E01: Introduction and Defining Equal Opportunity in Classroom

Transcription by Audio.com The speaker, Emily Kanzer, shares her background as an education studies student and former teacher in the public school system. She discusses the lack of equal opportunity in math education due to predefined teaching methods that may not suit all students. She explores theories of equality, like democratic and utilitarian perspectives, and reflects on the concept of equity in education. Emily emphasizes the importance of individualized teaching strategies, building relationships with students, and creating a supportive classroom environment, especially during challenging times like the pandemic. She highlights the significance of understanding students' needs and fostering a sense of community in the classroom. of background. Here I'm Emily Kanzer. I am a second year ed studies master's student at Tufts University and I also was an educator in the public schools of Brookline system for six years, only one of which I was a classroom math teacher. The other five I was a special ed paraprofessional, which just kind of means like an extra helper who has a caseload of kids that they kind of follow around to classes and tries not to embarrass them too much. So yeah, but that is who I am. I live in Somerville, like I have for a bit. And one question is like, how would you personally define equal opportunity in math education? Oh boy, part of me feels like math education the way it is currently is like almost the opposite of equal opportunity, right? Because you have a really defined way of moving through things and a prescribed order of things and ways that might not like apply to all students, but they're expected to learn a certain thing a certain way anyway. I don't know, like I feel like there isn't equal opportunity in math when there's so much baggage around that. That didn't really answer the question, but I'm like, if you are to define it, like how would you define it? Like giving people equal opportunity in my math classroom. I feel like it would just mean, I guess, to have access to the ability to think mathematically, to have access to the ability to think mathematically, which for a lot of people is kind of blocked by a lot of emotional things, feelings like they can't do math for whatever reason, knowledge of other adults in their life that they respect that can't do math or something. There's a lot of really interesting things that seem to keep kids from being able to access this imaginary world of math. And equal opportunity would mean that those barriers were somehow lifted, I suppose. Yeah, that's great. So one thing I learned from the synthesis class was they're talking about examples of how would people define equality, like the theories of equality. So I can talk about two of them. One is the democratic and other one utilitarian. So the democratic, you would say everybody would get an apple no matter where they come from. So even if they are very full and they don't need an apple, everyone would get it, right? Yeah. And then the utilitarian would say that if somebody's hungry, they would be given three apples versus if somebody's less hungry, they would be given one apple. So you could just give me examples. How would you approach trying to practice giving every student, teaching every student? Well, I think it's interesting because equity is such a word right now with education. I've been thinking about this, that there's this real spectrum of it, right? So you have people all the way on the Donald Trump side of things that think that equity is a threat to equality. Whatever equality is, it's probably the democratic, everyone gets an apple. That if you're using this utilitarian, some people get something that threatens them. To this other side that's a little more progressive, a lot more progressive, that instead of talking about equity, you're thinking about liberation, I guess. And then there's this spectrum in between. So I mean, throughout my math education, I don't think... It's funny because equality is a math term. And the reason I do math and I like math is because that doesn't exist in real life. It's a concept, right? It's a made up. Nothing is truly equal unless you're in math class. And so I don't know if equality is even like, I don't know, on my radar for that reason. Because I've always been a different learner and there's something really cool about people thinking differently. So I don't really want them all to be the same. But I don't know if that's what equality means. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe like what kind of teaching strategies you would find yourself using in the classroom? In the classroom, just like teach students or like thinking about like, you know, like, if you're like giving every student equal amount of time or like the attention they would require, or like, how would you approach the things? Well, do you want me to speak from the perspective of a classroom teacher or the paraprofessional? Because there's two kind of separate approaches to that. Any one you feel like. Okay, well, I mean, it wasn't easier to give people time as a paraprofessional, because there is another adult leading the class. And you could really travel about and get, you know, make sure you're seeing kids that you haven't been seeing. And it was always very important to me in that role that the students on my caseload didn't feel othered by being in special education. So, I would like kind of go around and visit kids that weren't on my caseload. So, I mean, that felt like that's a lot more literal, is you're able to like actually dedicate time to individuals because you're walking around and helping. As far as when I was classroom teaching, I think a lot of it comes down to giving opportunities for students to be able to voice their experience in class is really good. We did a lot of projects that ended up being fun and creative. I think there was always like a balance of doing the curriculum and then trying to have some fun. It was also a pandemic era, so it was like all a mess. And well, like a big part of it for me was like not giving homework because during that year, especially like people were dealing with a lot of really difficult stuff at home. And it's not really my place to know who has access to that. It's also like a weird thing in math education that homework is always like practice. Which is weird because math is like a very clicky thing. Like you either get it or it clicks, right? So, you're either practicing something over and over again, you know how to do. Or you're like just feeling really threatened by the homework. So, I just felt like that was most of the kids would be in one of those categories and neither of them needs to have that extra stress. So, that was like a big part of, I guess that's a way of honoring all of them equally. So, it's just being no homework for anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's also like a huge aspect which is just knowing your students and knowing what they need. I think if you're able to have a relationship, like a real relationship where someone trusts you and they know you see them as like a person, they'll advocate for themselves a lot of the time. Students will feel comfortable saying what they need. Like that's a big thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately. That a lot of teaching is very teacher-centered where I am supposed to be planned and ready. And it's like you can't really plan for a relationship. You build that with the person. And you have, I guess that's part of it. You kind of build a community where you understand each other and then it becomes easier to like honor people's humanity. I mean a big part of that, I don't know, I was just going back to pandemic year because that's when I was classroom teaching. But there was this thing where they all had to sit face and forward and like spread out. And they had to be there for two weeks for contact tracing. Like you had, you could not have them move because if one of them got sick, they wanted to know who they were sitting next to. And so I did this crazy, because they had to sit there all day. Like crazy, crazy survey for all of them trying to do this like logic puzzle of who should I put next to who so that nobody is having a difficult time at school. So nobody feels upset. So nobody feels like, I don't know, like it was like this massive puzzle of trying to get to know them when I didn't know them, right? And like a survey is not really going to help you. But trying to figure out who's friends with who and how many friends you got to be near to feel comfortable at school. I don't know how many is a distraction, like whatever. So that was like, I think it comes down to relationships.