Facilitating Equity
Through reflection on this week�s Required Studies (I will attached all readings) and your personal
experiences with equity and equality, consider how you might best impact change in your professional
world. While you might not have the power to enact system-wide change, you have the power to begin
change in your community of learners.
1.Reflection on change: In 1 page, identify a change you believe you could make in your classroom,
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school, or professional life that would support the notion of excellence through equity. What is one small
thing you could implement right away that would make a difference for your students or community
members?
Describe the change as well as the rationale for it and the intended outcome you would like to see.
How will you know it is successful?
2.Bringing students into the conversation: Develop an age- or content-appropriate strategy to help
students recognize the differences between equity and equality. Design a short description of the lesson
you would teach or activities you would use to help students grasp the distinction and become members
of the community who are committed to supporting each other succeed.
Part 1: Reflection on Change
A change that I would make in my classroom is amending a first classroom policy to
allow blacks and students from racial groups other than the whites to serve as class
representatives. My class comprises of students from different racial backgrounds including
whites, African Americans, Asians, and Latinos. The class policy states that only a white can
become a class representative, but not any other students from other racial groups. Furthermore,
it is stated in the policy that once a white student becomes a class representative, they will retain
that position in the subsequent classes until they reach their final year of study. This makes white
students feel superior to their counterparts from other racial groups. Conversely, the practice
makes students from other racial groups to feel inferior to the whites. This has negatively
affected the academic performance of students from racial groups other than the whites.
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The rationale behind making the change described above is to enable students from racial
groups other than the whites to feel equally important and useful as the whites. Implementing a
change that gives all students an opportunity to serve as class representatives will promote equity
in the classroom. Furthermore, no student will feel discriminated against by race.
The main action that would make a difference in the classroom is creating a policy that
allows any student to become a class representative for a maximum of one year. Based on this
policy, students will have the freedom to choose a new class representative after every ten years.
The chosen student may come from one of the racial groups in the classroom. The intended
outcome that would be observed following implementation of the change is a feeling of
importance and improved academic performance among all students.
Part 2: Bringing Students into the Conversation
Students need to know the different between equity and equality for them to support one
another to succeed. An appropriate strategy that would assist students to recognize the
differences between and equality may either be age-based or content-based. For this paper, a
strategy that is both age-based and content-based has been utilized to teach students to
understand the difference between equity and equality (Blankstein, Noguera and Kelly, 2016).
Like Jane Elliot used the blue-eyed experiment to enable students to understand the
disadvantages of discriminating against others, relevant activities have been used in this case to
help students grasp the distinction between equity and equality (Horowitz, 2007). In the first
activity, the teacher will divide students into two groups. One of the groups will comprise of
students aged 12 years and above, while the other group will contain students aged 12 years and
below. The teacher will then give 5 United States dollars for students aged 12 years and above,
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and 10 United States dollars to students aged 12 years and below. He or she will then reverse the
action and record students’ reactions in the two scenarios. The students’ responses will be used to
explain to learners the meaning of equity by stating that all students deserve fair treatment. In the
second activity, the teacher would give all students a test and command them to answer all
questions within ten minutes. After ten minutes, it will be discovered that not all students
managed to answer all questions within the given time frame. The teacher will use this
observation to explain to students the meaning of equality by stating that not all students are
equal. Students will use the acquired knowledge to support each other to succeed.
References
Blankstein, A. M., Noguera, P., & Kelly, L. (2016). Excellence through Equity: Five principles
of courageous leadership to guide achievement for every student. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. ISBN: 978-1-4166-2250-5
Horowitz, C. F. (2007). Jane Elliott and her blue-eyed devil children. In J. McFadden
(Producer), Frontline. Boston, MA: Public Broadcasting Service.
