Social Issues in Education

This class has been an amazing experience. I only hope that other colleges and education programs have a type of class that talks about these issues that one WILL confront as a teacher. What advice I would give to future students of TED 3380 can be broken down to one question: How can I make this a meaningful experience? I would say that, first of all, being in class every session really would benefit you. And in all reality, you don't want to miss a class. Another key is to be completely open in class. Blurt out whatever you are thinking, no one will judge you, especially Dr. Talbert. You should also be prepared to have your thinking challenged. throughout the whole class, my customary method of thinking was challenged and I came away with a whole new mindset to use when I encounter students of all shapes and sizes. That really is what you need to keep in mind throughout this class: how can what I am learning now impact and effect my future students.

Keep these things in mind and you are sure to have a meaningful experience.

Essay 1- Jonathan Kozol- The Shame of the Nation

Jonathan Kozol, in his tour of American schools, has discovered a disturbing truth: America has an Apartheid school system. Since the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education, the schools in America, while desegregated for a while, have slowly resegregated back to the comfortable way things used to be. Many things led to this resegregation, and many things must be examined to determine what can be done to alleviate this situation for the future.
First we must examine the causes of resegregation in American Schools since the decision of Brown v. Board of Education. Kozol notes in his book that everything was going well in the effort to desegregate the schools until the late 1980s when President Bush took away a lot of the anti- segregation laws, thinking the problem was solved. However, the problem was far from over, in fact, we were about to see a recession back into the dark places of segregation, and even apartheid schooling. Since the black population was not considered equal long enough to gain a social and economic standing in the world before the segregation was restarted, the cycle was bound to repeat itself, and the blacks would be stuck in this subpar education system. Their lack of a financial medium has taken away their only source of resolve in this situation by themselves. You see, the blacks aren’t necessarily segregated with the same kinds of laws that they were segregated with back in the 1960s. They are segregated by wealth and power, and these are chains that are not easily broken given the educational system they have to work with. In fact, “the desegregation of black students, which increased continuously from the 1950s to the late 1980s, has now receded to levels not seen in three decades” (Kozol Location 275-279). What makes it worse today is that no one is willing to see this segregation, or even try and fight it. The whites have fled to the suburbs, leaving the blacks to fend for themselves in the crumbling inner-city infrastructure. Since the whites have cornered the financial market, the blacks have few ways, if any, to fund their schools. School improvement is funded by the community, and if the community has little money to share, then the school suffers. When this issue is presented to the whites however, they refuse to share the wealth that “they worked so hard for.” They ask, why can’t they work for their money? What they fail to notice is that the blacks DO work for the money they earn, and they sometimes work two or three jobs for it. But, how are they supposed to rise out of these ashes if they don’t have the proper schooling to excel in the type of America we have today, where it is becoming harder and harder to find a job with even just a bachelor’s degree. It is as if America has already decided who they want to succeed in life. The schools will offer AP classes to schools with a majority of White students, but hairdressing classes to schools with a majority of black students. They have already assigned worth to these students, and they have determined that some students are worthier than others. Why won’t the school boards of America do something about the sometimes as much as $8,000 difference in the amount of funding given to each child per year from the inner city to the suburbs. It is understandable for there to be a little difference between the suburbs to the inner city, but this difference is way too much. The school system has already hindered these students enough, and more needs to be done.
Whether we want to admit it or not, America does in fact have apartheid schooling. Apartheid is defined as being the segregation of nonwhites based on political, legal, and economic discrimination. The economic discrimination is the most prominent of these causes to look at when looking at our schools. It is the economic status of these students that causes them to have schools with “teachers with the least seniority and least experience,” and “foul odor[s] fill[ing] much of the building”(Kozol Location 345-360). These are not the conditions that the whites from the suburbs learn in, and if ever these conditions were in a predominantly white school, their parents would come unglued until someone fixed it. In America, we are reluctant to call this apartheid schooling because of our big egos and the reputation we have made for ourselves as a “Land of Opportunity.” But really, if we are the Land of Opportunity, then why is it that a lot of our students never get the opportunity to go to college, and they are hindered from the youngest age from reaching that goal. I think that we as American can live with our schools being segregated by this economic factor, but we fail to recognize that this economic factor is directly correlated with race. Until we recognize that we can’t fully solve the problems at hand. Even though we supposed to have solved all these problems in the past, we haven’t and we are very reluctant to admit that we still have problems.
The only way to solve these problems is to change both our attitudes, and our laws to make the playing field more equal. One way that we can make a step towards changing the makeup of our schools is to redraw some district and school zoning lines to make the schools more diverse. However, this would not go over well until our attitudes change and we become more open to change and the good things that can come of it. The government could increase some funding for schools in need. No school should have walls falling down with leaks in the roof and air that never works. Our students, of both races, can learn so much from each other’s cultures if we only let them.

Race Matters Ch. 5-8
5. Cornel West talks about the black plight as it relates to Affirmative Action, black-Jewish relations, black sexuality, and Malcolm X’s campaign for equality. West believes that Affirmative Action’s attempt in leveling the playing field for blacks is a valid one that should be continued, but not used as a crutch by those who are striving for equality. Affirmative action is a stepping stone, but it is not perfect. Malcolm X is looked at in this book as a very strong voice in the public and a leader in the movement for black self-love. Cornel West also details the history of Black Antisemitism as another factor of White supremacy in America. The issue of Black sexuality can be related back to White Supremacy and a lack of black self-love (which can be attributed to White Supremacy).
4. -“The quest for black identity involves self-respect and self-regard, realms inseparable form, yet not identical to, political power and economic status.” P97
-“It is downplayed by blacks because they focus on the astonishingly rapid entrée of most Jews into the middle and upper middle classes during this brief period- an entrée that has spawned both an intense conflict with the more slowly growing black middle class and a social resentment from a quickly growing black impoverished class.” P106
- “Much of black self-hatred and self-concept has to do with the refusal of many black Americans to love their own black bodies-especially their black noses, hips, lips, and hair.” P122
- “The only legitimate response to white supremacist ideology and practice is black self-love and black self-determination free of the tension generated by ‘double-consciousness’.” P140
3. double-consiousness- according to W.E.B. Du Bois, this is the level of enlightenment that blacks have that are a part of the white culture and see themselves through their eyes and have to fit in their own black culture. However, Malcolm X believes this applies not to all blacks, but only those that are caught in between the two cultures.
House Negroes- “those that love and protect the white master”
Field Negroes- “those that hate and resist the white master”
2. -W.E.B. Du Bois thought that blacks are not just capable of what little things the whites put aside for them, but also they are capable of everything that whites are able to do, and possibly more. I think Du Bois is has a lot of the same ideas and feelings that Malcolm X has, however I believe that Malcolm X is a lot more enraged about the plight of blacks in America. It is important to note that Malcolm X’s platform happened over 30 years after Du Bois’s platform.
-I have thought about all the roles blacks were given in TV and the media throughout the 60s and beyond. It has changed, but there are still some remnants of the roles the public was OK with giving the black people, like the comedian roles and the black people that needed help from the white people to survive.
1. What would West think about Obama and how he has conducted himself?

I am quite the movie buff and I love this type of study- pop culture in the media and social issues in the media, so this post may be quite long.. : )

Two summers ago, I took a Popular Culture class at HBU and as a part of the course we examined the major Social Movements of the 60s in movies and TV shows. One of the movements we studied was the Civil Rights movement and then what came after that in movies, the Hip Hop culture. Both of these had a lot to do with the roles black people held in TV shows and movies. Often, when there is a multi-racial cast in Hollywood, the black person is the comedic relief. The most current example I can think of is the new Bruce Willis movie, Cop Out. Bruce Willis is known as this hard core action hero but in this movie he is paired up with Tracy Morgan, a black comedic actor. Instead of the black actor being the serious action hero, he is the comedic relief. Of course there are the serious black actors, but they are fewer and much farther between than the black actor who picks the roles that fit into the stereotypes. Hollywood's highest paid actor is Will Smith, but to really see Hollywood's values as it pertains to the roles black people should fill, one should look at Will Smith's roles in the past. Among his top 10 highest grossing movies are Men in Black I and II, Hitch, and Sharktale. In all of those movies Will Smith is the comedic relief. Don't forget that that specific type of role is how he got his start on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Of course, there are exceptions to this, namely Morgan Freeman or Forrest Whitaker. What this teaches us is that Hollywood doesn't take the black actor seriously enough to give them serious roles that are Oscar worthy. All the TV shows that I see now that have a purely black cast are comedy shows, like all the Tyler Perry TV shows/movies.

All this to say, blacks clearly have not gained equality when it comes to the entertainment industry. Who knows if the black actors choose these roles, or if these are the only roles offered to them, but in any case, these are the results. It is hard to look at the black women roles in TV and movies because they not only have to combat the race issues, but also sex issues in the entertainment industry.

5. West talks about the problems that black people face today in American society. What makes West different is that he doesn’t just blame society for those problems, but he also attributes some of the blame to the black population and their attitudes towards the problems they face. Some of the problems that the black population is directly responsible for include the lack of black leadership, the lack of conviction among the people that something must be done to alleviate their plight, and their complacency with how things are. He believes that if we can get the entire population to see the suffering they are enduring as something that can be changed and if we can change the attitude of the white population to believe that the race problem isn’t just a social problem but a moral one, we can fix the race issues in America today. To West the racial issue transcends every faction in American lives from social and political, to moral and ethical and we should use each of those factions to get rid of the race matters in America today.

4. “To engage in a serious discussion of race in America, we must begin not with the problems of black people but with the flaws of American society- flaws rooted in historic inequalities and longstanding cultural stereotypes…The implication is that only certain Americans can define what it means to be American- and the rest must simply ‘fit in’.”(P6-7)

“The fundamental aim of this undermining and dismantling is to replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles…” (P 38).

“Where there is no vision, the people perish; where there is no framework of moral reasoning, the people close ranks in a war of all against all. The growing gangsterization of America results in part from a market-driven racial reasoning that links the White House to the ghetto projects.” (P 48)

“There has not been a time in the history of black people in this country when the quantity of politicians and intellectuals was so great, yet the quality of both groups has been so low.” (p 53).

3. Afrocentrism- a contemporary species of black nationalism, puts black doings and sufferings at the center of discussion.

Nihilism- the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and lovelessness.

Conservative Behavioralists- promote self-help programs, black business expansion, and non-preferential job practices. Their projects rest on a cultural revival of the Protestant work ethic in black America.

2. In one of my classes at AJ Moore we showed a movie on the Lost Boys of the Sudan called The Lost Boys. This was a movie about the movement of a group of boys from the Sudan to America and the culture shock they experienced when trying to go to school and get jobs and make a life for themselves. The boys had a certain idea of what the black people in America were like and it was the stereotypical view of gangster black people. When they played basketball with some neighborhood black people they were talking later about how aggressive they were which shocked them. They also said that they probably were reaching in their pockets and stealing from them while they were playing basketball. Generally the boys from the Sudan thought all black people in America were gangster robbers that are really bad people. West talked about all the general views people have of the black population and how hindering that can be for the people that think they can’t get out from under the stereotypes.

In a Pop Culture class I took at HBU, the professor talked about the gangster image that is now so popular in black culture. He cited the roots of this get up in black history all the way back to when black people would perform right after they were granted freedom. What blacks would do to entertain the white folk was dress up in exaggerated clothes that were too big with makeup and would almost look like rodeo clowns. Ironically, today the gangster get up is marked by large clothes that are 3 sizes too big for them and pants that are falling down. It is interesting to see where this image comes from, and I would guess that most black people that follow this image don’t know where it comes from either. This also relates to why they wear their pants so low. When people are sent to prison, their belts are taken away and their pants fall down as a result, so wearing their pants low was a sign of having been in prison. It is interesting that the black people are hanging on to all these things that are markers of their chains that the white people have given them in the past.

1. How would West respond to Kozol’s issues that he points out in his book and the solutions and causes for them?

5. Kozol notes in these chapters how disadvantaged students in low socio-economic areas are on high stakes tests, which hasn’t been helped by the past educational policies. Students in these areas are not given the proper resources to be able to succeed and they are told that sheer willpower will get them to succeed on their tests. This reinforces the fact that more and more these days teachers are only teaching to the test instead of teaching for their students to excel in life. However, amidst all these obstacles there still manages to be inspirational and successful teachers, as Kozol recognizes in chapter 12. There are many teachers who rise above the demands of the high stakes testing system and enable their students to achieve success in their schooling and professional lives.

4. "I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations," the president said again in his re-election in September 2004. "It's working. It's making a difference." It is one of those deadly lies which by sheer repetition, is at length accepted by large numbers of Americans…”
“Teachers and principals should not permit the beautiful profession they have chosen to be redefined by those who know far less than they about the hearts of children.”
“The longer this goes on, the further these two roads divide, the more severe and routinized these race-specific pedagogies may become, the harder it will be to find a place of common ground on which the children of the many ethnic groups and social classes in our nation’s public schools will ever actually meet.”
“In these settings, teachers do not tend to let concerns about our nation’s competition in the global marketplace intrude upon the more important needs of childhood, such as the right to find some happiness in being children.”
3. "standard-based reform"- Measure a student’s achievement against a concrete standard instead of comparing them against other students.
Small school initiative- The need to make schools much smaller than they are now to fight the overpopulation problem in American high schools.
No Child Left Behind- The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools.
2. So many of the reforms and reformers that Kozol mentioned have been instrumental in all of my education classes. I have learned about W.E.B. Dubois and his belief that all children, no matter their color, can learn at the same level. I think this is the prime argument of Kozol. No matter the students’ socio-economic status, race, or any other factor, they are all able to achieve at the same level, so there should be no need for educational standards to differ throughout a city.
I don’t remember the speaker’s name, but there was a speaker that came to Baylor last year who spoke on the dangers of high stakes testing. He said that while there should be standards and tests to measure them, so much importance on a student’s career should not be placed on these tests. I think this could be a solution to Kozol’s problems.

1. What makes the schools mentioned in chapter 12 so different than other schools and how can we make more schools like this?

Last meeting, some thoughts were procured in my head about the situation in American Schools. What seems to keep coming up, especially in the video that was shown at the beginning of class, is that the achievement gap of minorities is directly related to all the other gaps they face in their life. But I can’t seem to figure out which one is the cause. Maybe they are both effects of each other, but thinking that way makes it very difficult to fix either problem. Thus far, we have been focusing on the achievement gap as the cause of the other problems and have been trying to close that gap to fix the others. Some may argue that using that approach hasn’t worked and we need a new approach. But maybe it’s not the cause we got wrong, maybe it’s the way we try to close the achievement gap. We know that all students aren’t treated the same. It’s like Dr. T said, what worth do we attribute to our students? Some schools do have predetermined worths attributed to all their students, whether they truly earned it or not. I catch myself thinking all the time how I believe every student CAN do the work; they just need some guidance and help getting there and believing in themselves. However, in many of my experiences in the school system, I find that teachers get in the rut of doing the “same thing we’ve always done” instead of reevaluating the things that don’t work- like endless worksheets. I feel like teachers have given up in a sense and figure if the child isn’t getting it it’s the child’s fault, not theirs. Now, this isn’t the case everywhere, but even if this happened in 1% of the schools in the United States it would be happening too much. The job of a teacher is to inspire their students to greatness, and that isn’t going to happen with a worksheet on the causes of World War I. We need to make everything relevant to the students. This is especially important with students who don’t have parents who hound them on the importance of schooling because their parents never finished themselves. How did all the teachers in those inspirational teacher true story movies ever reach their kids? Well, in Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers, they first took a step into their students’ world and pulled some rap music out of it to make them realized that English is everywhere. In Mr. Holland’s Opus, he showed the students the influences of classical music on his students’ favorite Rock songs. In Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams showed his students that poetry is an individual expression that must be felt inside and out, and there are no right and wrong answers in poetry. What did all these teachers have in common? They all reached out into their students’ worlds and made school relevant to their life. I think that is the key to closing the achievement gap. Tests and teaching to the test isn’t going to help students achieve more in school, but making school important to them will.