What You Permit, You Promote

Jennie Hanna is a teacher of English at MacArthur High School in Lawton, Oklahoma and a member of the OKCTE Executive Board.

I’m not sure who told me this valuable piece of wisdom early in my career, but it has served as a central piece of my pedogeological framework. I used to see it only in terms of classroom management. If I permit students to turn in late work, I am promoting being unaccountable. If I permit students to sleep during instruction, I am promoting that participation is not vital. While these are important, I need to remember the hidden messages I send when I make decisions of what will and will not happen in my classroom.

Educational theorists like Henry Giroux and Ruby Panye have outlined hidden curriculum and rules that are inherent in education. As a teacher, I am given a tremendous power to promote what I feel is important for the next generation to learn.  If schools are to serve as a place where socialization and experiential education can take place, I need to use that power to ensure diversity and inclusion flow naturally within our learning. Below are some of the things that I work hard to permit within the classroom.

• If I permit literature that reflects a diversity of culture, I am promoting humanity. In American literature – which I teach – it would be easy to focus on mainstream classics – Hawthorne, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald – but that means I am telling my students that only white authors in American literature are worthy of reading. By intentionally selecting literature from a variety of cultures – Momaday, Tan, Cisneros, Ellison, Leviathan – I promote experiencing and learning about microcultures not of our own. If the lessons only reflect the majority, I am depriving students of finding the mirror that reflects them in literature that we share.
  
  
• If I permit discussion of world religions, I am promoting tolerance of other faiths. Folding faith into schools can be a tricky thing, but just because it takes considerable effort to do it right, doesn’t mean we should avoid it. While our country is mainly Christian, the melting pot that is America continues to become a larger intersectionality for forms of faith each year. Researching other religions or asking students of different faiths to share their own experiences and is a good way to start this conversation. Teaching understanding of different religions doesn’t mean advocating them, just simply promoting tolerance and respect for those who believe differently.
  
  
• If I permit welcoming a variety of gender and sexual identities, I am promoting acceptance. Identity development is hard enough without having to feel as though your own expression is restricted. Those who find themselves questioning their sexuality or gender can feel like they are alone and unwelcome in a world that promotes heterosexuality and strict gender norms. LGBTQ students are one of the most oppressed groups in public education, so finding ways to include discussion of sexuality and gender fluidity can help build acceptance and identify allies.
  
  
• If I permit students to share and learn in multiple modes, I am promoting understanding exceptionalities. We might not be good at everything, but we are all good at something. However, amid the increasing standardization of public education, those who are unable to express their strengths through a multiple-choice format can feel as though they are less that their peers. Students need to be taught using a variety of instructional modes – auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc. – but they also need to express their understanding in an assortment of ways. Implementing multimodal lessons and activities can help students shine in ways that traditional paper and pencil cannot, and promote that being different is not the exception but the rule.
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In this same vein, I also need to remember teachers serve as role models for their students. In many instances, educators are the only positive adult influence students interact with consistently. Whether I like it or not, everything I do as a teacher can potentially be internalized by students as condoned behavior. So, if I promote myself as being uneducated about the different microcultures my students belong to, I are promoting that it is okay to remain within my own ignorant bubble. If I permit my students to remain uneducated or have their assumptions about those who are uniquely a part of our world remain unchallenged, I promote building walls and segregating the world. There are already enough ways to divide people, I’d rather spend my time permitting students learn to accept their peers as they are by promoting love, compassion and tolerance as the tools to begin to tear down those walls.