Conclusion

It’s not, just by virtue of being a person of color or a Black male or a Black female…this is about using all of the things that we know through research and evidence, those things that work.

• What does the data suggest that this child is learning or not learning?
• How do I create the conditions for young people to feel safe and loved, and supported?
• How do I create opportunities for them to be inquisitive, to problem solve, to think critically?

These are all things that we have to develop within ourselves as educators, regardless of who we are. It’s all about creating confidence in our young people. Once they see confidence in us, as educators, and whoever that teacher may be, and making sure that individual carries themselves in a way that we would very much want our young people to carry themselves. 

Individuals go into careers and pursue careers because they’ve seen individuals within those careers and they don’t just think about the actual work in that career but they think about what that individual represented, what that individual did, and I think that ‘s no different for us as educators in showing individuals how to create conditions for social justice. How to create importance around making sure that children can read, and write, and do mathematics. All of those things become critically important as a part of how an individual carries himself or herself and what that means to young people who are looking at those individuals as role models.