"When we do this, we play God, conferring or denying educational opportunity to individual, socioculturally different children. And we do not have the right to do this."
After reading these four chapters I was forced to ask myself, "Have I ever 'played God' in my classroom?" And I was immediately taken back to my first year of teaching in my 4th grade class. The school that I taught at was a mixed race school comprised of mostly middle to upper class families with very few lower class families sprinkled in. At the beginning of school I knew he was going to be my "special" project, but by Christmas I was tired of probing, prodding, and pushing. He "ain't go'nta do nufin, and I cul'nt make 'em". In January I decided that teaching to the rest of my 4th graders was easy, but more importantly fruitful. So that's exactly what I did. I, like all of the teachers he had before me, gave this young black male permission to fail. I now wonder if he was lucky enough to meet a teacher like Mr. Forshay? Someone who recognized that although he was in a classroom with other black students, the only identity he had with them was their color. Someone who understands that he felt isolated and disconnected from the rest of the class. Someone who will authenticate his learning, celebrate his differences, bring his language into the classroom, and respect him as an important part of the classroom learning community. Or is he still getting teachers that were like me? If so, it will be safe to assume that myself and the 12 other teachers that he has and will encounter are hugely responsible for the life of crime and poverty that he will likely live. That my friends, is a hard pill to swallow. I do have some consolation in the fact that after that year I vowed to NEVER let a child sit in my class and be free to do nothing ever again. And though I am sure that I am not alone in my effort to make learning accessible to every child in my classroom, there are those teachers that are not on the same page.
(My thoughts as they literally run through my head and I try to keep up with my fingers.)Unfortunately, there are more and more Shannon incidences happening everyday in classrooms all across America. What we know as teachers, yet fail to realize is that we are our country's power source. What happens in our classrooms (or not) is directly related to what happens in the world. Yes, we know this, but I am convinced that too many of us don't fully understand what this means. The language conflict is not a new revelation, but there is failure to do something about it.
Hypothetically speaking, let's say there are 5 people on a grade level, two teachers teach only to the students in their classroom that fit the "mold" and the other three teachers desire to reach every student in their class and successfully does so. These students from all five classes move to the next grade with a different set of teachers. All things being equal, there are now 2/5 of each of those classroom populations that contain students that "maybe learned something, maybe they didn't". Let's say that this grade level was just like the previous. Some of the students are lucky enough to get the three teachers that are there for everybody, unlike what they had last year. But then the rest aren't so lucky. Let's assume these are testing grades. So for two years a nice population of students have nothing to contribute, thus they feel like they have nothing to learn.
Here's where this is showing up in our "real" lives as a real problem. Literacy is the beginning of everything. Oral language is the first language we learn. It is the language of love and family. To quote Delpit, "To speak out against the language that children bring to school means that we are speaking out against their mothers........" This is not just true in the African American community. It is true among Hispanics and Pacific Islanders as well. When we as educators don't embrace this language we have just turned off any synapses that were ready to connect and fuse. Bring on the dominio effect!
(From the eyes of a 3rd grade student, hypothetically) "You are not interested in me probably because I talk funny and have made no effort to connect with me. Maybe and I am interested in you or what you have to teach me, but I cannot connect, not because I don't want to, but because I do not know how to (you have not taught me). In order to teach me, you have to start on my level, because I do not have the knowlege or the know-how to get to your level. I thought I liked reading when I was younger, there were simple sentences with a syntax that I could somewhat understand. Now that I am older I encounter syntax that I have heard, but it was not made meaninful to me, and I just don't understand it. It shows up when I am doing social studies and science, but that's okay I am not tested on that until later. But it really bugs me when it shows up in math, because I "know" how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. But then here comes those word problems. I just don't get what they are asking me, but I know that I know the answer. The same thing happens when I write. My teacher always tells me it's a good story, but all I see are the million-and-one red marks on my paper. And why couldn't the author of the EOQ passage have plainly said 'The girl needed to go to the bathroom', instead of 'it became immediately obvious to the young lady that she should go to the womens communal'? Tell you what, from here on out I'll just come to school and take up space."
This is so real, I see it every time I am bombarded with quarter test and EOG data from Forsyth County. And for those 3/5 of us that are in this for all students, the other 2/5 are hurting us, and bad.
So how do we move an entire nation of teachers to become more like Judith Baker and take the time to make students trilingual? When will we move past "I don't have time to do that, because I have more important things to teach?" When will we understand that if we don't take the time to do this, those more important things will fall on deaf ears? Though we don't get paid for the power that we possess we play an important role in deciding who becomes a lawyer or a criminal, a pharmacist or a drug-dealer, a mid-wife or an active contributor to the adoption agency. And it all begins with something as simple and complex as embracing someone else's language, teaching them another language, and showing them when to use either one. *On a side note* I don't know about you all, but I am thinking that for every lawyer/doctor/nurse we produce we should get paid accordingly! ;)
Cherrita Hayden-McMillan
Comments (4)
I don't think that very many teachers really think through the consequences of their choices. Most are forced to focus on those that they can help the most. I actually attended a workshop a couple of years ago that instructed us to focus on those kids who were "borderline." They had the best chance of passing the EOGs. Those kids who were really low had no chance of passing, and, basically, we shouldn't exhaust ourselves with them.
This is the cold hard reality that exists in many schools today. I believe if more teachers thought about their kids' futures the way that you do, overall success rates would be much better.
Posted by Heather Coe | January 31, 2009 8:52 PM
Posted on January 31, 2009 20:52
When I was in middle school I had a teacher who I just loved. It was her first year teaching and everything she did was exciting and meaningful. She and others before her were my inspiration for becoming a teacher and for simply doing well in school. One day she came into school with this sweatshirt on that to this day I remember clearly. It read : TEACHING: The Profession that Makes all Others Possible. As a middles schooler I sort of understood it. As a high schooler I remembered it and got it more, but as a new teacher going out into my first classroom, I really started to understand it. I am part of the path that will take each and every child to their future destination. It’s a scary position to have at times but it also can be the most rewarding experience of all.
Last week I was talking to my undergraduate class about teaching in general. They had begun their internships and were getting used to their teachers. In the process of talking to them they began to share some things that they weren’t sure about. One student said that there wasn’t enough ‘stuff’ on the wall – ‘stuff’ being cute, bulletin board packets. Another student said that she thought her teacher’s room was too disorganized, too messy. A third student said that she wasn’t sure if she liked her classroom being too loud. As they talked I just listened because they were literally describing my old classrooms. I didn’t have a lot of bulletin board ‘stuff’ on my walls because I had my student’s work on the walls. My room was an organized mess of students working and me running back and forth between them, and my room was loud because my students worked together to complete their work. So, I told my students that while I appreciate their first impressions I needed them to look beyond the appearance of the classroom and focus on the depth of the classroom – what are those students doing in that loud, messy classroom? Is real learning happening where every student feels involved and heard? How do the teachers create a community where every student is welcomed? Do the students feel comfortable sharing with the classroom – even if their language is a little different from everyone else? I think that all experienced teachers should take time to reflect on the depth of their classroom but I also think that experienced teachers have to be there for our new teachers – to guide them and help them see what it means to actually teach our children. New teachers need help seeing the importance of their new profession from the very beginning so that their time can be spent learning about their children and the instruction that they need instead of on deciding which bulletin board set would look best on the outside wall. I’m not saying that these things aren’t important and in the beginning that’s EXACTLY what I did, but over time I realized the pretty bulletin boards were selfishly done for me but the interactive, working bulletin boards that showed the progress of my students as they worked and learned – those were for my children. If we all can get to the place where everything we do is for our children maybe we won’t always choose the easy over the difficult – but I honestly believe that we have to support each other if that’s going to happen.
Posted by Amie Snow | February 1, 2009 8:19 AM
Posted on February 1, 2009 08:19
The issue of how to help every single child is one of the greatest problems in education today. As Heather as said, so often we are expected or even specifically told to concentrate on the borderline children. These are the ones who can pass the test. Those who are higher do not need our instruction because they have passed the test. Right? Then, of course, those who are extremely low do not need our help because we have already given up on them a while ago. Right?
These are very hard ideas to deal with. Although we want to have the time to help every single child in the school, when something has to give in our classrooms, we choose the students who are closest to "passing."
I have actually been given a list of students and their scores on the previous EOG. We were to highlight those students within one standard deviation below passing. These were the children who were to receive extra attention in services during the year in order to pass the EOGs for the next year. Those who made ones on the test before were of little interest because it wasn't believed that they could improve enough to pass. This IS a sad part of education.
Posted by Brittany Guy | February 2, 2009 2:02 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 14:02
Wow, Cherrita -- your hypothetical perspective of a third grader is really moving! I wonder what would happen if you read that aloud to the group of faculty at your school?
You are exactly right in that schools are sites of power. What frustrates me is the type of power that is wielded on/over the young. (Not to mention teachers.) What a place of power schools would be if they were indeed places of trilingualism, as you describe it!
Posted by Alecia Jackson | February 8, 2009 4:37 PM
Posted on February 8, 2009 16:37