Guest blogger Amanda Ronan says, "As a school leader, you probably don't need federal guidelines to tell you whether these practices are negatively impacting your school and your students. School climate is under your jurisdiction, so you know what's bubbling up in your environment."
Schools have no business judging children or their parents for behaviors we don't understand. Most educators find it their professional responsibility to discover why children don't meet expectations.
It is the one-sided approach to curriculum that allows the avoidance of helping students understand the experience of 'the other'. It is in these lessons that the power to effectively change the way people think and act toward each other exists.
There are good reasons why educators, more than most, have a responsibility to find where the 'isms' hide within them and how they become visible to others.
Where but public schools do we create a citizenry with an understanding of the relationship between rights and responsibilities, between democracy and despotism and why our founders created three branches of government with different but equal powers.
There is an America that has been hidden for a long time that will enter schools stealthily. We must be alert and protect the values we embrace in our work with children.
Keeping students at the center, considering those invisible ones while reflecting on the mission statement that includes 'all' students, one can find motivation to challenge the way things are done, and find new ways to make 'all' students a reality.
A continuing conversation about beliefs and behaviors regarding how girls and boys, women and men are perceived and treated in the school environment is needed.
No matter the federal decision, let's join as educators and advocate that rights assured remain. These are our children.
Let's proceed as if it is a good thing to be compassionate and kind as a person or nation. Those qualities are not mutually exclusive from strength.
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