Privilege, Knowledge, and What Schools Must Provide
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why privilege is more than luxury, and why schools must deliberately provide knowledge and support students may not get elsewhere.
Key Takeaways
- Privilege Is Material - Privilege isn't just about nicer experiences; it creates real academic and life advantages through health, nutrition, safety, and opportunity.
- Knowledge Matters - Enriching experiences build background knowledge, vocabulary, and ideas that students draw on in reading and writing.
- School Must Fill Gaps - When students don't get key supports outside school, educators have to provide them directly rather than assume they'll develop on their own.
- Phonics Is an Equity Issue - Weak reading instruction hurts all students, but less-privileged students are least likely to have outside support that compensates for it.
- Basic Needs Support Learning - Schools may need to provide essentials like breakfast, lunch, and explicit instruction so students aren't left behind by unequal privilege.
Full Transcript
I think we've had privilege all wrong in education. We've had this fundamental misunderstanding of what privilege is and how it functions that has caused us to not do the right things for kids who don't have a lot of privilege and need us at school to meet their needs
and to give them a leg up in the world. See, there's this idea that privilege is just luxury. Like, if you go to the airport, the luxury of, you know, the TSA pre-check line, not having to wait for security, The luxury of getting to go to the airline lounge
and not having to sit at the gate with everybody else. The luxury of getting to board first, getting a fancier meal on the plane. Like, we think of privilege in those terms that don't really matter, right?
Like, everybody gets to the same destination. It doesn't really matter that much materially whether you have the more privileged experience or not. That is not true in life in general, though, and it is not true in education. If you are more privileged in life, you have material advantages over people who are less privileged.
Not just luxuries, but material advantages, right? You have better nutrition, you have less exposure to environmental toxins like lead, you have, uh, you know, a healthier environment in every way if you have more privilege.
What is it that students can get from school, even if they don't have a lot of privilege outside of school? I think a big one we've been overlooking is knowledge, right? Kids who come from privilege get a lot of knowledge from their privileged families
and all of the experiences that privilege allows you to have in life, like going to plays, going on vacation, you know, having lots of books, reading lots of books, being read to, spending a lot of time with your parents, you know, being involved in things, activities...
that take a lot of time and money to do, like, all of those enriching life experiences are not just luxuries.
They give you knowledge so that when you are writing, when you are reading, you have things in your mind to draw on. You have experiences, you have vocabulary, you have things to say, you've had ideas that you've grappled with. And other kids have not necessarily had those same experiences.
If they've had less privilege, they've had less of that. And that matters academically. So I think one big implication for us in education is we have to not undersell the value of knowledge.
And this came up, I think, in a very dramatic way with the Soul to Story, Lucy Calkins, phonics stuff, right? If you are privileged and you don't get taught phonics, you're probably going to be okay. You're going to have enough life experiences and tutoring
and, you know, support wrapped around you that you're probably going to be okay. If you are less privileged, you need school to teach you phonics, or you are not probably going to learn how to read. And I think we've got to look for more things
like that. Places where school has to do its part.
School has to provide the knowledge. School has to provide breakfast and lunch. School has to give kids what they need if they are not going to be left behind compared to everybody who has more privilege. But I think privilege is a material and real thing. Let me know what you think.