What Does Teaching With Equity Actually Mean?
A Scientific Approach

You want to incorporate equity into your classroom, but what does "teaching with equity" actually look like in practice?

Can you tell if you are doing it in the moment, or do you have to wait weeks or months to analyze test scores and grades?


This is an arena filled with diverse experts making thousands of suggestions.

If you do not rely on a sufficiently clear definition of equity, you risk wasting time and effort on strategies that feel good but don't move the needle.

You have likely heard many definitions before, but ask yourself:

Does the definition in your head clearly point you in a direction where, if you collected the right data, it would unambiguously tell you whether you are succeeding?


Most definitions fail this test. To truly succeed at teaching with equity, we must move beyond vague sentiments and ground our practice in the science of human needs.

A Clear Definition of Equity

Based on the consensus definition of equity recently put forward by the National Academies of Science, we can define a four-step pathway to equity:

1.  Define needs scientifically.

2.  Distribute resources fairly to satisfy those needs.

3.  Remove structural barriers to need satisfaction.

4.  Satisfy needs with parity across groups.

The core of this definition—and the key to teaching with equity—lies in understanding "needs." If we get the definition of needs wrong, the rest of the steps fall apart.


The Science of Needs

What does it mean to define needs scientifically? Fortunately, we don't have to guess.

A community of psychologists has been researching this for decades under the banner of Self-Determination Theory.

SDT offers the most robustly supported scientific models of motivation and engagement available today.


In this body of research, needs function like an alphabet.

There are primary and secondary needs (universal to all humans), particular needs (specific to individuals or groups), and derivative needs (combinations of the others).


To practice teaching with equity, you must focus on the primary psychological needs:

  • Relatedness: The need to feel connected and cared for.
  • Autonomy: The need to feel a sense of willingness and volition.
  • Competence: The need to feel effective in one's environment.

Supporting these three needs is the most basic building block of equity.

Regardless of a student's background, race, or socioeconomic status, if these needs are thwarted, learning cannot happen deeply.

The Lesson of Medical Hygiene

To understand how to apply this in the classroom, we can look to the history of medicine. In the mid-1800s, society believed disease was caused by "miasma" (bad smells) or unbalanced internal "humours." 

These incorrect theories led to disastrous public health decisions, such as dumping sewage into the Thames River, and medical practices like bleeding and purging that often killed patients.


However, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that simply washing hands cut maternal death rates in half. This was the birth of hygiene.


As Daniel Kahneman, Oliver Sibony, and Cass Sunstein note in their book Noise, hygiene is tedious. Its benefits are invisible; you never know which specific germ you washed away. 

When you wash your hands, you don't get a trophy. But without hygiene, even the most skilled surgeon will fail because the patient will succumb to infection.

Education Hygiene: The Foundation of Teaching With Equity

Schools today are in a state similar to 19th-century medicine. We need Education Hygiene.


Many errors schools make are attributable to the "infections" of demotivation and disengagement.

Biases regarding race, gender, and disability are toxic because they actively demotivate students.

Even if a child is physically present, if they are disengaged, their learning will be shallow.


Education hygiene consists of practices that systematically support the primary needs for relatedness, autonomy, and competence.


Just like medical hygiene, education hygiene is not about the skillful use of complex instructional techniques.

It is about the baseline behaviors that everyone—teachers, administrators, and staff—must adopt.


Adapting Kahneman’s insight to education: Education hygiene is invaluable but thankless.

Correcting a specific bias may give you a tangible sense of achievement, but the procedures that support psychological needs do not.

They prevent demotivation, but you will never know exactly when or how. It is an invisible victory against an invisible enemy.


Education hygiene will not make every student brilliant, just as handwashing does not prevent all diseases. But it addresses the pervasive problem of disengagement.

Wherever there is a challenge in the classroom, there is the possibility of demotivation. Education hygiene is the tool to reduce it.

A Reliable Path Forward

When you apply specific behaviors that support primary psychological needs, you are starting down the most reliable path to teaching with equity. 

This path is reliable because it is backed by decades of research showing that need-supportive behaviors benefit every student, regardless of their personal or cultural circumstances.


However, remember that hygiene is a starting point. In medicine, you wash your hands to create a safe environment for the surgery. 

In education, you practice education hygiene to create a safe psychological environment for instruction. 

You still need instructional expertise, but that expertise can only land effectively if the "hygiene" is in place.

What About "Academic Needs"?

In discussions about teaching with equity, you will often hear the phrase "academic needs." As a psychologist, I find this phrasing risky if not put into context.


Academics are neither primary nor secondary human needs. Billions of humans have achieved well-being without algebra or essay-writing skills. 

While academic skills are positively correlated with well-being in our complex society, they are likely derivative needs—a mix of other needs—rather than a distinct category.


If we focus solely on "academic needs" while ignoring the primary psychological needs (Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness), we are trying to perform surgery with dirty hands. We must prioritize the primary needs to ensure the academic interventions can succeed.

Teaching With Equity is Catalytic

When you consistently practice education hygiene, your pedagogy becomes catalytic.

You become an effective facilitator of deeper learning.


If you are looking for a concrete way to start, you need a list of behaviors scientifically proven to support these needs.

I have compiled a list of "Basic Memetic Engineering and Education hygiene" behaviors derived from the scientific literature and am working on a book to share insights from SDT that expand beyond that list.


By focusing on these fundamental human requirements, you move away from guessing and toward a practice where teaching with equity is a daily, measurable reality.

Resources

Click here to download the PDF list of behaviors for education hygiene mentioned in this essay. If you want to take a deeper dive consider buying my book-in-progress (Education Hygiene) and help me finish it.

This article was printed from HolisticEquity.com

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