These articles arise out of my current summer course in Cultural Diversity & Awareness, one of the best courses I’ve had in a long time. Shout out to Dr. Jack Knipe, whose excellent instructional leadership in this course has enabled us to read thoughtfully and discuss even at a distance (hello, Covid-19 and everything being online).
on Critical Race Theory and Culturally Responsive Teaching in Teacher Prep
Hayes, C. & Juarez, B. 2012. “There is no culturally responsive teaching spoken here: A critical race perspective.” Democracy & Education (20)1. Article 1. https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol20/iss1/1/
Hayes & Juarez tear into the way teacher education (preparation) prioritizes Whiteness as the default and continues to send many teacher candidates into the classroom without any equipment to 1) recognize the systemic and inherent racism / bias in American society and schools; 2) challenge future teachers to confront their own quiet biases; 3) identify the problem of White-as-normal and how it permeates educational spaces; 4) restructure programs within a critical theorist (critical race, critical pedagogy) frame to surface these issues.
Key quotes:
– teachers who practice Culturally Responsive Pedagogy tend to be “warm demanders” – they are adept at connecting to all kinds of students (“warm”) because they have a critical pedagogy framework to understand oppression and actively work against it, and they create a safe learning community where students are expected to rise to their full potential (“demanders”) pg 4
-“Part of this social justice commitment must include a critique of liberalism, neutrality, objectivity, color-blindness, and meritocracy as a camouflage for the self-interest of powerful entities of society (Tate, 1997).” pg 5
Page 6, under the heading “Whiteness, Power, and Knowledge Practices,” has a great explanation of what white privilege is, how Whiteness affects everyone and operates as a racial category and lens for reality.
-“The obstruction of culturally responsive teaching and social justice in teacher education requires no hate or racial conspiracy of Whites against racial minorities…. The daily business of teacher preparation and schooling is, rather, already set up to perpetuate the systemic privileging of Whiteness in U.S. society…”
Hayes & Juarez 2011, p 6
Weilbacher, G. (2012). Standardization and Whiteness: One and the Same? A Response to “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here”. Democracy and Education, 20 (2), Article 15. Available at: https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol20/iss2/15
A response piece to Hayes & Juarez, Gary Weilbacher writes eloquently in this article about the undeniable and bad connection between Whiteness, systemic racism, and educational standards. He also points out that the CAEP accreditation standards for teacher education programs have commodified diversity, turning into a box students can check by spending “enough hours” visiting the margins of the Other (to echo Hayes & Juarez) and coming back with stories, but remaining essentially unchallenged and unchanged. Good read.
I believe that rich, complex notions of diversity that were being explored toward the end of the last century (Connell, 1993; Delpit, 1995; Nieto, 1999) have been gutted by the Common Core and other teacher-preparation standards, much like thick forms of democracy have been replaced by schools of choice and charters funded by some of the same conglomerates that write the standards and tests taken by all of our students. If we unquestionably accept standards, we also unquestionably accept White dominance, as the standards are the voice of White dominance. By contrast, challenging the standards calls into question White dominance by putting a target on an inequality that is very visible everywhere.
Weilbacher, 2012, p. 5
Classic foundational text: Ladson-Billings
Ladson-Billings, G. (1992). Liberatory Consequences of Literacy: A Case of Culturally Relevant Instruction for African American Students. The Journal of Negro Education, 61(3), 378. https://doi.org/10.2307/2295255
In addition to being one of the central founding articles in Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, I *love* this article’s rich description of a teacher’s classroom where she moves the experiences and voices of minority children to the center of their learning experience. The teacher prioritizes Black boys, helping them see themselves as leaders and planners, not slackers or slipping under a radar with low expectations. “Anna” (her pseudonym) eschews the praxis that Ladson-Billings calls “assimilationist”: she does not reproduce the discriminatory experiences of the broader American culture within her classroom.
Instead, as Ladson-Billings enumerates in her article (starting on page 386), “Ann” practices Culturally Relevant Pedagogy by:
— making sure the students most likely to be dismissed or “lost” in the majority-White American school system are those who take leadership and get a lot of attention and value;
–forming a learning community where students learn to learn, rather than relying on simplistic and repetitive teaching (worksheets, pre-digested content);
–incorporating students’ lived experiences into the discussions and curriculum content, helping the children see that they have knowledge to offer even if it doesn’t look like “traditional” written texts of a White school;
–viewing “literacy” as both written and oral — AND literacy for liberation (see below);
–working together with students toward liberation from oppression, and making that discussion explicit;
–seeing the work of teaching as political at its core.
About Literacy — Ladson-Billings talks about the contrast between literacy education as Freire used it to empower and liberate, and American literacy education and discussion, which is fairly neutered by comparison. No one is asking “literacy for what?” Filling that blank with “job attainment” or some other simplistic, commercial, capitalist answer demeans the power of literacy education (see discussion pages 380-81).
What set these teachers apart from those I term “assimilationist” teachers was their desire to prepare students to effect change in society, not merely fit into it. They supported this attitude of change by capitalizing on their students’ home and community culture. These teachers were practicing culturally relevant teaching, that is, a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Ladson-Billings, 1992, page 382
Related:
Weilbacher, G. (2012). Standardization and Whiteness: One and the Same? Democracy & Education, 20(2), Article 15.
Ouch. Let’s get real about how standardization, the arrival of Common Core, the push to iron out all the differences, and trying to test everything to death is just…. racism. That might sound radical, but Weilbacher builds what I consider a strong case. At least, if you’re willing to accept central tenets of critical race theory. And I do.
Smalling, S. E. (2020). Overcoming resistance, stimulating action and decentering white students through structural racism focused antiracism education. Teaching in Higher Education, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1725880
Smalling’s excellent article reviews the core issue with trying to teach people “not to be racists”: it activates White defensiveness which tends to neutralize the project. Smalling argues instead that anti-racist education needs to focus on retelling the history to help White students see that they have a racial identity, and then focusing on the effects of the history (rather than the causes of racism). I thought it was a really good read.
Harbin, M., Thurber, A., & Bandy, J. (2019). Teaching Race, Racism, and Racial Justice: Pedagogical Principles and Classroom Strategies for Course Instructors. Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice, 4(1). https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/rpj/vol4/iss1/1
The layout of this file makes it look unscholarly, but the information is fantastic. Harbin et al line out a number of practical teaching techniques for those working especially in higher education to surface issues of race and counteract racism in the classroom. Very useful.
Lori's Notes 