"This small black person represents us before we learned all the information about it and the big gold person is how he feels after we've been enriched with all the knowledge."
Racist or Innocent?
I haven't been able to find a full story about the event depicted in the video below, but it appears to be a presentation to the Martinsville City council by a group of students from the Piedmont Governor's School about a recent survey they conducted with local residents. They created some type of "story quilt" to represent their learning. As the students presented, Sharon Hodge, the only black member of the City Council, stopped them after the comment above. After asking for clarification, she expressed her feelings of offense at the portrayal.
We're just a few weeks removed from the all the news surrounding Brad Paisley's collaboration on "Accidental Racist" with LL Cool J. Critics especially cut the opening lines of the song in which Paisley tries to justify his "confederate flag" shirt by claiming he only wears it because he's a fan of Lynard Skynard.
Likewise, I doubt the students creating the quilt intended to offend anyone by using a small black figure to represent ignorance. Does that excuse the action?
The council lady goes on to defend her actions in an interview with a local news station. She points out in the video the lack of diversity in the group- all white with all white teachers. She also mentions that only ten percent of people interviewed by the students were black in a city where the population is over forty percent black.
She clearly states that intent is not the issue.
And it isn't when it comes to racially sensitive issues. Whether I mean to offend or not doesn't change the offense. In a diverse public education system this is an ever present problem.
In the comment section to the video above, at the time of this post, only one comment supported the councilor. User name- mhairston. Anyone familiar with the Martinsville area would recognize the last name and why it is significant that it is the only supportive voice. The area has a deep history with race. Growing up white in Martinsville, I was largely unaffected by issues of race. The older I get, the more I realize how much I missed out on the meaning of race because of my skin color. I imagine the lives of black, white, Asian, Latino, etc., are all affected by race in ways that different ethnic groups are not aware of, making the risks of "accidental racism" all the more likely.
As teachers, we respect and love all of our students. We carry our own "ethnic baggage" complete with preferences and prejudices just like anyone else. But, we serve a population of students bringing all their "baggage" on the trip as well. I'm sure that somewhere along the line I've crossed the line unintentionally, but I hope that I've been able to build strong enough relationships to grow in my understanding and respect of those who are different from me.
In the end, we're all the same underneath the skin. But human interactions are skin to skin and race isn't something that can just be ignored.
I think for a white person, without understanding the history of race in the area AND without understanding the current racial experience of others it would be easy to shout this council lady down for calling out an innocent student. But, I can understand why she might find "a little black guy representing ignorance" offensive.
What do you think?
Showing posts with label Race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Monday, November 19, 2012
Part of the Problem or Solution
Last week we reported on the new Virginia plan for meeting federal waiver requirements from No Child Left Behind. Pass rates were set at 82, 68, 52, and 45 percent for Asians, whites, latinos, and blacks respectively. After talking to several other educators, the state's explanation-- "if we look at where these children are starting from, we're making efforts to move them forward"-- sounds somewhat reasonable. Maybe you remember a little of your "forms of reasoning" from philosophy. If the premise is true and the logic is sound then the conclusion is true. For example-- all birds fly, penguins are birds, therefore penguins must fly. We could argue all we want about how sound the reasoning is, but anyone can see that penguins don't fly. We got something wrong.
To all of my educator friends-- if you think the logic behind this plan is sound, just look at the conclusion, something is wrong. If not the logic, then our premise. It would do our system well if instead of defending such an egregious plan we would step back and figure out how we got here because somehow good intentioned efforts at progress just resulted in some pretty serious regress.
First, the ever present statement that "teachers are the most important factors in student achievement." Most everyone who uses this line fails to add the caveat of the most important in school factor. Many out of school factors impact student achievement. Remind policy-makers and other high-ranking ed officials of this and the reply goes something like this-- "we only have the ability to control what is in our power to control"-- leading us to complacently accept the reality that no one is addressing the issues outside of school that impact our students. So yes, students are coming into our classrooms with different abilities, many times as a result of their environment.
Second, if students are coming into our schools (their starting point according to the Virginia Superintendent of Education) at such various levels of performance, why don't we try to find the reason. When colleges find that too many incoming freshmen are in need of remedial classes, don't we first look to the high schools from which they graduated as the reason. Why satisfy ourselves with the excuse of lower starting points instead of asking why these children are already underperforming by the time we get them.
I have a feeling that race may not be the answer. If it is, what does that mean? It means that there is some inherent difference in ability based on race. We know this isn't true, so what else could be the cause? George Bush is famous for saying that we need to fight the "soft bigotry of low expectations", but I don't know who added "instead of addressing the hard bigotry of poverty." Why are we still separating these children into categories in 2012? Won't we find the greatest correlation between school performance and economics rather than race?
In the end, consider the national narrative regarding education for the last ten years. We've increasingly focused on racial differences in performance and ignored the harsh reality that economic differences have the greatest impact. Last year, when the Teaching Underground attended the NCSS national convention, we listened to Geoffrey Canada's keynote address. He shared his heuristic on decision-making in his Harlem Kids Zone-- "when in doubt, do what the rich people do."
In this ongoing debate between so-called education reformers-- the people who want to measure everything, expand test-based accountability, evaluate teachers on growth models, get unions out of the way-- and people like us at the Teaching Underground, we're often cast as a voice for the status quo.
Come by my classroom one day and look out at the brilliant black students that are taking my AP Psychology course and explain to them why it's a good idea to have a lower pass-rate for "their people." When you put it like that, status quo doesn't sound too bad. But then again, maybe the progress we're being sold isn't really progress at all.
To all of my educator friends-- if you think the logic behind this plan is sound, just look at the conclusion, something is wrong. If not the logic, then our premise. It would do our system well if instead of defending such an egregious plan we would step back and figure out how we got here because somehow good intentioned efforts at progress just resulted in some pretty serious regress.
First, the ever present statement that "teachers are the most important factors in student achievement." Most everyone who uses this line fails to add the caveat of the most important in school factor. Many out of school factors impact student achievement. Remind policy-makers and other high-ranking ed officials of this and the reply goes something like this-- "we only have the ability to control what is in our power to control"-- leading us to complacently accept the reality that no one is addressing the issues outside of school that impact our students. So yes, students are coming into our classrooms with different abilities, many times as a result of their environment.
Second, if students are coming into our schools (their starting point according to the Virginia Superintendent of Education) at such various levels of performance, why don't we try to find the reason. When colleges find that too many incoming freshmen are in need of remedial classes, don't we first look to the high schools from which they graduated as the reason. Why satisfy ourselves with the excuse of lower starting points instead of asking why these children are already underperforming by the time we get them.
I have a feeling that race may not be the answer. If it is, what does that mean? It means that there is some inherent difference in ability based on race. We know this isn't true, so what else could be the cause? George Bush is famous for saying that we need to fight the "soft bigotry of low expectations", but I don't know who added "instead of addressing the hard bigotry of poverty." Why are we still separating these children into categories in 2012? Won't we find the greatest correlation between school performance and economics rather than race?
In the end, consider the national narrative regarding education for the last ten years. We've increasingly focused on racial differences in performance and ignored the harsh reality that economic differences have the greatest impact. Last year, when the Teaching Underground attended the NCSS national convention, we listened to Geoffrey Canada's keynote address. He shared his heuristic on decision-making in his Harlem Kids Zone-- "when in doubt, do what the rich people do."
In this ongoing debate between so-called education reformers-- the people who want to measure everything, expand test-based accountability, evaluate teachers on growth models, get unions out of the way-- and people like us at the Teaching Underground, we're often cast as a voice for the status quo.
Come by my classroom one day and look out at the brilliant black students that are taking my AP Psychology course and explain to them why it's a good idea to have a lower pass-rate for "their people." When you put it like that, status quo doesn't sound too bad. But then again, maybe the progress we're being sold isn't really progress at all.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
When Numbers Betray Reality
Target pass rate of 82% for Asians. Target pass rate of 68% for whites. 52% for Latinos and 45% for blacks. Those are the new performance goals for math in the state of Virginia and it's good enough for a waiver freeing us from the untenable mandates of No Child Left Behind.
No matter how reasonable the explanation sounds, the result-- 82% pass rate target for Asians, 45% pass rate target for blacks-- is absolutely unreasonable. My psychology class is in the middle of a unit on Testing and Intelligence and we looked at group differences in I.Q. scores last class. We discussed the 1994 book The Bell Curve and how sometimes inferences about race and ability based on testing results are seriously flawed. A diagram from the book shows overlapping normal curves of I.Q. scores between Asians, whites, hispanics, and blacks from right to left on the curve.
I was shocked to hear news of the new Virginia targets that evening after viewing this diagram in class. NPR's All Things Considered ran the story titled "Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals." The story stood out to me after hearing the percentage target rates that matched the order of I.Q. scores presented in the diagram.
We listened to the audio in class. I didn't anticipate how awkward the transition would be. "We've just listened to people talking about Asians and whites and latinos and blacks, but when you look to your left and look to your right you see people with names, your friends. And I can't look at any of you and say that I expect any less of you because of who you are."
Is it reasonable for an entire state to articulate that our expectations of performance are different depending on your race?
For over a decade now, schools, divisions, and entire states have struggled to prove their merit based on the primary metric of the standardized test. Percentages, percentiles, and pass rates have surpassed the noble goals of civic responsibility, critical thinking, responsibility, and achievement. Never mind that some schools don't even have high enough numbers of "sub-groups" to qualify in that reporting category, we've found a way to numerically rate and therefore compare quality from one location to the next.
When schools started meeting the required pass rates of state testing, No Child Left Behind came along and labelled them as failing because not every reporting category met the benchmark pass rate. It essentially created an all-or-nothing system. Success didn't matter unless it was complete success. Any partial failure became the character of the entire school.
Expectations of perfection looming in the next few years prompted the offer of waivers for NCLB. The education world has always promoted an "every child can succeed" attitude. You can't achieve excellence in this field without that attitude. But most teachers learn within the first year of teaching that just believing that every child can succeed doesn't make every child succeed.
We hear that new state pass rates are set with the understanding that these racial groups aren't starting at the same place. So we want to look for growth. We hear that what's important isn't where we finish, it's how much improvement we've accomplished.
Either way, we're left with numbers. 82, 68, 52, and 45, and they define success depending on your race.
If that doesn't wake you up to the damage that our reliance on test based accountability has done to education and American society I'm not sure what will. Welcome back to 1954 Ms. Brown.
No matter how reasonable the explanation sounds, the result-- 82% pass rate target for Asians, 45% pass rate target for blacks-- is absolutely unreasonable. My psychology class is in the middle of a unit on Testing and Intelligence and we looked at group differences in I.Q. scores last class. We discussed the 1994 book The Bell Curve and how sometimes inferences about race and ability based on testing results are seriously flawed. A diagram from the book shows overlapping normal curves of I.Q. scores between Asians, whites, hispanics, and blacks from right to left on the curve.
I was shocked to hear news of the new Virginia targets that evening after viewing this diagram in class. NPR's All Things Considered ran the story titled "Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals." The story stood out to me after hearing the percentage target rates that matched the order of I.Q. scores presented in the diagram.
We listened to the audio in class. I didn't anticipate how awkward the transition would be. "We've just listened to people talking about Asians and whites and latinos and blacks, but when you look to your left and look to your right you see people with names, your friends. And I can't look at any of you and say that I expect any less of you because of who you are."
Is it reasonable for an entire state to articulate that our expectations of performance are different depending on your race?
For over a decade now, schools, divisions, and entire states have struggled to prove their merit based on the primary metric of the standardized test. Percentages, percentiles, and pass rates have surpassed the noble goals of civic responsibility, critical thinking, responsibility, and achievement. Never mind that some schools don't even have high enough numbers of "sub-groups" to qualify in that reporting category, we've found a way to numerically rate and therefore compare quality from one location to the next.
When schools started meeting the required pass rates of state testing, No Child Left Behind came along and labelled them as failing because not every reporting category met the benchmark pass rate. It essentially created an all-or-nothing system. Success didn't matter unless it was complete success. Any partial failure became the character of the entire school.
Expectations of perfection looming in the next few years prompted the offer of waivers for NCLB. The education world has always promoted an "every child can succeed" attitude. You can't achieve excellence in this field without that attitude. But most teachers learn within the first year of teaching that just believing that every child can succeed doesn't make every child succeed.
We hear that new state pass rates are set with the understanding that these racial groups aren't starting at the same place. So we want to look for growth. We hear that what's important isn't where we finish, it's how much improvement we've accomplished.
Either way, we're left with numbers. 82, 68, 52, and 45, and they define success depending on your race.
If that doesn't wake you up to the damage that our reliance on test based accountability has done to education and American society I'm not sure what will. Welcome back to 1954 Ms. Brown.
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