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Teaching black children

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Teaching black children is a revolutionary act. James Baldwin – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Teaching black children


1
  • Teaching black children
  • is a revolutionary act.
  • James Baldwin

2
Identifying and Enhancing School-Related Social
Support for African American Boys
  • Jeffrey L. Lewis
  • Addressing Disproportionality
  • 2006 Summer Institute
  • Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
  • August, 2006

3
  • Part I
  • Overview of Learning Through Teaching in an
    After-School Laboratory
  • Childrens perceptions of teachers
  • What children say and what we observed as good
    teaching
  • Part II
  • School related social support for African
    American boys
  • Structure and content of their networks
  • Loving Black children

4
Learning Through Teaching in an After-School
Laboratory (L-TAPL)
  • Pedagogical laboratories and professional
    development sites for inexperienced teachers
  • Linked inexperienced teachers with effective
    experienced teachers of poor urban children
  • Documented and examined the processes of learning
    among children in the programs
  • Documented and analyzed the processes by which
    inexperienced teachers learned to teach in these
    laboratories

5
Learning Through Teaching in an After-school
Laboratory (L-TAPL)
  • Consequently, our work simultaneously addressed
  • the preparation of teachers to work successfully
    with African American students,
  • and the underachievement of African American
    students.

6
L-TAPL Teachers
  • The model teachers at our sites were community
    nominated and had demonstrated the ability to
    effectively teach low-income urban children over
    a long period of time.

7
L-TAPL Student Participants
  • There were 20 children at each site from grades
    1-4 who attended the elementary schools in which
    the programs were held.
  • They were recommended by their teachers for a
    variety of reasons.

8
L-TAPL Structure
  • Two hours, 3 days a week, for 16-24 weeks
  • Included language arts, math, and science.
  • The lead teachers were wholly responsible for
    curriculum content and teaching strategies
    employed we only asked that they include basic
    literacy and math skills.

9
For more information on L-TAPL
  • Foster, M., Lewis, J. L., Onafowora, L. (2005)
    Grooming Great Urban Teachers. Educational
    Leadership, 62(6), 28-32
  • Foster, M, Lewis, J. L., Onafowora, L., Peele,
    T. (2003). Anthropology, culture, and research
    on teaching and learning Applying what we have
    learned to improve teaching practice. Teachers
    College Record, Vol. 5 (2), 261-277.

10
  • Lewis, J. L. Kim, E. (forthcoming). The Desire
    to Learn African American Childrens Positive
    Attitudes Toward Learning Within School Cultures
    of Low Expectations. Teachers College Record.

11
Childrens Perceptions of Teaching and Learning
  • We were interested in two broad aspects of
    students perspectives of their school
    experience
  • Students perceptions of and beliefs about
    schooling, including beliefs about good teaching.
  • Students perceptions of their academic ability
    and general sense of efficacy.

12
Sample and Procedures
  • 72 semi-structured face-to-face pre- and
    post-test interviews with children in grades 1-4.
  • Attitudes toward self, school, and Blacks
    subscales
  • As well as open-ended questions about
    characteristics of a good teacher and
    characteristics of not a good teacher.

13
School cultures of low expectations
  • The kids, people adapt to their environment,
    just like animals or anything else. If you treat
    a person like a criminal, they will act like a
    criminal. And a lot of kids here, theyve been
    treated like criminals for so long. Nothing you
    do, the punishment doesnt faze them.
  • (Transcript 1_Oak, p. 3)

14
School Cultures of Low Expectations
  • We argue that both schools in the study
    represented school cultures of low expectations
    in that adults tended to view children negatively
    and in terms of deficits. These low expectations
    were articulated through teacher attitudes and
    associated pedagogical and disciplinary practices
    that were

15
  • Historically constituted
  • Broadly shared and treated as normative or
    expected (belief system)
  • Reproduced through shared practices and social
    interactions.

16
School Cultures of Low Expectations
  • It was our observation that the general school
    climate and orientation toward students was
    controlling. Children regularly received implicit
    and explicit messages that little was expected of
    them, and that they were incapable of sustained
    autonomous, engaged, or productive behaviors.

17
School Cultures of Low Expectations
  • Shared low expectations by teachers of students
    could be seen in at least two ways
  • Explicitly, through the widespread attempts by
    teachers to control childrens behaviors with the
    use of threats and other forms of coercion.
  • More insidiously, when teachers allowed mediocre
    student work (or work beneath the childs
    ability) to pass as exceptional.

18
School Cultures of Low Expectations
  • But Im realizing now that, you know, maybe its
    not them. Maybe its me and some of the stuff Im
    doing and put myself in their place. If I told
    them everyday, Youre going to detention or
    youre not going to go to recess, I would hate
    the teacher. I really wouldnt do anything.
  • (Oakland Transcript 1_Oak, p. 3)

19
Childrens Perceptions of Teaching and Learning
  • How do you know a teacher is a good teacher?
  • How do you know a teacher is not a good teacher?

20
Expected Response Treatment
  • Given the negative climate of the schools, and
    the relatively young ages of the children, we
    expected the respondents to identify a good
    teacher as someone who treated them well, and an
    undesirable teacher one who treated them poorly.

21
Findings
  • Although treatment was a salient theme, children
    provided responses that reflected a cluster of
    concerns, including teaching ability and teacher
    character.
  • Through our content analysis we identified four
    response categories

22
Findings
  • Treatment
  • Teacher competency (ability/willingness to teach)
  • Treatment and competency
  • Teacher character

23
Treatment
  • Treatment was defined as responses that reflected
    teachers attitudes, behaviors, and actions
    toward children that we deemed as generally
    unrelated to learning. Sample responses included
  • Makes you stand in the corner when somebody else
    did wrong.
  • We get to do good stuff and dont have to sit on
    bench.
  • They do special things for us and have parties.
  • They yell at you.

24
Teacher Competency
  • Teaching competency was defined as any response
    related to the learning process. These included
    teaching ability, willingness to teach, and
    helping children. Sample responses included
  • Helps with math, reading, spelling and tests
  • They dont take time to explain
  • Dont teach and just gives answers
  • They teach you what they learned by not yelling
    and teaching us math
  • By not helping with our work that we dont
    understand

25
Treatment and Competency
  • Teaching and treatment were responses that
    combined treatment and teaching ability codes.
    Sample responses included
  • When they yell a lot and dont teach right.
  • Gives a lot of parties. Help you with your class
    work.
  • Yell doesnt give us work doesnt let us play
    paper airplanes.
  • When she doesnt know something, she looks it up
    and learn more herself.

26
Teacher character or disposition
  • Teacher character or disposition were those
    responses with which coders were able to answer
    the question What kind of person is the
    teacher? Sample responses included
  • They are mean, unhelpful.
  • When they make mistakes, blame student, say
    different things at conferences (integrity
    trustworthy).
  • She doesnt care about nobody.
  • Listens to both stories and not just one side
    (fairness).

27
Summary and Conclusions
  • Urban children in first to fourth grade have
    complex ideas about teachers and teaching.
  • They are not only concerned with how they are
    treated by teachers, they are also concerned
    about their teachers ability to teach.
  • The children in this study are also concerned
    about the character of their teachers--they
    expressed a desire for teachers who are caring,
    trustworthy, fair, and helpful.

28
Conclusions
  • Even in school environments in which little is
    expected of them, African American children
    possess a desire to learn as indicated by how
    they describe good and not good teaching.
  • They also desire learning environments that are
    nurturing (fair and friendly) and teachers that
    tap into their desire to learn (helpful).

29
Characteristics of successful urban classrooms
  • What characteristics of the classrooms in our
    study appear to promote positive social and
    academic identities?

30
  • Teacher-student interactions help create positive
    social and academic identities (extending
    Wortham, 2004)
  • The constructive use of the public nature of
    teacher-student interactions

31
solidarity
  • Cultivating a sense of we-ness or solidarity
    in community (Ladson-Billings, 1995 Widegren,
    1997 Rivers Scanzoni, 1997)
  • Differences in social and academic abilities were
    not marked by how teachers interacted with
    students.
  • Democratization of opportunity (formal and
    informal) and participation (Ladson-Billings,
    1995)
  • The classroom as an artifact of the students
    lives. (Eisenberg, 2003 Ladson-Billings, 1995).

32
integrity
  • Teaching with integrity and classrooms of
    integrity.
  • But by identity and integrity I do not mean only
    our noble features, or the good deeds we do, or
    the brave faces we wear to conceal our
    confusions, and complexities. Identity and
    integrity have as much to do with our shadows and
    limits, our wounds and fears, as with our
    strengths and potentials (Parker Parker, The
    Courage to Teach).

33
School Related Social Support for African
American Boys
  • A pilot study

34
Expected School-Related Network
  • Based on our interviews and observations of
    children in our previous study of exemplary
    teachers, and our interviews of school staff in
    the current study, we expected African American
    boys who come from low-income environments and
    low performing schools to have relatively limited
    school-related social networks, largely made up
    of a parent or guardian and 1-2 other adults
    (from home and/or school).

35
Interview Questions
  • When you have a problem with homework, who at
    home helps you?
  • When you have an unhappy day at school, who do
    you like to talk to about it?
  • If you were to receive an award at school, who
    would you want to tell about it?
  • If you were in trouble at school and someone had
    to come to the school to discuss the problem and
    support you, who would you want to come?

36
Findings Social Support
  • Contrary to our expectations, the boys possessed
    school-related support that was somewhat more
    complex than we anticipated, and that was not
    necessarily limited to their immediate family.
  • There was evidence that support could involve
    multiple households.
  • School staff were at times important to this
    support, as were non-custodial males in extended
    or social families.

37
categories of responses
  • household adults
  • adults from childs social family (related and
    unrelated)
  • school staff
  • siblings/cousins
  • schoolmates

38
Support Map-Child 4
39
Support Map-Child 2
40
Support Map-Child 1
41
Support Map-Child 3
42
FindingsHomework
43
FindingsUnhappy Day
44
FindingsAward
45
FindingsTrouble
46
Classrooms of integrity loving Black children
  • AA boy, Y, is having a difficult day and is sent
    out of the room by T (though he is allowed decide
    when he is ready to return to the classroom).
    When he returns, the teacher publicly apologizes
    to Y for sending him out of the class when he was
    acting obnoxious such that they could not work.
    She apologizes because she realizes that what he
    needed from her was to know that she loved him.

47
  • The day will come when after harnessing the
    ether, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we
    shall harness for God the energies of love. And
    on that day for the second time in the history of
    the world, man will have discovered fire.
  • Teilhard de Chardin, The Evolution of Chastity
  • Loving black children
  • is a revolutionary act.

48
  • Teachers of young children
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