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Google Child (January 2014 #4)

What does it take to educate equitably, as Lisa Delpit puts it, “other people’s children” when it means making visible and diminishing the privilege (and edge) of our own children?

This past weekend, my colleague Micia and I facilitated a professional development session with one of our middle schools.  The purpose of this mid-year retreat was for the staff to engage in reflective and collaborative practices that would allow them to more honestly and urgently take up the inequities facing their students.  For this school, for this year, they identified their least-reached students as their English Language Learners.  The guiding Essential Question for the day was, “What do our ELL students need us to know, do and be in order to most equitably educate them?”

Less than a decade ago, this middle school was the worst performing school in the entire school district.  After three years of consistent leadership and very focused transformation efforts, the school is now considered a good school… a good option for all diverse families of San Francisco.  Fortunately, the school has not eased up and strives to be an excellent and equitable school.

Historically in San Francisco, school improvement opens up new possibilities and new situations that bring both benefits and challenges.  In particular, one situational shift for improving schools is that they become more attractive to families who have been privileged enough to choose alternatives school wasn’t so good.  There is the potential for greatness from a richly diverse student population – especially when a school can build from the strengths of its various cultures and educate students to collaborate and excel within and because of their diversity.  Unexamined however, radical shifts in a community’s demographics also can lead to unintended, unanticipated and undesired results.

The school we worked with on Saturday currently faces these challenges.  As a school that has made tremendous progress in serving its predominantly brown, black and poor students, closing the racial achievement gap has become a major part of its identity… and program.  And because their success is now inviting white families and upper middle class families back to their community, they are feeling the pressure of dominant culture seeking to minimize the efforts that serve other students over their own, and to prioritize decisions and design that will better serve their own children.  Experience suggests that focusing on what our most privileged children need in isolation – or even committing equal resources to these new and welcomed students – will come at the expense of the students now being better-served than in the past.

For many, the challenge of equity is that it requires us to prioritize. The problem of equity and limited resources is that priorities define not only who should get more, but also who should get less. 

Back to the retreat: we challenged teachers to consider their own experiences, beliefs, values and priorities based on their own experiences (or as we say, based on the skin they are in).  We suggest that we need to understand from where we are coming to better influence where and how we hope to change.  We facilitated a piece of work in which we asked teachers to read a series of student profiles (short descriptors for how a student might see herself or how shy might believe she is seen).  Each teacher was to identify the one profile that best represented themselves when they were students.  After grouping by their self-identified profile, they discussed the strengths and challenges for their archetype and recommended to the larger group ways to best educate the student of this profile.  One of the fourteen profiles was written specifically for this school:

“I am a Google child.  Really. My Dad works for Google and he drops me off at school on his way to catching the Google Bus.  My parents questioned whether or not to send me to public school and decided this one was good enough and could save us a lot of money for other things.  We have to make sure the school is constantly giving me the education I deserve – but overall it is worth it and that is why we stay.”

During the session, no adults were able to identify with five of the student profiles and a handful created their own. This simply served as a reminder that these underrepresented students are part of the school and led to the challenge to consider how their voices and needs would be considered. The Google child profile was one of the unselected profiles.

At the end, we debriefed the process. Two members of the community – a white woman and a white man (both who previously had identified courageously their own connections to privilege in relation to their own students) had very strong reactions to reading the Google child profile.  They found it to be judgmental and negative.  The language of the feedback soon came to equate this Google child with white children (sometimes replacing the word “Google” with the word “white” – even though race was never mentioned in the profile.

What does it mean when we automatically associate success (i.e Google child) with whiteness?  How is it actually about white, dominant culture?  But also, how might this be another reproductive way of conveying low expectations for those who do not represent or are not represented by dominant culture?

Even though some of the other thirteen profiles clearly had similarly risky language attached to them (other profiles included an English learner, a queer student, a teacher’s pet, and a student contemplating dropping out), there was not a consistent sense of resistance to how the students were represented – and throughout the day, there was quite a bit of ease talking about these “other” students.  But when dominant culture people felt as though their privilege was being made visible, the rules seemed to change.  This reaction feels like an important issue on which this school – and all of us – should keep some focus.  Some questions that continue to sit with me:

 

  • While on the one hand, it seems natural that a parent would want only the best for her child, on the other hand one also has to question the role of those families who only participate in a community when it is good.  How should we negotiate this tension in PUBLIC education? 

  • What does it take to educate equitably, as Lisa Delpit puts it, “other people’s children” when it means making visible and diminishing the privilege (and edge) of our own children? 

 

Thanksgiving (November, 2013)

When considering our successes as educators, to whom should we be thankful?

At a meeting with a principal from one of our urban schools this past month, she mentioned that her school was selected by a local tech company to provide each graduating students a laptop.  She was very excited for her mostly-students-of-color to get the resource, but also was concerned by HOW they might be presented.  The principal questioned and worried the presentation of the computers might be done in a way that reinforced a “pobrecito/a” (“poor little boy/ girl”) syndrome in which well intentioned, usually dominant culture, people expect less from black, brown and poor students.

She struggled with her own emotions as a white woman who was leading the school of these children and calling out other dominant cultured people whom she easily recognized lacked the essential characteristics of humility and cultural competence while in this community.  She also was challenged by the conflict between taking a stand – and just getting some important tools to her students.  When I use words such as “challenge” and “struggle” and “conflict” I am describing what I consider to be very good work on her part.

She pointed out that the tech company had chosen her school because it had demonstrated great progress over the past three years, and as she saw it – when things are going well, everyone wants a part of you.  She knew she would have a little time on stage when the computers were presented and she wondered how she could direct influence if not direct the tone for the meeting; her question was simple, “What should I say?”

Of course it is probably because Thanksgiving is this week, but my answer also was simple, “Say, ‘Thank you!’”  Not to the tech company – we know that will happen, but to the students.  I encouraged her to flip the script… rather than set a tone in which we are asking students to demonstrate extreme deference to the point of reinforcing questions of deserving, what would it look like to model for this community to demonstrate humility and gratitude for a well-deserved reward.

In the end, she decided that she would give the message that the real reward was the results of the school and that these results could not have come without the students’ great work.  The computers were not only something that they earned – but something that they as academics deserved, they were merely tools for each student to further her or his work moving forward.

As Thanksgiving comes ever closer, I wonder what it would look like for each of us to flip the same script without the prompting of a local tech company.  Where have any of us educators found success?  At those times, how much did we attribute our success to our own – or to another adult’s effort?  Well-deserved as this may be, to what extent do we as educators ever correlate or share our successes with the work that our students have done?  Is this what is meant by partnership?  Are we consistent in how we look to ourselves and/or our students as the cause of our failures?

I challenge each of us – this Thanksgiving, when we offer appreciation for that which is good in our lives – think about (and maybe even thank) at least one student without whom our own success (small or big) would not have been possible.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Dear School System (November 2013)

What do we hear differently when students tell us what we already know from our own data?

Last month, I was asked by a district to conduct a focus group of African American students who were experiencing challenges in their academic progress.  As is true for so many school districts, this one has identified African American students as one of the sub-groups it is least effectively educating.  With the students’ permission, I did a mash up with the students’ collective quotes and wrote a letter from a composite African American student for that district.

At the end of this week, we will be hosting CES’ annual Fall Forum. This year’s theme is “Making the Invisible Visible: stories and counterstories for educational equity.” The message from the focus group students is one counterstory that makes an invisible perspective quite visible.

 

October 2013

Dear School System,

I am your African American student.
I am your black female student.
I am your mixed student who looks and identifies as a black male.
I am the student who has attended your schools since I first attended school.  And I am the student who has had experiences outside this school system, but now am in your hands.
I have attended your west side schools – and your east side schools – sometimes in the same year.  While the schools are different, my experience has not been.
I am the black student who did not do so well – because I wasn’t understood in my classroom – because I have a strong voice and good vocabulary.  I am the black student that might intimidate you.
I am the student who should have the same privilege as other students in class, but I don’t.

My family and my community expect a lot from me.  As long as I can remember, they have told me to go to school and get my education.  They said I would need it if I wanted to be somebody in life.
My Mom – she wants me to graduate.  She tells me all the time to do my work – not to become a statistic.
But my family and my community know – they told me – it would not be easy.
They taught me, “You are who you are, and you aren’t gonna get treated the same as everyone else.”  They told me straight up, “you probably won’t be liked.”  They even told me to expect people to hit me at school – but they also told me, “if someone hits you – hit back!”  They said,
“Make sure your ass graduates!”
“If you are not getting attention, sit in the front.”
“Do what you gotta do to pass.”

But it ain’t that simple.
I know you don’t like me
I knew in the kindergarten that you didn’t like me.
I knew in the fifth grade that you didn’t like me.
I knew in the eighth grade that you didn’t like me.
I know you don’t like me.
I get it. It’s ok that you don’t like me – but with all the effects of life out of school, I need someone to understand me – better.  I need someone who won’t start with the negative when talking to me.  Even in your black schools – where most of you and most of us are black, when all you say is negative, I hear you; you are telling me I am a lost cause.
Some of you act like you know me off the top – just because I came from a different school or because you looked at a paper about me or because you knew my brother (or someone you thought was my brother). I already know that is what you do – and I hate that.  I know what I need to do; I just need acknowledgment of what I am feeling and experiencing.  Can you talk to me and ask me where I am coming from before you judge me because of what is going on or what I am doing?  If you cannot – the conversation is over.
I think I am treated this way because you think black people act a certain way – not all of us do.
I think you probably have past experiences – and since I am black… I gotta put in effort.  Because I am who I am, I have to do more to get what I am entitled to have. 
It’s not enough just to do good work.  Even when I come in and am good right from the start, I don’t even get noticed.  But when I am bad, I am deemed as bad because you had a bad student before who was black. 

Ms. F. – Mr.. M. – Mr. O. – Ms. Y – Ms. K. – I know you don’t like me.
I see you when you are having conversation and then when you see me, you stop.  I believe you have something to say – but you won’t say it. You are the same as the woman on the bus who grabs her purse when she sees me.
But you do compare me to other students who are sitting still and not doing anything and tell me that I won’t amount to anything if I don’t act the same. I hear your message – I am not going to pass.  It is the same message even when I do the work or ask for help.
When I do what you ask, you say nothing – until I do something wrong.
When I ask for help – you don’t have time for me; then someone else asks for help and I see them get a lot of help and wonder, “why not me?”
When I don’t do what you ask, I get sat in the back – and then you don’t come back there.  I get sat somewhere you know you won’t come.
I have to sit in the front to get noticed – and still, I see others getting all the help they want with doing so much less.

Listen, I know you don’t like me, but I need credits.
I hear you; you are trying to push all your stuff on me and trying to convert what I am thinking to what you are thinking!
I don’t have patience to sit in your classroom.  So I fight – a lot, or I miss class – a lot.  But I need credits.
You expect me to keep messing up.  How is it that you gave me an F AND an S?
Don’t tell me to read from the book and make me teach myself. How am I supposed to learn if you are not teaching or helping me?
I learn the same way as everybody else does.
Do what you gotta do.
Teach me.

I want to pass.  I am scared.  I always try but the message never changes.
My family was right – I am treated different than other students.
I am publicly shamed – I am told I am lazy – then left not to be bothered with.
Still, I stay – even though I know this is not my place.
No one wants to feel like they are doing nothing, so at the minimum I can say, “I went”… and “see, you are not teaching me.”

I know we are all human.
When I think of you, I think of white people.
When I see you, I see white people.  (Even though it’s not just white people.  Even some black teachers act white.)
White people feel they are more entitled to stuff.
Not all white people – but white people
…think they know where I come from
…they are better and have more stuff….
Even in my own school, when white people walk in MY school – they look at me like I’m hella strange!
They don’t understand who we are and what we have been through – well some white people.
I don’t experience this with the teachers who teach me.

Can I have teachers who don’t come off as racist?  Can I have a teacher who works well with all races – can you check if they really know how to work with all races?
I need black history teachers – not just in February – but throughout the year.  It doesn’t matter what race they are – as long as they know what they are talking about – and won’t change it.  I have been taught about MLK and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X.  I know there are more people who can be role models – I just don’t know about them.  I feel like I am being kept unaware.
I want to be more creative in class – not stuck.  I want to work with teachers who have patience and are willing to understand me – and help me to help myself.
I need teachers who will try to get me to be successful – who will just try. 

Sincerely,
Your Student 

In-Appropriation (October 2013)

In a time of greater cultural consciousness, what is our responsibility to model critical awareness – even at Halloween?

 

When I taught high school math, every Halloween I would pretend that I called in sick and showed up as my own substitute teacher; I’d arrive as the worst caricature of a math teacher. His name was Mr. Bloomer. He wore the same outfit every year: a standard solid, button-down, short-sleeved shirt; oversized pants, belted tightly above my belly button (and above my ankles); white gym socks protecting my feet from my stiff dress shoes; a tool-filled pocket protector; and black horn-rimmed glasses adorned with a non-matching band-aid to hold them together.

Every year I came, not only dressed as Mr. Bloomer, but actually AS Mr. Bloomer – intent on staying in nerd-character the entire day (FYI: I consider “nerd” a positive term). It was always the same story – my freshmen students were so amused by the character, that by the end of the class they were acting as if I really were a substitute – and one with less than the skill needed to maintain a well-managed classroom. Inevitably, there would be that moment when Mr. Bloomer would have to lower his lens-less glasses, look sternly at the playing students and remind them, “You realize that I actually know Mr. Peters personally, don’t you?” Each year, I felt a little guilt and a little more joy as students quickly regained decorum with an obvious a-ha.

I actually never really enjoyed dressing up for Halloween until I taught. My responsibility to develop community with my students motivated me to put aside my otherwise sense of self-consciousness and to model a willingness to have fun and laugh at myself. As my own awareness has grown about my role as a white, anti-racist educator, I have come to believe that we have a larger responsibility to our students to consider continuously and critically all the invisible messages and micro-lessons we provide in even when we are trying to engage in the fun of a holiday.

One Halloween, I recall entering a colleague’s school and seeing the white principal dressed to the nines with Halloween spirit. His costume was that of a Native American Indian, complete with flowing feather headdress. Students seemed to freely engage with him, appreciating his costume and joking with him. The population of his student body was 95% Latina/o – the vast majority of Mexican descent. A Latino teacher approached me, fuming. He asked for support to identify an effective way to approach his supervisor and discuss the implications of appropriating artifacts of his and his students’ culture and traditions and equating them with a “costume,” reinforcing a historic agenda of dehumanization. He noted that during National Hispanic Heritage Month, which ended on October 15, many teachers struggled to find ways to integrate connections between their students’ heritage and their content areas. Now he was observing the school’s instructional leader, with what seemed more seamless effort, invisibly – but so visibly – communicate internalized and devaluing beliefs about the very culture and traditions that were espoused to be understood just two weeks earlier.

A year later, while meeting with a Latina district leader, she shared her plans for Halloween. She wanted to dress as a woman of color who was appropriating white culture. Curious, I inquired what her costume would look like. Her ideas, plentiful, will be left off this reflection for others to ponder (but, to tell the truth, they were brilliantly reflective). She admitted that she sought an authentic way to communicate her disapproval of a litany of similar experiences from the other side through an experiential manner that might accelerate the learning of those like the school principal.

A few weeks later, I asked her how her Halloween plans went, and she informed me she had not gone through with them. She explained that a number of her white friends had negative reactions when discussing her idea, and in the end she worried about how she might be received by strangers if she went through with her plans. I wondered then, and continue to wonder:

What life experiences influenced the white principal’s decisions and actions given his context?

What life experiences influenced the Latina district leader’s decisions and actions?

What experiences might support each of them to understand each other’s intent and impact?