Centering Students’ Identities is Not Only Imperative For Equity — It Influences Our Academic Achievement and Personal Well-being.
by Sanaa Kahloon, first-year student at Harvard College
Contrary to popular belief, education is not only the future — it informs the present for students, especially students of color like me, who have the most at stake from flaws in our education system. The pedagogies in practice right now not only inform what society will look like when my generation enters the workforce, they also influence our current well-being and academic achievement, and shape how we interact with our communities and each other. Culturally responsive education is a mindset shift that centers students of diverse backgrounds and leverages our experiences as key drivers of education. And as politicians nationwide attack diverse and equitable learning, the need for this shift is more urgent than ever.
Students like myself spend 35+ hours a week in school, yet we’re rarely, if ever, treated as primary stakeholders that deserve a voice in how our education system works. Rather than teaching youth that we can create meaningful societal change, we are too often taught how to obey orders and complete tasks. This is antithetical to the mission of the public education system: to teach students how to be engaged and informed citizens. It ignores our competence as informed and intelligent individuals who are most impacted by our education system, and who deserve a distinguished voice in educational policy and practice. Recognizing the value of students and their lived experiences is the first step to creating an inclusive educational experience that caters to the diverse needs and experiences of students.
Achieving cultural competence in schools is inseparable from centering student voices in education. These two items have a significant impact on individual student well-being and success, and can create significant top-down change in our schools if education leaders commit fully to them.
A national survey in 2018 found that nearly one in three teens are bored “all or most of the time” in school. When students are bored, our academic performance, not to mention our interest in remaining in school, begins to slip. Bored students are more likely to suffer from mental health challenges, experience substance abuse and misuse and experience homelessness.
That engagement and boredom crisis is worse for students of color whose racial identities and life experiences are often at odds with our educators. While the student population in U.S. public schools is majority Black and Brown, 79 percent of public educators in 2017 were white. Centering the voices of students of color has been shown to help students think of themselves as valuable, leading to deeper student engagement. As student engagement expert Jal Mehta said best, “We have to stop seeing boredom as a frilly side effect. It is a central issue. Engagement is a precondition for learning….No learning happens until students agree to become engaged with the material.” As it stands, it’s nearly impossible for students to be engaged when their identities and voices are not heard, and when their lived experiences do not inform the system they are supposed to be learning from.
To be student-centered is to be culturally conscious. To give students a meaningful voice in their school environment that extends beyond surface-level curricular engagement is to allow students themselves to educate their peers on their lived experiences, to allow those experiences to form policies that correct injustices and inequities in our school systems. It is no secret that the American school system is a reflecting pool for all current societal issues; systemic racism, xenophobia, and classism — issues that impact the learning experiences, well-being, and academic achievement for myself and other students of color. In the absence of significant political change, we look to the leaders of our education system to help empower us students to make this change.
Sanaa Kahloon is a first-year student at Harvard College studying Government and Women & Gender Studies on the pre-med track. She is a board member of the Kentucky Student Voice Team, a youth-led education justice nonprofit of which she was the Research Director. She is an Education Ambassador with the Partnership for the Future of Learning, a project by the National Public Education Support Fund.
