"Let empathy be my guide."
Subject Areas
- Advanced Placement American Government and Politics
- Advanced Placement Comparative Government and Politics
- United States History
- World History
- World Studies (East Asia)
Ecological Portfolio Task 1: My Identity
“What role does my identity play in my classroom and in relationship with my students?”
Dr. Gholdy Muhammad writes in Unearthing Joy of our responsibility to "reflect and unlearn" in order to care about one another and to want to see ourselves and everyone around us thrive. Dr. Muhammad writes that in order to acheive this state of mind, we must learn about the beauty in ourselves and in everyone else and to concern ourselves with what the Earth needs. As an educator, part of that journey means confronting an uncomfortable truth: that the world around me and our communities have often been ordered in such a way so as to stand as obtacles to others thriving and to deny their beauty. In order to acheive an appreciation for the beauty in ourseves and everyone around us and to help build what Jeremy Rifkin might refer to as an empathic community, I must start my journey by understanding who and what I am and what my place is in the order of things.
I am a white male. While this is not the only identity I have, it is the one most easily discerned by my colleagues, my students, and the parents of my students. This means my life has been defined in part by the privileges associated with that identity. But it also means that I, like many who share my identity, have an implicit bias towards other whites. This is not a bias I’ve ever tried to cultivate. This is not a bias that gives me pride. And, until I started examining the assumptions that inform my opinions about others around me, it wasn't even a bias that I was consiously aware of. This is called an implicit bias, which the APA defines as, "a negative attitude, of which one is not consciously aware, against a specific social group." Our implicit biases tend to come from exposure to stereotypes in our cultural and educational institutions, family and friend-groups, news media, and popular culture and these biases influence us in often subtle ways to act and form expectations according to these stereotypes. Since I have become aware of my implicit bias, it has been a source of discomfort. But it is there, nonetheless and ignoring it or pretending it isn't there does me no favors. In fact, ignoring that implicit bias makes me a worse teacher - both to students that share my identity and to those who do not. So I have set about trying to deal with mine. That is because part of my responsibility as a teacher is to be aware of my own bias and to work to reduce its effect and even, hopefully, to eliminate it so that I can be a better servant to all of my students as opposed to only those who look like me. Another part of my responsibility as a teacher, and indeed a white male, is to help my students who share my identity to understand that privilege and implicit bias are real and they are both caused by and reinforce the same systems built on injustice.
I am fond of telling my students – the older ones anyway – not to be like me. When I was 22, I dropped out of college. I threw away that opportunity born of my privilege. I spent the next ten years living as a college drop-out. For eight of those years I lived without a car. A few times I was close to homelessness. And when I finally decided to take back control of my life and finish school, I had to work nights and go to school during the day. It was a very hard existence. But at least I got a second chance. I encountered many wonderful and supportive teachers and administrators and friends. But if I am being honest, I have to admit that part of my present success – indeed part of the reason I got that second chance at all – is because I am white and male. After all, the evidence shows us that non-white, non-male people who might have made the same mistakes I did never got the same second chance I benefitted from. And while that doesn’t diminish the hard work I put in to graduate magna cum laude and earn a bachelor’s degree after age thirty while working six nights a week and go on all the way to a PhD, it does mean I owe my success in some part to the luck of my birth.
Most of the students I teach are white, and many are male. The least I can do is as a white male who benefitted from my privilege is to work within the context of the courses I teach to make my white students aware of the reality that they enjoy privileges because of those identities. Not so that they can feel ashamed or feel like oppressors - most of them would not consciously oppress anyone. But making them aware of things like implicit bias and privilege is important so that they can come to realize that our entire society was built for their benefit and that every system within it, from education to employment to finance to law enforcement to real estate, operates with that privilege baked in. I must also teach those that are skeptical of the existence of their privilege - as I had to learn myself - that privilege doesn't mean theirs' or their families' lives have been easy or that they don't work hard or face difficulties and setbacks; it simply means that by virtue of their identity they do not face the same challenges and obtacles to success that others who do not share their identity face. It’s then up to my students to decide what to do with that information. If I have done my job as an educator well, it means they will take that information forward in life and use it to pursue a course of justice that mandates the dismantling of the privilege within those systems. Because I am a white male, I can teach this more easily to others like me in a society permeated with implicit bias in our favor. And as a white male, indeed as a person, it is my obligation to make my community a fairer place, even though (and especially since) I may have benefitted from the lack of fairness though that lack of fairness is something I never knowingly contributed to, worked for, or sought.
This image was created by me using Canva's AI "Magic Media" image generator with the following prompt: "A white, male teacher with glasses and a short beard works towards fairness and justice in the classroom in the surrealist style." It took about forty iterations to arrive at this image. To me the image is aspirational - when I look at it I think how a teacher like me can use their training to overcome their implicit bias in order to help the students around them rise above the injustice of our present society and to elevate our country to a higher state of justice. But not only that - the image also shows how a teacher like me can overcome my own implicit bias and then use my privilege as a white male to deliver the message to my mostly white students that we all need to be aware of our biases and our privilege so that we can work to dismantle the systems of injustices in our lives that perpetuate that privilege and those biases and that if we all do that we can all rise above our present troubles together.
If you want to learn more about implicit bias, you can visit Harvard's Project Implicit and take the Implicit Bias Test. But if you do, be prepared that the results may cause you to realize you have implicit bias and to reflect on your own implicit biases - and that this realization and reflection are (and should be) often uncomfortable.
Task 3 - Community Asset Map
A map of community-based nonprofit organizations that serve my school's community.
- The Alpharetta and Milton Branch Libraries - branches of the Fulton County Library System that offer safe spaces to read, check out books, access the internet, or hold meetings and/or study sessions.
- Atlanta GLOW - Atlanta Growing Leadership of Women's mission is to encourage, educate, and equip low-income and underserved women ages 14-25 to be "thriving, self-sustaining leaders and effective agents of economic growth within their communities."
- Atlanta NAACP - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in 1909 to advance the causes of equality and social and economic justice for African Americans. The NAACP maintains a chapter in North Fulton which offers meetings and legal services for those who feel they have been the target of discrimination.
- Bethesda Community Clinic - The Bethesda Community Clinic is a faith-based nonprofit dedicated to "providing quality, affordable health care services to the uninsured and under-insured", particularly primary care services.
- Georgia Department of Veterans Services - The Georgia Department of Veterans Services offers medical, mental health, educational, assisted living, and memorial services to veterans, their caregivers, and their families. They maintain a field office in Canton, GA.
- NFCC Food Pantry - The North Fulton Community Charities Food Pantry offers food assistance to needy persons and families in North Fulton, "serving over 125 homes daily, offering non-perishable foods and fresh fruit, vegetables and meats, as well as toiletries, diapers, and other household necessities."
- PFLAG Sandy Springs - Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays mission is to "create a caring, just, and affirming world for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people in the Sandy Springs, Georgia area." PFLAG holds meetings at Congregation B'nai Torah.
Ecological Portfolio Task 4 - Context of Teaching & Learning Analysis
I teach in a suburban high school in Milton/Alpharetta which the United States Office of Management and Budget designates as part of Metro Atlanta. My school serves students in grades 9-12 and their families. Regarding the demographics of student enrollment, my school is 65.7% white, according to data from the Georgia Department of Education. Since last year, I teach Advanced Placement (AP) American Government & Politics as well as AP Comparative Government & Politics. The vast majority of my students are in the 9th grade, but I also teach some 11th and 12th graders. All but one of my AP American Government classes are year-long courses, and the remaining AP American Government class as well as my only AP Comparative Government class are semester classes. The semester classes primarily serve 11th and 12th graders. In a typical week, the courses meet five times a week for 51–52-minute periods.
At my school, teachers are grouped into professional learning communities (PLCs) within their respective departments. PLCs are made up of teachers who teach the same subject and are created for the purposes of allowing those teachers to observe one another, aid in lesson planning, share course content, share best practices, examine results of student evaluations, and strategize to improve educational outcomes. I am the only teacher who teaches my subjects, so I am in two PLCs consisting of only one teacher, which is me. But my department is incredibly supportive and several teachers I work regularly with, including my mentor teacher, are always accessible and willing to share their insights and/or materials.
The courses I teach are both AP, which means that although high school students in Georgia are required to have taken and passed a course on government in order to graduate, students which take my courses have elected to do so – these courses are not themselves required courses. I was hired in-part specifically to teach these courses as my college-level teaching experience and my advanced degree (PhD) in political science with a focus on comparative government makes me highly qualified to do so. Because my courses are AP, the content is geared largely towards helping to maximize student performance on the AP exams, which can help them be more competitive in their college applications and even earn them college credit. Since doing well on the AP exams is a defining goal of my courses, I follow the College Board’s outlines for content as well as the structure of the curriculum.
I use textbooks which have been vetted by College Board and approved by Fulton County, including American Government: Stories of a Nation, 1st Edition by Scott Abernathy and Karen Waples (2019) and Introduction to Comparative Politics: Political Challenges and Changing Agendas, 7th Edition by Mark Kesselman, Joel Krieger, William A. Joseph (2015). Only the Abernathy and Waples text has a digital copy accessible to my students through their Classlink account. In terms of supporting students, I work closely with counselors, social workers, and parents to do my best to ensure each student receives an equal chance at an education, which may include identifying and documenting special accommodations like extra time on tests or small-group testing. I have witnessed other members of my department doing the same. I also work hard to make my classroom space welcoming even though at 35 desks, it is a tight squeeze. I decorate the walls and ceiling with artwork (often student-created) to create a stimulating and fun atmosphere – colleagues, parents, and students often compliment my room.
Most of my students are 9th graders and so usually fall into the range of 14-15 years old. My largest class has 35 students, while my smallest class has 15. Since most have not been evaluated by our counselors or teachers, any students with 504s or IEPs from middle school have those accommodations carry over until we have had time to observe and meet with parents to discuss them. Because my classes are elective and AP, I tend not to get English learners, though I did have a student last year from Taiwan who struggled with some of the more advanced vocabulary. So, we worked out a solution that included allowing her to record my presentations and lectures and to keep a translator on her desk. There are English learners in other classes taught by my colleagues, and I have seen them work hard to procure native-language texts and supplementary materials as well as working with our ESOL specialist to add another layer of support.
Our school culture, including expected habits and desired behavior, are summed up by the acronym BRIDGE (brave, respectful, involved, determined, generous, and engaged). Signage displaying these expectations is in every classroom as well as on the walls in the hallways. This complements the school and county policies, including disciplinary policy, outlined in the parent & student handbook found on our high school website. I have been relieved to see that discipline appears to be handed out in a proportionate way and I haven’t witnessed any microaggressions that I am aware of - but I recognize that my opportunity to observe such behaviors has been limited and that research strongly suggests that the opposite may in fact be true. So this warrants future study. One of the potential pitfalls that Carter et al (2017) point to is white educators shying away from talking about race or about the legacies of slavery and conquest and how those legacies continue to influence our institutions. I have been happy to observe many times that my colleagues in the department have made every effort to approach this topic head-on and with an eye to the culturally and historically relevant educational (CHRE) approach advocated by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad (2023) and others. In fact, when the Georgia General Assembly was debating the so-called “divisive content” legislation and I feared this would have a chilling effect on education, the leaders in our department made it clear that we were to continue teaching the standards – including those related to slavery, conquest, perceptions of race, discrimination, and civil rights – and that if challenged in so doing, we would have their unequivocal support.
One thing I would like our department to explore more fully is the concept of the equity audit (Skerrett & Smagorinsky 2023). Taking this course as an ongoing part of my MAT has introduced me to this concept, and I am trying to think of constructive ways I could introduce this concept to my colleagues – assuming they are not already aware of it. I would also like to build in the classroom charter activity into my AP government courses as I believe this is a natural fit and a good way to get the students thinking about governance while also taking ownership of their space. Finally, I would like to take further steps towards working critically with students and parents who are Asian, Black, Hispanic, and/or Native American in order to avoid the falling into the trap of inadvertently contributing to continued inequality, as discussed by Dr. David Stovall (2016).
Works cited:
Carter, P.L.; Skiba, R.; Arredondo, M.I.; Pollock, M. (2017) “You can’t fix what you don’t look at: Acknowledging race and addressing racial discipline disparities”, Urban Education, 52:2, 207-235, DOI: 10.1177/0042085916660350.
Muhammad, Gholdy (2023) Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Curriculum and Instruction, Scholastic Professional.
Skerrett, Allison & Smagorinsky, Peter (2023) Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times: Identity, Inquiry, and Social Action at the Heart of Instruction, Corwin – Sage Publishing.
Stovall, David (2016) “Schools suck, but they're supposed to: Schooling, incarceration and the future of education”, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 13:1, 20-22, DOI: 10.1080/15505170.2016.1138252.
Ecological Portfolio Task 5 - Classroom Facilitation and Leadership
Classroom facilitation is essential to creating a positive and equitable learning environment for both the students and teachers. According to a recognized classroom facilitation expert the late Harry K. Wong, teachers must establish routines and practices early in the school year in order to be successful (2009). This includes creating a list of expectations, guidelines, and rules for the classroom. C.J. Hardin also writes that, “The ultimate goal of classroom management should not be on simple obedience, but on having students behave appropriately because they know it’s the right thing to do and because they can understand how their actions affect other people” (2007, p. 142). Interviews with my mentor teacher have also helped me to crystalize a classroom facilitation philosophy that builds on relationships as a way to help foster equity (Hall 2024).
Ian Hadley (1999) conducted a controlled experiment to test the hypothesis that a classroom charter has the potential classroom facilitation benefits of improved discipline, enhanced self-esteem, and improved learning. Hadley’s research shows that by focusing the charter on ways of creating a positive learning environment and by referring to the charter often, both when rules were upheld and when rules were broken, that the charter could serve as a democratic approach to classroom facilitation. As Hackett (2024) shows us in the presentation on classroom charters, approaching classroom facilitation in this way also gives students a sense of ownership about classroom rules. Additionally, because a charter deals with subjects like rights and responsibilities, it can be an excellent way of breaking the ice for lessons about the social contract and about the creation of our constitution in an American Government class. Finally, a classroom charter can help teachers focus on managing and overcoming implicit bias. Afterall, as Skrla et. al. have demonstrated in their research (2004), inequity in education is persistent and engaging students in the process of creating a charter can have the effect of allowing each student an opportunity to have their voice heard.
For the purposes of our classroom charter, we will build on the behavior expectations captured in our BRIDGE acronym: brave, respectful, involved, determined, generous, and engaged. When creating this charter, my students will be asked to consider expectations they have of the instructor, of other students, and of themselves. Each of my four periods of freshman as well as my period of seniors of AP American Government and Politics students will be asked to contribute in each category. The charter will then be displayed in a place of prominence in the classroom and signed by the students as well as the teacher. The results will be recorded in table format (image example to follow this text).
Following our first test, our students will also be asked to participate in a classroom circle exercise in which students will be asked to reflect on their first AP summative unit assessment. This is valuable because for each of freshmen and some of my seniors, this is their first experience with AP content, and many find it challenging if not even overwhelming. Getting them to reflect on the experience of their first test as an opener to their test reflection will allow them to potentially identify contributing factors to their scores that they may have control over. Students will be given their test reflection packet, and on the cover there will be a prompt asking them to write a one-word answer to the following six questions or statements:
1. What grade do I think I got on my exam (A, B, C, or lower)? _________
2. How many hours did I study for the exam? _________
3. When did I start studying for the exam? _________
4. Did I take notes in class? _________
5. Did I review those notes if/when I studied? _________
6. How did I feel after taking the exam? _________
Works Cited:
Hadley, Ian. (2009), “Managing behaviour with classroom charters”, Support for Learning Vol. 14 No. 3, DOI: 10.1111/1467-9604.00117.
Hall, Lauren (2024), personal interview with the author.
Hardin, C. J. (2007), Effective Classroom Management: Models and Strategies for Today’s Classrooms 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall.
Wong, Harry; Wong, Rosemary (2009), First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher, Harry K. Wong Publications.
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