education

Privilege, Education, Stereotypes, and Systemic Racism

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

I don’t know where these people live who claim we live in a “post-racial” society.  My guess would be they live in all white, gated communities, there kids go to private, somewhat diverse schools, and  where they run into brown people at the grocery store and think “isn’t that great.”  I know they don’t live in an urban center where a deep seeded, dirty, history of segregation and bigotry that still lurk just below the surface as along as everyone stays where they belong.

Where I live (and so many other people), there is nothing that resembles anything closet to “post-racial” at a systemic level.  There are plenty of day to day examples that might lull people into thinking we have moved beyond race being a factor.  I love my city but I will admit that when it comes to issues of race–it is often lost and the racist ideals the surface still piss me off and make me fear for my two brown children.  My city isn’t alone in this.  One only has to look at the trial of Trayvon Martin and question why no one is talking about Trayvon’s right to defend himself against someone following him in the dark of night with a gun.  There has been a lot of discussion about George Zimmerman’s right to defend himself.  But as the facts have illustrated, if he had just stayed in his car and not pursued Trayvon all would have been fine.  This isn’t a post about Trayvon, but I use this lack of discussion around Trayvon’s rights as an example of the privilege and systemic racism that continues to erode our society as well as working to keep the status quo.

Currently, my city is dealing with a very public clash that clearly exposes privilege and systemic racism.  We still have a pretty segregated school system.  Our city schools (which actually aren’t the focus of this) are about 85% minority and there is a very definite line that separates north (county and city) from south (county and city).  The north/south line represents a blurry color line as there is a constant ebb and flow over the line during our daily activities.  What this line really represents is the segregation that is inherent within society and is based on both socioeconomic status and race.  This line is easy to forget as we live our lives without giving much thought to the many nuances of our city.  Then something happens and the coded racism that is so prevalent in our society becomes less coded.

Our state supreme court came to the decision that students in unaccredited school districts had the right to transfer to accredited school districts in the same county and/or adjoining county with the unaccredited school district paying the tuition bill.  The law is very ambiguous and this has been litigated for years.  The legislature failed to find a “fix” to this legislative provision (or band-aid, or passing the buck, or not really addressing the issue).  I have been avoiding comments on newspaper articles that discuss this as we all know who comes out to comment in the anonymity of cyberspace.  There have been some voices of reason, by students and sadly most of the response from adults has been appalling (like the parent who demanded metal detectors).

This is when Facebook becomes the place where one realizes someone’s true character.  One of the people with whom I am friends on Faeebook (we haven’t seen each other since high school) wrote the following post.

These crappy schools up north dumping their problems on good county schools will accomplish nothing. If you have student’s that give no effort and parent’s that do nothing, it won’t matter where they go. Its like watching the NFL draft. “And Riverview Gardens selects…..Mehlville School District” what a joke.  –facebook post

I had to respond.  I HAD TO.  I know these kids.  I have taught in their districts.  I have visited their homes.  I have been apart of their community.

_____I taught in Riverview for years–this is not about kids who don’t want an education or parents that don’t care–it’s about the systemic failure of adults to do what is right for kids. The kids in Riverview and Normandy deserve very opportunity to get a great education. I don’t think transfers is how we fix it– but these kids and parents didn’t cause this problem–that is too simple a view.

Of course more of this person’s “friends” had something to say.

Ummm….I’m going to agree with _____ on this one. I will agree about the systemic failure. No argument here. But if you have a student in a school with a problematic administration, that should not stop that child from trying to excel. Thats a proven fact. The core of the problem lies at home with the parent/parents motivating their children to do better than they did. Riverview Gardens and Normandy was mentioned. I’m going out on a limb and I’m being generous here. I bet 5% of the class of 2013 strived to be a good student, hope for scholar ships and stay away from the other BS and actually graduated meeting their own goals. My point. These children are products of their environment. But only a very small percentage has what it takes to see past that and realize what an education means to their future. The solution starts at home. My .02$

Another (stereotypical) response from my “friend”

I think it has a lot to do with the parent’s. I see it all the time. Kids running around at 10 pm on school nights, no parent’s sitting down helping their children with homework etc. That answer is typical of todays society. What or who can I blame my problems on instead of taking responsibility for your own actions and the actions of your kids. If your going spit them out then do everything possible to raise them right, educate them and teach them they are responsible for their own actions.

Then there was this response….

True _____. Shitty parents make shitty kids. Product of their environment. Strong patents that give a shit show them the right path and do whatever it takes to keep them on it……interesting debate. Could go on all night.

I had so many things I wanted to say to this person.  But I didn’t.  Because it was very clear that this person would not have heard anything I said.  Then one of the school districts that will be receiving students from one of the unaccredited districts had a town hall meeting and over 2500 people turned out.  There were some horrible things said.

 “a man at the mic rebutted that the outcry isn’t about race. But shrouded by the anonymity of the crowd, another man yelled out “No, it’s about trash.” –-St. Louis Public Radio.

Again the only voice of reason from the (nearly all white and republican) school district came from a student.  The students are the only ones who give me any hope.

“We haven’t seen a lot of students here today,” one of the seniors said. “But we would be happy to have these new students at our school. It would be a great opportunity for these kids. There have been a lot of assumptions, but I don’t think we can assume that these Normandy kids are going to cause a lot of problems.”--St. Louis Public Radio.

While I have conflicting views on this whole idea of transferring large amounts for students out of a district to the cost of the district, I do know that everyone one of those children, ALL CHILDREN, deserve a quality education.  I don’t believe that the only way for that to happen is to buss students over 20 miles away to another district that may or may not have room to effectively educate the children.  But the choice of districts that are over 20 miles away are suspect for other reasons.  The unaccredited districts claim test scores and tuition as deciding factors in their decisions.  I believe part of it is the idea that families will not want to sent their kids that far way; therefore, more students will remain in the district.

It is so easy for those of us with privilege to protest and want to “protect” what we see as ours.  It is so easy for those of us with privilege to turn a blind eye to the systemic racism and bigotry that has allowed for these districts to fail as they have.  I don’t have the answers, but I do know that until we start to have honest conversations about race, equity and money, we aren’t going to solve anything.  Until we start talking about not just what we perceive our rights to be but the rights of all humans, we will continue to jail bury black teenage boys before their time (and without a second thought) and sanction the un-education of our poor youth.

Until we admit that we still carry around prejudices that takes away the humanity of others, we can’t move forward.  We can’t begin having conversations about solutions until we confront the problems.  Until we admit that we have bought into the racial stereotypes that have been part of the rhetoric of our country for years.  While the current situation in my city is ugly–at least it exposes the ugliness so that there isn’t any ambiguity around how people view black youth and black families as a whole.  I use to believe that if we exposed the disease we could treat it.

In the early 1980’s when we had a voluntary desegregation program that bussed students in from the city to our county schools–the same ugliness was exposed.  I remember the outrage in my own district–I was in high school at the time.  It saddens me to see the same ugliness again but people of my generation.

How do we move forward?  How do we get people to realize that one’s skin color isn’t a predictor of academic success?  How do we convince others that skin color is no more of a factor that hair color?  Yet it is because we have made it so.  We have socially constructed skin color to matter (all the way back to slavery we go).  At some point we made the decision that dark/brown skin color make someone less of a person.  How do we undo that?

I don’t know and it makes me so sad and angry.

An Industrial Model

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

School is the most influential institution in modern society. There are many ways to design an organization that promotes learning and the present industrial model of schooling (emphasis mine)  is not one of them. There are some exciting counter examples, but they haven’t spread. The community, cultural institutions and business have to be involved. We need a broader base of change.

In the eyes of a child, the future is alive. Maybe children need to step forward as leaders.–Peter Senge

The industrial model is a model that I would argue has never worked very well, but it certainly does not work now and hasn’t for a long time.  I have been thinking a lot about this in my work and as I begin to think more deeply regarding my dissertation research (which I am getting ready to start writing–finally!).  This industrial model is something I have taken a stance on before and it really speaks to the idea that those in power–the ones who make the decisions–limit the knowledge given to our public school students.  Walk through an average public school and an average independent school and you will be shocked by the differences.  You will be shocked by the perceptions of the teachers and the type of tasks students are given.  Often in our public schools (I know this is a generalization, but I have been in enough public schools to know it is often the norm) we see students seated quietly in desks, receiving information from teachers and then spitting the info back.  I think this expectation of “teaching” is what made it really easy for me not to return to the classroom when I left to stay home with my children.  I believe this expectation is what leads to so much teacher turnover in our urban districts and within the first 5 years of teaching.

I fought constantly against the idea that it was my job to impart all of my knowledge into the brains of my students only to have them tell it back to me in a formulaic essay of 5 paragraphs and one page. There is no thinking required.  It sends the message that either a) we don’t think your ideas are good enough and b) the teacher is the only one with the answer.

This is why standardized testing is such a problem, it narrows even further who holds the answers and implies that there is actually only one right answer.  Now in math it might be true that there is only one right answer–but there are many ways to come to that answer.

School should be about learning and the industrial model that is so prevalent in our nation is not about learning.  The standardized tests don’t measure learning.  Teachers often are not encouraged to have classrooms that are student-centered.  I still remember one day when I was observed by the assistant superintendent and my principal.  We were having a deep discussion about a theme in Tess of the d’urbervilles.  The students were leading the discussion, I was just moderating a bit and keep them in the same topic space.  It was a great learning moment for students as they were making connections to their own lives and experiences and problem solving.  They then went on to write about the state of women’s rights and discuss how it effects their own life and future.  These were some of the most powerful essays I ever had as a teacher, because they were authentic and while they were about a book, they were much more about the students.

The assistant sup left and told my principal she would come back later when I was teaching something.

That right there is the a huge part of the problem.  My principal told the assistant sup that what I was doing was teaching and he was sorry she didn’t see it.  (That principal didn’t last long in my district).

If students are going to learn how to create their own meanings and their own knowledge they have to be given a space to do that.  All students (pre-school through college) are capable of doing great things and creating their own knowledge and meaning.  If our education system focused more on teaching skills (as opposed to such a content focus) especially in the younger grades, we would see students begin to create their own learning opportunities and develop an understanding that what they know, think, and are curious about matters.

I understand the flip side with accountability and the ever growing focus on test scores and schools feeling the need to keep kids in school for 8+ hours a day to try to make up the learning gap.  I think this focus on remediation is slightly misguided, especially in our early grades.  Students can learn all of their subjects/skills in a meaningful interdisciplinary way.

I keep coming back to the idea of “meaningful.”  School should be meaningful.  Learning should be meaningful.  And the industrial model we have makes learning meaningless.  Learning something to “pass” a test has little value and meaning to kids who are curious about the world.

I certainly do not have all the answers, but I do know that our educational system has to change.  Yet, we continue to do more of the same for more and longer days and wonder why are students aren’t doing better.  We are perplexed when companies claim they can’t find workers they need.  An industrial model of education, prepares kids for an industrial society.  Last time I checked, industry is not a major employer in our country any more.

We have to change our inputs to get different outputs.  I see it at my kids school–where the learning is theme based and the students determine the theme together with the teachers based on class interests.   But this approach takes seasoned administrators, teachers who are able to relinquish control and a belief that what the students can contribute is important.

That is the crux.  The industrial model places the most importance on the output.  In other models, it is the student that is most important.  Until we start talking about students, nothing is going to change.

Urban Schools And Slavery

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

Who knew they had many of the same racial ideals embedded in their systemic structure–keeping people in their appropriate place.

Now before you start getting mad at me, education and urban education are my passion and my daily work.  All of my teaching has happened in urban schools with a majority black population.  My kids are black.  But Jada Williams has said what I have been saying, so honestly, that it breaks my heart to be right.  I cried as I heard her speak of how “teachers actions speak volumes”

I am tired of the achievement gap being about the students.  I am tired of teachers who don’t teach kids.  I am tired of administrators who don’t know what teachers are doing in their classrooms.  I will always be a teacher at heart.  I believe teaching is the most noble and most important profession. I also know it is one of the hardest (it comes in a close second to parenting toddles and teenagers). I am disheartened when I hear the first year teachers I teach (TFA teachers) talk about how students can’t do x or y or z.  I ask “What gives you the right or authority to decide what a student can and cannot do?”

I am not looking to bash teachers.  I love and respect teachers.  I am tired of teachers (some not all–but too many) so clearly not doing their jobs (especially in urban schools). I am tired of administrators who allow teachers to not do their jobs.  Jada’s teacher was offended by her essay and made it impossible for Jada to stay at her school and at her next school. You can read the rest of the story here and here.  Go Read It (then come back…also, just a note–I do not share the same political views that the Frederick Douglass Foundation of NY does–but they have the story).

This story makes me sick. This story epitomizes everything that is wrong with our educational system and our society.  It also highlights that the issues are systemic.  Jada should be applauded for her voice and apologized to for 8 years of being failed by the adults in her schools.  She and every student in America deserves better.  Every. Student. Yes even the poor and minority ones.  EVERY. STUDENT.

It is the little things that we do that send the loudest messages. Messages our students internalize about us and themselves.   Jada (and generations of other minority students) has taken in the rhetoric that she and all black students are deemed “unteachable.”  That just floors me. That makes me sad.  Skin color has no link to IQ or academic potential. Kids are smart and intuitive.  Just listen to Jada read her essay–how can you argue that she can’t learn or is unteachable?  Kids who are called unteachable are usually called that by teachers who can’t and don’t teach.

Students will internalize whatever message gets sent.

Teachers who show movies every day send the message “I don’t think you deserve an education or my time.”  Administrators who allow students to slack off send the message “I don’t think you will amount to anything.”  Student who misbehave in class are sending the message “Your lessons are boring and you aren’t teaching or engaging me.”

Students want to learn.  Students want to be successful.  But students know when teachers don’t want them to be or even worse, don’t care if they are successful.  If you are a teacher–what message do you send to your students?  All of your students.  Think about it.  A teacher is the most important indicator of student success.  So, do everyone a favor–TEACH or get out.  Because Jada and every (especially minority) child in this country, mine included, deserve more.  They deserve everything.

 

It Really Takes All Of Us Coming Together

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

Today’s post #1001 is a bit anti-climatic after my 1000th post yesterday.

If a two years ago someone had told me I’d be sitting in the same room with someone from the Walton Family Foundation and working with them to create better educational options, I would have laughed.  I would have thought that our causes were so totally separate.  That sentiment would have been clouded by our vastly different political views.  I would not have not been able to see past our political differences to see that we want so many of the same things.

Before I started working with charter schools, I have to admit I was anti-charter school.  Part of that is that I didn’t know enough to form an informed opinion–but I did anyway.  As most of us do about things that we think we understand.  There are just somethings that you have to investigate and really examine before you can make a decision about the movement.  There is something we could all learn from this movement.  This is a movement that transcends political lines.  It transcends socioeconomic status, even though many of us working towards reform are middle and upper-middle class.  It is a movement that highlights the dissatisfaction with our current educational system.  It is not a movement that privatizes education.  Are there private donors in the game?  Yes.  Part of that is because charter schools are not given the same funds as traditional public schools.  In some state they are given about 50% as much money as the traditional public system.  The only way to make up that gap is to seek funding from these big philanthropic organizations.

Many of my ideas about education reform have changed.  Much of that once I had kids and that was even compounded by the fact that my kids are black kids.  I began looking at the disparities in our education system with a different lens–that of a parent.  I am fortunate that I can afford (with major scrimping and sacrifice) to send my kids to a great private school.  Would I like a great public option?  YES.  Would I like a tax credit to offset some of the cost because I live in a school district that doesn’t have high or even moderately performing public options?  YES.

What I really want is an educational system that serves everyone equally and provides choice.  Public school options should be similar to private school options. I should be able to pick the school that is best for my kid.  I should be able to pick the school that works best for our family and provides the education I want for my kids.  Each school should be different.  Each school should be able to define for itself and its community what type of school it is going to be.  This is why I have moved over to the pro-charter camp.  I want choice.  I believe all parents should have choice and not just parents who can afford private schools.  All parents should have choice.

So I will continue to sit in the room with those who I once thought couldn’t be more different than me.  But we are all working towards the same goal–what is best for kids.  Giving kids and parents the choice that is rightfully theirs.

Sometimes The Answers Are Easier Than We Imagine

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

We often make things more complex than they need to be.  Take this whole problem we have of education.  I am certainly not making light of the problems in education but so little of the talk has been centered around the kids and around what the REAL problems are and instead focus on those things that seem fixable or at least blameable (parents and teachers mostly, but even students).  Or on problems that are so big and monumental it allows us an easy excuse: poverty.

I have long felt that one of our biggest problems in education, aside from the fact that we still ascribe to pedagogies and philosophies that are over a century old, is one of expectations.  I have been working in schools and education for over 10 years now and I see it so clearly.  Maybe my varied experiences have given me a needed glimpse into education as a larger thing as opposed to just being in one school and teaching in one classroom.  I have always believed and subscribed to the belief that students will rise and fall with teacher, school, societal expectations.  As a teacher, I have always had high expectations.  I gave homework, regardless of whether kids would do it.  I assigned hard reading, regardless of whether kids would do it.  It was hard and frustrating in the beginning, but once the students realized that they were going to have to work, they did and they learned and they were thankful.  I still have thank you notes from students who were thankful that I believed in them and their ability.

I have been in schools where homework is not given because “they won’t do it” or “they can’t do it” or “they have too much going on in their life to be expected to do it.”  These excuses are lazy.  These excuses allow everyone to just get by.  Kids don’t want to Fail.  Kids know and understand the importance of school.  But if schools continually fail them and fall victim to the excuses that society has generate to explain away the often poor achievement of minority students.

I was listening to Radio Times this morning on NPR and Angel Harris was on.  Angel Harris is awesome and thoughtful and smart.  His new book is one that examines what goes into the racial achievement gap.  I know that for some this categorizing of achievement through the lens of race is problematic.  I also think it simplifies things and is quite ambiguous, but that does not change that fact that white students out achieve our black and latino students.  One of the things that Harris mention really spoke to me and is something we really need to examine, “if the system is successful with some students but not others, then the system is biased towards those who are achieving.”  This is so simple and so true.

What is also then obvious, standardized testing is not going to fix the inherent, systemic bias in our systems and the rhetoric of education that has kept the status quo of low expectations.  We need more talk about how to fix the system and really fix it, not just assess it more when we already know what the system is doing isn’t working for a huge proportion of our student body.

All kids want to learn.  We need to start teaching all of them.