I wasn’t able to talk to Molly (the teacher) about her experiences with diversity at Prairie Creek this week, so all of my observations about diversity are visual observations, which I recognize cannot encompass every aspect of diversity. This week at Prairie Creek, much of the visit was taken up by an hour-long presentation/performance that some visitors put on about waste (trash, recycling, compost, reusing stuff etc.). Something I noticed as I looked around the room during the presentation, was that there appeared to be very few students of color. I have also previously noticed that every single adult at the school is white-presenting: not only teachers, but also the director, classroom helpers, office workers, the librarian, and the special ed teachers. Furthermore, the visitors giving the performance were white-presenting, other tutors this term are white-presenting, and the couple Carleton students I know who tutored here in past years are also white.

This makes me think that Prairie Creek students are not seeing very many racially and ethnically diverse role models. It makes me wonder how students of color are impacted by not seeing anyone who looks like them in positions of power, authority, and knowledge. On the other hand, Prairie Creek does do an incredible job of situating students as roll models for other students, and in this way perhaps students are able to see some modeling from students who look more like them. Furthermore, I know that Prairie Creek hosts an artist in residence every spring, and when I looked into who has visited over past years, there does seem to be more racial and ethnic diversity represented in the artists that visit.

One reason that Prairie Creek may not be as racially or ethnically diverse as other public schools is that it started out as a private school. It has been public for many years now and has changed a lot, but I have talked with some teachers about how the private school legacy can still be seen a little in the student body and culture. Another reason is that Prairie Creek is a public charter school, which means it is a lottery system to get in, and is a self-selecting student body (by parental selection). This means that likely only parents who feel comfortable putting their kids in an environment such as this one will choose to enter the lottery system. This relates to something that I talked to Molly about early on – the choice to have students call teachers by their first names. I was interested in how calling a teacher by their first name changes, or does not change, the teacher’s relationship with their students. However, Molly unexpectedly brought up the fact that calling teachers by their first name might be more comfortable for some parents/teachers than others, depending on their culture. This is interesting because it means that Prairie Creek’s teaching/learning style may be more attractive to some cultures than others.

A different type of diversity that Prairie Creek appears to do very well at is allowing students to have diverse learning styles and abilities, and still succeed in school. I have written previously about how impressed I have been with Molly’s thoughtfulness in her lesson plans. She writes lessons that take student needs into account, incorporating visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and other sensory aspects into her lesson. She also ensures that students of different interests and abilities can be successful in her class because she offers different activities to students in order to meet them where they’re at. This differentiation allows students of all abilities and interests to work together and succeed both together and individually.

Other forms of diversity include gender and LGBTQ identities. I have previously reflected on how gender is shown at Prairie Creek, and Isaac helped me realize that there may be more gender-blurring than I originally thought. Although gender norms are very visible, there are also many boys with long hair, and girls who enjoy playing outside and getting dirty, which challenge gender stereotypes. I have not been able to visually pinpoint LGBTQ identities, but these students are young and may not feel a need to differentiate themselves in this way quite yet (Prairie Creek is only K-5th grade). I have noticed, though, that all the teachers that I am aware of having partners are in heterosexual relationships (that is not to say this is true of all the teachers, or even that those who are in heterosexual relationships identify as “straight”, this is only based on what I have actually heard from teachers about their partners).  All adults at the school appear to be cisgender and identify within a gender binary, but again this is a huge assumption and not something that I have asked about or could know only by looking. However, I again wonder how the lack of visual diversity in these ways might impact students who do not necessarily follow mainstream gender or sexual identities, but don’t perceive others around them to be challenging these norms.

One way to help with the lack of representation of different aspects of diversity at Prairie Creek could be choosing visiting experts/presenters in a way that increases diversity on campus. For example, the artist residency seems to achieve this. But it might also be important to bring in diverse people outside of the art realm.

Something interesting that happened at my visit this week was that after the all-school-gathering with the waste presentation, the teachers all allowed their students to go play outside for about 10 minutes. The presentation was quite long, and teachers commented that they were impressed that students were able to sit for that long. Most of these students have not been out to a movie, or a play, or any similar long performance since pre-covid, if ever. Hence, Molly commented on the fact that many students seem not to know how to sit with their legs criss-crossed, they are more used to kneeling for shorter periods of time. After the presentation, it was clear the students really needed some active time in order to refocus on the next lesson. I love that Prairie Creek embraces and meets this need for bodily movement, rather than trying to corral students into another stationary activity that they‘ll have trouble focusing on.

Below is a picture of the students playing during this “active break”!