Implications for Teachers and Teacher Education
Bowman recognized that not all family or community contexts are able to support children’ s healthy development relative to school expectations. Nor did she discount statistics that show adverse early childhood experiences are more commonly associated with Black and Brown children and children from families with low incomes( Shonkoff & Phillips 2000; Bowman et al. 2018; Bowman 2019). Mental and physical illness, temperament, and traumatic experiences can derail individual families, and war, epidemics, and famine can overstress particular communities. Yet Bowman was always stupefied by the failure of these investigations and reports to hold anyone except the families responsible for causal factors.“ Such articles call attention away from demonstrated relationships between environment and school achievement and effective interventions,” she wrote, by not recognizing families need help( personal communication, 2022).
From Bowman’ s perspective, there is no ideal family background or one-size-fits-all“ best practice.” There is only the one needed for children to be personally and academically successful in a system that is not designed for historically marginalized children and families( personal communication, 2022). The more divergent their family / community context is from the“ powerholder-society, the more difficult it is for children to achieve in school”( personal communication, 2022). Therefore, teachers— current and in preparation— need both the theoretical knowledge and pedagogical skills to help all children acquire the knowledge and skills across domains that are necessary for long‐term school and life success. She called for teachers to adopt a discerning and open attitude about development and education. She cautioned them strongly against being swayed by harmful“ half‐truths” about family / community contexts and how children develop and learn. What children learn at home is what they bring to school, though they are developmentally always ready to learn more. Teachers must reflectively put aside their own biases and assumptions to implement practices that ensure all children are educated in ways that help them meet school expectations.
In the case of meaningful disconnects between family / community and school expectations, teachers should do their part in assisting families and children in acquiring the social, material, and educational resources they need to meet those expectations in an expedient fashion. When a family’ s need goes well beyond what teachers can provide, system‐wide support must be available. Bowman was deeply concerned that many families need more help in supporting their young children’ s early education than most educational systems provide. This may require inventive or creative solutions.( Changes to the length of the school day and year was one idea she championed.)“ We need different structures,” she said. In the absence of whole‐scale reform of school schedules and formats, Bowman maintained schools and teachers must be the agents of direct support.
Bowman held an optimistic view of teachers’ abilities to grow as professionals, whatever their own background or preparation( 1989b). In pursuit of becoming an equity‐minded practitioner, Bowman urged all teachers to reflectively“ step back from personal issues” that might have a damaging influence on their ability to create“ trustworthy,”“ growth producing and self‐assuring” classroom environments( personal communication, 2022). She reminded them that memories of early schooling are always germane to the formation of our teaching dispositions, especially those caused by unkind or unsympathetic teachers, indifferent to our background knowledge and family stories. Teachers also need to reckon with any active or present biases against groups of people that could inhibit their fair and equitable teaching.
Bowman wrote,“ The teaching‐learning paradigm is best understood by taking into account [ a teacher’ s ] background as well as empirical knowledge.” This
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