Access To Humanizing Education For All – GDN Exclusive

by Gladys Blount, Contributing Writer 03/18/2022

Accessing humanizing education for all students is not a new argument. One can examine trends since the inception of public education and note variations of proposals and solutions launched to resolve conditions related to educating children for the future.

The challenges of how to approach the environment, curriculum, evaluation, and progress have been typically based on decision-making for all of these constructs that do not include the targets of these educational applications.

This top-down tradition continues to sustain a disconnected structure that education forums are focused on ensuring access to humanizing education. If the educational system is to be for human beings without the input of the targets of these systemic applications, then how can it be humanizing?
This question is not being given to negate the value of subject matter experts and others with significant influence in the education of our students.

If the framers of education continue to make determinations without the inclusion of those who are the recipients (end-users) of the environments, curriculum, evaluations, and certifications of proficiency, then one would have to question when do the students become human?

Are the students regarded as a human upon entering the education systems or is the premise that the process will humanize these beings upon completion of prescribed courses and subsequent evaluations? Or are the students deemed subhuman who must be rehabilitated or trained how to become human beings per prescribed treatments?

All stakeholders (students, parents, educators, and system-wide decision-makers) should work together to operationally define the premise of who are the recipients of the instructional programs. Do all parties view the students as human beings from the start? Or beings that require intervention to be considered worthy of the status as being?

If they established the foundations without input from students as having value, then it could cause a less than humanizing experience for those placed in these climates.
Framing learning systems with the conceptualization that students already arrive having strengths and valuable assets that they (students) should be able to share upon entry to the system is a starting point for creating humanized conditions.

Framing learning systems

Framing learning systems with the premise that students have no strengths or valuable assets that they could offer could result in limiting those students’ opportunities to expand those skill sets. This could occur as the learning platform would flow in one direction (from the instructional program to the end-user student) without considering the prior knowledge, talent, and interests needs of the students.

Crafting learning forums based on prescription protocols that students are not allowed to demonstrate any knowledge, skills, or innate strengths could be regarded as revoking rights as a human being. Additionally, this approach could result in a climate of criminalization of the learners since the framework may require students to hold off demonstrating proficiency of knowledge until permission is granted to demonstrate a knowledge.

Access to humanizing education

Access to humanizing education for all would optimally need to begin with the inclusion of the learners from the inception of the process. To continue to function without the consideration of students and their value of interoperability in the instructional program planning process could be a key factor that reduces the humanization access that students and parents may often perceive as a missing component of the system.

Students could have more capacity to be a part of the process than is often given to them by adults.
This does not mean that the current structures should be dismantled and not considered as germane to obligations related to ensuring education is for all students. It could mean that current platforms should establish student components that are integral to all aspects of the educational processes.

The New Black Student Movement

The New Black Student Movement is a primed model of student emissaries who could be points of contact for entities willing to consider the endeavor of humanizing access to education through the development of student collaboration processes. The transformation would not happen overnight, but those of us who value humanized learning forums understand that students need optimal learning structures immediately.

Gladys Blount has been an educator for more than thirty years. Her article, Race-Based Achievement Gaps: What Parents Can Do for Their Minority Children, was published by Dr. Pedro Noguera in In-Motion Magazine on January 21, 2010.
https://www.inmotionmagazine.com/er.html

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