Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Of the 12 Guiding Principles to Guide Professional Conversations, sympathy, bravery, and solidarity are the principles that are necessary for myself and the faculty to engage with this coming year. As I read this chapter, I was struck by the misconceptions I held about being sympathetic towards another person. It is so much more than demonstrating empathy for another person. When I demonstrate sympathy, I am entering into a sacred space with another person and letting that person know that I am with them as they make sense of understanding one’s own identity and navigating a safe place in this world where a person feels included, valued, loved, and experiences belonging. I never looked at what it means to be sympathetic through that lens and always understood that feeling sorry for someone does not help a situation. I believe that this starting point with my faculty and the conversation around demonstrating sympathy for our students, their families, and one another could begin to tear down walls of fear and resistance for what it means to embrace all learners and their individual needs fully.
Working through what sympathy looks like, sounds like, and feels like at St. Nick will require bravery leading to solidarity. How wonderful it would be to experience a team of teachers who are united and truly on the same team, helping the St. Nick Students succeed to their greatest potential. We have always had glimpses of teachers working together, but it has been a struggle for the majority to embrace inclusion and belonging at St. Nick. This continues to be a journey, taking baby steps, and sometimes, we are halted in the work and need to regroup and reorganize to continue pushing forward to realize our vision of being the light on the one’s learning path.
In the coming year, I plan to open the conversation about identity and help those teachers who are willing to explore their own identities, what it means to their classroom practices, and how they see themselves impacting their students. Each of us is uniquely made with multiple identities, which are strong at some point in our life journeys and hidden at other times. It is the same for our students. As we move to this process, I hope that some teachers will begin to work with their students in age-appropriate ways to help each understand their own identity. It might simply be asking who you are as a learner. This work is necessary to create powerful relationships grounded in equitable practices so that all flourish at St. Nick
Everyone wants to be accepted into a school and community and to experience belonging within a community. This is often missed within schools because of policies, school structures, and routines, which may cause students to be at odds with their true selves and identities. Students will hide or look down on some part of their identity based on their perceptions or experiences interacting with a particular construct, such as one’s native language or socio-economic class. Students can experience feelings of embarrassment through comments made at school or being reprimanded by a teacher who demands that English is always spoken in the classroom. This classroom expectation or rule could place a non-native English speaker into denying and hiding their language gifts of another language beyond English. Another example would be a student who attends classes in a school where they are part of a minority of students and participate in the free and reduced lunch program. These students may refuse breakfast and lunch and go hungry to hide the fact that they are different from most of the student population.
As school communities, we all begin to understand our own identities and how these identities are experienced within the classroom context with students and the broader school community, which includes other teachers, staff, families, and various stakeholders and constituents. An immediate action would be to ensure that a teacher or school leader understands who her learners are through experiencing the community, visiting the stores, neighborhoods, and homes, if possible, of the students, interviewing families and students one-on-one, taking notes, listening, and observing. We must become vulnerable with ourselves, and we will need to continue and expand these routines so that we can fully develop an understanding to better meet the needs of our students.
For me, a significant insight has been the realization of the complexity of understanding the construct of identity and the identity dynamics experienced each day in my Catholic school and its classrooms. It is a symphony that crescendos and decrescendos with each interaction. Our students’ identities are sometimes bold and strong or fragile and delicate, and the adults in my school hold so much power every second to build up or tear down a student. I have that power based on my words, interactions, and how I pay attention to or dismiss a person. This text has helped me to examine my school community and to reflect on practices to fully meet the needs of the students and live out what it means to be an All Are Welcome Catholic school.
The many ways that one’s identity is lived within the context of school communities impact and inform a person’s views of oneself and experiences in a particular community. Especially in schools, this experience is informed by the school’s policy and procedures, how a person experiences learning with a particular teacher and feels welcome or unwelcome in the classroom and broader community. Often, what has been normalized in a school community of remaining in your seat, raising your hand, following the rules, and walking on one side of the hallway can impact how others regard the student. For example, students who follow the rules and refrain from negative consequences are almost always regarded as good students. There were many occasions when teachers and principals equated a student’s behavior with being considered smart and intelligent. The students who are considered less intelligent by some of their teachers and peers may exhibit behaviors outside of what has been normalized.
School expectations, policies, and procedures may promote the notion of divided, spoiled, or erased identities. In the classroom, students form groups and socialize with one another based on participation in sports or other clubs. A school’s uniform policy can promote an erased or divided identity, especially when the policy allows male students to wear pants and female students must wear a uniform skirt or jumper. Another example is students learning English as their second language while the school’s curriculum is delivered in English. Students may suppress or deny their native language to be accepted by their peers, teachers, and school community.
The above realities can be experienced differently when the schools and teachers work together to understand and create relationships by getting to know each other in profound and meaningful ways. From my experience, this is an area we struggle with at my Catholic school because we are good at knowing who learners are on the surface. We relate to our students at the surface level by completing the learner survey at the beginning of the year, meeting the parents at open houses and conferences, and communicating through email and Class Dojo. However, it is hard to move beyond this surface level because of time challenges, fear of not completing the required curriculum pacing requirements, or unawareness and lack of knowledge to build successful student-teacher relationships within the classroom. Another way would be for schools to examine and discuss policies and structures through the elevation of all stakeholder voices. This would need to be carefully planned, and it will be a worthwhile process to live together fully and embrace each other’s gifts and talents. It would take a conscientious effort for all to understand their own identity within the community and move closer to the core of belonging within a school.
At St. Nick, this is always in motion, especially within the special needs and linguistic student populations. We have had much success in building a culture for inclusion of all students. We have worked to develop school structures to welcome diverse learners through our school doors through professional development, clear communication, and many activities to work together as one school community with many voices. We practice accompaniment daily with one another and work through the school’s MTSS Team. It’s a daily, lived learning experience.
I concur with Shirley and Hargreaves’s notion that the concept of identity has become too much of a tinderbox of politicized emotion, making it difficult for schools to address identity within the context of their respective communities. Our identities and belief systems are shaped and formed by many factors and lived experiences throughout our lifetimes.
It is challenging within schools, especially Catholic and faith-based learning institutions, to engage in conversations about identity outside their unique personal, societal, cultural, and religious belief systems. One of the biggest challenges is overcoming fear and the perceived “culture of nice” in our school communities. The “culture of nice” promotes an acceptance of the status quo because everyone is a family, everyone gets along, and disagreements or questions are always at the surface level. There is a hesitancy among school communities to be vulnerable and to expose their thoughts and beliefs around identity. The other hesitancy is that schools, principals, and staff do not fully know what to do and how to fully respond to the identity issues. There is not enough guidance or support at the district or diocesan levels for the high level of engagement needed for schools to address an understanding of identity beyond its current reality.
Another challenge is that so much of identity in the political realm is focused on race, gender, and sexual orientation. This strong focus within our societal culture promotes acceptance for some and poses threats for others depending on a person’s belief system. The bottom line is that it is hard and necessary work for all schools and their leaders to fully meet the needs of all learners. This is the reality at this time and the hope for future conversations and guidance as more of us delve into making sense of our own identities so that we can fully be present and support others in the process.I believe Catholic schools are already equipped through the social teachings and the concept of Cura Personalis, care for the person. Caring for the person begins by looking at the person through a lens of understanding, getting to know the person, and coming to understand who a person is and what a person’s hopes and dreams are. This begins with understanding who we are as persons. We must know ourselves before we can fully understand and embrace another person. This is why the responses to the three questions “what gives us joy, are we good at it now, or could we get good at it, and does the world need it,” are important for self and others to embrace for change and deeper perspectives on identity. These questions are necessary because in articulating my joys, I gain an understanding of who I am and share with others that part of my own identity. It also helps to make connections with others to build on a relationship. The second question speaks to my mindset and whether I believe that I can change or remain stagnant. Am I open to growth and willing to see change perspectives, if necessary? This helps when working with others and responding and demonstrating care for persons who may not experience the same views and perspectives as I do. The last question speaks to value and whether my life matters to others. Does my life add value to others, and am I helping others be fully alive and belong? These answers allow me to know the kind of person that I am, and therefore allow others to know and understand who I am. It is an entry point for a relationship. Any relationship is a two-way street which must be nurtured and cultivated through interactions with others.
My name is Mariagnes Menden, and I am the principal of St. Nicholas of Tolentine School in Chicago. I have served in the Archdiocese of Chicago since 1989 as a High School Music, French, and Religion Teacher until 2005. In 2005, I began at St. Nicholas of Tolentine School as a Co-principal until 2010. In the fall of 2010, I became the principal of St. Nick. The three aspects of my identity that are important to me are being a member of the Catholic Church, a Catholic Educator, and a Catholic elementary school principal. All my stated identities begin with my faith as the overarching thread, connecting my identities as to who I say and believe I am in my section of the world.
I was drawn to this book study because of the relevance of the topic within my own sphere of influence, the Catholic Church, Parish, and School setting. I also hoped to learn from other educators’ perspectives on this complex topic. Over the last few years, I have witnessed several students, especially middle school students, struggling with their own identity and finding a place in our school community and the wider society. My response has always been and will always strive to be very pastoral, loving, and caring for the individual. However, I felt ill-equipped to address situations and to build acceptance and belonging around situations in my own school building. I plan to develop a sustained strength and understanding of this complex topic to lead and foster a sense of belonging within my school community.
