1. Challenging Educators to
Broaden Beliefs System and
Shift Mind Sets to Address
Opportunity Gaps
Aurora Fiengo-Varn, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Spanish
Mississippi Valley State University

6. 1. Color Blindness
2. Cultural Conflicts
3. Myth of Meritocracy
4. Deficit Mind-Set and Low
Expectations
5. Context Neutral Mind-Set

7.  Educators avoid and reject their own
and their students’ racialized
experiences in their decision making.
 Educators see race as a taboo topic
that is irrelevant and inconsequential
to the success of their students.
 Educators do not recognize how race
can manifest in teaching, learning,
and curricular experiences

8.  M1: If I acknowledge the racial or
ethnic background of my students or
myself, I may be considered racist.
 M2: If I admit that people experience
the world differently and that race is
an important dimension of people’s
experience, I may be seen as
“politically incorrect.”
 M3: I should treat all my students the
same regardless of who they are.

11.  Educators teach their
students in a myopic manner;
they do not consider how
racially diverse students
experience the world inside
the classroom, inside the
school, and in society.

12.  Curriculum and
instructional decisions are
grounded in “white norm”
that students of color have
to just “deal with.”

13.  Race
is seen as marginal,
not central, issue in
developing lessons and
enacting those lessons.

15.  Inconsistency emerges in the
teaching and learning context
based on gender, socioeconomics,
age, geography, etc.
 Conflicts may be historically or
currently shaped.
 Educators see their culture as
superior to that of their students.

17.  M1: I must teach students based on how
I teach my own children, not based on
their cultural ways of knowing.
 M2: I’m not going to tolerate students
joking around with me during class. If
they misbehave, they are going to the
office.
 “Those” students need to adapt and
assimilate into the culture of my
classroom and accept the consequence
if they do not.

20.  Educators refer students of color to
the office when they misbehave.
 Educators refer culturally diverse
students to special education when
they are not grasping instructional
material rather than attempting to
adjust teaching to students’ learning
styles.
 A disproportionate number of diverse
students are suspended and expelled.

21.  Educators accept the idea that
people are rewarded based on
their ability, performance, effort,
and talents.
 Systemic and institutional
structures and barriers are not
considered.
 Individual achievement is seen as
an independent variable.

22.  M1 All people are born with the
same opportunities; if they just
follow the formula for success:
work hard, put forth effort, and
follow the law.
 M2 If students do not succeed, it
is because they are not working
hard enough. It has nothing to
do with outside factors.

23.  Somestudents do not have
aptitude to reach academic
success. There is no
problem with the system.

26.  Educators do not give students multiple
chances for success because they believe
the students are not working hard
enough.
 Educators do not delve deeply into the
reasons behind students’ lack of
engagement.
 Students’ family or financial problems
are not considered as a source of
impediment for academic achievement.

27.  Educators approach their work
focusing on what students lack
than on the assets they bring.
 Educators have a narrow view of
what it means to be “normal” or
“successful.” These views are based
on their own cultural references,
which may be inconsistent with
others.

28.  Educators do not believe that
culturally diverse students are
capable of rigorous academic
curriculum, so they provide
unchallenging learning
opportunities in the classroom.

29. I need to distance students
from the bleak reality of their
present condition.
 If I expect too much, I am
setting them up for failure.
 Teachers have to make up for
deficiencies rather than build
up on what students have.

30.  Itis my job to concentrate
on test scores.
 Those students do not
have resources to meet
expectation.

33.  Educators spend their time
remediating students instead of
building on the knowledge students
bring into the classroom.
 Educators refuse to allow students
to develop their own thinking skills.
Students are expected to
regurgitate a right answer that the
educator has provided.

34.  Very little discussion and creative
learning opportunities are available,
only busy work.
 Water down curriculum and low
expectations.
 Push to get the right answer.
 No thinking outside the box to
develop critical and analytical skills.

35.  Educators approach their work without
a keen sense of how contextual,
ecological, and environmental realities
shape opportunities to learn.
 Educators concentrate on learning
subject matters and consider it
unimportant the complexities of
teaching in different contexts such as
urban/rural spaces.

36.  Kids are just kids. If I teach my class
well, the type of school does not
matter.
 It is not necessary for me to
understand the historical and current
realities of the school communities
where I teach.
 It is not necessary for me to rally the
local community to empower,
energize, and motivate students
inside the school.

39.  Educators do not build from the
knowledge or established
resources of the local community.
 Rather than constructing
knowledge with the community,
educators miss opportunities to
build partnerships in the social
context.