Critical Practice Guide for Anti-Bias Education: Teacher Leadership by Teaching Tolerance

addresses the importance of creating a space for children where both academic and social-
emotional goals are met. There are no authors and no study described. It is a guide to help
teachers create an anti- biased classroom setting. The article is written in four sections:
Instruction, Classroom Culture, Family and Community Engagement and Teacher Leadership.
This article suggests that student engagement with material being taught is critical. By teaching
students this type of engagement, they will take ownership of material and connect learning to
real issues as well creating justice in their school and communities. Another important part of an
anti-bias classroom is creating a culture that honors student experience. Strategies for
classroom set up and structure, inquiry and dialogue, social and emotional safety and values
based behavior management are offered in this article. Another important aspect of an anti-bias
educations is positive family and community engagement. In order to create a classroom where
social justice is present teachers must bring both cultural understanding and self awareness to
their work. This article is full of strategies to build these critical skills and relationships to create
a classroom where both the academic and social-emotional needs of students are addressed.

Teachers Leaders and Student Achievement: can the dots be connected written by Calderone,
S, Kent and Green, A. (2016) discusses a study conducted to determine how teacher leadership
effects student achievement in math and science. The participants were 173 eighth grade
students and eight teachers. The groups were made up of students who were instructed by
teachers identified as teacher leaders and groups instructed by teachers not identified as
teacher leaders. The students were also split into advanced science and regular science and
advanced math and regular math. The purpose of this study was to determine whether teacher
leaders had a positive effect on student achievement. The findings indicate that in both
advanced math and advanced science teacher leaders had a great impact on student
achievement. However, in regular math and science teachers identified as teacher leaders did
not seem to have an impact on student scores. The article suggests that other factors could play
into the different results. For example, the high achieving students may be more motivated than
the students in the regular math and science classes. Kent and Green did suggest conducting
further research for the students in the regular math and science classes to see if scores would
improve if they were given a longer period with the teacher leaders.

Both of these articles suggest that teacher leadership is important. The article Critical Practice
Guide for Anti-Bias Education suggests that teacher leadership is important in addressing both
academic and social-emotional goals for students. The article written by Kent and Green
suggests that further research should be done for the students in the regular math and science
class to see if more time with teacher leaders will have an impact on their achievement.

These articles have reiterated the importance of teacher leadership. One thing I realized is that I
already practice several teacher leader strategies in my classroom. I will continue to make every
effort to provide my students with an anti-bias classroom to learn in. Another leadership role I
will continue to work on is taking initiative to help my colleagues as well as make every effort to
connect with our school families and the community.