Student Learning is 100% Teacher Responsibility

Mario Echeverria, educator, school leader, and friend of mine, swears by an interview question for teacher interviews. "How much of a student's learning is your responsibility?" To which there is only one answer. 100%.

I had an interesting exchange on Twitter a few days ago, with a stranger. At first we misunderstood each other, as most exchanges go on social media, but this stranger was there for sincere communication. We are both teachers, educators, and students and we both listened to each other in an attempt to understand the other's point of view. 

He had an interesting first reaction to my statement that teacher's are 100% responsible for student learning. First, he felt that idea could be used to scapegoat teachers, from outside of education, to put the blame of the ills of schooling solely onto their backs, which is a genuine concern. Teachers are blamed for a lot when it comes to the poor outcomes in schools. I reassured him that I am a teacher myself and am not trying to scapegoat anyone. Instead I want to push teachers to embrace the role of curating educational environments were students can bring their whole selves and engage in true dialogue around their learning processes and capacities.

His second concern was that making a statement like this, 100% of student learning is up to the teacher, can potentially reduce a student to a thing, to an object, that the teacher must put upon. That it can potentially strip students of their agency in co-creating educational spaces, that it could be used to uphold a banking system of education. I again reassured him, that the learning that I speak of is liberatory, predicated on the empowerment of student voice and agency in the co-creation of learning spaces.  

This statement is about the power that teachers do have to curate the environment in their classrooms and spaces. Teachers have institutional power to grade, to punish, to stifle, to oppress. Or their power can be used to uplift, empower, and value. Students have power too, as can be witnessed in so many forms of expression, walkouts, outspokenness, and quiet resolve to resist - but many students are disconnected from their power as well.

Dr. Jorge Ramirez Delgado shared this quote from Anzaldua with us during our semester's course, “The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the 'real' world unless it first happens in the images in our heads”  (Gloria Anzaldua, 1999).  

My father work tirelessly to awaken our Chicana/o/e awareness within everyone he met, to help spark critical consciousness and dialogue in every interaction possible, to shed light on our inner struggles of oppression, and create the conditions for change within the social order, to co-create liberatory spaces. That is the true power of love, to create transformative healing and emancipation, bit by bit, moment by moment, from the shackles of the contorted constraints of colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

"It is 100% the move of a teacher to create a liberatory space, to humanize every child, to hold high expectations of each kid, and to stop at nothing to help each child reach their goals. The passion and purpose need to be aligned. Literally, kids' lives depend on it." Mario Echeverria (2022).