Rethinking Education for Equity: Challenging Uniformity and Empowering Diverse Learners for Success

• In Event: Embracing Variability in Children's Learning Journeys: Towards Inclusive Education Systems

Proposal

Too often for too many students, the environments in which they learn do not support their success. In the United States and in many countries around the world, schools were organised to sort students efficiently into narrow career paths. Many education systems maintain this century-old model designed to provide standardized skills and knowledge to prepare workers for formulaic jobs, not workplaces that routinely require critical thinking or problem solving. Designed to meet the needs of an “average student,” many schools continue to move students uniformly through the same curriculum and assessments based on their age regardless of their understanding or interests. As a result, schools can push through some students despite gaps in their understanding while inhibiting others from accelerating through content in the interest of management and order.



This one-size-fits all approach to teaching and learning is particularly damaging for students who do not conform to the “average,” or are otherwise marginalised due to learning differences, race, income, language, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or religion. Advances in cognitive science and neuroscience have provided more understanding than ever about human development from the science of reading to the link between academic mastery and social and emotional growth, yet changes in school organisation and instructional practice are slow to respond to this new information. These are challenges of capacity not caring, of design not desire.



Oak Foundation’s Learning Differences Programme strategically partners with and invests in not-for-profit organisations that improve education for students with learning differences. For Oak Foundation, the learning differences population includes students who have specific learning disabilities (such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia) as well as individuals who may have other related neurological processing challenges that can impact learning (such as attention deficits, sensory processing disorders and executive function challenges). We believe that every student should benefit from engaging and rigorous educational opportunities regardless of personal and social identifiers that privilege some students and marginalise others such as learning differences, race, income, language, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender and religion. In our work, we are particularly focused on efforts that support students with learning differences who experience further marginalisation due to racism and poverty. Our grantee partners rethink ways learning happens for students and better prepare adults to engage and support all students.

Author

• Bethiel Girma Holton, Oak Foundation