A white teacher's perspective
on race in the classroom
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Editor's Note: An abbreviated version of this article appears in our summer newsletter, Abstracts. The myth that all of our children start at the same place, that they are all encouraged in the same way, that they all are made to feel welcome wherever they go to school, is just that, a myth, with little basis in reality. During 25 years of teaching, I've worked in a broad spectrum of schools, including alternative schools for troubled kids and schools that are official magnets for "gifted" students. The two types of schools have many similarities: class sizes are small, students receive individual attention and most importantly, each has a large number of bright, capable students who demonstrate brilliance and promise in roughly the same proportion. One group has been defined as those who are headed for trouble and failure. The other group has been defined as artists with futures of greatness and hope. One group is admitted to their school because they are "successful," the other because they are "failures." Labeling students takes many forms,
but the messages are clear In a school with mostly students of color, students attend classes in one newly renovated building that houses many programs and services besides their school. Speakers come to them too, but the subjects also include sexuality, rape, racism and drug education. Local artists also visit this school to work with students in visual art, poetry, history and other subjects that might interest them. None of the students are housed at the school and many work at full-time jobs to support themselves, and often their children, while others are homeless. In my years at both of these schools, I have found the numbers of gifted students, to be similar in each place. I found amazing examples of creative writing, of music, or performance ability at the "drop-out school," as well as at the special school for the arts. However, the students in one group were already in trouble, and the others were on their way to good colleges. Why? What happened along the way that channeled one group into a drop out high school, and another into a school for those designated as gifted? From the time they entered school the first group, African Americans and other students of color were often not expected to do well. "Giftedness" can be defined early on in a restrictive and harmful way, a way that eliminates participation by many gifted individuals. After observing a number of classrooms in Chicago schools, Mike Rose, author of powerful book Possible Lives says the best work in education reform shares a common theme: It is a change in what we think children are capable of achieving in school. All children. The run-of-the-mill kid, the poor kid, the kid who can't speak so well, the kid sitting in the back of the room, the kid who's just doing OK. At its best, reform in Chicago involves not only restructuring of governance arrangements, but as well, what educator Asa Hilliard calls a 'deep restructuring' of beliefs about what children can do. (p. 191.[Italics mine])
The fact that students are left out of our gifted programs if they are not white, is not just a problem within special settings. Rather these settings I have described are blatant examples of the results of the pervasive and highly detrimental use of language to keep certain programs white. If giftedness is defined as the ability to succeed in a Eurocentric curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate program, and if that program is the only program for gifted students in a high school, then many students of color per se will not be designated as gifted. For the few who do decide to participate in such a curriculum, they will not often feel welcome. First, the curriculum itself may be alienating
to students who never see examples from their own culture included
in the reading or in the study of history. Second, because black
students especially will receive an inordinate amount of pressure
from their classmates for "trying to be too white"
if they even decide to take advantage of these programs, these
students may decide they cannot put up with such constant criticism
and rejection. Yet even this phenomenon is complicated. He said some seem afraid to try hard because 'if they push themselves to the hardest and they don't do well, they think they've failed.' ' Then they'll start believing some of
the stigmas that are out there in society,' Albert said, 'that
African-Americans aren't as smart as their white counterparts.'" In an introduction to his recent book describing
a program for gifted students in Los Angeles, And Still We
Rise, Miles Corwin says the following: Ninety eight percent of the students in
the gifted program do go on to college." ( p. 4) I think the crux of the situation for gifted students of color in this country lies in the words from these two men, one white, one black. Albert stated that he thought many black students secretly respected successful students but could not acknowledge this respect. Corwin described the safety the motivated students needed in order to succeed. Somehow educators must find a way to make it safe for all students to believe and espouse the belief that they can succeed. But for this to happen, educators themselves must believe that every child, and every young adult, can learn. Unfortunately, the deep and abiding racism that affects everyone in this country, in ways both subtle and obvious, prevents students of color from having teachers who truly believe in their ability to learn. One year, when I worked in a middle school program for "kids in trouble" in the Minneapolis schools, the program began to fill with students of color. These students were labeled "assaultive" or "disruptive." While the population of students of color in Minneapolis at that time was about 50%, the population of the program was fast becoming 95%. Finally, the head of our project told the schools who referred the students to us that he would not accept any more students of color until the numbers became more reflective of the general student body. What we noticed about the white students that began arriving at our special school was that these students were by far some of the most disturbed and disturbing young men and women with whom we had ever worked. For a long time, and in most systems today, definitions of "disruptive," "behavior problem," "difficult," and "high risk" have been based on subtle and not so subtle racist assumptions. When teachers were literally forced to see the white students in trouble they had no difficulty identifying them. I believe that the same is true for giftedness. I am convinced that if gifted moneys would flow only to those programs that included the same percentage of gifted students of color as are in the school population, we would see many new and exciting definitions of giftedness and of those who qualify for those programs. We could consider all the young people we see before us who are visual artists, musicians, even performers whether or not they do well on standardized tests, or paper and pencil measurements. We could receive money to work with all those students who are gifted and who do not speak English with great fluency. In most high schools throughout the country, and even in some elementary schools, giftedness is limited to those students who are often studious, quiet, obedient and articulate in un-accented European English. However, as Corwin and Rose attest, this is not true everywhere. While students in East Central LA read many books included in the "canon" as defined by the Advanced Placement exams, they also read Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, Lucille Clifton, Zora Neale Hurston and others. In Chicago students in Advanced Placement English read William Faulkner as well as Toni Morrison and compare and contrast the two writers throughout the year. For the most part, however, I believe that a large percentage of students, especially those who keep their respect for academic success a secret, are not given the kind of help and individual attention as those in traditional gifted programs. They often remain unchallenged, with their teachers assuming from their outward behavior or appearance, that these students have no desire to do well but are simply biding their time. I found many of these students when I worked at the drop out high school. These young men and women had managed to hide their desire to do well under the garb of gangster dress and even gang involvement. Yet they were pleased when their work was critiqued and praised; they were excited to read good literature by white writers and writers of color; and they often spoke of their dreams as they sat in my room, early in the morning. Before school started when there was no one to put them down, they talked of wanting to go on to college and even afterwards, to be doctors and lawyers. Why can't we connect 'gifted' and 'poor'? Our schools have failed to find the giftedness
in these young men and women. We often do not put the words "gifted"
and "gang member" together; cannot link "artistic"
and "drug dealer," or "poor" and "brilliant."
It is in our failure of expectation: our failure of true belief
that all children can learn, that we begin the process of letting
our students down. It is in how we were raised and how we were
trained that reinforce our subtle pessimism about children from
families who are living in tough parts of the city. It is almost
in the beat of our hearts or the way our eyes focus, that we
do not see the promise and hope for students who are not white,
and who sit before us each day. The students of color who do
make it into these special programs and classes for gifted kids
are heroic in their persistent academic stubborness.
The rest of the group laughed. They described
Jamar at lunch, trying to run around to all the different tables
to say hi to all his friends. They did not put him down for this,
but rather expressed admiration for him, for his ability to mix.
It takes a special resilient young man to be a jeller. come to believe that the qualities of getting along with others who are not like you - "jellers" in the words of my students, are qualities that a large percentage of African Americans have had to develop over their lifetime. Perhaps they are the ones that should predominate in classes for gifted, based on this ability. In an increasingly multicultural world, it is the jellers of any ethnic or cultural group who will be at the greatest advantage. Yet it is asking too much of our students of color to become "jellers" if they want to get a good education. It is asking too much of them to feel that they will have to earn some sort of basic expectation of greatness from the teachers who teach them. White teachers and even teachers of color, need to be reschooled and retooled in how to literally see differently. Teachers must be trained in how to define things differently, how to see gifted students as having a dark brown or mahogany skin, almond shaped eyes, thin tee shirts and sockless feet in the middle of the winter. They must become well versed in how to use language and curriculum, books and visitors from the community, in ways that do not shut out students but rather opens doors: that makes them welcome. Why not treat all children as gifted? For all students to be recognized for their gifts, we must avoid pull-out programs that categorize our children at early ages. Rather, we must provide gifted education for every student. With high expectations, small class sizes, individual attention, a welcome and safe environment and a pervasive year- round inclusive curriculum that includes multiple perspectives, we might not need either of the programs described at the beginning of this article. We can get rid of the set-aside school for gifted, and the set-apart school for students in trouble. Our categories, our tracking and the rigidity of our definitions may fall away, leaving students who are finally able to admit they want to do well; who are not afraid to admit they want to learn about King Lear, and August Wilson. If we begin working with each student in our classrooms-- classrooms that are increasingly filled with students who have brown, gold, and black skin with all shades in between , classrooms that are filled with draped young women and their Muslim brothers-- as though all of them are bound to go on to college, are bound to achieve great things in the world, we will not need labels at all. Perhaps, we will need only to call our students by their names: Tyrone, Wahid, Yee, David, Shaneka, Markeesha. This change will come if we have the conditions to make the change: small class sizes, which allow for meaningful relationships to develop between teachers and students; equality of resources, materials and technology in each and every building. We need affordable housing, and well-heated, well-maintained classrooms for everyone. When the education of all children is truly made a priority in this country, then our educational system will stop being a place to perpetuate racism and will become a place to defy racial definitions and lowered expectations. |
