Final Project

http://questgarden.com/65/25/8/080427192543/

Here is a link to the website I created based on the information we talked about this semester. It still may change slightly as I get feedback from the Student Volunteer Center as to what they need from it.

Good luck

p.s. Greg, icampus is severely impaired at the moment so I will email this to you once I find it up and running. Thanks again.

A day with 7th graders at Eli Whitney

Share your reflections on our visit to the Little Village community and our day with the 7th graders at Eli Whitney.

Dr. Pedro Noguera on equity and education

Share your reactions to the talk by Dr. Pedro Noguera, "What It Takes to Leave No Child Behind: Creating Conditions that Promote Achievement and Child Development."

"The White Method: Cheating"

So I don't know how many of you like the show South Park, but it is one of my favorite shows of all time. Tonight (Wed 4/8) was a new episode of its 12th season and it couldn't be more relevant for our class. The episode has 2 stories going on at once but the one I'm talking about is a complete parody of the movie "Stand and Deliver." Eric Cartman (the fat one) takes the role of Mr. Escalante and goes to teach in a inner-city school in Denver. He dresses like him and pulls a fake Latino accent and teaches them the meaning of being white, to cheat. I urge you to go on http://www.southparkstudios.com/ and search the South Park episodes (its Season 12 named "Eek a Penis!" the title is from the other story, as you probably could guess) to be able to fully understand what I'm talking about. (You may have to wait a day for the video to be on the internet, you could also search YouTube.com)

The short version is Cartman does well taking over his class mates and lets the students find Mr. Garrison's (the teacher) answers to the test. The principal is impressed by the class's scores on the test (that they cheated on) and asks Cartman to go to Denver to teach and "reach these kids" as best as he can. So he goes to Denver and teaches in your stereotypical urban school classroom. And he teaches them how he taught his classmates, to cheat. They make fun of him reaching to the one boy that resists the teacher in the movie and persuading the one girl to keep up with her education (or cheating) like the movie. The students end up cheating on their Standardized and Advanced Placement test for college. They monitor them to make sure they don't cheat, but Cartman has taught them so well that they are able to cheat on the big test and succeed. (All 24 scored 100% on the test) And they praise Cartman by teaching them the White Method: which was to cheat.

Overall, the episode is VERY controversial. If you want to watch I urge you to watch with an open mind.

Disclaimer:
This episode not only has coarse language and controversial views but the 2nd story that is happening within the episode is about a trans-gender teacher and his/her search to become a man again. (Hence the name of the episode)

Race and representation

Following up our conversation about race and representation from last class, Amanda A. posted a response in which she connected the historical images of African American and Native American people we viewed in class to the current controversy over the Vogue magazine cover with LeBron James and model Giselle Bundchen.


Many have criticized the cover for perpetuating, or reviving, stereotypical representations of Black males -- the image of a wild, dangerous, "animal" who is a threat to white women. Dismissing such ideas, a spokesperson for Vogue said, "We think LeBron and Giselle look beautiful together and we are honored to have them on the cover." But several writers have pointed out what seem to be intentional echoes of old posters -- one an ad for the U.S. Army (above), one a poster for the movie King Kong (below). What do you think? Is the image of LeBron problematic? Is it racist?

Teachers' Pets

While going through the Sunday Trib's magazine, I came across an interesting I found incredibly interesting/ inspiring:

At the Michael Faraday School on the city's West Side, volunteers from the Sit Stay Read! program come to listen to the 2nd grade children read. Participants of the program are blind, and they bring their seeing eye dogs along on their visits. Since the volunteers are blind, they cannot correct the young readers; they simply listen and enjoy the stories. The article states that on average, a child growing up in a middle-class family will experience as many as 1,700 hours of one-on-one reading, before he or she enters school; compared to a child from a lower-class family who enters school with 25 hours. The goal of this program is to help students become more comfortable in their reading and to gain confidence. How cool!!



Sound interesting? Check out the article:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/magazine/chi-080330kogan-col,1,4602652.column

Personally, I think this article is awesome! I would love to have something like this in my classroom someday! What a great confidence builder! I think this is a great way for students who might not have the opportunity to read aloud to work on their reading skills and improve fluency. It makes sense to me that children would be more comfortable reading aloud to someone who is unable to catch their mistakes. Also, I think it would make students look forward to reading! Plus, I think that it is a great way to help students learn to accept people who are different from them at an early age, and I'm sure that the volunteers feel great about being able to help these kids as well. As far as I can tell it's a win win for everyone involved!

This week's reading

What do these images have to do with this week's reading?

CPS students rally for tougher gun laws

Here's a follow-up of sorts to the story I posted a few days ago about the number of Chicago Public School students killed by guns this year. This past weekend another student, 17-year-old Chavez Clarke, was shot and killed, prompting his classmates and other Chicago teens to organize a rally to raise awareness and to push for tougher gun laws in Illinois. Read the Chicago Tribune's account here.

"Addiction" to Illegal Immigrants

Happy Monday, everyone! I came across this article while surfing on cnn.com today. I thought it was interesting in light of the exercise we did on immigration/immigrant students. See everyone Thursday, have a good week!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/navarrette.opinion/index.html

A new rise in violence -- what can be done?

This school year, 20 Chicago Public School students have been killed -- 18 by guns. Last year, more than 30 CPS students were killed, 24 by guns. This story from msnbc provides some of the details but not a lot of additional context. One important point that it does note, however, is that none of the students have been killed at school. Indeed, schools are still seen by many students as a safe space.

Still, the number of school-aged children being killed is alarming. As much as I want us to see beyond the stereotypes of urban schools and neighborhoods (and I hope you feel we've tried to do that), I think it's important not to ignore realities like this one. But I wonder what "outsiders" will think when they read this msnbc story. Will they be saddened? Angered? Or will they simply shake their heads and think, "Yeah, that's how those kids are?"

I think we need to move past our initial reactions to really think about what some of the root causes of youth violence might be. Why are so many kids in Chicago being killed? Where is the violence concentrated, and what does that say about other social conditions that may give rise to it? Can anything at all be done about it? Can schools and teacher play a role? If you were a teacher in Chicago, would you try to address this issue with your students, or is it too risky?

Chicago Public BOARDING Schools

I read this article over Spring Break and was going to post it earlier, but I totally forgot until now. Anway, I thought this was pretty interesting. Although there aren't too many details about the boarding schools, they explain some of the options such as how they will be run... through districts or outside angencies. I was wondering what everyone thought about the article - the idea of boarding schools in the city of Chicago. What do you think parents will say or think about it? What will urban students think about it?

I hope this link works... If not, you can Google 'Chicago Tribune', then search Chicago Public Schools, and the date was March 14.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-boarding-schools_14mar14,0,2694026.story

"Demography is Not Destiny"

Once I would have agreed with the heading of this post. I admit it was a much more optimistic and happy part of my life. However, that was before my philosophy became engrossed with the belief that there is no positive value. Linguistically, "No Positive Value" according to Saussure (an early 20th century Swiss philosopher) refers to the way that culture structures meaning through language. It states that there is no natural essence to any object. There is nothing about a chair that makes it a chair. Nothing about a person that makes it a person. An object is labeled and used in the way associated with "chair" because that is how our society constructs it. This is proven because if there were an essence or undeniable truth to any object languages would be easily translated back and forth. Because this is not possible, defining of objects must be a social action.

This makes any label for any object completely irrelevant. A frog is only a frog because we call it "frog". A bottle is only a bottle because we label it "bottle" and use it as a container for liquids. A person is only a person because that is how we conceive of people.

This means that any object not being referred to is, in essence, a blank slate. It is nothing until it is referred to and constructed in the social mind. If this extension is made to people, then people are also nothing until they are subjected to the rules, ideologies and beliefs of society. Though this flies in the face of Christian sensibilities, it is a philosophical restructuring of the self not as an individual, but as a sum of different societal parts put together in a distinct way.

The evidence of this is in our concept of individuality. In my younger and more impressionable years I considered myself quite the non-conformist. The perpetual joke was that I was not conforming just like all my friends. the truth in this is that my non-conformism was truly only a choice of ways in which I could conform. I was really only conforming in a different way that was still allowed by society. I was deviating from the norm, but ONLY as far as i was allowed by the culture at large. I contest that all individuality is in some way either a construction of different societal regulations, or a deviation from societal norms within the prescribed alloted boundaries (though...there are instances where societal norms can be and are broken, but the repercussions of these actions are huge: ostracizing, condemnation, damnation, prison).

So if people are only summation and constructions of the concepts and ideas that society puts into them, they can only possibly structure reality in ways that society has allowed them. For example, I cannot see the world through the eyes of a 8th century Chinese Emperor because my world has been defined, structured and explained in a completely different way. I contest that this happens in ways that are just as drastic as in our American society.

Here then, is the problem with arguing that "Demography is Not Destiny." As people we are only what we know, we cannot possibly be more than what we know. We can learn and know more, but we cannot escape what it is that we know. And the lessons that we learn early/first are the most impossible to destruct. We are bound to understand and see the world as we are taught both implicitly and explicitly.

Here is the primary argument I wish to present. I believe that lessons that teach impoverished children to balance check books are valuable; however, I feel that they (and lessons of this nature along with the vast majority of lessons serving impoverished children) are perpetuating the problem. This extends not only to lessons in school, but also to lessons in life outside of school. Though the intent is to help them succeed in life, is this truly the outcome? Or is it more that they are succeeding in poverty. The lesson that should be being taught is how to escape poverty, NOT HOW TO THRIVE IN IT. (I apologize for yelling...I am a passionate man). Our school systems, for the vast majority of students, FORCE children into whatever social position they came from (or lower, as is the case with many students from middle-class backgrounds). This only proves to me that Demography is Destiny.

Our school system, as it exists right now, accepts that "Demography Is Destiny." We perpetuate the roles of the under-class in educating the poor children of the world. We are teaching them to be successful poor people.

If we truly lived in a world where "Demography is Not Destiny" then every single child in every single school would have the same opportunities to succeed AND fail. To reach the highest or the lowest rung of society. If this was true there would and could be no true perpetuating upper class. There will and always will be a class system in America; right now, however, we live in a caste system.

Now for my concession. I believe that individuals can escape this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cycle. I truly do. This is not why I teach, but for many it is why they teach. I think it is an honorable and noble reason and I deeply love and respect anyone who teaches and follows the "Demography is Not Destiny" credo. It is a difficult role to fill, and I admire and cherish all who fill it.

I teach for massive educational reform. I teach to help children and for my love of children, but I also teach for myself. I teach so that I can move up the ladder. I teach so that I can get into the masters and doctoral programs that I want. I wish to attack the system. I wish to work with others to re-build an educational system that actually does follow the "Demography is Not Destiny" credo. To analytically destruct the system and rebuild it is the only way to achieve a system in which students are all treated as they deserve to be treated. That all students in America are inherently the same. We live in a caste system, the education system perpetuates it. I will fight against a caste system for my entire life, and I will begin working one child at a time in a classroom.

I just acknowledge that that can only go so far. I don't want to stop at one child at a time.
Right now believing that "Demography is Not Destiny" only acknowledges single extraordinary children.

It is a fallacy to define a system by an outlier.

Being poor

One of the suggestions from the Stop/Start/Continue activity was that I start posting a few discussion questions about the small-group reading before class each week. So here are a few, drawn from this weeks' facilitators' questions, about the excerpts from David Shipler's book, The Working Poor:

· In the beginning of the article, on pages 5 and 6, Shipler introduces the concept of the American myth, which places the blame of poverty on the poor, and the American Anti-myth, which states that the poor are victims of uncontrollable circumstances. Which myth plays a greater role in causing poverty or is poverty caused by a combination of both?

· What is the responsibility of the government toward people living in poverty?

· "If it weren’t for the poor, who would flip the burgers?" How do you feel about that statement and what does it have to do with educating children in poor communities?

· On page 44, the last page of the article, Christie attributes her poverty to laziness. What does this say about America’s view of poverty? How does this impact the way poor people view themselves and their chances of getting out of poverty?

Welcome Back

I hope you all had the kind of Spring Break you needed, whether that means good/restful/adventurous/
exciting/fun/rejuvenating or whatever other adjective fits best for you.

I've read over the feedback on the course you gave me two weeks ago (the Stop/Start/Continue activity), and we'll talk more about your suggestions and comments in class this Thursday. In the meantime, let's cut the Patricia Williams reading (CKCS Ch. 30) from this week, so you'll just be responsible for reading Sue Books (CKCS Ch. 20) and David Shipler (at the back of the course pack). Several people were frustrated that I've been assigning three readings per week but we only usually discuss one or two in class. While I can think of many reasons why it would be important to read them anyway, I do understand it's frustrating to be asked to read something and then to feel like it isn't being "covered" (at least in a direct or explicit way) in class. So I'm going to try to cut back a bit on the readings when I can.

Several people also seemed unhappy with the blog, and I guess that's something we'll have to talk about further this week as well. I still think it provides an alternative mode for people to join the conversation, so I'm not inclined to nix it altogether, but we can talk about ways to make it better.

One thing we didn't have time to talk about last class during our discussion of immigration and immigrant students were the stories of the various immigrant students you read -- Miguel from Pedro Noguera's piece, Juan and Lourdes from my book, Holler If You Hear Me, and Nelda from Angela Valenzuela's article. What did you learn from these students' stories? What can/should schools do in order to serve immigrant students better? How can urban teachers and schools move from a "subtractive" model of schooling to an "additive" one when it comes to teaching immigrant students? Or is Americanization (at the expense of losing parts of one's own culture) not such a bad thing after all?

Last but not least, if you don't understand the reference implied by the picture accompanying this post, it's only one more piece of evidence confirming what we've pretty much already established: I'm old.

Just wanted to let you guys know about a conference this week. Not particularly related to this class, more on a global scale, but important nonetheless.

It's this Wednesday and there are speakers all day.

Here's the link with a breakdown of the speakers - conference

White Flight

When we were talking about white flight it reminded me of my family and my old house in Chicago. Until I was 7 years old we lived on 61st and Kedzie in Chicago, which at that time was a predominantly white neighborhood. We rode our bikes... or our power wheels (HaHa - I'm sure most of you remember those!) EVERYWHERE , we had friends in almost every house on our block, I walked to school with my best friend, we knew all the familes who lived on our block and even had 4th of July parties, birthday parties, and cookouts with them. We honestly had a lot of fun, and even today my parents tell us stories about the good times they had there with everyone. The reason we moved out was because there was a stabbing on the corner of our block, graffiti was constantly written on our garage door, and the BIGGEST reason was because the private schools were closing and the ones that stayed open had a lot of crime. My parents were worried about us playing in the yard, infact they stopped letting us ride our bikes down the street. My White friends started moving away, and new families who were African American and Latino were moving in. A few years later we found out that 3 Latino families were living in our old house. When my sister and I drove by our old house just a year ago, there was only ONE White lady who was still living on that block.

After 20 years, a move toward justice

A couple weeks ago we read a piece by Bakari Kitwana ("Race War") in which he laid out some of the ways African American males have been adversely impacted by what he sees as a biased criminal justice system. One example he cited was the vast discrepancy in the sentencing of people for crimes related to crack cocaine (who received severe, multi-year sentences) vs. those whose crimes were related to powder cocaine (and other drugs). This has been going on since "mandatory minimum" laws for certain drugs went into effect in 1988.

Well, 20 years later, things are finally changing. As reported by Associated Press today, new sentencing guidelines which take effect this week may make disproportionate crack-related sentences a thing of the past. And many of those currently in prison for crack-related crimes could have their sentences reduced.

Why do I bring this up now? Because the intersections with race and racism are hard to miss. As the article explains: "Previously, a person with one gram of crack would receive the same sentence as someone with 100 grams of the powdered form of cocaine. The disparity has been decried as racially discriminatory, since four of every five crack defendants in the U.S. are black, while most powdered-cocaine convictions involve whites."

Part of me wants to take a moment to appreciate the new changes and this move toward justice. But I can't help thinking about all the men and women over the past 20 years whose lives have been ensnarled by sentencing guidelines that seem anything but just.

Click here to read the article.

What is racism/racist? (continued)

A few weeks ago Micheal started a thread asking the rest of us to think (and post) about our definitions of racism and how race functions in U.S. society. Since his post is especially pertinent to this week's topics, I encourage you to scroll down to it, read the comments that have already been made, and add one of your own. Further, you might think/write about how racism/white privilege/the culture of power have impacted the development of cities (the Hilfiker piece, "Building the Ghetto," should be of help), and how they continue to affect kids and teachers in urban schools.

While we question parenting, parents surely question us.

As I was doing my weekly reading of PostSecret.com I came across this interesting secret and e-mailed comment.  The picture is the posted "secret." Here is the e-mailed response to this particular secret: 

-----Email Message-----

Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 10:52 AM

Subject: To the teacher

Our children are our lives and we're in your classroom because we know how little some of you really care about them and about us.  Our little secret? We don't trust you with our children unless we're keeping an eye on you.

In class, we have been reading literature and commenting on how at fault parents can be for their children's lack of education/their actions.  Sometimes we, although teaching is a powerful profession, some teachers may come off as omniscient in all aspects of a child's life and there for may do what is "best" for that child.  However, how are we to judge what is best for a child we are not with every minute of the day.  Parents are just as skeptical of teachers as teachers can be of parents.  Is this a viable concern? Do parents have a right to question teachers and keep a watchful eye on them?  Why aren't teachers trusted? Do you think this opinion differs from urban to suburban school?  Do you think the quality of teachers in urban schools are not up to par?  What if this was your child?  What can WE do to change this?

I know this post does not have entirely an urban education tone, however I was intrigued by this "secret" and was wondering what others thought.  Plus, we have been talking so much about race, I kind of wanted to go another way. But if you think race matters here...post away...I am interested.

Also, side note...someone brought up in class a few weeks ago that we do all this talking, but what are WE going to do? Anyone have any ideas?

Urban Schools Film Festival

Since we didn't really have time to discuss each film in depth in class last week, I thought some of you might have additional comments or analysis you'd like to share on the blog. What I'm particularly interested in is how you think your film's narrative contributes to popular conceptions -- or misconceptions -- about urban schools, teachers, students, and families. Beyond whether or not the film is entertaining or inspiring, what is it saying about city schools, and about what the kids in those schools need? Do you agree or disagree with that message, and why?



One way to think about it might be: If we were going to design urban school reform based on the stories and messages conveyed in these films, what would we do? What do they seem to be saying are the "answers" to the challenges of city schools? And do you agree?

Good news for Tasia!

Tasia emailed this weekend to let me know that she has successfully jumped through all the necessary hoops to do her student teaching this semester, and she will begin tomorrow -- yes, tomorrow -- in Decatur. The only downside (for me at least) is that she won't be able to continue in C&I 232 with us. We'll miss you, Tasia, but I'm sure your classmates join me in wishing you well as you take this important next step in your teaching journey.

Are parents to blame for student failure?

Just as urban students are often depicted through a deficit perspective (a focus on what's "wrong" with them, what they lack, etc.), so are their parents. As Katia Goldfarb explained in her article "Who is included in the urban family?", policymakers and even educators often blame the struggles of low-income families on the parents' supposed "moral poverty" rather than on systemic or institutional factors such as racism, poverty, lack of jobs and affordable housing, etc.

To read one example of such thinking, check out this article by Paul White, long-time teacher at an alternative high school in Los Angeles and author of the book White's Rules (which is mentioned in the intro to CKCS). White maintains that the cause of failure among African American male students is simple: bad parents.

What do you think of White's opinions/analysis? And what do you think of the concept of "moral poverty" as it relates to poor/African American/immigrant parents?

Ethnicity?

Okay so I know this is off topic but I have noticed something throughout some peoples comments on posts. America has had this huge debate on what to call certain races. It has changed so many times through history that I am confused especially when people still say two different things. Do you want to be call Black or African American? Do you prefer to be called White or Caucasion? What about Latino or Hispanic? I feel that we are all humans and that we all live in the same country so we are all Americans but Im just curious as to what you prefer, or at least what you feel that you are. I call myself White not Caucasian, just White. So please tell me what your thoughts are on this whole situation.

Juvenile (In)Justice

We'll view the rest of "Juvies" this week, but since we didn't get much time to discuss Part 1 in class, I thought we might begin the conversation on the blog. Here are a couple questions to consider, but feel free to discuss other related themes or issues as well. I'd particularly like to hear about connections you made between the film, the articles we read for last week, and Alex's talk.

1) Should we respond the same way when a 15-year-old commits a murder as we do when a 35-year-old does? Why or why not?

2) What were your feelings about the expression "You do the crime, you do the time," before watching the film? Is the film making you re-think your views, or not? Is the idea of "mandatory minimum" sentences a good one?

3) Michael Meade says in the film, "Youth are a reflection of the symptoms of the culture. A culture whose youth are committing increasingly vile crimes is a culture that has become increasingly vile." What is he saying? And do you agree?

4) How does all this impact the education system -- and, in particular, schools in our nation's cities?

Alex

Megan emailed me yesterday about writing Alex a thank-you letter for coming to speak to our class. I said I thought it was a great idea, and that I'd open it up to the rest of you as well. So, if you'd like to send Alex a card/note/letter thanking him for his visit, please bring it to class this week and I'll make sure he gets them all.

Also, here are a couple photos from 1990-1991 -- one of Alex, and one of him and some of his classmates (and me -- the tall one with the Jerry Seinfeld hairdo) in our tiny coat-closet-converted-into-a-classroom.

We're rolling now...I hope

I'm not going to post any new questions or topics this week because we have several great threads (see below) that have been started in the past few days. Thanks to Tanika, Michael, and Sharli for the thoughtful posts -- now let's hear what some of the rest of you think on one or more of these issues.

A Girl Like Me

First off, I want to applaud Kiri Davis for making such a remarkable film. I think that message behind this film is just what we need in today's society. We need to redefine our standards of beauty. I think that beauty should no longer be defined as: the more Anglo Saxon features one has the more beautiful a person is. This film made me remember some of my own childhood experiences. I was constantly told that beauty meant having light skin, longer hair and a small nose. I have none of these features. I was told that having "nappy hair" was ugly. When I was three years old, my mother gave me a chemical relaxer to straighten my hair. I guess my natural hair was not beautiful enough. A lot of times the idea that we must have long, straight hair has been ingraved in the minds of young Black girls. We are told to believe that our only hope of being beautiful is to have long, straight hair. In elementary school, I was constantly made fun of because of my skin color. My classmates as well as some of my family members would call me names like Dark Chocolate, Blackie, Midnight. I was always reminded that I was the darkest one in my family. I was especially compared to my twin sister who is lighter than me. My paternal grandmother often referred to us as the light one and the dark one. Once when I was in seventh grade, my mother tried to get me to bleach my skin. She tried to rub that bleaching cream on my skin. My response to her was why do you always try to change me? Why can't you accept me for who I am?
I was also ridiculed the size of my nose. Everyday in school I was always called some of the most hurtful names because of my nose, which is something that I have absolutely no control over. To this day some of my family members remind me of just how big my nose is.

I like this documentary "A Girl Like Me" because it challenges us to redifine beauty and appreaciate the different complexions, hair textures, and nose shapes within the Black community. This documentary encourages us to defy current standards of beauty and create our own.

Minimizing Accomplishments

After reading Chapter 5 of the first section of CKCS I thought of some instances in my own childhood that relate to what the writer experienced. On page 35 of that chapter, Samson Davis mentions that when he recieved a good grade he told his friends that he cheated, thereby minimizing his accomplishments. Davis raises an interesting point "Kids who did well in school were considered nerds. I wanted to be cool. And more than anything, I wanted to fit in."

In my own elementary years, me and my twin sister were constantly picked on because we recieved good grades. We were told that we "acted white" because we chose to read books instead of walk around the blocks. By definition, since we did well in school, we were considered nerds.
Like Davis, we had a longing to be "cool." We tried to fit in with the other kids by hanging out until late at night instead of doing our homework. At one point in sixth grade we even formed a clique and were accused by the principal of forming a gang. In the end, I, and I think my sister, realized that doing well in school was much more important than trying to be cool.
The whole point of me mentioning this is to say that telling kids that they are "acting white" when they pursue academic endevours sends the message to them that only white kids can learn. They have no place in an academic setting and they should reliquish all hope of doing so. I think that this idea of education equaling whiteness has its roots in slavery. In those days, slaves could not be educated. Those that risked their lives to learn in a sense were "acting white" because only white people had the legal right to learn. I think that we are still enslaved by the idea that we as a black community cannot learn. I know plenty of former classmates who were academically talented and in the gifted program with my sister and I. They had all the potential in the world, but instead of staying in enriched classes, they chose to stay with their peers in regular classes in order to stay "cool."
I think that this idea is very damaging to the psyche of young African American children. Instead of being praised for their accomplishments they are ostracized and told to act "Black."
My questions are these: Why can't Black be equated with intelligence? Why must we stay captives of intellectual ignorance? Why can't we be rewarded for doing well in school instead of being ostracized?

What is racism/ist?

This has been bugging me since our second class meeting. We sat around and talked about diversity in the classroom (which was a major topic of the small group discussion I was a part of) and our group talked about diversity as encompassing not only different races of people but also people of different backgrounds, lifestyles, experiences, etc. It made me stop and go "hmmm."

Now let me stop and preface this. In a few weeks we will read an excerpt from a book titled "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Classroom" by Beverly Daniel Tatum. The article we are reading is titled "Defining Racism," which sets out to do just that. The article presents an alternative definition of racism that isn't grounded with hatred, as we typically see it. I thought it would be worthwhile for us to have a forum and discuss what we believe racism is and how it functions in our society. Because my view of racism is so closely aligned with Tatum, I will withhold my views and wait to see if other people comment.

Back to the class discussion. Earlier in the week of this class I had been thinking about the concept of reverse discrimination. I believe it is a racist concept, one that is invented by the white Culture of Power to suppress or hold back people of more color. Take for example affirmative action, which is often argued to be an example of reverse discrimination. While it is controversial on both sides of the fence, is it really discrimination against white people? Are white people as a whole really losing jobs, becoming unemployed because preference is given to people of more color? Is the scale of inequality tipping and causing white people to become the majority of the undereducated, under-supported, under-represented underclass? I would say that isn't the case, yet it is labeled by some whites as reverse discrimination. Why could that possibly be but to keep the system in status quo, to protect the rights and opportunity white people get based on the color of their skin. Protecting the racism of our society.

So in our small group discussion we re-defined diversity. Shouldn't be a problem, all we did was change a definition and people do that all the time. But is it not a way to change a definition so that we can claim we have something we don't? Does it not in some way perpetuate the system of white opportunity that true racial diversity would hypothetically counteract?

I'm getting a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. This definition of diversity is neither diverse nor racially sensitive. Discuss.

Identity Crisis - "Is it okay to just be me?"

The video "A Girl Like Me" showed how students suffer an identity crisis and that society and the media makes it worse. [For example the typical talked about stereotypes are; boys are better at math than girls, lighter skin is better than dark skin (typically appears in African or Hispanic media), blonds are dumb or ditzy, Asian students are smart.] I know that I need and plan to use Multicultural Education as part of the academic lesson, but as a Chemistry teacher I wonder how I will encourage self discovery while teaching the periodic table. (My initial response would be to introduce them to other societies and cultures, which they don't usually have interactions with to teach them that the world is bigger than their back yard but I am still unsure of how to integrate that into a lesson.) I am use to society looking at me and placing me in a specific category, however, I am tired of trying to prove I don't fit in just one box and explaining why. I know most students are probably just as tired and so they quit trying to define themselves, and they allow society to define them. My fear is that they will pigeon hole their potential by trying to fit in a predestined category based on geography, skin color, economic background, and/or gender etc... (Fulfilling the stereotype) and pass it on to their children, therefore; creating a never ending circle.

Besides trying to educate students in a specific subject in our classroom, how do we help them find themselves and help them understand that they don't need to fit perfectly in a specific category, and show them how they actually do fit in?

The solution for failing schools? Fire all the teachers.

What should be done about urban schools that continue to perform poorly? Who, or what, is to blame? CPS has a controversial new strategy, detailed in this story from today's Chicago Tribune. See what you think.

Nice White Lady

O. K., so the problems with educating urban kids is deeper than the heroe scenario of all they need is a nice white lady. I, however take exception that as a nice white lady educator like myself am somehow now discounted from any future success by the prejudicial critique of these films. Reverse discrimination? Why do we constantly judge one another and thwart each others efforts to help. I say don't look at anything as the whole picture, yet if it uplifts and encourages people to get in there and try to affect a positive effect then don't through the baby out with the bathwater, promote more support. What I also think is the flip side to critique's of these films is for other ethnicicities to stand up and say,"Yeah, I need to get educated and get in there and show how I've made it work for myself and I can show others the path. Well o.k. whatever will work then but, I don't care for the slam on me either.

Apartheid education

Following up our discussion of the excerpt from Kozol's Shame of the Nation last week, here are a few questions which were discussed by one or more of the small groups but that we didn't have time to address in much depth as a whole group. Feel free to weigh in on any or all.

1) Kozol attempts to make the case that we have allowed a dual system of education to continue in the U.S., and that many schools that serve high-poverty urban children are in desperate need of improvement. One urban principal, surveying his school's deteriorating condition, told Kozol, "This would not happen to white children." The implication, of course, is that, to mainstream America, some children are worth more than others. Do you agree? If more white and/or middle-class children attended urban schools, would things be different?

2) In the final section of the excerpt we read, Kozol speaks with a several Los Angeles high school students about the physical condition of their school and the courses they are offered. When one student bitterly objects to the lack of college prep courses at her school (and being steered instead to a sewing class), another student says, sarcastically, "You're ghetto, so we send you to the factory....You're ghetto. So sew!" What does this exchange say about how these students perceive their schooling experience and, more importantly, what they see as the school's purpose for their education?

3) It is difficult to talk about equity in urban schools without addressing the issue of funding. Because of the way schools are funded in Illinois (relying heavily on property taxes), many suburban schools are funded at much higher levels than city and rural schools. How should schools be funded? What is fair? Should taxpayers "share the wealth" with others in the state, or should communities primarily fund their own schools, as is currently the case? Should all schools be funded with the same amount of dollars per child, or, as Ashanti suggested, does fair mean that "Everybody gets what they need?" -- in other words, schools in the most need would get the most funding?

Hollywood and the Urban Teacher-Hero

We didn't really get a chance to discuss the "Nice White Lady" skit from MadTV last week in class, so I thought that might be a good way to kick off the blog. What did you think? As a parody of urban teacher films, was it on target? And more broadly, how do such films contribute to the conception of city schools and city kids in the public imagination? (This question is discussed in the intro to City Kids, City Schools, which you'll be reading for this week's class.)
When the "average American" thinks about urban schools, what does she/he envision? Or better yet, what do you envision? Where do these ideas come from? And how anchored do you think they are in reality?