Abstract
This is a book to help teachers practically move towards more equitable outcomes in their classes. The audience for this book is teachers, although the author suggests that others can benefit from this book, mainly those who are interested in reducing the predictive power of demographics on student outcomes. This book stands out for two reasons: 1. It invites teachers to focus on what is within their control in the classroom. 2. It invites teachers to teach the rules of the equity game and how to ‘slay the game’
Colin Seale, the author, has organised his book into four sections: 1. The why of equity, 2. The how of equity, 3. Philosophical changes necessary for teachers, and 4. Practical tips for the classroom.
The book opens with the famous image of three kids of varying heights watching a game behind a fence explaining equality versus equity. The author argues that no matter what type of crate we provide to the kids to see over the fence, they are still watching the game outside of the fence and not as part of the audience cheering in the stadium. He then poses the question of ‘equity for what’?
Equity in education has been a hot topic in Australia since the 1970s (Rizvi & Lingard, 2011) and in many more countries, but do teachers practically know how to move beyond the ‘crates view of equity’?
The book’s purpose is to help teachers move beyond the why of equity in education and offers practical guidelines for realising tangible equity in the classroom. The author’s passion for education and equity comes from his background as a black student in a less privileged area of Brooklyn in the US and later being recognised as gifted. Seale provides stories and examples from his background as a math teacher in American schools, his experience as an attorney, and his business where he teaches critical thinking skills in educational settings throughout the USA. His philosophy is to reach every student in the classroom and close the critical thinking gap.
Seale harshly criticises the idea of our demographics as the determiner of our life outcomes and contends that ‘equity is about reducing the predictive power of demographics and zip codes to determine the success of young people inside and outside of the classroom to zero’ (p.6).
Acknowledging the systemic inequities, the author invites teachers to begin making changes in an area where they have control – their perceptions. As teachers, it is important to reflect on our own biases, acknowledge them, and intentionally keep changing them (called the PACK framework in the book), not to perpetuate the current inequities in schools. This has been my main takeaway from the book – to consciously question my biases as a teacher and as an individual.
The author invites teachers to view their students as thinkers, have reciprocal relationships with their students, and treat each student as if they were gifted. This last suggestion is about the expectations of the teachers. Although the literature on the effect of teacher expectations on student achievement is somewhat controversial (see Johnston et al., 2019 review for more information), marrying high expectations with other practical steps provided in the book can potentially pave the way for more equitable outcomes.
Seale invites teachers to break the inequity pattern by teaching students the rules of the game and at the same time, raising pupils who question the rules, who do not settle for the status quo and who are changemakers. And this starts by: • preparing a safe space in the classroom to practice reimaging a better world, • embracing critical questions in the classroom, • being aware of the biases teachers might take into the classroom and questioning them, • using the individual experiences of students as an asset, and • creating a space of joy in the classroom and a place that students look forward to attending.
In part four of the book, the author invites teachers to ‘find the funk’ no matter what they are teaching. By finding the funk, he means providing opportunities for students to slay the equity game through critical thinking skills. The steps commence by critiquing, evaluating, and reimagining the rules, to real-life actions like writing to the local government and being the change. Students who have practised being the change within the safe walls of the classroom would become the ‘agents of change’ to realise the equitable societies we all dream of.
The book’s strength is in advocating that teachers consider the content they already teach and rework it using the strategies in the book to create a small-scale society in the classroom where students practise becoming changemakers in a safe space rather than succumbing to the current systemic inequities. That said, the book has no out-of-the-ordinary suggestions, leading to ‘one-more-thing syndrome.’ Most references in the book are about the American context, although concepts like teaching students the rules of the game can be used universally. Furthermore, some factors influencing students’ personal lives have been overlooked. For instance, the book does not mention how a hungry or tired student, for instance, could appreciate the lively discussions, the funk or contacting their local governor. When the author suggests equity for each student, factors such as having access to nutritious food and having a restful night should be considered or at least acknowledged.
As a future step, I see an opportunity for teachers to use the strategies in this book, provide some practical reworkings of the current content in different subject areas in the Australian context, and make them available to all teachers to see these strategies in practice.
