Entry #26 - March 15, 1999
"Dr. Bouie drove home the point that we cannot combat the bias
and racism in our school systems until we are ready to own those pieces
of the problem that we have perpetuated, sometimes with the best of intentions."
The "All Means ALL" conference on diversity was held this weekend.
The School District of Philadelphia sponsored the conference. It was pretty
impressive; about 800 people attended, and the schedule was full.
On Friday night I attended a session called "The Frames in Which We
View Our Students," presented by Ann Bouie, Ph.D. Dr. Bouie led us
through an interesting activity about the boxes we put our students and
their families into before we even begin to teach.
The audience was divided into five groups of about eight persons each, and
each group was assigned a task, without the other groups' knowledge. Group
one was told to list adjectives which described society's views of poor
families and people of color. The second group was to list the schools'
attitudes toward poor and minority students. Group three was to round out
the picture with the penal system's descriptive adjectives for the same
groups.
Groups four and five were asked what the strengths of poor families and
children were, and what poor parents' aspirations for their children were,
respectively.
All the groups listed their attributes on chart paper and hung them around
the room so we could compare lists and discuss their content.
The similarities in the lists of the first three groups were alarming and
all too real. The lists were full of words like lazy, defensive and dangerous.
Participants began to feel very uncomfortable with the overtly negative
character of the lists and began to make comments which attempted to separate
"us", the teachers, from our society and its educational and legal
systems.
However, the writing was on the wall, both literally and figuratively, and
we got down to a pretty meaty discussion about the ways we do, in fact,
pigeonhole our students. Dr. Bouie talked at length about the well-intentioned
views that we were schooled in -- views that labeled our students as victims.
She showed samples of student work from a variety of classrooms and asked
if the work reflected a respectful or patronizing view of the children's
abilities.
We contrasted the last two groups' charts, with their lists of positive
attributes about students' families and their parents' dreams for them,
with the treatment parents receive at our schools.
Dr. Bouie drove home the point that we cannot combat the bias and racism
in our school systems until we are ready to own those pieces of the problem
that we have perpetuated, sometimes with the best of intentions. For me,
this lesson -- while obvious -- is never easy.
Reading Dr. Beverly Tatum Daniel's book, "Why Are All the Black Kids
Sitting Together in the Cafeteria...?" was one of the books that has
helped me understand the impact of my "good" intentions in the
classroom. Her book has forced me to rethink the make-up of my cooperative
groups, for example.
In the past I always followed a formula to create groups that were balanced
in terms of gender, race, and educational performance. In other words I
tried to have picture-perfect groups.
I thought about the value of students from different backgrounds getting
to know each other and support each other's learning. I didn't think about
adolescence as a time when kids are beginning to feel the harsh stings of
racism on the street. I hadn't recognized their need to support themselves
by the safety of membership in their own groups. In the context of sexism,
I know how much it means to me to work with like-minded women, yet I never
compared my own experience and needs to the needs of my kids and their experiences
with racism.
So what do my groups look like now...? Sometimes they look pretty unbalanced
to an outside viewer, because sometimes they're self-selected. Some groups
are all-male, some all-female, some all African-American, some mixed. In
other cases, I group them and they comply. I no longer think there's a recipe
for all situations.
I think the important thing -- the thing Dr. Bouie was driving at -- is
the need to be open to looking at the possibility that I/we might be wrong
in the ways we approach our students.
Today, I attended a session in the morning by the Deputy Superintendent
of the Boston Public Schools, Bak Fun Wong. Mr. Wong talked about choices
and shared many experiences from his long history in schools.
One story he shared sticks out. He spoke of a young child, in first or second
grade, who would not remove his coat despite requests, threats etc. from
the teacher. Mr. Wong was called in as the principal to force the child
to comply with the teacher's request.
However, Mr. Wong decided to get to know the child first and when he did,
he learned that the boy's mother was set to deliver twins. It seems the
boy wanted to be ready to leave at a moment's notice.
This story was not told as an example of an unfeeling teacher's mistake,
but rather as an example of the many small ways in which we misunderstand
each other on a regular basis.
I rounded out my day with a session about Latino books where a librarian/storyteller
was both entertaining and informative. I hope to add some of her titles
to my classroom collection.
Finally, I attended "The African Heritage of Puerto Ricans" and
learned that Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, the person responsible for the extensive
collection of African-American literature and history in the Harlem library
was a Puerto Rican of African descent. I learned that Mr. Schomburg began
assembling his collection because a teacher told him there was nothing to
collect about African history and he was motivated to prove her wrong. Once
again, I was struck by the powerful role we play for good or bad in the
lives of our students.
On another note, a subcommittee of our School Council is going to lead a
discussion at our next meeting on the tone of decency and various peer mediation
programs that are available for our school's use. So much to do, so little
time. . . .
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