We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be

Cornelius Minor takes the reader, teacher through his own journey as he works to making learning more accessible & authentic for all students. What I really liked about this book was that Minor is honest. He talks about his struggles & his successes. What I love about the book is that he shares planning documents which he uses to actually make lessons workable for himself as well as making the lessons personalized for the children in his classes. As a teacher this is something that I am striving to do, so having/seeing accessible tools which have been used successfully by another is helpful. Minor helps guide teachers to making learning better for all of the children we are working with on a daily basis

What a book! In the introduction, @MisterMinor tells us that his work as a teacher has been driven by the quest to bridge the enormous gulf between the promises of education and the actual lived experiences of so many of my students. He calls this book a manual for how to begin that brilliantly messy work (p. xvi). And he delivers on this promise.

This manual for doing equity rather than just talking about it offers a wealth of templates for teacher investigations related to equity. These templates include self-coaching questions to help teachers make sense of their contexts with an equity lens and then guide responsible decision making based on what they learn.

Cornelius has the heart of a coach. He knows that change involves learning. He tells us that equity-based instructional practice begins with a teachers strategic attention to how her teaching actions and classroom culture deny or create opportunities for students. He offers practical advice for how to support change at the school level, including sentence frames teachers can use in talking to colleagues about equity practices.

Cornelius reminds us of important truths about our work as educators:
1) Our work is important: To love children is to love their futures. (p. 73)
2) Achieving equity in schools is everyones responsibility: If we are not doing equity, then we are not doing education. (p. xi)
3) We are powerful: We do more than hope. We make miracles six periods a day. (p. x)
4) Our power arises from our passion for students and our own willingness to be learners: As it is now, so much of contemporary teaching is waiting for someone to tell us what to do. It does not have to be that way. We can create a thing, try it, reflect on it, and change it. This ability to read a room of children, create a thing for them, recognize when the thing isnt working for the children, and alter or change the thing completely is the most underdeveloped set of teacher skills We cannot purchase our way into this. This requires time and study and practice. This is listening to what kids need. This is assessment. This is data analysis. This is you. (p. 120)

This book does a great job bridging the gap between the theory of equity in education and the messy process of actually DOING equity work every day in schools -not the schools of the future, but the schools where we teach and work now. Strikes a great balance between acknowledging the difficulties, being respectful of the reader as a professional, and pushing you to think just a bit more. A must-read!

This is a great book for every teacher who is tired of hearing We cant do that, We always do it this way, and These kids cant do it. Motivation to create a paradigm shift and invoke change.

If you care about education, get this book. If you want to be a better teacher, get this book. If you’re a student who wishes her teachers were better, get them this book.

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