Pillar 5: Collaborate and Find Allies
Advocating for educational equity can be exhausting. The reality is that many of our colleagues don’t see the need for this type of work. They either believe in the myth of colorblind equality and/or they object to “special treatment” for some groups. In addition, we have to contend with the emotional (and physical) toll of encountering stumbling blocks in our teaching, losing students despite our best efforts, and feeling the stress that generally accompanies a journey into the unknown. The bottom line is that it is important to reach out to colleagues who can support you and that it is imperative that you invest time in your own well-being.
Educational equity is a team sport, not an individual one. And there are three very important reasons why we must continually collaborate with others. First, as professionals, we are always learning and growing, so it is important that we identify coaches and mentors who can support us in this growth. Similarly, if something doesn’t go as planned, we need people who can reassure us and help us recover from setbacks. Note that this person can be a mentor but often we look for this type of support from peers who have had similar experiences in their classrooms. Third, we need to build capacity within our institutions to advocate for the students we serve and their right to an equitable education. Let’s look at each of these relationships in a little more detail.
Mentors and Coaches: No matter where we are in our careers or where we are in our journeys to develop an equity-centered pedagogy, there will always be someone who has been teaching longer or who is further in their own journey. These individuals can provide valuable feedback and advice. I’ll also be the first to admit that this website is not a substitute for this kind of relationship or collaboration. This website, instead, offers resources meant to reach a broader audience, even those outside higher education. Every institution is unique and its students’ needs will invariably differ from the needs of students at other colleges (this is even true within multi-school districts), so it is important that you find a mentor or coach who is familiar with your school and its students.
Supportive and compassionate colleagues: We are going to experience setbacks as we develop our equity-centered pedagogy and advocacy. A lesson plan might not land, students may seem disengaged despite our efforts to create an engaging classroom, students will drop our classes even after we’ve worked with them to overcome their various obstacles and barriers, and we might do or say something that offends or is insensitive. It is impossible to reconcile the feelings of failure that result from these setbacks. We need colleagues who are at the same place in their careers and who are experiencing the same frustrations. Mentors are great for practical advice on how to improve our teaching, but compassionate peers are important for dealing with the emotional toll of teaching because they are “in your shoes.” Many of us do this with other aspects of our teaching (e.g. for English professors, it might be something like “what’s the best way to teach thesis statements?”) or with our committee work, but many of us fail to find a colleague who is engaging in equity work that we can collaborate with. With so many educators subscribing to colorblind pedagogy, it will be a breath of fresh air to have someone with the same values and beliefs, the same why, as you.
Allies: When you are ready to take your equity practices outside the classroom and into the college writ large, it will become necessary to identify colleagues who are fighting for the same outcomes. Colleges and universities are gigantic bureaucracies that are operating on a centuries old model of higher education. It is impossible to make any institutional changes alone, so if you want your college to eliminate institutional barriers or to invest in programs for minoritized students, you need to show up with an army of other faculty, staff, administrators, and students.
Furthermore, self-care is an essential practice in any career, but it can be particularly crucial when adopting a pedagogy that can be considered countercultural and when working with and investing your time and energy into students who have so much working against them. It is a fact that we all have less than ideal days in class, we all lose students despite our best efforts, and we all feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of creating an equitable pedagogy and classroom. The following are a few strategies I use to reduce my stress and the overwhelm of teaching.
Carve out time for yourself. When reworking your curriculum, it is easy to become obsessed with the task. Hence, it is also easy to burn out. Furthermore, this curriculum development is often in conflict with other professional duties, including committee work, research, office hours, and other administrative tasks. So step away. Make it a point to dedicate the whole weekend to non-teaching activities like hobbies, relaxation, and family. This leads me to the following . . .
Cut the email umbilical cord. I can attest to the toll that email takes on emotional, mental, and physical well-being, especially when I am trying to write for this website or work on my curriculum. As an English professor, a program coordinator, and the Academic Senate president, I find my inbox is continually receiving messages to the tune of 30 – 60 emails a day (most of which need to be responded to). If I leave my email on all day, whether on my computer or phone, I will invariably be interrupted during every single task I am engaged in throughout that day. This leads to a lack of concentration and flow, and these messages force us to stress about deadlines, obligations, and follow up. This is unsustainable. It is important to realize that very few of these emails are so time sensitive that they need to be tended to within minutes or hours. In fact, I’ve come to realize that most emails don’t need a response within 24 hours. So turn the email off. As a general rule, I check my email once when I get to the office in the morning and once before I leave in the evening. I do not check my work email in the evenings or on the weekends (and I make this clear to students and colleagues).
It is cliché, but good food and exercise are important. Equity work can be exhausting. I regularly run into colleagues who don’t get why equity is important, administrators who are not interested in eliminating institutional barriers, and a media and society that are hostile to people of color, women, Muslims, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and immigrants. There are days where I am emotionally tired and overwhelmed. But eating healthy foods and being in decent shape counteracts much of this stress. In tandem with 1 and 2 above, physical well-being is one of the most important goals we can strive for. And these strategies must be prioritized together. If you don’t take time for yourself and you are overburdened by email and work obligations, your health and wellness will suffer. It is much easier to skip the gym and eat unhealthy foods when we are exhausted and stressed, but these choices have consequences for other aspects of our lives. As Registered Dietitian Becca Shern notes, we “need to look at the rest of [our] lives, and how that plays into the food choices [we’re] making.”
In his book Starting with Why, Simon Sinek connects dysfunction with lacking, or forgetting, our why. Educators are often the one group of people who start their careers with a clear sense of why, whether it is working with marginalized students, furthering the epistemology of one’s field, or promoting the democratic mission of higher education. However, we sometimes lose sight of that why or our why doesn’t align with the mission of the college or with educational equity. This is when students, and educators, suffer most. I had a colleague who had lost his why a decade into his career. He started to lose his connection with his students and colleagues and every class became a slog. Luckily, he was able to take a sabbatical and really reflect on his career and why he originally got into teaching. In other words, he refocused on his why, and after that day, he promised himself that his number one goal was to love his students and to do everything in his power to help them succeed. It isn’t surprising that this rediscovery and recommitment happened in tandem with a renewed commitment to his hobbies and a pledge to cut the email umbilical cord. So when you feel the odds starting to stack up against you or you have a particularly frustrating discussion with colleagues about equity, refocus on your why. Remember that you are here for your students, not your colleagues feelings, your administrators’ budgets or edicts, or our culture’s subscription to colorblindness (or genderblindness, sexualityblindness, etc.).
Similar to the previous strategy, just remember that you have allies. There will be times where you are in a meeting or other space and you will be the only proponent of equitable teaching and institutional policies and practices. These encounters can feel extremely frustrating and can leave you feeling isolated. When this happens, remember that you have colleagues who are fighting for the same cause, whether it is at your institution or another. I left one meeting feeling very frustrated with my colleagues because they refused to support an initiative that would help students’ self-efficacy and advocacy in matters of equity and social justice on campus and in the classroom. I was fuming as I drove home. However, about halfway through my drive, I suddenly remembered that I had dozens of colleagues on campus who were supportive of this initiative and other equity-centered movements on campus. If I had given in to the resistance and stopped my advocacy for educational equity, my students and my allies would lose. Instead, remembering these colleagues and students allowed me to get past the frustration and to re-focus on my vision and my goals.