Democracy and Inequality: Challenges and Possible Solutions

Rationale

I teach in an inner-city school with a high concentration of students of color and English language learners. 100% of our students are classified as economically disadvantaged. Political, social and economic inequalities plight the daily lives of my students and their families. This curriculum is designed to address these issues of inequalities as well as Social Studies state standards related to liberty, justice, and democracy. To help students to master historical thinking, it is fundamental to read writings like the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and landmark cases like Brown v. the Board of Education. In addition, for the last 4 years, I’ve participated in a service-learning program called Need in Deed that focuses on inclusion of the student voices in identifying social issues, building a community culture, practicing general consensus by votes, and agreeing on one final project that the entire class will advocate. In the process, the class collectively researches solutions, interviews experts to deepen their understanding, and takes and executes action steps that will benefit the community. Elevating student voice is essential in building a classroom community of engaged, vested and motivated students fighting for the promise of democracy.

In order to tackle race and class segregation in our modern school system, “We the People”  have the duty to confront the fact that giving underprivileged students of color equal access to a quality education is an urgent and national moral reckoning, and not a form of altruism by guilt. It is time long overdue that the U.S. government help the nation to rectify decades of public policies -- centuries if you included legalized and discriminatory practices like slavery and the 1830 Indian Removal Act -- designed to disadvantage Black Americans and other people of color. Reparations, return to a fair and systematic practice of affirmative action, and support for school integration through practices such as yellow-school-busing are possible solutions that immediately invite controversiality, divisiveness and objections. Today the term “Socialism” leaves a distaste in most Americans, similar to the reactions during the McCarthy era in the 1950s to the ideology of  “Communism” as well as the backlash in the 1970s to 1990s against the second and third waves of “Feminism.” In his 1992 GOP convention speech, Pat Robertson, a television evangelist, said: “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”¹⁰ This type of thinking amplifies fear in place of moral values and reasons.

Critical Race Theory: Why are Teachers Afraid to Teach?

Today, at least six GOP-led states (Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia) are adopting laws to ban or restrict the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) and other controversial issues. In Arizona, a bill that would fine teachers $5,000 for promoting one side of a controversial issue just passed in May 2021.¹¹ Free inquiry, free discussion, and free thinking are discouraged in elementary schools with the rationale that children are too young to think about difficult issues, and teachers should leave politics out of the classrooms. Even though CRT is not taught explicitly in K to 12^th,  teachers are repeatedly warned to be careful about what they teach, say and do. Yet all social issues are political and controversial in some ways. People will take on different positions depending on who they are, where they stand, what they know, what they don’t know, and how they look at the world. Today teachers continue to walk on a fine line when discussing those hard topics and terms: The N word (associated with racism), the I word (Inequality), the B word (misogyny), the S word (sexuality), and the E word (evolution).

The classroom can serve as a microcosm to teach how a government works by asking questions like: What is the purpose of a classroom? How is it structured? Who has the authority to make the final decisions about the distribution of privileges like treats? What are the pros and cons of a popular voting system v. the electoral college where winner takes all? What are the roles of leaders, citizens, and public servants? How and who makes rules, and determines the consequences when rules are broken? In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville writes: “There is nothing more prolific in marvels than the art of being free, but nothing harder than the apprenticeship of freedom.”¹² To be truly free, students need to learn the basis of how our government works and be the rising advocates of freedom for all.

My School Demographic

My school demographics represent a highly diverse community with a wide range of cultural and language backgrounds. The languages spoken by this diverse group of multilingual students, teachers, administrators, and parents include: Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, French, Hindi (India), Indonesian, Italian, Karen (Myanmer and Thailand), Khmer (Cambodia), Korean, Laos, Malays, Malawi, Nepali, Pashto (Afghanistan and Pakistan), Poqomchi (Guatemala), Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, and other Indigenous languages. In 2020-2021, we have an enrollment of 419 students: 41% Hispanic, 38% Asian, 10% White, 8% Black, and 3% Multi-Racial.¹³ About 67% is ELL, 5% had exited out of ELL services, and 15% are children of immigrants who are American-born (these students are NOT classified to receive ELL services, even though a language other than English is primarily spoken at home).¹⁴ That’s an estimate  of 87% of the student body is recent immigrants and/or children of immigrants.

I believe I’ve a huge responsibility to teach all students in a culturally responsive way that is compatible with – as well as challenging to – how their brains function in a language other than English. As teachers, we often underestimate our students, especially the ELL, Special Education students, and students of color, by giving them below grade level work. When a struggling reader is able to read texts 2 or 3 years below their grade level, it is NOT time to celebrate, rather it is time to set higher goals. Teachers need to stop promoting a false sense of accomplishment that often leads to crippling growth and institutional injustice. Primary sources like maps, data, and games from this unit can level the playing fields for all learners and at the same time, present new challenges and ways to think critically and imaginatively about their rightful place in our democracy. As a 1st-generation immigrant like many of my students and parents, I sincerely believe that education can lead the next generation to seek the right and best ways to govern our world, country, city and local community. Even though my students reside in a place where the American Dream is often an empty “promissory note,” I want my students to NOT only look outward for solutions, but also inward to redefine themselves as agents of social change and makers of their own destiny.