A Personal Reflection Of The Podcast

Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom.

These claims have been well documented. However, the connection to the graduation gap may be clearer with an answer of how other factors such as financial and other family problems brought about by poverty affect them. The rest of the book provides possible solutions to questions of invisibility such as respecting and valuing black students. Another solution is removing remedial programs for challenging curricula and supports that are appropriate.

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

African Americans are not the only ethnicity group to be singled out with behavior. Racial and ethnic minority students report experiencing low teacher expectations, having less access to educational resources, being placed on lower educational tracks, and being steered toward low-paying employment (Kozol, 1991; Olsen, 2008).This low expectation is causing

“Multiplication is for White People,” is a very interesting title for a book. Immediately, I thought the book may be about the disadvantages that black children experience relative to white children as it relates to education. Due to the raising expectations in the educational system, there seems to still be an achievement gap among black children and white children in schools. Author Lisa Delpit, provides the reader with a picture of two decades of school reform that leaves people of color feeling that higher education is at a disadvantage. Her research on the historical reform events in education really provided a connection to the metaphor “Multiplication is for White People,” used as the title of her book.

Students attend school starting at pre-school then kindergarten, kindergarten to first grade and leading up to middle school then high school, the classes and teachers are supposed to prepare them for the next level. With the correct preparation and tools, after graduating high school, many students have their mind set on attending college as the next level. However many African-American male students who do have the ability to graduate high school, are not prepared for their next level which is college. Due to the quality of these schools “the school districts in urban neighborhoods have fewer academic offerings, less qualified teachers, out of date materials and lower quality curriculum” (WOOD, J. (2011), results in the poor education of the minority students attending them. Also due to the different academic and environment backgrounds that white and black students come from, many teachers are unaware of how to teach black students and how to gain their attention in the classroom. Other than

These solutions center on teacher training. Teachers typically refer children for remedial education testing. For this reason, they are also the first line of defense against the misplacement of African American children. In order to meet the needs of black males, educators ought to develop understanding of their culture. Teachers must be trained to adjust their teaching strategies for culturally different students in class. For instance, rather than emphasizing the deviant characteristics of the black male culture, teachers should focus on the needs which all ethnic groups have in common, such as the need for artistic expression. Educators ought to inform their students about black lifestyles and challenges. They should do this on a regular basis, and not only in special

Williams (2012) conducted a study which explored the perceptions and lived experiences of African American male teachers. Using purposeful sampling, the researcher conducted interviews with 15 African American male teachers from elementary teachers through high school in a southeast Georgia school system having 19,000 students. The ethnic diversity of the school system included about 50% African American, 40% Caucasian, 5% Hispanic, 4% multiracial, and 1% Asian students. Fifty-six percent of these students were considered economically disadvantaged and received free or reduced lunches. About 35% of the school 48 teachers in this system were African American which is five times higher than the national average (Synder, 1999 as cited in Williams,

Teaching in racially diverse classrooms often leaves educators feeling uncertain about how to proceed and how to respond to historically marginalized students. There is pressure to acknowledge and accept students of color with different perspectives, to diversify the syllabi, be more aware of classroom dynamics, and pay attention to how students of color experience the learning process.

Growing up in Washington D.C. in an area with high poverty, STI and HIV rates, and low high school graduation rates, I was afforded an opportunity to attend a prestigious private school in Northern Virginia. While I was grateful to be able to receive a wonderful education in a safe environment, I always understood that many of my peers in the Black community did not have this privilege. Particularly, supportive faculty members encouraged me to pursue an accelerated math track so that I would be prepared when I pursued a STEM career. As I reached a high math level AP Calculus BC, I was one of five girls and the only black student in this course. I realized that as I pursued a career that requires high level math and science, due to educational disparities, my classroom’s racial and gender demographic will become my norm. Initially, I did not view this fact as a potential source of motivation to help bridge this gap. Instead, this observation led to loneliness, insecurity, and depression because no one else in the classroom innately related to me, not just in this math course, but for over 14 years in one school, the loneliness can become psychologically damaging. Yet, this damage was the cost of a invaluable education and the juxtaposition of emotional suffering and academic preparation allowed me to graduate top 10 in my graduating class in college.

The author, Amanda Lewis, conducted a study in the 1990s to examine how race and racial inequality are reproduced on a day-to-day basis in schools. She argues that the curriculums, educators, and the children themselves create and reinforce racial lessons. She picked three elementary schools in Southern California: Foresthills, West City, and Metro2. The schools were selected based on their location and cultural composition. At each school she was paired with a teacher who would be the best help for the study. She observed the behaviors and interactions of students in fourth/fifth grade classes. Interviews were conducted with the students, teachers, members of the school community, and parents as well.

These children reminded me of the problems I too faced growing up poor in Baltimore. One consistency within these students’ stories was the lack of diversity and positivity in regards to their perceptions of the average man of color. Comparing these students’ stories to my own tribulations as a youth, I began to realize that there is a pattern of deficiency in quality representation within low income communities. Understanding that I have a gift for education, I sought to help fix this problem not only for the students in Justice for Juniors, but also many others. Since then, I have been dedicating to myself to developing my craft as an educator and continuing to educate and mentor those in lower income communities. To gain more experience, I joined Terrapin Teachers at the University of Maryland which is a program designed to teach STEM majors how to become effective teachers. Through this program I learned key organizational skills and teaching techniques such as; inquiry based teaching, investigative questioning, how to facilitate classroom discussions, and classroom management

An intersectional reflection of my dichotomous relationship with higher education is what fuels my desire to pursue a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. As a first-generation college student, earning a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees profoundly altered the trajectory of my family out of years of generational poverty. As a result of embracing higher education, I possess the ability to think critically and creatively, with a passion and hunger for lifelong learning. Contrarily, the experience also left some biological, psychological, and social scarring. Macroaggressions, tokenism, and implicit bias have all contributed to the way that I now live, learn, and work in the world. While these experiences did not prevent the completion of my education, it has led others to abandon the pursuit, and certainly presents an enigma to many colleges and universities around the country eager to recruit and retain scholars that identify as Black/African-American, first-generation, and/or low socioeconomic status. The majority of my professional experience revolves around this very conundrum and the time has now come to pursue extensive and original research in this chosen field.

In our podcast we compared our beliefs with other people's belief. We have to accept that many people believe hitler killed himself. We believe our podcast and research demostrated this skill because we covered both sides of the mystery. We covered how he commited suicide, and the world was shocked. But we also covered how he escaped death and lived his life. We felt that was the stronger argument]