You can also read the article in San Jose Mercury News
Equity is a keyword defining the educational
philosophy of California’s community colleges. Unlike equality, which aims to
give every student the same resources and opportunities, equity attempts to
give each student what s/he needs to succeed. It recognizes that underserved
and historically marginalized students, often victims of myriad injustices,
need additional help to achieve educational and professional goals similar to
their more privileged counterparts.
Equity is, of course, a noble idea but the
devil lies in the details. No two students with special needs – physical,
mental, academic, financial – are alike. Colleges with limited resources are
hard-pressed to set each such student up for success. Tutoring, counseling,
ease of access to facilities and resources help but some still fail because the
equitable and inclusive services do not reach them until it’s too late.
My experience as a faculty member at a
community college has convinced me that what also holds back differently-abled
students from reaching their full potential is a missing piece in the equity
equation: The summon to excellence.
Too often, we treat special needs students as if it is sufficient to provide some tools for them to somehow stay afloat. If they manage to pass a class with a ‘C’, we compliment ourselves with a job well done. That they can equal or even excel “normal” students is something we rarely instill in them.
Yet when we have great expectations,
supported by attentive and rigorous care, miracles happen. Some teachers are
born miracle workers who can motivate struggling students to reach for the
stars. I am not one of them. What I have tried over the years, however, is
convincing these students that they are as good as any other student, that they
can still be peak performers with discipline and hard work and with a
resilience that rejects setbacks and negativity.
My success rate with such students certainly
leaves room for improvement, but when a miracle happens, I learn anew what
teaching is all about.
Let me explain. Maria looked lost on the
first day of my statistics class. I saw fear in her eyes, even tears. She
emailed me after two weeks of instruction that she was already behind, unable
to understand what measures of center meant. “Should I drop your class,” she
asked.
After weighing the options, I finally
replied: “Don’t drop. Let’s meet during office hours and see where you are.”
We met twice weekly over the next several
weeks, going over problems step-by-step. “It’s not easy,” I told her. “I had
the same difficulty you are facing when I was learning this.”
Slowly, Maria started making progress. She
began taking charge of her learning and, by extension, her destiny. One day she
shocked me by saying, “I had a brain aneurysm three years ago and still
recovering from it. But it’s finally clicking in my brain.”
I was stunned. Here was a student I was about
to abandon if I had taken the easy way out by telling her to drop my class.
Maria received a well-deserved “A” in my
class and is currently majoring in psychology at a local university. Since that
time and through the pandemic, Maria’s words, “It’s finally clicking in my
brain,” continue to inspire me.
My experience isn’t the same with all
challenged students. Some vanish into the void by dropping out, others barely
hang on. But many persist and flourish and find joy in learning they never
thought they would.
I have colleagues at my college who routinely
perform magic on their students and at scale. I hope to gain insights from them
but for now, the equation that motivates me to teach is simple: Equity +
Excellence = Transcendence.
