In her award-winning book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, journalist Isabel Wilkerson offers a conceptual frame for understanding our country’s history of oppression based on race.
Comparing to a similar situation in India, in which “caste” is how people are separated by their perceived status, Wilkerson explains how U.S. society can also “cast” people to operate in expected ways that perpetuate inequities and worse.
“The social pyramid known as a caste system is not identical to the cast in a play, though the similarity in the two words hints at a tantalizing intersection. When we are cast into roles, we are not ourselves. We are not supposed to be ourselves. We are performing based on our place in the production, not necessarily on who we are inside. We are all players on a stage that was built long before our ancestors arrived in this land. We are the latest cast in a long-running drama that premiered on this soil in the early seventeenth century.” (p. 40)
If we deviate from our roles and go “off-script”, we may upset the order of things.
Expanding Our Identities
At risk of trivializing the important ideas conveyed in Caste, I see echoes of this concept in public education.
Teachers are suppose to teach. Students should learn. Principals supervise and evaluate this process. Adopting these roles does clarify our work. Yet it can also crystalize our mindsets to a point where it becomes difficult to deviate from our traditional responsibilties in response to new situation.
Not because we fail to see the need to adapt, but to avoid disrupting the culture.
To innovate requires a breaking of the norms to create a space for trying things out and making mistakes. As an example, in my role as a leader, I will adopt the stance of a learner when visiting classrooms. I talk to students and notice actions and the environment from a point of curiosity. This information is reflected back to the teacher in my notes and our conversation. Evaluation is not a part of this observation.
When I take a stance toward curiosity, my identity expands. I no longer need to always portray the role of a fearless leader, brimming with certainty. And through our modeling, teachers can see what is also possible beyond their traditional roles.
Wisdom from the Field is also a feature in my new book, Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H.