SOMA Living October 2022

EDUCATION

Excellent Teachers are Diverse Teachers

Recently, I talked to a prospective client by phone. I suppose people know I’m Black from social media, through referrals, or from my headshot on my website. As we chatted about our services, getting her children in to be assessed, and some background on their learning experiences thus far in school, the conversation turned. She asked me about my teachers. She wasn’t asking about their qualifications or certifications; she was asking about them, as people. She kind of danced around what she wanted to know for a bit, but I understood her inquiry and I responded, “All of my teaching staff currently are Black.” She gave a big sigh and said, “That’s just what I wanted to know!” She then recounted a conversation between her grade school children where one told the other that teachers were white, and female…all of them. The other child countered but didn’t have any real-world experience to bolster his perspective. They let it drop even though their own mother, a Black woman, is a teacher herself. Fortunately, I attract different types of excellent teachers. They all successfully deliver learning content to our students. Their race, ethnicity, or gender adds secondary value to the children’s learning experiences. It is important for students from any background to know they can learn from all types of people—regardless of outward appearance. As a former education policy researcher, I know that there is abundant evidence that Black children have better outcomes when their teachers are also Black. I certainly believe this to be the case and experienced that myself (I wouldn’t have a Ph.D. from Harvard if I hadn’t seen a Black man give a job talk in my department at UCSC my senior year…and my dad is a college professor…). But I’m genuinely interested in the impact Black teachers have on white students. I suspect they benefit too…in myriad unstudied ways.

Alissa Gardenhire, Ph.D., Owner of Best in Class Education Center, South Orange.

OCTOBER 2022 | SOMA LIVING 21

@somalivingmagazine