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There is much evidence that we perform according to what is expected of us.
So if others see the gold and they see our potential it draws it out;
if others assume that we're not going to perform well and that we have no potential to go
to college or succeed or be creative then that keeps us very narrow.
And so an example of this that is familiar and widely known is that
if African American students in elementary school have an African American teacher,
better test scores and more favorable teacher perceptions, right?
But a really powerful study came out this last March from Johns Hopkins
that looked at the long-run impact of teachers and students being matched.
Findings: low-income Black students who have at least one black teacher in elementary school
are significantly more likely to graduate high school and consider attending college.
Having one Black teacher reduced the Black students probability of dropping out of school by 29%
and for very low-income Black boys the results are
a reduction of the chance of dropping out by 39%.
Having one Black teacher in elementary school... just one teacher... 39%.
That very much upsets me... and I'm going to say why.
I mean it's very common sense that if you have a role model,
if you have someone that gets you and pays attention and believes in you
it is going to draw out the goodness.
We get that. But then we look at what's actually happened in this country
with Brown versus the Board of Education, 1954;
it looked like this incredible boon to racial justice, right? Integration of schools...
Well what happened, actually, was African-American kids were integrated into white schools,
and within ten years, half of all African-American teachers lost their jobs.
Why? Because those who are hiring - the dominant culture -
believed that white teachers were superior to black teachers
and white parents wanted white teachers to be teaching their kids.
Thousands of black educators jobs are terminated...
And then here we have it: it just takes one teacher. Imagine you have one or two or three...
So we need positive mirroring. And if this is interesting to you by the way
I got this from Malcolm Gladwell's podcast on revisionist history,
this particular episode, and if you want to learn more about it I thought it was really powerful.
I bring this in because we're talking about coming home to the garden
and the power of our relationships with each other and we're also in a relationship
with the structures and institutions of our culture;
and it is as much a part of our path to try to create a compassionate society
as it is to wake up the compassion in our own hearts.
So how do we do it in our own hearts?
How do we deepen our attention so that we're with someone and there's a place in us that is scanning and saying:
"What do you need?" You know... "How are you feeling vulnerable?"
"How can I respond in a way that reminds you that you belong?"
What would it be like if we scanned and did that?
Rachael Remen says: "One moment of unconditional love may call into question a lifetime of feeling unworthy and invalidate it."
One teacher, one moment.
There is a power we have in really showing up for each other, to remind each other.
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