Washington State Teacher of the Year Nate Gibbs-Bowling made waves in the education world recently with his essay, “The Conversation I’m Tired of Not Having.” Gibbs-Bowling bluntly called out the lack of political will and urgency around educational equity, writing up front, “I want to tell you a secret: America really doesn’t care what happens to poor people and most black people.”
He’s right — but goes on to draw an incomplete conclusion....
.....I do not believe this is necessarily “awfulizing” students in poverty — I know firsthand that these children are brilliant and creative, defined by so much more than their income levels or their challenges, and that they demonstrate heroic levels of resilience on daily basis. Moreover, so much of poverty as an economic condition can be traced back to racism, classism, and a broken and rigged economic system. That said, it is an untenable position to accept the existence of toxic stress, trauma, insomnia and the host of issues known as Adverse Childhood Experiences and imagine that spending seven hours a day inside a school building for just 180 days a year will be enough to reliably and systematically give children the opportunities they need and deserve. It is akin to accepting the truth of man-made climate change and then presuming we should focus solely on better and cleaner power plants. A critical part of the solution? Absolutely. Enough on its own to cause a tectonic shift? Not a chance.
To continue reading this article by educator Elliot Haspel, go to: https://www.the74million.org/a...de-the-classroom-too
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