Mindset Matters: A Prerequisite For Student Centeredness & Equity

Since 2011, I've worked in education in some capacity–whether reading to kids as a volunteer, substitute teaching, running university-wide programming, directly teaching my own students, or leading as an administrator. Beyond teacher knowledge and development, school resources, and societal demands–all of which impact the ultimate success of learners–one thing has stood out to me as being a larger predictor of student, and ultimately, community success: teacher mindset. A teacher’s mindset  determines if their classroom is one of rote schooling and replicating skills, or if it is one of cultivating lifelong learners who seek to do more with what they’ve been given.Mindset impacts a teacher’s  daily inclination to work, their ability and willingness to distinguish skill gaps from will gaps, and their fluidity with all the skills and dispositions needed as educators of little humans. Simply put: it impacts everything. 

 Teacher mindset has the power to lead or derail the quest to be more student-centered in pedagogy, assessments, and grading, while being equitable at the core. Whether you're a veteran teacher with more than 15 years of experience, a fiery rockstar hitting your stride at year 6 or 7, or a novice who is admittedly lost or ignorantly hopeful and overly confident, what you believe about the school and community you work in, the content/course/grade you teach, and the work of education for liberation, matters. Most folks get into the field for either no reason or a confused reason. Some say things like, "I've always loved working with kids," while others may have come from a family of educators and it's simply all they've known. Others get into this work and admit that they didn't plan on doing this, but they did and they started to like it. Unfortunately–or perhaps fortunately for the futures of their students–some admit that this is "just to pay the bills,” leading  to a hasty exit from the profession. Thankfully, there are a few teachers who are the defiant ones. They are willing to bend and sometimes ignore convention  in order to do what's right and what's most needed for the kids, schools, and communities in which they serve. These are the ones who want to make the world a fully better place for us all. As stated in Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, "People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it." Why you do things is 100% rooted in what you believe. If you are clear about your "why," then it doesn't matter what the system throws at you. The success or failure of disciplinary tools, grading systems, and even the products and resources employed in a classroom, can be influenced by the mindsets of the ones using them.

First and always foremost, teachers must have a growth mindset over a fixed mindset. Teachers must believe that they can improve their craft, no matter where they started their journeys. They must believe that the kids in front of them can and will learn at the highest levels possible. They must believe that their coaches and administrators are doing everything within their power to cultivate and nurture them, and ensure the ultimate success of the school. Often teachers with this growth mindset take personal responsibility in improving their practice instead of waiting for it to be done or suggested to them. These teachers seek feedback. They see struggles and challenges as opportunities to grow and learn. Finally, these teachers set, and daily lift, their expectations for their students–academically, behaviorally, and culturally.

This next thought about teacher mindset often goes without saying, but it's also pretty revolutionary: you have to actually like kids (word to Mark Joseph in Newark, NJ). Have you ever seen a teacher who's always mad at kids? Does their annoyance create a classroom where kids are encouraged to take risks and strive for more? I've heard teachers say things like, "I don't play with kids." I'm not sure about 100% of kids, but I think that playing is something they do–a lot. So believing that you are somehow above playing with kids already skews how you approach them and their developmental needs. Forgetting that kids are still kids who will mess up, struggle, laugh inappropriately and forget things, is the antithesis of being student-centered. With regard to academics, some teachers genuinely feel that kids failing their class is an indication of rigor. On the contrary, the first tenet of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Gloria Ladson-Billings, Ph.D.) is academic achievement, or student learning. If the kids are not learning AND growing, you're doing it wrong. Creating some sort of academic crucible runs counter to the idea of student-centeredness and equity. Failing your class certainly won't help your students’ opinions of themselves or push them to be more critically conscious or culturally competent. In fact, it'll mostly do the opposite.

From my vantage point, as a teacher of other people's children, you have to fundamentally believe that a better way is always possible. That belief will show up and radiate in everything you do as a practitioner. As Elena Aguilar stated in The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation, “Here's the thing about beliefs: we all have them and they drive our actions. We experience our beliefs as truths, and we can usually find evidence to support them. Subsequently, they create boundaries around what we think we can and can't do, and what can and can't be done in the world. Some of our beliefs are tucked into our subconscious, where they operate without our awareness. Sometimes our beliefs contradict each other or our core values. Some of our beliefs make us strong, powerful people; some do not serve us. The good news is that beliefs can be updated or changed.” Many teachers believe that what they're doing is right, and the kids in front of them will succeed with them as their teacher. Other teachers believe that the kids and communities they serve are inherently lacking, and so often reduce their expectations of success. Still other teachers view the system of education as being broken due to its inception, and needing to be completely fixed or totally obliterated for the betterment of our future. 

I believe what will truly serve our kids and communities best is a liberatory consciousness for anyone advocating for student-centeredness and equity. In this view, education becomes a means for liberation of those marginalized due to our current structure of schooling. "A liberatory consciousness enables humans to live their lives in oppressive systems and institutions with awareness and intentionality, rather than on the basis of the socialization to which they have been subjected. A liberatory consciousness enables humans to maintain awareness of the dynamics of oppression characterizing society without giving in to despair and hopelessness about that condition, to maintain an awareness of the role played by each individual in the maintenance of the system without blaming them for the roles they play, at the same time practice intentionality about changing the systems of oppression. A liberatory consciousness enables humans to live ‘outside’ the patterns of thought and behavior learned through the socialization process that helps perpetuate oppressive systems" (Love, B. Developing a Liberatory Consciousness). To live this out, teachers must first have an awareness that things are not always as they should be and that something is out of place within our schools/society. Then they must be willing to act on this knowledge. This can look like no longer laughing at insensitive comments in the teachers’ lounge, or even being brave enough to name microaggressions and biases when they appear within oneself or others. Next, teachers must go into a period of analysis to assess their own why, and their thoughts about what is and what can be. After this, they must take action. Teachers must take courses to learn more, get better faster, and move with the urgency of now. Finally, teachers must hold themselves and others accountable to having allyship. Teachers need to have a mindset that others are within this same system, possibly unconscious of how they perpetuate inequities. From this vantage, teachers intentionally take opportunities to share their mindset and thoughts with others to permeate and improve their local context, whether white or person of color/Black. Unplugging from “the matrix” can be a radical way of educating future generations. 

Now of course, all of the aforementioned are assumptions, concepts, and states of being to push and guide teachers’ mindsets to being more student-centered and equitable. Yet at the core of believing that you as a teacher can grow, that your kids can grow, and that the world can one day "live happily ever after," you have to be able to distinguish and believe that there's a fundamental difference between the purpose of schooling and the purpose of education. You have to have the mindset that schooling is something meant to replicate what is, while education is meant to push humanity towards what should and could be, if we choose to continue to learn and yearn for the vast and endless sea of our imaginations. Education in the 22nd century is waiting, and will depend on what you (teachers) believe.