But We Must Do It A New Way
There is an annual habit to which most of us can relate. Picture the scene: we’re a month into a new year and it’s time to reflect on how you’re doing with the goals or resolutions you’ve set. If you’re me, you’re trying to eat healthier and make fitness and exercise a regular part of your life. I’m certain I’m not alone in this annual exercise.
Recently, it occurred to me, however, that as I am striving towards a new year’s goals, I am using the past year’s habits to get there. For instance, I am still waking up at the same time, although I aspire to go to the gym in the morning before work. It’s like that quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Something has to change if I am going to make it to the gym.
Organizations can be similar in their efforts to achieve new goals and strategy: The new direction is set, yet nothing changes in their process or way of doing business to get there. As someone with direct and clear responsibilities for diversity, equity, and inclusion, this dynamic is very acute and familiar to me. Currently, making the education sector more diverse, equitable, and inclusive is a stated goal for many leaders, yet few organizations have deeply changed how they do business to achieve more diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In our organizations, despite having new goals, our attachment to old and original ways of being surface regularly. Often, it sounds like: “But we’ve always done it that way.” This phrase haunted me recently during the holidays with my mother. We were cooking together, roasting sweet potatoes. The potatoes were done, and it was time to plate them. I cut mine in half and added cinnamon. My mom added brown sugar and butter. I thought to myself: “Sweet potatoes are already sweet, and I know my mom also wants to work on her health.” I asked her why, she responded: “I’ve always put brown sugar and butter on my sweet potato baby, since growing up.” The look on my mother’s face, matter-of-fact in deposition, suggested that it was silly of me to ask.
“But we’ve always done it that way” is the comfortable, regular, and normal barrier to enacting change. And, our reluctance to change — in our personal and our professional lives — not only limits progress, it also prizes old ways of doing and being that, by design, were exclusive. When we rely on the ways we have always done it, likely we are also relying on our past efforts, and history on many fronts tells us that our past efforts weren’t the most inclusive or equitable.
An ongoing example in education is admissions requirements and entrance exams. Many schools, especially in higher education, have found new ways to assess and predict the potential success of college applicants other than using standardized tests like the SAT and ACT. While the merits of standardized tests are debatable to some, the outcome for many colleges is clear: the test does not help colleges enroll diverse students. This example evokes the question: How can a 92+ year old test now be inclusive of diverse students who, in the past, colleges and universities didn’t admit? Ultimately, engendering equity and inclusion requires that we do things differently. Interrogating our hiring protocols, curriculum decisions, application processes is a simple place to start. If these, among other organizational practices are the same as they have always been, we will get the same results.
When applied to education, striving to make the experience, learning, and environment more inclusive and equitable requires that we change and do the enterprise differently. It is not enough to have a more enhanced goal. Collectively, we have never had nor known systematically inclusive and equitable schools, colleges, or nonprofits. Building these kinds of places requires that we think outside of the box, imagine beyond what we have experienced, dream big, and create past what we presently know. Resting on our current models and understanding will only yield the same thing that we already have: inequality and inequity.
Domonic Rollins
Author’s note: This piece has been adapted and updated from its original format published by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. [https://medium.com/@harvardeducation/but-we-must-do-it-a-new-way-5e216f3e7007]