The Oklahoma Reader V55 N2 Fall 2019

Dr. Karen Bates and Dr. Deborah Larson Embracing Diversity –Professional Development Heightens Awareness of Economically Disadvantaged Learners

Teachers are highly cognizant of the fact that elementary classrooms today have a wide range of students, in terms of abilities, personalities, and motivations. Students also come from all types of families, representing varying parental arrangements, cultural backgrounds and socio-economic levels. Regardless of the range of students who arrive in classrooms, teachers are expected to develop a caring environment, plan instruction that advances students’ abilities and nurture students to become their best selves. As our country become increasingly diverse in nature, these are worthy but lofty expectations for teachers today. In order to help beginning teachers and teacher candidates who will become beginning teachers prepare for these lofty expectations, the authors felt it was important to incorporate professional development designed to assist novice teachers in learning more about the students populating their classrooms; we especially wanted to help our mainly middle class teacher candidates to become more knowledgeable about the backgrounds of our at-risk students in order to develop effective ways of working with and supporting them as learners and as individuals.

Rationale

Since we are teacher educators, we use our university’s Conceptual Framework when planning our work in developing educators. This framework, however, could also be applied to any professional development work done with adult learners, including mentoring beginning teachers in schools and districts. Our Conceptual Framework defines the philosophy, purpose(s) and goals of our work and features six “pillars” which include (1) service to society,(2) application of interdisciplinary and scholarly knowledge,(3) engagement in effective practice, (4)response to uncertainty and change, (5)reflection especially self-reflection and (6) belongingness to the professional community. (The Teachers College Conceptual Framework, Emporia State University, 2016). Underlying the Conceptual Framework are proficiencies set out for the professional development and growth of teachers and other school personnel, including diversity (The Teachers College Conceptual Framework, 2016). As former classroom teachers, we are fully aware of the need for educators to be able to respond to increasing uncertainty related to our ever-changing world; we know that there are many and variable students’ needs presented as our classrooms more and more reflect our global society. Beginning teachers need to improve communication techniques in order to develop positive learning experiences. Above all they need to work with students in such a way so they can be successful as they grow and progress toward becoming increasingly mature in this ever-widening world. All of these expectations are in service to the goal of preparing “teaching professionals.”

The singular pillar that drives this particular professional development work (related to our diversity) is the pillar which states that professional educators need to be able to respond to uncertainty and change. We know classroom teaching can be daunting; many of our beginning teachers have come from cultural and socio-economic backgrounds which are different from those of their future students. Historically teachers are more likely to be Caucasian and middle class while increasing numbers of elementary students are reflecting the dramatic mix of cultures, backgrounds, and languages found in today’s greater society. It is also worth noting that we, as educators, place our beginning teachers into schools with large populations of at-risk and impoverished students. We feel a calling to provide additional support for teachers of these students but we also place our novice teachers in these settings to provide them with experiences with at-risk learners in order that they are better prepared for the genuine work of teaching in current classrooms. We know that the beginning years of teaching can be both eye-opening and overwhelming for novice teachers because these new teachers tell us they were not very familiar with the students coming to them from impoverished backgrounds nor did they know very well how to deal with the challenges associated with many of these students. We would be remiss if we failed to mention that we subscribe to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943, 1954). The original hierarchy which included five stages suggested a linear (one directional) progression from one stage to the next. His first four stages include physiological needs, safety needs, love and belongingness needs and esteem needs; we find these relevant because they are all aspects of working with learners, especially at-risk learners. Maslow (1987) later came to believe that one’s needs may be evidenced in a flexible, rather than a fixed, order (not necessarily one-dimensional) and that behaviors may be determined by one or by multiple basic needs simultaneously. Regardless of the order of these needs or whether dealing with one or many of them, we believe that understanding Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is important for beginning teachers as they begin to establish solid rapport and effective working relationships with their young students. For the above reasons, we have chosen to focus our diversity professional development work on at-risk learners coming from low-income situations. Working with students in poverty is something many beginning teachers have not done often or at all and, while many teachers have a big heart for the work, we felt it was important to help to better prepare them to become more effective teaching professionals.

Background Information

Since 2010, most states have updated their standards, making them increasingly rigorous. Some 41 states have adopted Common Core standards (one other state did a partial adoption); eight others opted to create their own standards to reflect their own state priorities with similar rigor (e.g. Virginia, Nebraska, Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas, Indiana, South Carolina, Alaska). State leaders from these states have reported that their versions are substantially similar to Common Core Standards. Clearly there was movement in the last decade to upgrade expectations for high school graduates but to also try to have fairly equal expectations across the various geographic regions.

As these changes were taking place, another change was also brewing. By the year 2013, it was becoming clear that the United States was experiencing a shift in the socio-economic levels of public school students. That is, a majority, rather than a minority, of K-12 public school

students were reported as growing up in poverty conditions such as low-income environments, according to data related to eligibility for free and reduced-price lunches (Suitts, 2015). An analysis of data collected from the states by the National Center for Educational Research (NCES) about the number of public school students who qualify for free- and reduced-price lunches showed that, in 2013, 52% of students fit this category (Suitts, 2016). How did we get to this place? According to Steve Suitts, former director of the Southern Regional Council and an author-historian who has extensively studied poverty in education, less than 32% of US public school students grew up in poverty in 1989, according to data kept by the government. By the year 2000, however, that percentage grew to over 38%. After the Great Recession of 2008, poverty rates continued to grow and by 2011, the percentage of those growing up impoverished had grown to 48%. Over the next two years, the rate came to exceed the 50% threshold such that in 2013 low-income students became 52% of the population of public school students. This is the basis for Suitts’ claim that impoverished students have become the “new majority” (Suitts, 2013).

We did our own mining of data from the federal government. We are able retrieve data from the most recent year it was reported, 2016, (information accessed from https://childstats.gov) and found that as of 2016, of 73.7 million US students, 13.3 million are children in poverty. This represents 18% of US children. (This data source did not separate children in public schools versus private or other schooling arrangements.) We looked at the geographic regions reported by the federal government and found that southern children fared the worst in terms of percentage in poverty (20%), but the Midwest region was next lowest with 17.3% of children living in poverty. Both percentages represent more than 12 million children, by any measure a staggering number. To try to bring the focus to an even more local view, we looked at the data for two states, Kansas and Oklahoma, to delve deeper into state details. In Kansas, the 2016 poverty rate for children under 18 was 16.8% and in 2017 it was 13.8%. In Oklahoma, the 2016 poverty rate for children under 18 was 22.9% and in 2017 it was 21.5%. These compare with the national rates:

in 2016, the national poverty rate was 18.0% while in 2017 it stood at 18.4%. It appears that the Kansas poverty rate was lower than the national average while Oklahoma’s rate was higher than the national rate in 2016 and 2017. (Sources include https://talkpoverty.org/state-yearreport/oklahoma-2016-report and https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-report/kansas-2016-report as well as www.ksde.org and https://www.sde.ok.gov). School funding is a related issue closely linked to children in poverty. Over nearly two decades, economic and political conditions have caused many states to cut their education budgets many times. Since 2001, the US public school low-income population has grown by more than one-third while over the same time (number of years) per-pupil spending increased at a rate less than half of the growth rate of students in poverty, barely 14% (Suitts, 2007; Suitts, 2013). Low-income students are typically those who are most vulnerable, needing school assistance to address weak or poor academic progress and/or often those with inconsistent attendance; sadly, some of these students go on to have criminal justice system entanglements. It a sad realization that, over time, outcome differences tend to increase over the years of schooling, often for economically disadvantaged students, which can result in lower graduation rates.

Returning to state specifics, the graduation rates for two midwestern states follow: Kansas had an 86.1% graduation rate in 2016 and in 2017 it was 86.9%. During those years, the free/reduced lunch rates (indicative of poverty) were 81.7% (2016) and 82.7% (2017). These compare with the national graduation rate of 84.1% in 2016 and 84.6% in 2017. Oklahoma had a 2016 graduation rate of 82% and a 2017 graduation rate of 83% (rounded up from 82.6%). Their economically disadvantaged rates for the same years were 76% (2016) and 77% (2017) respectively. It appears that Oklahoma’s graduation rates are lower than the national average. (Sources include https://sde.ok.gov/documents/2015-09-25/oklahoma-public-school-graduationrates and https://ksreportcard.ksde.org (Kansas K-12 Report Guidelines). Suitts (2016) believes that as teachers we know what needs to be done to ensure that lowincome students be given opportunities for academic success and that this should begin at the school level. “Public schools must ensure that they have the resources to help low-income students reduce school absences (Suitts, 2016, p. 38). There is much speculation about the reasons for the inequality of impoverished children’s learning outcomes; one school of thought puts the blame squarely on parents and families who supposedly do not prepare their students well for the school environment. Some blame teachers for not enhancing student performance enough. Others suggest that teacher educators do not do enough to prepare teacher candidates to work specifically in economically- and ethnicallydiverse locations (Comber, 2016). Rather than laying blame, we felt obliged to work to enhance the preparation of beginning teachers in order to help them become more effective in working with diverse (and impoverished) students; thus we are sharing what we have developed in an effort to help others who work to assist beginning and novice teachers to be better prepared for the challenges of today’s classrooms.

Details about the Orientation Session

Our beginning teachers are required by the state to student-teach in schools of diversity. Many of our teaching candidates are middle class students with little or limited experience working with and communicating with economically disadvantaged students. To prepare them for their daily teaching in today’s classrooms, we include, as part of their orientation, a targeted

professional development session focused on working with impoverished students in the schools. Simultaneously, these teacher candidates are in a “real-world” Title I school setting, and have already started working with students coming from challenging economic situations. This orientation is scheduled for the candidates just as their final semester gets underway but they are also working full time many days in their classroom setting. What we do for orientation has been continually revised and edited for much of the last ten years, with some changes in content and ordering of activities along the way. What is reported here is what we have been doing since about 2015/2016. (Our initial orientation session is generally 2-3 hours, though the orientation could be done over several shorter sessions if a longer block of time was not available.) Prior to meeting for our session, the teacher candidates are given a pre-test in the form of an anticipation guide consisting of 15 questions (included in Appendix A at end of article). The questions are intended to assess their before-orientation knowledge and experience with working with students in poverty/with diverse backgrounds. Later, at the end of the session, they will be re-assessed using the same questions after the poverty session to help judge whether learning (and changes to thinking) have occurred as a result of the experiences during the orientation. To illustrate the type of statements posed to interns, an example follows: one of them states that drug and alcohol abuse is more prevalent in impoverished families, to which they must respond either true or false. Our teacher candidates are greatly surprised to learn that this is not the case. We have observed that most of the teacher candidates register a change of thinking as to their view about whether or not ELL students are linguistically deficient (a second example). At the conclusion of the session, most participants reported that they had biases that they were unaware of and stated that the professional development session helped them to understand that they need to be a great deal more sensitive to the needs of the impoverished students they will be teaching. One teacher candidate even stated, “I will not assume things about the students because I do not know what is happening at their home” (personal conversation, SD). The topic of reserving judgement and not engaging in assumptive teaching is a significant theme that arises from our discussions and that pleases us greatly. One of the activities during the professional development session is the break-out of teacher candidates into small groups, with each participant being assigned to read/study an article related to poverty and working with diverse low-income students. (A bibliography for the articles is included in Appendix B.) Teacher candidates are asked to review their assigned article ahead of the orientation session. During the orientation itself, they are provided time to work in their respective groups to discuss and organize the most salient points about their article’s content. They are asked to become “experts” on their article and be prepared to teach/present it to the larger group. The articles were chosen for their relevance and especially to help the teacher candidates better understand the challenges of students from economically disadvantaged situations and offer some practical ways to help these students learn in the classroom setting. To facilitate the presentation, each group sharing an article is provided with a bag of materials to use to prepare their presentation. All materials have been strategically planned in advance to have varying amounts and types of materials. Some have a large number of materials, including poster board, construction paper, scissors, glue sticks and shiny decorative stickers; other bags contain fewer and far more rudimentary items, even broken crayons, partially dried up markers and newsprint paper or paper scraps. Bags are distributed randomly to groups who must work only with those materials provided to them to prepare for their presentation. During the presentations, it becomes obvious that there were varying amounts and types of materials

provided. The teacher candidates generally comment on how the different bags with varying resources brought home to them that students in their classrooms may not have the same or even adequate resources when asked to do their everyday schoolwork.

Because we do not have time to include book-length texts, we use carefully selected articles instead. The articles are chosen for their content and for their length. We also want them to know of and read a variety of authors who are knowledgeable and recognized for their work in

the area of impoverished students. We have found that several appropriate articles could be found in Educational Leadership as this journal has featured short, powerful and relevant articles for our topic. The teacher candidates are required to read one of these for their poverty presentation; however, all articles are made available to every participant so they can have access to each author’s work about students coming from diverse backgrounds. We chose to include an article by Ruby Payne (“Nine Powerful Practices”). In it she suggests such strategies such as building respectful relationships, making learning relational, teaching students to ask questions and more. Payne has also written a book about poverty, which is a bit long to use during our orientation. But if time permits, we include a chapter from Payne’s book, A Framework For Understanding Poverty, which discusses language (see Appendix B: Bibliography of Texts for the Diversity/Poverty Session). We also provide a variety of articles written by other noted authors (e.g. Eric Jensen) so that participants will have resources from which to draw. A glimpse of aspects of a few of the articles follow. Please refer to the articles themselves for more details (see Bibliography). The chapter by Payne discusses the importance of language in school and the difference between casual and academic register. Many young students entering school (and most teacher candidates) are familiar with the casual register, the everyday language used for living and for survival. However, the academic register may be less than familiar to students (and even sometimes to the soon-to-be-teachers) so this is a concept that we focus on and discuss at length. Academic or formal register consists of talking in complete sentences, being able to follow multi-step directions and using sophisticated terms for school work to summarize and compare/contrast ideas. The academic register is needed in order for students to succeed in academic work. It is the language of the standardized state testing that they will encounter and as well, an important concept for our teachers-to-be to understand and facilitate as they begin working in their classroom settings. They often seemed quite intrigued to consider language in this manner as we discuss this topic. Another article chosen, by Eric Jensen, is entitled “How Poverty Affects Classroom Engagement.” His premise is that there are some significant differences between middle-class and low-income students which teachers need to understand and in so doing they will be better able to help lessen the negative effects of being impoverished. A few of the differences include lesser health and nutrition, a far less developed vocabulary, and Jensen included a healthy discussion about the “growth” versus the fixed mindset. Jensen feels teachers are uniquely situated to help all students, especially those from impoverished backgrounds, to grow and develop by providing enriching experiences and sharing coping strategies regularly. He has sections entitled “What You Can Do/Change” for each difference he describes that provide recommended actions educators can take. Jensen has written two other books on this topic, including Engagement with Poverty in Mind (ASCD, 2013) and Teaching with Poverty in Mind (ASCD, 2009). See the listing of articles and the articles themselves for more specifics. After the presentations, the teacher candidates discuss how they felt about the supplies they were provided. As they discuss the variability in materials in their own presentation resources, they also talk about how they felt as they “figured out” the variable nature of the supplies provided to them. This leads to discussions about how classroom resources in their school settings are handled, including talk about how teachers can help students have or get the school supplies they need even if they are not able to provide these on their own and about the even broader topic of greater resources for students. Topics that come up include back-to-school items and but also learning materials and even breakfast items, reminiscent of Maslow’s Needs,

as well as how they are provided, distributed and organized at the various school sites; sometimes the ways of handling these bring up topics of equity and compassion. Some of the teacher candidates seemed to be amazed to be considering school supplies differently as items that can be hard to come by for some; many report they have never considered basic learning materials in quite this way. As time permits, we discuss the national children-in-poverty picture, reviewing the US data (https://childstats.gov). Participants are asked to review and analyze the data and look at what the data tells us, including trends and take-away ideas. Usually the discussion turns to that of children living in varying parental configurations (single parents versus two-parent families) and their experiences with these. We also discuss whether the national percentages by ethnicity reported are similar to that which they are experiencing in their own school sites. (See Appendix C).

Two activities are included to bring our initial orientation session to a close. A privilege walk (McIntosh, 1989, included as Appendix D) is the first part of our closing activities, an experience designed for adults to be able to see diversity in their own lives. This is one activity which we do NOT recommend doing with young students. To facilitate the privilege walk, a series of statements are read and participants step forward or backward in response to the statements. Everyone starts off at the same starting line but by the end of the experience, if participants respond honestly, they are almost always spread out across the room, depicting the variance in “privilege and need” that they themselves have experienced. Statements alternate between presenting a more privileged scenario followed by a more impoverished one; e.g. a/ If you had more than 50 books in your home growing up, take one step forward, b/if you ever had to skip a meal or go hungry because there was no food or money to buy food growing up, take one step back.) Visually seeing the differences across their peers brings home how diverse our own group of adults are and even more so, how diverse the classrooms in which they will teach are likely to be. The overwhelming majority of the participants responded at the conclusion of the session that this was the most memorable activity of the session. One teacher candidate stated that “the privilege walk was something that showed that people can overcome adversity. It showed us that diversity is everywhere.” Another one said that “the walk was so powerful and amazing. It showed the differences in our class, yet how we have all made it to the same place in life. It was very representative of how our classroom might look.” These experiences and comments help us to see that novice teachers are growing in their awareness of the diverse nature of the work they will be doing and the diverse nature of the students who they will be working with. They also begin to see the power they will hold to help support students on their learning journeys. To help the teacher candidates see the big picture of privilege and need, we show them a YouTube video entitled “If the World Were 100 People” (Cullan, 2010). We have found this to be a calm and quietly effective way of helping beginning teachers to realize how fortunate they are to have reliable resources, food, clothing and shelter. They often comment that not everyone in the world is quite so lucky. Slowly they come to realize that they are uniquely positioned to positively influence students’ welfare, well-being and development, and see that for many of their students, school is often their primary source of consistent support, encouragement and routine. While it is true that many decisions in schooling reside with the administration, it is still the classroom teacher who can daily boost student confidence, set a welcoming and accepting tone and guide students to grow and thrive. Many had not quite realized how truly influential

they can be in the life of their students; we enjoy this final activity because love to close our session in an upbeat, encouraging manner.

Ongoing Discussions –The Professional Development Goes On

We believe learning takes place best over multiple sessions of professional development for any topic and this is equally the case for our diversity orientation. To continue the work of learning new information developed in the initial session, the teacher candidates return to their work in the classroom, and the conversation continues using a collaborative group discussion board. Here participants are expected to make connections about the information from the initial orientation session to share with other participants related to what they are observing at their own teaching sites. They post their own original comments about initiatives such as weekend (food) backpacks, in-school dental visits, school supply drives, teachers helping individual students and much more. Slowly the teacher candidates begin to understand and personally embrace that they are teaching students who are living in economically disadvantaged situations and can be boosted up by caring educators. Teacher candidates also respond to the postings of others, creating connections, questions/wonderings and observations for all to see. This seems to bring home many of the shared ideas and helps the teachers-to-be internalize what they are learning about diverse and impoverished learners. One participant observed, “It’s pretty crazy how so many students have such difficult lives at home, but then show up to school with such positive attitudes and determination to learn. I know it means a lot to them to have their teachers always there for them.”

Our hope is that this orientation, with its activities and follow-up discussions, will help beginning teachers to see their full potential and also that of their students, so they can respond sensitively in working with their diverse students in their own classrooms. The words of Susan Neuman both resonate with us and motivate us in our work of preparing beginning teachers: We try to be leaders who “encourage faculty to be mindful of themselves as teachers, mindful of their kids, not just as learners but as people” (Neuman, 2016, p. 29). We believe that with knowledge each of us has the power to positively influence the outcomes of young learners, especially those who, through no fault of their own, are impoverished, to fully realize their best selves. This seems highly reminiscent of the words of the late Christa McAuliffe (d. 1986) –“I touch the future. I teach.”

Dr. Karen Bates is a professor at Emporia State University. She may be reached at kbates@emporia.edu

Dr. Deborah Larson is a professor at Emporia State University. She may be reached at dlarson3@emporia.edu

Appendix A Anticipation Guide –Working with at-risk students, especially those from impoverished conditions

What do you know about the topic of poverty in schools? In the left column circle true or false based on what you believe about each statement. You will complete the right true/false column later.

True or False 1. Research studies confirm the existence of a “culture of poverty.” True or False 2. Children growing up in lower SES conditions have a smaller vocabulary than middle and upper-class children but this does not affect their risk for academic failure. True or False 3. Parents of children in poverty attend fewer school functions and volunteer less in schools because they care less about their children’s education. True or False 4. Everyone has a distinct fund of knowledge developed from life experiences; people tend to assume that everyone thinks the way they do. True or False 5. Drug and alcohol abuse is not more prevalent in impoverished families as compared to families in other socioeconomic groups. True or False 6. Those in poverty who speak language variants of English other than Standard American English are linguistically deficient. True or False 7. No significant learning takes place without a significant relationship. True or False 8. Realizing the differences in the funds of knowledge does not help educators understand the contrasts across socio-economic conditions. True or False 9. Low SES children who demonstrate cognitive difficulty such as poor attention span, distractibility, lack of selfmonitoring and problem-solving skills, cannot be taught to improve their cognitive capacity. True or False 10. Classroom misbehaviors often occur in students from poverty because they usually lack at-home stability and have not been taught a variety of appropriate responses to stress or social factors. True or False 11. Mental models, such as stories, analogies or visual representations, help students better understand abstract concepts and should be used regularly when teaching children from disadvantaged backgrounds. True or False 12. Teachers should not explicitly teach the hidden rules of school but should allow students to figure these out on their own.

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

True or False

Appendix B - Bibliography of texts for Poverty/Diversity session

Gorski, P. (2008). The myth of the culture of poverty. Educational Leadership, 65(7) , 32-36. Jensen, E. (2013). How poverty affects classroom engagement. Educational Leadership, 70(8), 24-30. Payne, R. (1996). A framework for understanding poverty (4 th revised edition) (chapter 4 –Characteristics of generational poverty, pp. 47-62). Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc. Payne, R. (2008). Nine powerful strategies. Educational Leadership, 65(7), 48-52. Templeton, B.L. (2013). “Why is that childso rude?” Educational Leadership, 70(8), 72-74.

Appendix C - Children in Poverty US figures (information accessed from https://childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables.asp)

Overall total number US children Number of children in poverty (ages 6-17) % of the population

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 73.7 million 73.6 million 73.6 million 73.6 million 73.7 million

16.0 million 15.8 million 15.5 million 14.5 million 13.3 million

21.8% 21.5% 21.1% 19.7% 18.0%

Breakdown by ethnicity African American 38.4% 33.4% 37.3% 33.6% 30.9% Hispanic 33.8% 33.0% 31.9% 28.9% 26..6% Caucasian 12.3% 13.4% 12.3% 12.1% 10.8%

Based on poverty threshold (2016) of $24,339 (for 2 parents and 2 dependent children) Percent in extreme poverty* 9.7% 9.9% 9.3% 8.9% 8.2%

Married vs. single parent

Comparison by status of the parents 11.2% vs. 47.6% 10.1% vs. 47.4% 10.6% vs. 46.4%

9.8% vs. 42.6%

8.4% vs. 39.0%

Breakdown by ethnicity African American - married vs. single 14.9% vs. 53.9%

10.3% vs. 49.9%

13.3% vs. 52.9%

11.0% vs. 46.9%

10.7% vs. 45.6%

Hispanic –married vs. single

23.6% vs. 55.4%

19.6% vs. 53.2%

21.2% vs. 53.3%

19.5% vs. 48.7%

17.0% vs. 48.3%

Caucasian –married vs. single

6.2% vs. 37.3%

6.6% vs. 39.6%

6.4% vs. 35.7%

6.0% vs. 34.8%

4.8% vs. 34.3%

Comparison by geographic region Northeast 17.5% 18.2% 17.8% 18.4% 15.6% Midwest 17.0% 20.1% 18.8% 17.2% 17.3% West 19.5% 20.8% 21.2% 19.0% 17.0% South 22.9% 24.2% 23.8% 22.1%

*Extreme poverty is below 50% of the poverty threshold; In 2016 that was $12,170 income level for a family of 4

Appendix D - Privilege Walk (We amended this to shorten it slightly) –designed to develop an awareness of personal privileges associated with race, class, gender and ethnicity and the intricacies of privilege; a powerful demonstration exercise that should receive discussion time afterward. This activity helps demonstrate how social identifiers which are out of the participant’s own control have affected their privilege and cultural experiences. Requires a level of trust to have been developed. Have students all stand at a baseline in a large area such as a gymnasium or large room/space, shoulder to shoulder in a straight line. They are instructed to listen carefully to each sentence and take a step as directed if the sentence applies to them. They should be encouraged to be as honest as they can be. Statements: 1. If your ancestors were forced to come to the USA not by choice, take one step back. 2. If your primary ethnic identity is American, take one step forward. 3. If you have ever been called names because of your race, class, ethnicity or gender, take one step back. 4. If your parents are educated professionals (doctors, lawyers, company executives, etc.) take one step forward. 5. If you were raised in an area where there was blight, drug activity, prostitution, etc. take one step back. 6. If your family owned the house where you grew up, take one step forward. 7. If you started school speaking a language other than English, take one step back. 8. If you had more than 50 books in your home growing up, take one step forward. 9. If you ever had to skip a meal or go hungry because there was not enough money to buy food when you were growing up, take one step back. 10. If you went on regular family vacations, take one step forward. 11. If one of your parents was unemployed or laid off, not by choice, take one step back. 12. If you attend private school or summer camp growing up, take one step forward. 13. If you have ever been homeless or if your family ever had to move because they could not afford the rent, take one step back. 14. If you have ever been offered a good job because of your connection to a friend or family member, take one step forward. 15. If you were ever discouraged from academics or jobs because of race, class, gender or ethnicity, take one step back. 16. If you were told that you were beautiful, smart and capable by your parents, take one step forward. 17. If you were ever denied employment because of your race, class, gender or ethnicity, take on step back. 18. If you have inherited or are likely to inherit money or property, take one step forward. 19. If you ever felt as though members of your community were feared or unwanted members of American society, please take one step back. 20. If you were encouraged to attend college by your parents, take one step forward. 21. If you were raised in a single parent household, take one step back.

22. If you were ever treated poorly or less fairly than others because of your race, class, gender or ethnicity, take one step back. 23. If your parents told you that you could be anything you wanted to be, take one step forward. 24. If you have ever been made uncomfortable by a joke related to your race, gender or ethnicity but felt unsafe to confront the situation, take one step back. 25. If you saw, while growing up, members of your race, gender and ethnicity well represented in a range of roles in the culture (books, toys/playthings, on TV and in the media), take one step forward. Immediately afterward, if possible, have participants sit where they are and allow a few minutes for reflection, for them to consider what they learned (and especially what was learned about the impact of privilege that they did not know before). The latter would more specifically guide their thinking, the former is a more open-ended way to enter a post activity conversation.

Process questions to guide the post-activity discussion:  What do you see around the room/space? Who do you see in the front? In the middle? In the back?  In what ways do the people near you reflect or not reflect your culture/community?  How do you feel about where you are relative to the others in the room? How do you feel about where the others are in relation to you?  What does your position in the room say about the societal messages about your worth and the worth of the people with similar placements (privilege levels)?

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What went through your mind as you moved forward and backward? What were you feeling? Which of the statements did you find the most meaningful and eye-opening? Why? Which of the statements did you find painful and/or hurtful? Why? Consider whether privilege has affected you. How has it affected not only you but also your family and your community, in terms of opportunity and access? How has privilege affected you, your family and your community, in terms of opportunity and access? How are social class and privilege tied to prejudice and discrimination?

References Cullan, B. (Dec. 11, 2010). If the world were 100 people (video). Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6eTr4ldDyg Comber, B. (Sept-October, 2016). Research that makes a difference: Rekindling optimism and speaking back to deficit. Literacy Today, 34(2), 12-13. Kansas Poverty Rate information, retrieved from https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-report/kansas-2016 report/ Kansas K-12 Report Generator, retrieved at https://ksreportcard.ksde.org Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396. Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper and Row. Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3 rd ed.). Delhi, India: Pearson Education. McIntosh, P. (July/August 1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible backpack. Peace & Freedom (a publication of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Philadelphia, PA), 0-12. (The Privilege Walk is adapted from the work and writing of McIntosh). Neuman, S.B. (2016). Code red: The danger of data-driven instruction. Educational Leadership, 74(3), 25-29. Oklahoma High School Graduation Rates, retrieved from https://sde.ok.gov/documents/2015-09-25/oklahoma-public-school-graduation-rates Oklahoma Poverty Rate information, retrieved from https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-report/oklahoma-2016-report Oklahoma Department of Education, retrieved from https://sde.ok.gov. Suitts, S. (2015). A new majority research bulletin: Low income students now a majority in the nation’s public schools. Atlanta: Southern Education Foundation. Suitts, S. (2016). Students facing poverty: The new majority. Educational Leadership, 74(3), 36- 40. Suitts, S. (2013). Update: A new majority: Low income students in the south and nation. Atlanta: Southern Education Foundation (available at www.southerneducation.org). Suitts, S. (2007). A new majority: Low income students in the south’s public schools. Atlanta: Southern Education Foundation (available at www.southerneducation.org). The Teachers College Conceptual Framework (2016). Emporia State University. Emporia, Kansas. Available at https://www.emporia.edu/teach/dean/conceptual-framework.html