
“It started with me wanting to make sure that the kids I work with get treated fairly,” says Edye Cowan, a special education teacher at Davis High School. “But it’s definitely helped me to become more aware of my own behavior and also more aware of other people’s behavior.”
“I joined because I’ve experienced a lot of bias being a Latina,” says Teresa Delgadillo, a coordinator for English learners at Montgomery Elementary School. “This group validates what I feel and what I experience. I think I’ve always been sensitive and aware of biases, but now I’m probably much more aware.”
“Hopefully people can understand their own cultural biases and learn how they affect what happens in the classroom, and leave with an understanding of cultural competency,” says Cathy Haskell, a math teacher at Holmes Junior High School and incoming president of the Davis Teachers Association (DTA).
“We can say, ‘I have these biases which I need to alleviate or rectify to make my instruction better for students.’ We just want to be the best teachers we can be.”
