Learning While Black:Context and Teaching

Strategies

Courageous Conversations Workshop, Fall 2009

“Loaded” Terms

Culture of Power in the Classroom: Lisa Delpit’s Perspective

At home, Black students often do not gain facility with the “culture of power” typically present in schools.• The “home rules” still are of great value• At home many Black students experience much

stimulation and intensity, including relatively high noise levels, large numbers of people in a living space, and a variety of activities occurring simultaneously.

• In summary, a high degree of ”psychological and behavioral verve”!

Culture of Home and School

• Black children often tend to have “an increased behavioral vibrancy and an increased psychological affinity for stimulus change and intensity

• Black themes often tend to be movement, receptiveness toward relatively high levels of sensory stimulation, and communalism

• White themes often tend to be individualism, competition, adherence to structured rules

Culture of Power: Example

• “Process vs. skills” in literacy:– Progressive White teachers: “Let me help you find

your voice. I promise not to criticize one note as you search for your own song.”

• Believe explicit expectations are oppressive– Black teachers: “I’ve heard your song loud and

clear. Now, I want to teach you to harmonize with the rest of the world.”

Culture of Power: Examples, continued

• Requesting vs. Directing-- Progressive White teachers

• Is this where the scissors belong?• You want to do your best work today.

– Black teachers• Put those scissors on that shelf.• Put your name on the papers and make sure to

get the right answer for each question.

School Dependence

• Poor students of color often are “School Dependent”

• At the same time their peer culture is likely to be more powerful than the school culture

• Poor students of color and their families often view school as means to achieve a variety of social and cultural benefits

School Independence

• Many students are successful in school in spite of their schooling because they and their families possess material resources and cultural capital.

• They and their families possess material resources and cultural capital to supplement experience in school

Academic Achievement

IS NOT: • Getting students to feel good about

themselves• Retention of large numbers of poor

students of color and males• Accountability procedures that intimidate

teachers, students, administrator and parents

Academic AchievementIS:

• Student Learning: what students know and are able to do “as a result of pedagogical interactions with skilled teachers”

• “Cultivation of students’ minds and intellectual lives” –Ladsen-Billings

Goals of Education

• Expose poor students of color to the very macro culture that oppresses them

• Paradoxically, without the skills and knowledge of the macro culture, many poor students of color are unlikely to succeed in the mainstream economy and experience and understand the middle class lifestyle.

Goals of Education

• “If you can show me how I can cling to that which is real to me, while teaching me a way into the larger society, then I will not drop my defenses and hostility, but I will sing your praises and I will help make the desert bear fruit.”– Ralph Ellison, Going to the Territory (1986)

Goals of Education, continued

• The goal is not to make poor students of color become middle class, but rather to allow them to “make it” in the White world if they choose to retaining their cultural identity

• From a Black parent:

“My children know how to be Black. You teach them to be successful in the White man’s world.”

Recommended Strategies

• Be patient with increased levels of activity of Black males.

• Conceptualize rambunctiousness as normal rather than define it as an evidence of need of medication or special education

• Try to provide learning opportunities in small communal settings

Recommended Strategies, continued

• Be mindful of the effect of high levels of activity:– Leads to teachers’ disapproval and

increased sanctions– Leads to Black students’ internalization of

disapproval and beliefs about self as neither competent nor likeable

– Depression: Black mothers rate boys as more depressed than girls

Recommended Strategies, continued

Balance:• Silent reading with oral reading• Skill-based drill and practice with whole

language story writing and telling• The rich literature of whole language with

the solid structure of phonics• In math, the use of worksheets and

textbooks with manipulatives

“Wise Criticism”

Pages 66 to 69 in Tatum’s Can We Talk about Race?

• Establish high standards and make explicit to students the criteria for achieving them

• Demonstrate assurance of your belief in your students’ ability to succeed

“Wise Criticism, continued”

• Praise effort not intelligence

• Avoid over praising for mediocre work

• Revise your view of intelligence:– Intelligence is malleable, NOT fixed and

innate– Effort increases ability

How Might Teachers' Beliefs Translate into Differential Behavior toward

Students?

• In the U.S., many subscribe to a philosophy of "educational predestination." That is, innate ability is viewed as the main determinant of academic success. The role played by effort, amount and quality of instruction, and parental involvement is discounted.

Teachers' Beliefs/Differential Behavior, Continued

• Poor performance in school often is attributed to low ability, and ability is viewed as being immune to alteration, much like eye or skin color. Therefore, poorly performing students often come to believe that no matter how much effort they put forth, it will not be reflected in improved performance.

Teachers' Beliefs/Differential Behavior, Continued

This view contrasts with the predominant perspective in many other cultures, where hard work and effort are considered key to students' academic achievement.

In these cultures, high expectations are maintained for all students. If a student is not succeeding, it is attributed to lack of effort and hard work, not to insufficient intellectual ability

Teachers’ Beliefs, Expectations and Behavior and Achievement of Students of Low SES and

Minority Status

Teachers often: • Underestimate ability and achievement of low

SES and minority students. • Interpret successful academic performance of

low SES and minority students as being due to short-term, unstable student factors.

• Attribute poor performance of low SES and minority students to long-term, stable student factors

Teachers’ Subtle Communications about Students’ Ability

Research indicates that teachers’ expectations influence the amount of emotional support they provide, the effort they expend to promote learning and the demands they place on learners, their questioning, and the feedback and evaluations they provide.  

Teachers’ Beliefs, Expectations, Behavior/Achievement of Students of Low

SES and Minority StatusResearch also indicates expectations influence teachers’ behaviors in terms of the:•Attribution statements they make to students about their performance (the explanations teachers offer to students for their successes or failures)•The way they use praise and criticism•Their emotional displays•Their offers for help

Teachers’ Subtle Communications about Students’ Ability (Case Study)

A teacher circulates around the class while the students are involved in a homework activity. The teacher stops near Jerome, who appears to be having a bit of difficulty with a problem, but she says nothing. She stops near Leroy and comments, “Let me give you a hint,” and makes a suggestion, even though Leroy had not asked for help and ismaking progress, although the progress is somewhat slow.

Case Study, continued

The teacher stops near Anthony, who has made a mistake, and smiles, “Now, that’s a very good try. Here, let me show you how to solve the problem.”

What message does the teacher send each student about his ability? What attributions does she subtly and unconsciously encourage?

Case Study Analysis

Graham (1991) suggests that when teachers praise students for a “good try,” express pity, or offer unsolicited help, they subtly communicate that the students have low ability, and it increases the likelihood that the students will attribute failure to lack of ability. Even young students perceive their fellow students who are offered unsolicited help as being lower in ability than those not offered help.

Case Study Analysis, continued

The pertinent question for Black students is whether their own history of academic failure makes them more likely to be the targets of sympathetic feedback from teachers and thus the recipients of low-ability cues” (Graham, 1991, p. 28).

Graham, S. (1991 ). A review of attribution theory in educational contexts. Educational Psychology Review, 3, 5-39.

Elementary School Classroom Activities to Teach Children about Prejudice

• http://www.understandingprejudice.org/teach/elemact.htm

Our Children

“First these are all our children. . . . We will profit by or pay for whatever they become.”

James Baldwin

Great Mistake

Nobody made a greater mistake than he [she] who did nothing because he [she] could only do a little.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher

What’s Next?

Action Plan