As the title of this article suggests, equity begins early, at the start of the day or a class session. This means beginning everything with equity in mind. Equity is a noun, a value, a thing that one seeks to achieve. At the same time, it is more than a passive noun. In the educational context, equity is a super word. It is something that educators must work to create, find a place for, and work to maintain. Each morning, as part of her morning ritual, every educator should ask , What does equity look like before the bell ring? The bell referred to is both the alarm bell and the classroom start of class bell.
When we refer to educators, we are talking about more than teachers and college professors. We are referring to any professional who works in the education arena. Educator professionals such as, curriculum designers, instructional coach, community education coordinator, and educational consultants. This means this article is relevant for classroom teachers as well as those who work in administrative roles.
In this space, we encourage educators to adapt a morning routine similar to that envisioned by Hal Elrod in his Miracle Morning Routine.* When carrying out her morning routine, educators should keep in mind that in addition to her personal morning routine, she needs to create a beginning of class routine that centers equity for students in a classroom or peers in an administrative position. While equity-centered work is hard and important, educators must approach the work with a mindset that is gentle, intentional, and visionary.
My Experience Creating an Equitable Environment
In my days working as the executive director of an afterschool program created to help students do better in school, I had to create an equitable environment for students, tutors, and volunteer teachers from the local school districts. At the beginning of each day, I reflected on what I would face when the children came to see me after school. Most of my students were Black students who attended school in an affluent, predominantly white school district. Most of the tutors and teachers who volunteered where white. This meant that my program was populated by people who saw the world and the educational system from wildly different vantage points.
It was crucial that I create an equitable environment for my young students. Many of them felt that their school teachers and administrators did not care about them and did not have their best interests at heart. (Davis, 2025). At the same time, it was crucial for me to model equity for the tutors and teachers at the program. It was my hope that if they saw equity modeled in the program, they would start to model that behavior in the local school district. That in turn, would create a better and more equitable educational environment for my students.
I wanted to show the tutors and teachers a different way of looking at my students and their roles with my students. I wanted them to stop interacting with my students in ways that did not respect my students’ cultural identity and that only saw them from a deficit perspective. I wanted them to ask, “What if we began things differently. What if we looked at the work we do with these students with equity in mind?”
Understanding Equity vs Equality
In all equity-centered work, it is important to understand the difference between equity and equality. Equality happens when everyone gets the same thing. All students have the same books, same instruction, and are expected to produce the same results in the same way. The goal with equality is to treat everyone the same. Equality assumes everyone starts from the same place. It focuses on uniformity. As a result, there are many gaps in experience and outcome.
Equity on the other hand, means that everyone gets what they need in order to succeed. This means students get supports they need. This means two students sitting next to each other may different forms of help, different materials, or more time on exams, all based on their unique situations. Equity looks at fairness. It recognizes that each student is starting from a different place. The focus is on fairness. Equity aims to close gaps and level the educational field.
As this discussion shows, equality and equity are two vastly different things. In order to have a just educational system that benefits all students, not just the privileged, creating an equity-centered environment is the floor. It is where we should start and from where we should build out. When we start our morning routine, each class session, and each administrative meeting with a routine that centers equity, we make the educational system and the world a better place for us all.
Ways to Begin with Equity In Mind
Here are 5 strategies that can be used by educators to help start the day, class, or administrative meeting with equity in mind.
- Sensory-Friendly Entry Routines – These are calm ways for students to enter the classroom or adults to enter a meeting space. They are designed to reduce sensory overload. Some examples include quiet music, soft lighting, gentle greetings, and visual schedules.
- Culturally Responsive Greetings – These are welcoming rituals that honor a person’s identities, cultural norms, and languages. This means greetings may be given in multiple languages, or participants may be encouraged to share their own preferred greeting methods. These activities build trust and help affirm belonging.
- Choice-Based Morning Work – This refers to low pressure activities at the start of the day or meeting. It can include things like journaling, puzzles, or reading. These activities foster autonomy and eases the transition from pre-class or pre-meeting to class time and meeting time.
- Trauma-Informed Transitions – This involves the use of soft and predictable transitions between activities. These transitions take into account students’ and participants’ emotional and behavior needs. This can include things such as countdowns, breathing breaks, movement option, or visual cues.
- Flexible Seating or Lighting – This takes into account offer offering options for where and how work is done. This means using things like beanbags, standing desks, or dimmable light. Things like comfort, sensory needs, and fucus are taken into account. This enables one to select the environment where they feel the most productive and safe.
Conclusion
In addition to starting each day with equity in mind, educators of all types are encouraged to start each class or meeting session with some type of equity-centered ritual. When educators make this a habit, they create equitable environment and model equitable behaviors. Both of which will serve to make the educational landscape a better place for all players.
*Miracle Mornings are the creation of Hal Elrod who posited5 that if people started their mornings doing a certain routine which he named SAVERS, they would have better and more productive days. SAVERS was an acronym for: Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, Scribing.
Reference:
Elrod, H. (2023). The miracle morning: The not-so-obvious secret guaranteed to transform your life (before 8AM) (Updated and expanded ed.). BenBella Books
Further Reading
The Best Educators Strive to Create Equity-Centered Classrooms
Unlock Your Doctoral Success: Coaching & Resources That Work
Adapting a Miracle Morning Routine for Educators
About the Author
Dr. Janeane Davis is Founder and Principal Consultant at Janeane Davis and Associates: Educational Consultants. Her mornings begin with movement, meaning, and a well-lit desk where rituals become roadmaps. She writes to help educators build mornings that nourish their mission and sustain their momentum.
Sunrise near. Pages open. Always becoming.