This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 64 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast.

In this episode, we're going to explore four things teachers can do to support students of color.

In 2014, a report was issued by the National Center for Education Statistics

that projected what education would look like through the year 2022.

One of the things this report said is that starting right around 2014, for the first time in history,

the majority of kids in American schools would be students of color.

And in every year after that, the percentages would continue to shift ever so slightly in the same

direction with the white population shrinking to a smaller and smaller proportion of the whole,

and the combined populations of students from other ethnic groups

increasing so that together they make up the majority.

By contrast, the population of teachers in the U.S. is overwhelmingly white.

What that tells me is that the life experiences of most of the people in charge of our classrooms

have been pretty different from the experiences of most of their students.

And that matters. It matters because our work is not strictly academic, not by a long shot.

The relationships we build with our students have a profound influence on their success in school.

In order for our students to perform well academically, they need to feel safe, both physically and

psychologically. They need to feel a sense of belonging. They need to feel seen and valued for who they are.

For our students of color, finding this safe, accepting place is rare, especially if most of

their teachers have a dramatically different background from their own. This problem can be even

more pronounced for students of color who attend schools where their peers are also mostly white.

I'm not saying that all white teachers are racists or that they're overtly and deliberately doing things

to discriminate against their students of color. What's happening is that teachers are doing things

...