Identifying Race and Transforming Whiteness in the Classroom - Book Report/Review Example

Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the real world. Wink, Joan. (2005). Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. Delpit, Lisa. (2006) Identifying Race and Transforming Whiteness in the Classroom. Lea, Virginia & Judy Helfand, eds. (2004). :A STUDY BY UNIVERSITY Introduction The conflict of whites and blacks as teachers and students has been the common thread that runs across the three books – Other people’s children by Lisa Delpit, Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the real world by Joan Wink and Identifying race and transforming whiteness in the classroom by Virginia Lea and Judy Helfand. In spite of being similar they have touched upon different angles of this issue. We would examine the three books and the ideas discussed in them in this essay. Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom In her book, Lisa Delpit has dealt with minority teachers and minority students in the world of education. There are certain differences between the white community and the colored community of teachers and students that she finds. The examples and quotations that she uses to prove her point makes it much more effective. Her aim is to get the same opportunity of learning to both white and colored children. Teachers, who are working in an urban area or teaching minority children, can learn a lot from her work. There are two chapters that are dedicated to diversity in the classroom and one chapter is fully focused on teacher effectiveness. It arouses the sense of responsibility in teachers by reminding them of the focused attention they get from the children. It becomes their duty to get the love and respect from the children by devoting time and attention. She reminds the teachers about the growing diversity in the classroom and asks them to give equal opportunity to all the children and see to it that they all feel comfortable as a part of the class. One of her major discussion point has been ‘skills’ versus ‘fluency’. She feels that there has been lot of debate on how to improve the fluency of the black children. According to her, it is not the fluency that is their problem. She draws attention to the rap songs that most of the black children are apt at. She says it is a misleading assumption that these children lack in fluency and teaching methods should be oriented towards improving that. Even the lack of writing skills is also not their problem, she feels. As most of the black children write their own rap songs they are busy in writing but of a different kind. So, writing problems or fluency problems are not actually as big a problem or ‘a’ problem at all. It is the lack of ‘skills’ that requires teachers’ attention and they should work to improve it. According to Lisa, there are four types of biases in schools:- The non-minority or white teachers have a bias against minority or black children The parents and children in the white dominant school have a bias against the interviewee The teachers also have a bias against the interviewee The university curriculum, the professors and the fellow students have a bias towards the interviewee. The main message that she wants to give to the teachers is that they should not just teach but also take care that the students learn. They should pay attention to the students who are not much capable. For all the students they should give a challenge and help the less capable ones to rise up to the challenge. One limitation about the book is that Deplit has mainly referred to the black, Alaskan and Native Americans while talking about the minorities. Other races like Hispanics, Asians, Latinos, Indians, Arabs and many others have not been included. Another point that comes up in this book is about the mindset of the teachers. There is a feeling of disagreement among the black teachers against the whites. They have taken the entire education system and even the state as representative of the ‘white folks’. She feels that the attitude of white teachers and the black teachers toward the black students is also different. The white teachers are always helping the black student to find his voice but the black teachers accept and acknowledge that the black students do have their own voice and they help them by guiding them so that they can ‘harmonize with the rest of the world’. That is the concern of the parents as well who want their children to succeed in the ‘white man’s world’. A word of caution she gives the black teachers is to be careful about becoming too friendly with the children. Children expect an authoritarian behavior from the teachers and if the teacher becomes a ‘chum’ then they do not see them as an authority and do not give them due respect. She understands that communication is a difficult task by itself and when it involves many more differences in terms of social, cultural and racial backgrounds, it becomes all the more difficult. In her opinion, education in multicultural environment is a tough task and the minority teachers or the black teachers can neither be too lenient and be misunderstood as a ‘chum’ nor can they be too disgruntled and treat the entire system and other teachers with a disgusting attitude. She got an idea that some of the black teachers were very much disgusted with the whites. She has many other differences with the so-called progressive education. The unnecessary emphasis on increasing the ‘fluency’ of the black children is an indirect ploy against them to keep them away from the mainstream. The real need of skill teaching is not discussed in this progressive education and that is what would have got them jobs or higher education. She finds similar experiences in the other black teachers as well. They feel that there are many such strategies that have been implemented in the name of progressive education and as a help to the black and the poor children but actually they are trying to protect job security for their own children by keeping the blacks away from it. These strategies are sometime designed consciously and sometime unconsciously. Delpit even made her thoughts known to others in various forums. In the 1987 conference at the University of Pennsylvania she expressed these ideas and many other participants did not approve it. One of them even got up to say that Delpit’s ideas were baseless. This gave an opportunity to other black teachers who were also participating to support Delpit’s point. Delpit has given her views on what should be the classroom environment. She asks the teachers to pay attention on the content and teach the poor urban black children with more attention. The basic skills must be provided to all the children and the blacks should not be deprived of it. She is quite keen on the critical thinking and wants it to be the main thing regardless of the methodology adopted. The racist views should be challenged as they question the competence of the black children. The teachers must identify the strengths of these children and build on it. They should feel comfortable and secure in this atmosphere and feel like a family who cares for them. The background and the culture of the children should be respected. When the teachers assess the needs of the children, they must address them with different strategies. Their main aim should be to connect the child to the community and build their sense of self worth and confidence. Identifying Race and Transforming Whiteness in the Classroom. Virginia Lea and Judy Helfand have shown similar ideas in their book Identifying Race and Transforming Whiteness in the Classroom. It is a collection of 12 essays by 12 American and Canandian educators. The book talks about the social construction of whiteness in the classroom, in the school and society and in ourselves and explores ways to challenge and interrupt them. The contributors in this book come from various different backgrounds. This gives them an opportunity to draw from their own diverse experiences of race and racism. They have also experienced the anti-racist pedagogies and how they tackle the whiteness in the class. These contributors have analyzed the effect of social forces on their thinking. They have come up with alternative pedagogies and developed support systems for each other. This enables them not only to teach but also to analyze their assumptions and study their effects. This book mainly unveils the power of the whites that spreads in the classroom. It makes the readers aware of the undercurrent that exists both inside and outside people’s minds and creates this kind of inequitable education and socio-economic systems. The racist forces still exist in today’s world. But the book does not attack the whites as individuals. It rather differentiates ‘whiteness’ and ‘whites’. While whiteness is a ‘constellation of social practices, knowledge, norms, values and identities that maintain a race and class hierarchy in which white people disproportionately control power and resources”(p.14). The amazing fact is that the book is written or edited by two white women. But there have been many criticisms of this book as being overly anti-white. Although the poor and powerless white people also exist but it refers to whiteness as the dominant culture and ignores the less privileged whites. It has also been pointed out that the book is over generalized. But the teachers who face the effects of racist thinking in the classroom get lot of help from this book. Even the white teachers can understand how their ‘whiteness’ can be perceived by a black student. In Christensen’s Tribal Paradigm, she explains the importance of the tribal Elder’s knowledge that passed through oral tradition.(p.172) Barbara Applebaum has used white complicity as a framework to review this book along with two other books on racism. She has explained the concept of white complicity and the philosophical issues related to moral responsibility that comes with the acceptance of white complicity. Complicity can be individual intention or collective action and it can be used as an alternate term for racism as it conveys lesser intended harm. The book provides many thinking points for the teachers as they go through the writings of different educators. These writers have diverse backgrounds and they have drawn on their own experiences of racism and whiteness. They have also explored the anti-racist pedagogies as they try to interrupt whiteness in the classroom. They have given their personal accounts of reflection and how the transformations came about. The experiences cover classroom practices in K-12 and college that have been developed to support their work. This provides deep insight into whiteness as a culture. The readers get to know the value difference and connectedness from a teacher’s point of view and get suggestions for creating harmony, recognizing conflict. Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the real world Critical Pedagogy provides a total new angle to education and thinking. It is a process that updates our pre-existing knowledge by the process of learning, re-learning and unlearning. According to Wink, learning is a challenging task but re-learning is even more challenging. Most of the people who are associated with the education system are in a continuous process of learning and re-learning. Unlearning is much beyond that and it is a shift in philosophy and assumptions. It encourages re-evaluation that can lead to different conclusions. Real education is not in mere reading of the words. It is more important to read the “world’. This is the basic thought of Wink and his philosophy. By reading books we become literate but we remain totally illiterate about people. The most important thing to understand is the people and then only we can understand the world and be real literates or rather educated. Reading must provoke thoughts and encourage questioning. This will lead to analyzing and understanding. Once people practice this, they enrich themselves by learning how to decode and encode people around them, the community around them and visible and invisible messages around them. General education system has certain beliefs imbibed in it. The thought process of the dominant political system or the society exists as an undercurrent in the entire education process. Critical pedagogy challenges that hidden curriculum and brings up the issues under re-consideration that have been assumed as the norm. It breaks the myth of assumption and opens up the whole new world of possibilities. The behavior of white children and their ways of interaction with other racial children has the under currents of this social pattern of power. It is a kind of social oppression being promoted through education. Critical pedagogy provides a critical lens for the teachers and encourages them to promote equality and democracy in the classroom. In a multicultural setting, the dominant whites should also be treated as one of the students regardless of their race. Education system should provide and recognize the ‘voice’ of each student as an individual and not get mislead by social oppression. It should be socially re-constructionist in nature. According to Strobel, the western narratives have managed to rationalize the superiority of homo- sapiens of the white variety over other creatures. Such assumptions have given rise to ‘benevolent assimilation’ because of which the whites enjoy a self-proclaimed destiny. Similar opportunity should be provided to everyone present in the classroom regardless of their race. Wink is very much against the traditional and controlled way of teaching because he thinks that is not giving the opportunity to develop critical thinking in either the teacher or the student. He believes that if the student is supposed to be a dumb audience who should only listen and should not question then he will never grow up as a responsible citizen and contribute towards the development of the society. He also has the same feelings towards the teachers who should be flexible, appreciate diversity and must have a critical consciousness. He criticizes the policies like NCLB (No Child Left Behind) that expect a rigid role from the teachers. Taking action against oppression is the aim and praxis is the power to do it. It involves theory, application, evaluation and reflection. This process continues as a cycle. When the teachers collaborate and take a strategic step in this direction, they can implement it. Discussion The main point that comes up from all the three books is the race based thinking that has crept into the education system as well. The essays from Identifying Race and Transforming Whiteness in the Classroom present the experiences of the black teachers while Other People’s Children hits at the attitude of the whites against the blacks. Critical Pedagogy criticizes the entire education system and the main objection it raises is the controlled way of teaching. While the other two books bring out the discrepancies and try to prove that there is racism in the education system along with the entire social system, Critical Pedagogy emphasizes on changing the way of teaching and the way of thinking. It can be argued that the books do not cover the less privileged whites and there are many whites who are poor and who are also left behind. But these books are talking about the main trends and it is clear from all the three books that there is a racial conflict. There may be some whites who are left behind but that will be due to some other reason and definitely not due to racial discrimination. This is an important issue because when such trends are the interwoven in the education system, they keep feeding the bias in the society. As pointed out by Lisa Delpit, even in the name of progressive education, the emphasis is laid on wrong points that ultimately add to the status quo. These biases are both conscious and unconscious. Christine Sleeter has also said that assumption are made about the intellectual abilities and family support of colored children just because of their skin color. He quotes a simple example of buying real state. The society gives him the right to walk into any real estate office and he will be shown properties in better areas. He says that this is the benefit of being white and also goes on to say that sometimes he is aware that he is getting such benefits and sometimes not. He finds multicultural education as a struggle against racism and it should go beyond just having diversity in the classroom. Hollins has asked the teachers to critically examine the aspects of their own culture and others culture as well. This can help them construct a working definition of culture that will vital for teaching in a multicultural classroom.(p.33) But some educators do not think that multicultural education is an effective strategy. (McCarthy 1990, Olneck, 1990) As mentioned in the essays of Identifying Race and Transforming Whiteness, the discrimination and racism affects both institutions and individuals, both the victims and the perpetrators. (Sleeter, 1994) It is important to be aware of the practices but just the knowledge is not enough.(Byrnes, 1988) The teachers should seize the right moment to reduce racism. Many solutions have been suggested like the Contact theory.(Grant, 1990) But that also has its limitations. Conclusion These books provide insight into the classroom diversity. As a teacher we can learn from these issues. Flexible thinking can be helpful for reducing prejudice and help critical thinking.(Walsh, 1988) This is what we need to keep in mind. We will have to deal with the situation as per its demand. And we will have to be prepared that transition to cultural equality may be difficult for some whites. (Howard, 1993)Teachers should locate themselves in the institutions and try to understand the notions of privilege and disadvantage within the institutions. ( Cochran-Smith, 1995) This is an important role that we need to do full justice with. Reference: Barbara, A. (2006) RACE IGNORE-ANCE, COLORTALK, AND WHITE COMPLICITY: WHITE IS…WHITE ISN'T, Educational Theory 56 (3), 345–362. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00230.x Cochran-Smith, M. (1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the answers: Confronting dilemmas of race, culture, and language diversity in teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 493-522. Byrnes, D.A. (1988, April-May). Children and prejudice. Social Education, 52(4), 267-271. Grant, C.A. (1990). Desegregation, racial attitudes, and intergroup contact: A discussion of change. Phi Delta Kappan, 72(1), 25-32. Hollins, E.R. (1990). Debunking the myth of a monolithic white American culture, or moving toward cultural inclusion. American Behavioral Scientist, 34, 201-209. Howard, G. (1993). Whites in multicultural education: Rethinking our role. Phi Delta Kappan, 75, 36-41. McCarthy, C. (1990). Race and curriculum. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press Olneck, M. (1990). The recurring dream: Symbolism and ideology in intercultural and multicultural education. American Journal of Education, 98, 147-174. Sleeter, C.E. (Spring, 1994). White racism. Multicultural Education, 5-8, 39. Walsh, D. (1988). Critical thinking to reduce prejudice. Social Education, 52, 280-282. Read More