When asked how teachers can make a difference in the lives of their students Ms. Rudolph talked about taking the time and being intentional to dig deeper into kids’ interests in an authentic way. She also mentioned “centering yourself in their perspective”. As a female teacher, she tries to think about the male perspective. As a white person, she knows it’s important to consider what a black person’s view might look like in a certain circumstance. For the student who consistently demonstrates a lack of respect she reminds herself that he/she may not have had a respect for authority modeled to them.

To wrap up our conversation, I asked Gina what needs to happen to bring about change in our district. Her answer included some things that we are already working on such as acknowledging and accepting the issue of a lack of equity in our educational system and understanding our biases. She believes we need to continue to educate ourselves through engaging with speakers, books and podcasts. Podcasts have been huge for Gina. Two of the most impactful for her have been “Teaching While White” and “The Leading Equity Podcast”. “1619” and “Seeing White” are other favorites that have helped her gain a better understanding of our history as Americans. Setting goals or next steps has also been an effective technique for her own personal growth.

Finally, Ms. Rudolph believes we need to take a look at our curriculum for biases and consider changes that need to be made. Using the data to look at discipline and behavior is another idea for opening up conversations. It is these open and honest conversations that she believes are essential to lighting the spark that will bring about the changes we need for all of our students to have the educational opportunities they deserve.

From: https://www.thinkingmaps.com/equity-education-matters/

Equity means making sure every student has the support they need to be successful. Equity in education requires putting systems in place to ensure that every child has an equal chance for success. That requires understanding the unique challenges and barriers faced by individual students or by populations of students and providing additional supports to help them overcome those barriers (Definition). This is exactly what Ashlee Johnson does with her students and something that Ashlee has thought about a great deal.

In thinking about her upbringing and life experiences, she came to the realization and fact that this wasn’t the only way or the right way to live, learn, etc. She wanted to somehow include and apply this lens to her classroom and to her students. She incorporated the Universal Design for Learning Lens (UDL) into her teaching (CAST, 2018).

Basically, by using the UDL, this allows a teacher to meet the different needs of his/her learners. UDL includes using multiple means of representation to give learners different ways of accessing information and processing it into usable knowledge; multiple means of expression to provide learners ways to express what they know and understand; and multiple means of engagement to use a learners’ interests, talents, and passions to engage them in content and concepts to motivate them to learn. All of Ashlee’s lessons are centered around this design to include the needs and give support for success to all of her students.