Sheldon [00:00:00]:

Now you might be thinking, okay, Sheldon. Yeah. You're you're supposed to be the equity guy. You you talk about being advocates and all these things. Why in the world are we going to be talking about a sense of belonging? Here's the thing. Maybe you have had an experience yourself in which you, felt like you didn't belong. I've I've had conversations with teachers who've shared with me, you know, hey. I I immigrated to the United States where I grew up.

Sheldon [00:00:29]:

English was my first language or, you know, all these different challenges that they had and that, You know, I I know educators that went into education because they did not want the same experience that they had. They wanted to be the ones to make a difference in children's lives. That's why we're talking about sense of belonging. How can a child focus or how can we even expect a child to do well on a test? Do well on a quiz, turn in their homework, all of these different things when they are struggling with just trying to fit in, make friends. How do we make sure or or ensure that our students, no matter what their background identities, who they are, what they represent is embraced and loved and cherished so that they feel valued, valued members within your school community. But there's another piece to this. Right? This is the other piece why I am looking at sense of belonging work. Okay.

Sheldon [00:01:37]:

The unofficial mentor. And I posted this on my Instagram at Shell Naked's unofficial mentor. These are the people that are willing to support youth while maintaining their own families and professional obligations. These folks operate with the mindset. If I'm not here for this young person who will be At the end of the day, you might be one of those individuals as an educator, whatever position, whatever role you have, what what you're serving right now. Think about how many students come up to you in between hallways, in between class, in between bells, lunchroom, cafeteria, in your office. Just wanna kick it. Just wanna to vent.

Sheldon [00:02:20]:

Just wanna share about their day guidance. Maybe they don't have individuals at home that they can talk to or feel that they can talk to. Maybe you have developed that relationship with students. See, I remember there was a time when I felt like in order to be a mentor, I had to be part of a program. I need to sign up for this club or that club. I'm not a fan of paperwork. I never have been. I've never been a fan of paperwork.

Sheldon [00:02:49]:

I refer to just the, the impromptu organic experiences with my students, my kids, right? They're my kids. That's what I like. So this is the, that's the other piece. If we don't care about a child's sense of belonging we might say, and I see schools will have slogans and all kinds of things on the wall in the handbooks. But if the action is not there, what good are we doing? So this is also for not just only for those who've had their own experiences, feeling ostracized, feeling, not part of the the group, but also for those unofficial mentors as well. Let's get into some definitions real quick. Alright? We'll talk about it because this is really the framework for the book. I highlighted 3.

Sheldon [00:03:40]:

Those verbs. Yeah. Yeah. My English folks don't jump on me. Verbs. Right? Believe that's verbs. Okay. Says of belonging refers to the extent to which students feel personally accepted, included and supported at school of back in 1993.

Sheldon [00:03:58]:

I think that still applies to today. Accepted, included and supported. Notice. Notice. I didn't say othered or tolerated. I hate the word tolerate. I just feel like we're putting up with something. It's like it it to me, it feels like I don't agree with what you got going on in life.

Sheldon [00:04:26]:

I'm just gonna tolerate it. I say this before, we tolerate the weather. I live in Idaho, man. I don't wanna it's this this is that time of year where you don't know what's gonna happen. I've seen this snow in June. It's shorts weather right now. I tolerate the weather. I tolerate commercials.

Sheldon [00:04:45]:

I got YouTube, regular YouTube. I don't have the YouTube live or whatever the freaking paid. I tolerate, gotta wait 10 seconds before I can hit skip ad. I tolerate the 30 seconds one where you can't even know, you know how to come through and you can't even skip it. You, you got it. You literally gotta watch it. And I said, this, your program will return in 30 seconds. We tolerate those things.

Sheldon [00:05:10]:

Okay. I don't like other, right? What does that mean? Othered the idea of this individual is different than everyone else. And we're going to highlight that and make them feel a certain way. Listen, folks, I'm a black man that lives in Idaho. How many times have I have I experienced, I walk into a room. Hey. Oh my god. It's So great to see you.

Sheldon [00:05:43]:

Don't treat me like I'm somebody else. My thing is talk to me the way you would talk to anybody else. I don't want special treatment. I do not want to feel like I'm walking into the zoo and and I'm the main attraction. I wanna feel that way. You know, there's a conversations, oh, you know, oh, well, it says, it's This is certain time of school year. The calendar this is pride month or well, this is black history month or this is whatever month. This is such and such date or this holiday is coming up.

Sheldon [00:06:17]:

Oh, let's let's us and such come in and share about themselves and what we'll do tomorrow. What we'll do at the end of the month, well, we're right back to status quo. Kids do not want to feel as if they are being treated differently because they're different. Say it again. So much someone didn't hear me. Someone someone did hear me back there. Kids do not wanna feel as if they're being treated differently because they're different. I don't know.

Sheldon [00:06:50]:

I I I I wish I could take this microphone off and just boom, do one of them things. At the end of the day, I I that prop that probably sums up the whole today's whole talk. Let me get back to this because I'm I'm gonna start preaching. Y'all gonna have me preaching in here and, and, and ain't no collection plate available. Okay. Let's talk about the process of creating a sense of belonging. Alright. Let's talk about that process.

Sheldon [00:07:16]:

What does that look like? But before we get into that, let me let me deviate just for one moment. I love the book. I I like James Baldwin recipes. Love his work. In a conversation or or the the quote that one of my favorite quotes from him, do I really want to be integrated into burning house? And here here's the thing. We talk about inclusion, but we have to be careful. What are we including our children into, I used to do special ed. I remember as a special ed individual.

Sheldon [00:07:56]:

We had kids in there that were, they had IPS, 504 plants, and, included within our general population. You have paraprofessionals included within the, the classrooms working with the children. But if the teacher in that classroom is othering kids or to care less about what an IEP says, even though they're being included in that classroom, are they being included in a burning house. So that's why I want to deviate for just one moment. Right? Because we not only do we wanna make sure our kids feel like they belong and that they're part of the community, but what is our community look alike? What does it look like? And that's a piece that we cannot forget. As move on. Here's a formula. Right? Accept it, include it, and support it.

Sheldon [00:08:54]:

Cannot have sense of belonging without those 3, those students need to feel that way. How do you know that your students feel that way? Ask them Very simple. Ask them. How do you feel? Do you feel accepted? Do you feel included? Do you feel supported? So let's go with the 1st strategy, representation books and curriculum. I think this one here is very important because the thing about representation, I'll give you an example. Right? As I mentioned before, I got 2 kids, I got 2 black kids going up, growing up in Idaho. Tell me about it. Got a Child has just become a teenager.

Sheldon [00:09:34]:

Oh my gosh. It's 13, 13 years old. Oh man. They grow up so fast. Anyway. Anyway, Got a 13 year old. I got kids growing. And guess how many times? Listen.

Sheldon [00:09:44]:

Let let me tell you something. You know how you know how I don't wanna say this because I don't wanna talk about my kid's school. And so I'm trying to figure out how to word this in this brave space. I guess I guess the best way that I could frame this is we have Black history comes up every fry every February. Right? Now keep in mind, you know, I'm I'm not the biggest fan of tokenized holidays, but Hey, at least, at least give me 28 days. You know what I'm saying? At least, right. Especially in Idaho. However, usually February goes through If we're lucky, doctor King had a dream.

Sheldon [00:10:18]:

Those are parks and the bus, and Maybe you get something else. Right? Maybe. Probably some struggle, something. Right? But just imagine Imagine how great it would be as a student learning about my culture or seeing Folks that look like me that are represented within my curriculum that I'm getting Books, the the content, and not just the one offs, but this is something that's happening all the time. This is crazy to me because when you look at statistics, 20 out out of, how many books were there? There were 3,134 books published in 2018. Out of those 3,100 books, Only 23 of them had Native American characters. 5% had Latinx, 7% Asian Asian Pacific Islanders, Asian, Pacific Americans, 10% African Americans. You're a math person out there.

Sheldon [00:11:23]:

You can tell. If I was to add up 10, 7, 5, and 1. That ain't even 27. Or is it? I don't know. I'm not a math person. K. That is let's see. 17 is 22.

Sheldon [00:11:36]:

23. So you're more likely 2018 is to read a book with an animal than human being. So this is why this matters so much. And then, you know, of course, with everything we have going on nowadays with our books and curriculum. I wonder what the stats look like now. Right? How many of those books are written by authors of color, and I'll add I'll I'll I'll add to that. How many of those characters of color lived in nice neighborhoods, Didn't live in a project. Didn't grow up in the hood.

Sheldon [00:12:14]:

Parents were together. 1 single parent homes. Stereotypical situations. Wasn't a a a struggle book, oppressive book wasn't, you know, the parents held jobs that require college degrees maybe, or had gainful employment. Like how many of the books if we were breaking it down, how many written by folks of color and written in a positive manner. Do the stats change then? Imagine the impact we could make in our schools. The students learn about various cultural norms, traditions, orientations, and family dynamics. And I highlighted daily, every day.

Sheldon [00:12:56]:

These are people's lived experience every day. So why do we only highlight them when it's our special holiday time? Imagine if this is something that was the norm as opposed to the special time. Strategy number 2. Student voice. Talk about this a lot, but it's so important in my opinion. I'm a former principal. I've messed up plenty of times. I think this is one of the areas that I struggled with.

Sheldon [00:13:26]:

When I look back to my leadership days, I was to do some things. Definitely. I definitely want would wanna make sure a student voice was at the forefront. School is to serve kids, not us. We are not giving students a voice. Kids can talk. Right? Voice students already have a have a voice. I mean, I I I remember had I don't know.

Sheldon [00:13:51]:

I I was doing training the other day, and and a and a and a teacher was was mentioning, you know, oh, we wanna give students voice. And I say, all due respect, students already have a voice. The challenge is sometimes is as adults classroom adults, meaning, you know, if you're a teacher and you're you're running a classroom, and Sometimes we feel like we had to have full control. So as a result, what happens is a student shares or voices their opinions, but we only allow them to share a voice, their opinions under our guidance when we say it's time. K. Here's a protocol when you come to the classroom. This is how you raise your hand. This is how you speak.

Sheldon [00:14:34]:

You speak at this voice. You you need to have talk a stick, or you need to have this, or you need to have that. It's still controlled often by adults. Now I say that with a caveat. There's always gonna be some situations where you you do need to have some sort of order, some sort of discourse for that discourse to continue. But if that is the only way for a child to speak up or a child is reprimanded every single time because they didn't talk or speak the way that we asked them to or or demanded for our students to speak. That's where I have a challenge. The other thing is students are leaders.

Sheldon [00:15:15]:

Our kids have talents sometimes. I mean, they have to think. They're kids. Right? So what is it? Adult brain takes play, you know, fully developed at 25, somewhere around there. 25 years old, so they're still learning. So they're not perfect, and I'm gonna always get it right. But we still wanna make sure that we're we're able to amplify those voices. Right? Bring out those leaders.

Sheldon [00:15:40]:

Believe this or not, people don't believe me. I'm a very quiet introvert. I was very shy. I was sitting there, early today as I was preparing for today's lesson. I was on my Facebook, and I was looking And so I'm I'm a part of my my high school classes. We have Facebook page. And so I was looking through the old high school pay pictures. I think I was in, like, 1 picture.

Sheldon [00:16:06]:

I don't think it was in, like, 1 picture. Right? And I just remember thinking to myself, it's like, man, I just had my 20th anniversary. We just had that, but it was COVID, so we couldn't do it person, but we did a Zoom. And I remember before I went to that Zoom call, I was thinking to myself, would my classmates even remember me? Because I really didn't talk much. However, I had to give a lot of credit to being a podcaster and having a lot of 1 on 1 conversation that has really helped me with my communication skills, my confidence with, small talk. Small talk will used to be terrifying, but bantering all that kind of thing. Ask me that 15 years ago. There's no way.

Sheldon [00:16:52]:

So there's a lot of things, a lot of characteristics within our students that are there that we can bring out and develop our students young as leaders. Next question I have is how will you amplify those voices? And here's what I mean by that. Imagine you'd probably have been in a situation where a child, a student comes up to you. Maybe it's after school, before school, between breaks. Just 1 on 1. Come come to your office, things like that. They share something with you very personal. One, the reason why they shared that something with you was because they view you as an individual who has empathy.

Sheldon [00:17:35]:

You may not be able to personally relate. However, you can empathize. So they share this information with you. Now you're left in a situation where the question is and I put this in my book, my first book. How would you like for me to proceed? See, back in the day for me, student comes up to me and tells me, oh, teacher, doctor Akins, This happened to me. My first response would be to run down the hallway, go to grad a student, talk to student, go talk to the teacher, the the Principal, whoever whoever did whatever happened, that was my first response. And I started realizing, you know what? This is not necessarily what kids might. This child may not wanna do that.

Sheldon [00:18:21]:

So now I ask well, I say thank you for sharing this with me. Thank you for being vulnerable. I appreciate you for trusting me with this information. How would you like for me to proceed? How would you like for me to proceed? Because maybe that child just wanted to vent during that time. Maybe they needed to, they they maybe want it. Maybe they wanted a game plan. Maybe they they I don't know. But that's the first part.

Sheldon [00:18:51]:

Sometimes a student doesn't know. I'm like, you know what? I don't know. I just came you know, do you I want to come talk to you. That's happened to me before. So how will you amplify your voice? Are you going to jump to conclusions and say, I'm gonna captain save, or are we gonna say, hey. How would you like for me to me to proceed? Do you need, some guidance, or are you do you need some help with game plan? Just one event strategy. Number 3, intentional spaces. Okay.

Sheldon [00:19:20]:

Students become experts in environments in which they are comfortable to be them selves. I know plenty of children that in a class, in one way, you know, class. They don't wanna let the teachers down and we'll follow the rules. They don't wanna get in trouble. So they behave certainly, usually dictated by whatever classroom protocols. Then you see them somewhere else. You see them in at church. You see them in a, in, in a freaking supermarket.

Sheldon [00:19:52]:

You see them at their recitals, you see them outside of that space. And you're like, woah. Who is this child? I had no idea. I didn't know you could do this. I didn't know this is what you were into. How many times have we had parent teacher conferences? The parents are guardians are like, yo, who's, who's, who's child are you talking about know this is not how they behave at school or at home. It's different, totally different because when our students are in an environment in which they can be themselves. Okay.

Sheldon [00:20:28]:

We talked about being othered. We talked about being tolerated. Sometimes those spaces need to be very, very intentional. Here's what I mean. Affinity spaces. Affinity spaces are spaces where you don't have to explain so many parts of yourself. People get it. They just understand.

Sheldon [00:20:49]:

You don't have to go through a whole spiel to give cultural norms and and background and give them all. No. I could just be myself. Now sometimes we hear the word affinity space and we automatically oh, see segregation. It doesn't always have to be a racial thing. It doesn't have to be Sexual orientation. It doesn't have to be those kind of things. An affinity space can be a group of individuals that love chess.

Sheldon [00:21:16]:

Chess club. That's an affinity space. No one seems to care about that. After school clubs seem to be great until we start talking about identity, then it's all segregation. So you're telling me that if I like chess and I want to play chess with my best friends after school from 3 to 4, That's totally fine. But if I'm a handful of Let's let's just I'm I'm a handful of black kids that want to hang out between 3 and 4 as segregation. Oh, that's a gang. See a group of folks with the same identity hanging out.

Sheldon [00:22:07]:

Oh, what are they up to? They're probably up to no good. Affinity spaces are healthy. They're helpful. Saw a video where, a group of Muslim students were praying because they had nowhere else to go. They were praying in someone's office. And the the teachers reaction and response when the teacher walked into that off their office and saw the kids in there praying. Breaks my heart. But I've had conversations, coach teachers, how to respond when they wanna start an affinity space.

Sheldon [00:22:42]:

Girls club, fantasy club. We're into sci fi. Let's create this co this group. Let's get together, and we talk about Harry Potter all day. It seems to be okay. But when it comes to the if I am a, an individual who's brand new to my school. And I don't see anybody that looks like me. None of the teachers.

Sheldon [00:23:04]:

None of the the the administration. Maybe there's just a handful of of kids that share some of the same identities. What's wrong with me latching on to those those those those individuals. Become friends with them. Doesn't mean I'm up to something bad. But then I'm trying to, you know, that that there's some sort of malice

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