Leading for Equity Requires Us to Ask for Feedback with Matthew Woods

Matthew Woods has served in various roles within K-12 education. His professional experience includes being a high school social studies teacher, middle and high school assistant principal, middle school principal, and director of student support services. In addition to his K-12 work, Matthew has also served as an adjunct professor and field instructor at the collegiate level for student-teachers. Aside from this work, Matthew hosts a K-12 podcast, Leading Out the Woods, and is the author of the children’s book series, I Wanna Be… , starring his son imagining different occupations he would like to grow up to be. Matthew is currently working on his leadership book, The Sandbox Mentality: Empowering Leadership.

Critical Thinking and Serving Our Students
​Imagine the things our students can accomplish if they have the resources to tap into their passions at the beginning of their time with us rather than the middle or end. All students can benefit from taking their ideas they arrived to your class with and developing that into a more concrete dream. The thing that often interrupts that process is a lack of critical thinking from staff, students, and teachers. 

“There are a lot of educators out there who struggle with critical thinking.” 

As a result, students struggle with their own critical thinking. But if teachers are empowered to develop their critical thinking skills, then students are much more likely to improve in the same areas. Critical thinking is not about the facts but rather, your ability to evaluate them. Something that research has suggested is by giving yourself the tools you need to be successful in your work, you pass those tools on to your students. Critical thinking also goes hand in hand with being receptive to feedback. So to model critical thinking around issues of equity and justice, we need to have a procedure, policy, or instructional practice that centers on feedback.

Feedback Helps You Grow
Being open to feedback means you are using active listening. Hearing feedback helps resolve conflicts that come up during discussions of race and injustice. Even when some issues can’t be fixed, you can help each student with any perception issues that are coming up. Shared leadership comes into these practices where students get a chance to be included in the process of decision making. 

Bringing equity into the classroom means you are committed to supporting students of all backgrounds and abilities. Promoting equity can take some time but it helps to reflect on your own beliefs. For example, is your grading policy and feedback fair to students who are more disadvantaged than white privileged students? 

“I've never had a teacher or an educator tell me they're not inclusive, but I know a lot of teachers and educators who are not inclusive based on their practices, but, most importantly, based on the perception of the students and the feedback students give.”

Equity in School
Being equitable doesn’t mean everyone should be held to the same standard without any regard for how their identities and situations affect their learning. You have to be willing to check for your “blindspots” since many teachers haven’t been trained to understand the challenges of historically marginalized students. 

Think of a minimum level you would love all students to be able to get to. Now think of what is required to help each student get there. It takes a lot more resources and strategic thinking to have an equitable school but it’s so worth the effort. Another thing you can do to take that extra step is differentiate your approach to equity. Sometimes it can be more effective to have another person speak to larger audiences. One person may have more connection with certain groups and as a result, their messages pass through barriers that might come up from less well known individuals. Feedback is an essential element of inviting more equity in and making change that feels inclusive to all.
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​To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.

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