I wish that the “Making Education More Equitable” talk was longer.  I could listen to those two brilliant women for days on end. Though I consider myself a fairly well-read and progressive individual who is informed and aware of the injustices and inequities facing today’s students, I still learned so much. Professors Shedd and Cottom were informative and fierce and funny, and the subject of the talk spoke partially toward my project subject. While I feeling the overarching theme and concerns of the talk were speaking more toward the amount of funding different schools receive—which invariably translates to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer—I also feel there is room for curriculum change that reflects the diversity of the population.

            The vast difference in atmosphere and environment between the haves and have nots—read private and public education systems—begins even before kindergarten. In the households of affluent children, there is no question that the end goal of the academic journey is a graduate degree, whereas children of lower income parents do not, to paraphrase Dr. Cottom, necessarily think that college is meant for them.

            I was also struck by something that I, in perhaps a fit of white male oblivion, never noticed until I became a student myself. Most college students at public universities are not “unencumbered, slightly disembodied,” as Dr Cottom said.  They are women with children working jobs and studying when the kids are in bed.

For my part to close some inequity, I am trying to implement changes in curriculum. I have sent emails to some educators as well as my district’s Regent in Albany, (in truth, to the secretary because the position is currently vacant.), as well as my federal rep to find out how to affect those changes and who makes those decisions.

The concerns I have are both technical and personal. So far, I have not received any responses at all from the educators, and that is disheartening. Compounding that, I am battling many personal things on several fronts as well as a full course load.  At this point, I am wondering if I bit off more than I can chew with curriculum change and I’m wondering whether I should contemplate a different topic that would still affect change in the world but perhaps could be facilitated more easily.  Maybe it is just mid-term week, and I am exhausted, or maybe I am just exhausted with 2020. It is sometime hard to advocate for others when you spend a lot of time advocating for yourself.  I suppose that is partly the point that Professors Shedd and Cottom were trying to make.  

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