What is Legally Right May Not Be Morally Right in Education

Developing the “Heart” and Moral Compass

With moral compass comes spiritual connectivity. For example, any good program should engage in human uplift – this should be the engine behind our teaching, scholarly, service, and leadership activities in colleges and universities. It is not enough to have well-stated strategic plans, mission and vision statements, goals, objectives, and values – they must be put into practice. When institutions focus on what is legally right alone, they ignore the sacred existence of the individual. With such a negative focus, they pride themselves on the many lawyers who will defend them from lawsuits. In some strange fashion, they develop the impunity to discriminate against the disillusioned, disenchanted, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised – the very groups many of them are sworn to serve and protect.

College and universities and their educator preparation programs must create equitable avenues for fearless conversations and hire well-trained ombudsmen and women who can resolve conflicts and build conscientious communities. As Carr-Ruffino (1993) pointed out in her classic work:

Resolving conflict within the team involves six key steps: seeing it as an opportunity to root out problems before they fester, identifying types of competition and guiding it constructively, openly airing the views of the people involved in a group meeting, isolating the real cause of the conflict, determining the resolution strategy of each party, and reaching a resolution that is best for all parties.

(p. 468)

Leadership matters! The people who organizations hire to lead them matter! We all need leaders who have some “heart” and moral compass. Taulbert (1999) argued for eight habits of the heart to deal with personal and organizational challenges and crises: (a) nurturing attitude, (b) dependability, (c) responsibility, (d) friendship, (e) brotherhood/sisterhood/family hood, (f) high expectations, (g) courage, and (h) hope. To a large measure, practicing them can foster healthy relationships and conscientious communities where people feel that they are a part of a family or village. As community-oriented environments are buttressed and supported, it behooves all of us to organize futuristic programs that increase “dialogues of the heart” that are engrained in fearless conversations. Nobody expects racism, bigotry, and xenophobia to be over in one day; but without dialogues and conversations of the heart, the risk is “scotching the snake and not killing it.” It is unproductive and disingenuous to pretend that racism is over in education and our society – at least, for most of us, it is not over in colleges and universities and educator preparation programs!

More than two decades ago, Bell (1993) posited that racism is a permanent cancer in our society and that we are all “faces at the bottom of the well.” Though most disagree with this premise, most also agree that many people have been hurt and destroyed by our inability to confront racism and deal with it in humane ways that go beyond legalisms (Obiakor, 2008). We all must encourage all voices to be involved in discourses and conversations of the heart (Obiakor, Bakken, & Algozzine, 2014; Obiakor, Grant, & Obi, 2010; Obiakor & Martinez, 2016; Obiakor & Smith, 2012). All voices, including the constructive voices of White faculty, staff, students, and leaders, are immensely valuable to reduce racism, bigotry, and xenophobia in colleges and universities and in educator preparation programs (Obiakor, 2015). For example, in specific classroom instructions, discussions of the heart can focus on (a) taking time on the first day of class to get every name right, especially in pronunciations; (b) providing diverse voices in the form of assigned readings and guest lectures; (c) staying focused and going deeper beyond preconceptions; (d) structuring classroom discussions as dialogues, not debates; and (e) centering assignments on interests and concerns to provide critical thinking opportunities (Kissick, 2016). It is time to inspire students, faculty, staff, and leaders to:

1. Know who they are (e. g., acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses).

2. Learn the facts, when they are in doubt (e. g., conduct workshops and begin book clubs).

3. Change their thinking (e. g., encourage initiatives that change habits that are retrogressive).

4. Use resource persons (e. g., take advantage of parents and community leaders).

5. Build self-concepts (e. g., inspire and motivate people to develop internal locus of control).

6. Use divergent techniques (e. g., try to be multidimensional and differentiate instructions and respect individual differences).

7. Make the right choices (e. g., understand that individual and organizational choices must demonstrate human valuing).

8. Continue to learn (e. g., endeavor to be innovative and value current socio-cultural and demographic changes).

In this Issue of MLT

In this issue of MLT, authors who have used their creative voices to speak “truth” to power on issues targeting racial, cultural, and linguistic diversities are represented. In this issue, Belowitz, Kelli, and Frye discuss institutional racism and its relevance to the school to prison pipeline phenomenon; Caldecott and Esma examine the role of students’ English language status in perceptions of and performance in group examinations within Team-Based Learning (TBL); Harper and Thomas-Alexander describe mentor teachers’ perceptions of urban classrooms and culturally responsive teaching; Davis discusses boy-to-girl performance counter-narratives that teachers and practitioners should be aware of; Wyatt evaluates the influence of “super-diversity” on preservice teachers’ sensitivity to cultural issues; and Long uses her full circling process within a fifth grade urban classroom using the topic of segregation during the civil rights movement as the central focus.

This issue of MLT will not be produced without the collaborative and consultative engagements of our stakeholders. We thank Dr. Tachelle Banks, the Executive Managing Editor for her commitment to service and excellence. In addition, we thank the Executive Associate Editors, Associate Editors, and Editorial Board Members for their hard work and professional integrity. We especially thank our readers for valuing our service and dedication. Finally, we urge scholars, researchers, practitioners, and undergraduate and graduate students to continue to use MLT as an outlet.