Reply to What should come first a diverse school faculty or a diverse student population?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP here. I study teachers and teaching for a living. I also educate future teachers. I'm deeply committed to this work. That said, I'm not unique, except maybe, in that I spend a lot of time reading the research that is not being quoted in this thread.

Fact is, there is no conclusive research that indicates that kids are "better off" having teachers that look like them or share their race, gender, or SES. There are many reasons for this, including the difficulty in measuring something as ill defined as better off. Does better off mean more motivated? Higher test scores? Increased attendance? Increased classroom participation? Decreased behavioral issues? The experts cannot agree on the measureables behind what constitutes a successful teaching environment, and as such, the research will only be able to look at one factor in a limited setting and will not be truly helpful to the questions asked here.

That said, my gut and experience says that there's something to be said about the comfort level of students when they can identify and feel understood by their teachers. Many times, in the US of 2012, kids find it easiest and most comfortable to feel understood by teachers who look like themselves. While I would love to live in a post racial world where that was not true, the fact is, I don't and if I really care about students, I must consider this fact of the world I live in.

How do I deal with this? Well, of course, I go into overdrive recruiting AA teachers, especially AA male teachers, and I seek to aggressively diversify the teaching population to provide the most supportive learning environment for the students who live in the same world I do and because I know that all students, black or white, benefit from learning from a diverse pool of teachers.

The vast majority of teachers in this country are white, middle to upper middle class women. They are not unqualified to teach solely because they don't resemble the population they are teaching. But, they need, in my opinion, to be aware that, by not looking like their students, they miss an opportunity of trust and comfort and to be the best they can be, they need to establish an environment of real exchange. They need to be as open to learning from their students as they are in teaching them. They need education, support, an open mind and a steel heart. It isn't easy for anyone to be the only one of themselves in a room.

In terms of diversity studies, this may be the greatest challenge in teaching. [/quote]

You raise some excellent points, but therein also lies a conundrum of "comfort level and being understood by teachers who look like themselves" where if AA students are never exposed to anyone who doesn't look and sound like themselves, as with any population in the same circumstance, without regular exposure, they will likely continue to be uncomfortable with anyone who isn't like them, and will likely continue passing on that discomfort to future generations, which is why a faculty demographic matched so tightly to the student demographic maybe isn't such a good idea.[/quote]

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