It took me a few pages to adjust to Kozol's understanding and use of "segregation," "isolation," and "diversity." What I experienced was something like vertigo, I guess, and it's still only beginning to sink in as conceivable that an eighteen year veteran of the New York public school system could go her entire career and teach only one white student (3).
In addition to positing (through the words of underserved students) that the extant inequality he observes in N.Y. schools is more systematic than systemic, Kozol makes the case for it starting even earlier due to the proliferation of pre-preschool education in the form of "Baby Ivies" (9). He seems to suggest that even those concepts traditionally presented during and associated with child rearing ["...how to hold a crayon or a pencil, identify(ing) perhaps a couple of shapes or colors, or recogniz(ing) that printed pages go from left to right." (9)] can be monetized and therefore put further out of reach of those who would benefit most from its availability. Instead, admission spots in these ultra-elite institutions are fought for and divvied up among those with the means to pay. His idea is to illustrate how this has become just one more instrument by which the wealthy measure their wealth. In terms, I suppose, of how much further from the massive underserved population it places them.
(2 or 3 hours and some leftover dirty rice later) I am wondering just what it is Jonathan Kozol leaves us with. If there are direct marching orders, I might be missing them. If he eloquently and quantitatively enumerates the laughable way those in schools with political interests ascribe diversity to a student body that is 99.6% racially homogeneous, he just as adroitly points out how the achievement gap is widened by unequal access to early education. Later, he holds up Success For All and its ilk as toothless, and exposes the uselessness of procedurally shuttling students into classes far beneath their ability and interest level.
I think...
I'm pretty sure that's what he's doing here...
In any case, he may be making a point that transcends the format of "this good, that bad." It may be just that he is pointing out that work still needs doing (21-22). Either that or he does not leave us with much at all, and that just sort of sounds wrong.
What: the author writes that, for a variety of reasons including the recent dismantling of Brown v. Board of Education's mandates (20), today's schools are just as segregated as they were pre-integration.
So What: This trend resurrects the dangers people worked hard to eradicate the first time around.
What Now: Keep working, but some methods are better than others. Turning schools into Skinnerboxes is not preferable.
My Blog List
Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Common Beliefs
5. Neither agree nor disagree. I agree with the first sentence to the degree that any young, impressionable person models what they see most. I disagree with the second half because only I can undermine my efforts.
Though it may be true that children from families whose elder members spurned or were spurned by formal education have a statistical tendency to devalue teaching and learning, that really amounts to a bunch of hooey when the kid is in front of me. The power of tenacious care and love is bigger than that.
The family and community and neighborhood and psychic vultures and culture vultures and the glitter of false power can undermine my results as manifested in the kid-as-product, but it is only when I lose sight of my commitment to love that my effort suffers.
6. Disagree. Students of every ability level can be challenged according to their needs, irrespective of ELL status. It is what the families who relinquish their children to us expect. The students look for it, too, and relish the opportunity to perform successfully in their own ways. If a student struggles with language proficiency, that IS their academic challenge. You gotta help.
7. Neither agree nor disagree. If the kid needs their effort to be rewarded, reward it. If not, leave it alone. “...because building their self-esteem is important” seems a little too mawkish, so I’ll just stick to writing that motivating students is tricky and fun. Sometimes we have to holler at them and break up their pity party, and sometime we have to stand along the marathon route and hand out water. It’s not about the kid, it’s about us.
8. Neither agree nor disagree. I think it’s bad business to make decisions based on negatives, eg, “...so that they do not become discouraged.” If I speak about negatives, they will think in negatives. Sort of like what Ray said in this week’s blog post about his syllabus.
9. Agree. And this would be just as true with the words about race and ethnicity removed. I guess the way I feel about it is that if there were no linguistic construct for referring to race, teachers would just say, “The only way that kid will learn parts of speech is by writing little songs about them. It’s the damnest thing... Fascinating, though, I tell you.”
10. Agree. Although I agree, I think this question presumes a bit too much. Namely, not all the turtles are slow in the same way, and not all the rabbits are fast in the same way. It’s been my experience with the more vociferous proponents of this theory that they assume that all impediments to learning are removed when teaching a homogeneous group of high speed students.
11. Disagree. It seems to me that if a creative teacher is doing an admirable job of teaching ELL students, they will be involved in complex learning tasks as a matter of grasping the basics.
12. Disagree. What matters more than your students?
13. Neither agree nor disagree. I agree with pt. 1 and disagree with pt. 2. I think I remember reading something that said that the collegiality of a faculty is increased when they readily discuss sticky issues. Everybody who teaches has an opinion on the role or effect of race, and it would do well to talk about it. The same article may have also said something to the effect that students behave more genially around each other when they perceive a healthy relationship among the faculty.
Though it may be true that children from families whose elder members spurned or were spurned by formal education have a statistical tendency to devalue teaching and learning, that really amounts to a bunch of hooey when the kid is in front of me. The power of tenacious care and love is bigger than that.
The family and community and neighborhood and psychic vultures and culture vultures and the glitter of false power can undermine my results as manifested in the kid-as-product, but it is only when I lose sight of my commitment to love that my effort suffers.
6. Disagree. Students of every ability level can be challenged according to their needs, irrespective of ELL status. It is what the families who relinquish their children to us expect. The students look for it, too, and relish the opportunity to perform successfully in their own ways. If a student struggles with language proficiency, that IS their academic challenge. You gotta help.
7. Neither agree nor disagree. If the kid needs their effort to be rewarded, reward it. If not, leave it alone. “...because building their self-esteem is important” seems a little too mawkish, so I’ll just stick to writing that motivating students is tricky and fun. Sometimes we have to holler at them and break up their pity party, and sometime we have to stand along the marathon route and hand out water. It’s not about the kid, it’s about us.
8. Neither agree nor disagree. I think it’s bad business to make decisions based on negatives, eg, “...so that they do not become discouraged.” If I speak about negatives, they will think in negatives. Sort of like what Ray said in this week’s blog post about his syllabus.
9. Agree. And this would be just as true with the words about race and ethnicity removed. I guess the way I feel about it is that if there were no linguistic construct for referring to race, teachers would just say, “The only way that kid will learn parts of speech is by writing little songs about them. It’s the damnest thing... Fascinating, though, I tell you.”
10. Agree. Although I agree, I think this question presumes a bit too much. Namely, not all the turtles are slow in the same way, and not all the rabbits are fast in the same way. It’s been my experience with the more vociferous proponents of this theory that they assume that all impediments to learning are removed when teaching a homogeneous group of high speed students.
11. Disagree. It seems to me that if a creative teacher is doing an admirable job of teaching ELL students, they will be involved in complex learning tasks as a matter of grasping the basics.
12. Disagree. What matters more than your students?
13. Neither agree nor disagree. I agree with pt. 1 and disagree with pt. 2. I think I remember reading something that said that the collegiality of a faculty is increased when they readily discuss sticky issues. Everybody who teaches has an opinion on the role or effect of race, and it would do well to talk about it. The same article may have also said something to the effect that students behave more genially around each other when they perceive a healthy relationship among the faculty.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Black Codes (From The Underground) Cont.
For Delpit, who endorses a top-down approach, the black student suffering at the whim of dominant culture is only able to affect change from a position of power when a full understanding of white codes has been internalized (40). Accordingly, she calls in black students (and non-students, presumably) not for sublimation of the expert, "...code they already possess...", (40) in favor of that of the dominant culture, but for the development of a situational awareness of when to access each (44). In this way, black children can mirror the experience of her colleague's native Alaskan students who are taught to draw on their rich store of "village" language, history, and tradition in their acquisition of white codes (41). This sounds not unlike Luis Moll.
Another visual I had while reading was the scene in the coming-of-age film ATL, (Netflix it, it's good) where one of the characters refuses an ace-in-the-hole letter of recommendation from a successful businessman because he feels like the man "sold out" and "lost who he was" (more or less) in the pursuit of his accomplishments. In other words, the young man feels like the older man let the carbon-monoxide white codes usurp any authenticity lent him by his expert black codes. At its core, the film is probably about identity. Something like, "does our identity lead us to choose what's important or does what we consider important make us who we are?" Or something... Perhaps there's even a connection to be made by extrapolating the theory and aligning it with the different racial understandings of authority in the final paragraph on pg. 35. In any case, it's more than worth a watch in this writer's opinion.
Delpit's "gatekeepers" are interesting, as well, and maybe stand as the most transferable concept she introduces. The idea that an individual's cultural ascent is arrested at inopportune and unforeseen moments by reminders that they are not (and will never be) ready/worthy/studied/landed enough is likely something that many people have experienced. First-wave feminism's glass ceiling comes readily to mind. And when I think of things like this, I also think of Robert Greene's 36th Law of Power (out of 48, BTW) which reads thusly: "Law 36: Disdain Things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best Revenge
By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem."
So, there's that...
My final thought arose while considering all of these points (Delpit's, yours, mine) in terms of someone with a mind too limited or too transcendent to meddle in the nuance about which we are so (dis?)passionately writing. Not for nothing, but I can't help thinking that someone with the "beginner's mind" so prized in Shintoism, the mind of a Down's Syndrome person, or that of a musical savant just wouldn't expend the energy. And it seems that Delpit has devoted her conclusion to elucidating this very point - that our words amount to little more than crowd chatter in a game developed, played, refereed, and attended by academics (46). Gimmie a P! Gimmie an H! Gimmie a D! What's that spelllll?
Black Codes (From The Underground)
As I was reading the Delpit piece, I kept seeing the cover art from the 1985 Wynton Marsalis album Black Codes (From the Underground). It ended up being my visual anchor.
Like other powerful human endowments, language is frustratingly euphoric. It is both riptide and lifeguard, but its inescapable tautology is all we have That discussions of the ineffable must proceed from such a blunt instrument is damaging at worst, laughable at best, and an object lesson in diminishing returns.
As one of the principal components of her "codes," Delpit posits language as the currency with which to purchase success in white culture (25). Accordingly, it seems that she is forwarding an idea of language as "skill" - something direct and explicit that can be understood by all, but especially appreciated by those without power.
It's late, I'll finish tomorrow.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
NOFX - Don't Call Me White - YouTube
Something I was thinking about while reading the Johnson piece.
NOFX - Don't Call Me White - YouTube:Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
The connotations wearing my nerves thin
Could it be semantics generating the mess we're in?
I understand that language breeds stereotype
But what's the explanation for the malice, for the spite?
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
I wasn't brought here, I was born
Circumsized, categorized, allegiance sworn,
Does this mean I have to take such shit
For being fairskinned? No!
I ain't a part of no conspiracy,
I'm just you're average Joe.
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Represents everything I hate,
The soap shoved in your mouth to cleanse the mind
The vast majority of sheep
A buttoned collar, starched and bleached
Constricting veins, the blood flow to the brain slows
They're so fuckin' ordinary white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
We're better off this way
Say what you're gonna say
So go ahead and label me
An asshole cause I can
Accept responsibility, for what I've done
But not for who I am
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
About the Author
Though he still sometimes tries to avoid it, Seth has always been a teacher. Recently, he has made a career of it. Soon after completing an undergraduate education, he began subbing in the Blackstone-Millville School District. A fortunate maternity leave allowed him to both teach 6th grade English for the remainder of the 05-06 school year, and apply for his current position at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School, where he has taught in various capacities since.
His classroom interests include fostering an appreciation for poetry, etymology, minimalism, serial music, aleatoric music, and knock-your-socks-off vocabulary sentences. He also coaches the track and field team.
Mr. Curran lives in Woonsocket.
His classroom interests include fostering an appreciation for poetry, etymology, minimalism, serial music, aleatoric music, and knock-your-socks-off vocabulary sentences. He also coaches the track and field team.
Mr. Curran lives in Woonsocket.
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