Higher Ground's D&I vs. DEI/ABAR
Context
Higher Ground takes an approach to identity—and to human nature generally—that is fundamentally based in individual human agency. We conceive of education as the enabling of the agency of each student, and in particular of the two key aspects of agency: the power to think for oneself (knowledge) and the power to independently act in and shape the world (work).
Montessori’s pedagogy is profoundly opposed to racism. As we wrote in our Guidepost statement concerning racism from 2020:
In this great work, racism is our enemy. It is one of the most virulent of the enemies we face: it represents the total antithesis of our educational focus on the individuality and human potential within each child.
Racism is the idea that before a person is to be regarded as a unique, self-created, human individual, she is first regarded, based on her skin and physiognomy, as a specific subcategory of human. On this basis, she is not to be seen primarily as a particular, developing human—holding within her unlimited potential, the primal fire of self-creation, and unyielding moral dignity. She is rather seen as a token of a reified racial type, first—and second, if at all and only on the basis of what the racial type purportedly permits, a human with potential, agency, and dignity.
(Before continuing, it is worth revisiting that essay in whole if you are unfamiliar with it.) Our understanding of and commitment to the Montessori approach of radical individual agency has led us to a way of addressing issues of prejudice and injustice that are distinct. That is, we regard the increasingly mainstream frameworks of DEI/ABAR to be profoundly incompatible with our approach to injustice and to pedagogy generally.
For essay-length treatments as to some of the differences, please see the essays under our Agency and Identity initiative.
In particular, see:
- Higher Ground's Approach to Identity: an extended treatment of the above perspective on how we approach identity in an agency-centric way
- Everything is for Everyone: how we approach diversity in the curriculum, and how this contrasts with other approaches
- The Persona of an Educator: why we regard political activism as incompatible with the role of the educator
- Social Justice at Higher Ground: a critical commentary on the commonly used Teaching Tolerance for Social Justice standards, and how and why our approach differs
This last essay is particularly pertinent to our purposes here, as it goes through a commonly adopted set of standards meant to address racism and other forms of injustice, and shows at length how we differ.
The remainder of this essay indicates a more synoptic (and not exhaustive) summary of differences.
Higher Ground's Approach Compared
A Difference of Frameworks
The above focuses on differences between the Higher Ground’s approach and more commonly found approaches to DEI and ABAR in the broader world of education. There are, of course, also similarities. In any given case, there may be substantial, in-practice overlap between the recommendations of these two sets of frameworks.
However, even in the cases where there is practical overlap, the difference in frameworks matters tremendously. They set a directionality and tone that does have practical implications in other cases and in the pattern of responses over time. In our view, it is the difference between treating students as capable, individual agents, or in treating them more demographically, less capable, and more as patients than agents.
Moreover, these issues are deep. We do not regard issues of discrimination or injustice as a footnote or addendum to an otherwise coherent pedagogy. How we deal with these issues is a matter of our ability to stay true to our pedagogical principles in general. To what extent a child’s identity is really a matter of self-creation is not something that can be compromised on without ultimately compromising on our entire pedagogy.
Higher Ground is one thousand percent committed to eliminating prejudice and ending injustice—as a part of our commitment to unlocking the human potential of every individual child, to helping each child live his or her best life. This means addressing prejudice and injustice in ways that actually accomplish this complete set of ends. Our approach is designed to do this, and we believe that contrasting approaches in fact undermine all of these aims.
Dr. Matt Bateman
Dr. Matt Bateman earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2012 from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught and continued his research at Franklin and Marshall College in the Department of Psychology, on topics ranging from neuroscience to evolutionary theory to philosophy, before joining the LePort Schools as Director of Curriculum and Pedagogy in 2014.
In 2016, Dr. Matt Bateman became a founding member of Higher Ground Education. He is now Vice President of Pedagogy for Higher Ground and the Executive Director of Montessorium.