Throughout my entire K-12 childhood experience, I never once saw anyone who looked like me.
Not in any textbook. Not in my teachers' or administrators' faces. There were no role models on television and not one affirming character who looked like me in a novel. I was never taught about a single Asian female of any significance who made any positive contribution to society at all.
Much later in life as a 1st grade teacher in my own classroom, I looked at my own classroom library collection through an equity lens. Examining the colorfully labeled bins in my classroom, I noticed that the only representations of Black people on my shelves were those of slaves, survivors of oppression, or famous athletes. Without being conscious of it, I had replicated my experience for my own students.
[For more on this story by Rebecca Eunmi Haslam, go to http://blogs.edweek.org/teache..._how_one_state_.html]
Comments (0)