Creating Safe Learning Environments, Part 2
Schools today are experiencing a multitude of changes, challenging educational leaders to solve the complexity of needs for teachers and students. Articles, research, and books crowd the bookstores describing the compelling and complex sociological and economic issues impacting the school.
As a former elementary school teacher, guidance counselor and administrator in higher education, I recalled my passion for working in education and wondered how I would cope with the current issues facing educators. Focusing on changes facing schools is critical since today’s students are our future leaders. Changes impacting the way students learn and work together are causing them to feel vulnerable and unsafe, and cannot continue to be ignored. When students feel isolated because they look or act different, survival to be recognized is their first priority. A critical change facing schools today is the multicultural explosion emerging, forming the future state of this country, where the minority will become the majority within the next twenty years.
Society, in general, is not prepared to cope with the changes that this new majority will bring. The influx of ethnic groups comprised collectively of African Americans, Latinos, Asians, American Indians and Alaskan Natives will become 46% of the school-age population by the year 2020. This emerging population of children of color is rapidly emerging in the public schools, especially in the suburban areas. These diverse groups bring a complexity of different needs into the schools where teachers are generally under-prepared to cope in the classroom.
Schools are beginning to experience the impact of change with students bringing diverse needs and different attitudes about society in general.
In my continuing research, I find that increasing tensions among people of different races and cultures compounds the onset of hate crimes and violence in schools. Issues that go beyond race and ethnicity indicate an increase in sexual harassment cases impacting the elementary schools.
There is a recent emergence of sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits being filed each year in schools. Violent behavior in schools, causing deaths and injury to students and teachers, is forcing educators to build fortresses to protect students and teachers.
Education is facing an additional change; with 3 million teachers, counselors, and administrators, working in K-12 schools only 5 percent are from racially diverse groups, down from 12 percent in the 1960’s. This decrease in minority teachers distorts children’s images about our society, relating to authority and leadership. These images form attitudes and behaviors in schools that could possibly impact career decisions, work ethics, and values in the workplace. A similar parallel process of societal issues is occurring in corporations where senior executives are experiencing the challenges in managing a diverse workforce. Emerging issues in workplace violence demonstrate additional pressures on managers and leaders to create safe work environments.
There seem to be observable connections between the issues in education and business surrounding the context of valuing and appreciating differences. Basically how people treat each other in corporations are identifiable similar to how students treat each-other in schools. The issues of inclusion are consistently in every facet of our lives. A resulting assumption could be made that many of the employees in today’s workplace have students attending either public school or college.
Working with schools and educators seeking ways to create safe learning environments was motivated by my experiences working for two major corporations. Watching people devalue, discriminate, exclude, humiliate and disrespect each other because of differences pushes my patience to question what kind of environment our future leaders will face when they enter the workforce. School violence and the recent Columbine incident tipped my frustration due to my experience in diversity training. This incident appeared to be an example of students feeling subordinate in an institution that was not prepared to cope with or identify behavior patterns of exclusion.
Consulting brings me in contact with employees who experience emotional pain because they do not feel valued by their manager, supervisor or the company in general. Employee pain is experiencing derogatory and slanderous words related to difference—transmitted across a fax machine or your e-mail. Employee pain is when a person demonstrates a cultural preference in how they wear their hair or wardrobe. They are requested to change their style because it doesn’t follow the company norms. Poorly administrated performance reviews causes employee pain when misperceptions are communicated on how the employee met their objectives because stereotypical attitudes blinded the managers from seeing the value that the person brings to the workplace. Do we want students to face there same oppressive situations or do we want to train them early to carry over into the workforce values and behaviors that will decrease violence and lawsuits? More than 50,000 at the U.S. Office of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) totaling over $80 million dollars in monetary settlements. In addition, over 45,000 sex-based charges were filed paying out approximately $130 million dollars in the past two years. These monetary settlements do not include benefits received from litigation.
While corporations allocate millions of dollars in diversity training programs to ensure that employees respect and value each other, it seems blinders are on in schools facing similar issues in coping with differences. Is there an unconscious denial about the demographic and diverse changes impacting schools?
I question whether interventions designed to transform the attitudes and behaviors of adults in the workplace would be more effective if the process started with students in public and undergraduate schools. Helping teachers create safe learning environments could possibly influence students to transform positive attitudes and behaviors in appreciating and valuing differences in the workplace. Providing educators with information on the changing workplace heightens a sense of urgency. Positive awareness of differences across race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, economic, and peer identity increases positive understanding. Dialoguing across differences in the classroom will create environments where healing of misperceptions take place. There is a multitude of issues resulting from the multicultural explosion. Feeling safe in schools is the precursor to building and strengthening relationships between educators, students and parents.
Typically when diverse groups enter racially homogeneous environments people make assumptions about the similarities these groups bring before differences are acknowledged and appreciated. Our comfort zones are threatened when we face differences because it is easier to discuss our similarities. Ignoring differences in the classroom perpetuates stereotypes and myths about diverse groups.
Bridging the gaps in valuing and appreciating differences in all students begins the process of creating safe learning environments. The premise is, students will feel safe to learn when honor and appreciation of differences are reciprocated in the classroom.
Educators are forced to seek new paradigms that will help manage the influx of change affecting how we value and treat each other as human beings. This challenges teachers and administrators to adapt new skills in managing classroom behavior. Teaching was viewed as the one altruistic profession where one could count on receiving immediate rewards for helping children to learn. Unfortunately, these changes have begun to place a heavy cloud on most teachers who typically have a passion to teach children to the best of their ability. Seeking ways to help our children cope and learn in schools and function in an increasingly diverse work environment and society in general in critical. Differences in age, income level, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and communication styles, challenge leaders to incorporate skills to help workers value and appreciate differences. Are diversity programs working to solve this problem? I am not sure. I read articles, reports and case studies about companies who are succeeding in managing diversity. I applaud the efforts of these companies to create change. However, creating interventions or changing paradigms in schools to help students learn the skills in valuing differences prior to entering the work force is a responsibility for every stakeholder in helping this country survive in the new century.
© 2005 Barbara Collins | Site by
Comment on this article