People came to the U.S. for many reasons

People came to the U.S. for many reasons
To live in a free society To get a job To get an education To escape persecution To escape war To make a better life for my children Because my own country was destroyed

Some people were forced to come here

Others were already here but forced off their land

How do we live in peace? With all our histories and past conflicts, how do we exist together? With our present cultures, how do we interact as a nation?

Respect

Respect The U.S. Constitution guarantees free speech, the right to gather, the right to worship without government interference, etc. We don’t have to always like everything about another culture, but the foundation of our nation demands that we respect other people’s rights.

Respect Unfortunately, it has not always been easy to do so. U.S. history is replete with groups of people trying to get a reasonable form of respect. The school system historically has been a means of disrespecting certain cultures. Education was completely denied to other cultures.

For example Boarding schools were an important part of the American Indian experience. They still are a critical factor in why some American Indian parents find it difficult to communicate with public school system administrators and teachers – and even more difficult to trust them. Many non-Indians either aren’t aware of this shameful piece of American History or know very little about it. In order to undo the boarding school legacy, it is important for every teacher with American Indian students in the classroom to have an awareness of past events and their continuing impact.

Boarding School History
Off-reservation boarding schools for American Indian children began on November 1, 1878 when Captain Richard H. Pratt opened the Carlisle Indian School at an abandoned military post in Pennsylvania. Pratt was an Army Captain, not an educator. He had been put in charge of 72 Apache prisoners held at Ft. Marion near St. Augustine, Florida. The Army said that prisoners were suspected of having murdered white settlers, but never proved this claim. Captain Pratt started a prison school for the men in his charge. When the Ft. Marion prisoners were allowed to return home in 1878, he convinced 22 of them to continue their schooling. The Hampton Institute, a school for freed slaves in Virginia, accepted several of them. Carlisle’s opening allowed Pratt to resign his Army commission and to practice his ideas about educating Indians. Pratt’s goal was to "kill the Indian, not the man." In order to assimilate American Indian children into European culture, Pratt subjected them to what we would call brainwashing tactics today. These are the same methods that cult leaders use to coerce recruits to commit completely to a new way of thinking.

Brainwashing techniques
At the time reformers believed that assimilation and off-reservation boarding schools were the lesser of two evils. They were a better policy than extermination, getting rid of American Indians by shooting them or starving them to death. Just because something is the lesser of two evils doesn’t make it right. After Carlisle opened, boarding schools became a part of official U.S. Government Indian policy. Attendance was mandatory. Most of the schools were run by church organizations, but they all followed the same mind-control model set forth by Pratt.

Brainwashing techniques, continued
Many boarding schools were established far away from reservations so that students would have no contact with their families and friends. Parents were discouraged from visiting and, in most cases, students were not allowed to go home during the summer. Indian boarding school students wore military uniforms and were forced to march. They were given many rules and no choices. To disobey meant swift and harsh punishment. Students were forbidden to speak their language. They were forbidden to practice their religion and were forced to memorize Bible verses and the Lord’s Prayer. Their days were filled with so many tasks that they had little time to think. Indian students had no privacy. Boarding school students were expected to spy on one another and were pitted against each other by administrators and teachers. Students were taught that the Indian way of life was savage and inferior to the white way. They were taught that they were being civilized or "raised up" to a better way of life. Indian students were told that Indian people who retained their culture were stupid, dirty, and backwards. Those who most quickly assimilated were called "good Indians." Those who didn’t were called "bad" Indians. The main part of their education focused on learning manual skills such as cooking and cleaning for girls and milking cows and carpentry for boys. Students were shamed and humiliated for showing homesickness for their families. When they finally did go home…many boarding school students had a difficult time fitting in.

Native Americans weren’t the only ones…
The immigrant poor lived in overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsafe housing. Many lived in tenements, dumbbell-shaped brick apartment buildings, four to six stories in height. In 1900, two-thirds of Manhattan's residents lived in tenements. In one New York tenement, up to 18 people lived in each apartment. Each apartment had a wood-burning stove and a concrete bathtub in the kitchen, which, when covered with planks, served as a dining table. Before 1901, residents used rear-yard outhouses. Afterward, two common toilets were installed on each floor. In the summer, children sometimes slept on the fire escape. Tenants typically paid $10 a month rent. In tenements, many apartments were dark and airless because interior windows faced narrow light shafts, if there were interior windows at all. With a series of newspaper articles and then a book, entitled How the Other Half Lives, published in 1889, Jacob Riis turned tenement reform into a crusade.

Children in tenements often didn’t go to school
Picture from: Children in tenements often didn’t go to school Text from: In the most thickly populated districts of New York City, especially south of Fourteenth street, little children are often seen on the streets carrying large bundles of unfinished garments, or boxes containing materials for making artificial flowers. This work is given out by manufacturers or contractors to be finished in tenement homes, where the labor of children of any age may be utilized. For the laws of New York state, prohibiting the employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories, stores, or other specified work-places, have never been extended to home workrooms. In this fact is presented a child labor problem,-as yet scarcely touched,-namely: How to prevent employment of young children in home work in manufacture?

Children working at home
Schools in tenement neighborhoods were overcrowded, as you might imagine.

It was against the law to teach slaves to read…
It was against the law to teach slaves to read… "If any are anxious to ascertain who I am," writes David Walker near the end of his Appeal, "know the world, that I am one of the oppressed, degraded and wretched sons of Africa, rendered so by the avaricious and unmerciful, among the whites." Born near the end of the eighteenth century in North Carolina as a freed person of color, by the mid-1820s Walker had moved to Boston. It was there that he wrote this book; first published in 1829, it is one of the earliest African American authored protests against slavery and racism. Despite his title, throughout he addresses himself often to white readers, hoping to change their hearts and acts: "America is as much our country, as it is yours.--Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and happiness." He intended his exhortation, though, mainly for black readers, hoping to arouse them to claim their human rights: "Oh! my coloured brethren, all over the world, when shall we arise from this death-like apathy?--And be men!!"Before his death in 1830, Walker worked to circulate his Appeal to blacks in both the North and the South. Copies found in the possession of slaves led to stronger laws against teaching slaves to read and distributing inflammatory writing in a number of southern states.

The question becomes… How do we create schools that truly educate people to live in a diverse, respectful, democratic society? This is the first generation to attempt to “leave no child behind.” What a great goal (and a daunting one).

Individuals, Groups, and Society
Reactions to immigrants and minorities have been problematic: assuming everyone should become just like majority-type Americans, and assuming that anyone who isn’t, is lacking, somehow. Across the centuries, many immigrants have come to the U.S. Melting pot: a metaphor for the absorption and assimilation into the mainstream of society so that ethnic differences vanish. Cultural deficit model: a model that explains the school achievement problems of ethnic minority students by assuming that their culture is inadequate and does not prepare them to succeed in school.

Multicultural education
Education that promotes equity in the schooling of all students. In other words, we are not going to deny education to some, and we are not going to attempt to brainwash some students because we think their culture is bad.

Dimensions of multicultural education
Content integration: using examples from a variety of cultures and groups to illustrate key concepts, principles, generalizations, and theories in their subject area or discipline. The Knowledge Construction Process: helping students to understand how the implicit cultural assumptions within a discipline influence the ways that knowledge is constructed within it. Multicultural education An Equity Pedagogy: matching teaching styles to students’ learning styles in order to facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural, and social class groups. Prejudice Reduction: identifying the characteristics of students’ racial attitudes and determining how they can be modified by teaching. An Empowering School Culture and Social Structure: examining group and labeling practices, sports participation, and the interaction of the staff and the students across ethnic and racial lines to create a school culture that empowers students from all groups.

Content integration If this is the only image a child sees of a scientist, what is the child likely to assume about who gets to be a scientist? If children don’t see themselves in the examples, they are less likely to imagine themselves taking on these roles.

Knowledge construction
Intelligence Unfortunately, they didn’t do a “double blind” experiment where the person measuring the skull would have no idea about the person whose skull it was. So, their prejudices towards one race and against another influenced their data (it’s easy to stuff a little extra mustard seed in some skulls and to not completely fill others). For example, some people thought that the bigger the head, the smarter a person was. In order to explore that idea, they placed mustard seed in various skulls in order to measure the volume. They used skulls from two different races of people. It was in the early 1900’s when this theory was discredited, using a then new statistic, the correlation. This information from Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man This is a really obvious example of how cultural assumptions (that one culture is smarter than another) influence the construction of knowledge. There are more subtle but equally significant examples. When you are reading about a culture, you not only need to read writers from outside that culture but also writers from INSIDE the culture.

Inside vs. outside This is one of the challenges of working with non-dominant cultures: these groups have been historically left out of the education process, so they are less likely to write books about their lives. It’s harder to find “insider” material about people in poverty or people in certain cultures. Outsider-written material can distort information about the culture because of misunderstanding.

Prejudice Reduction Students come from a range of homes, from those that teach and practice tolerance to those that are extremely bigoted toward one group or another. Yet, in school, students have to be able to work together. We need to teach students to hold at bay prejudices that impede their ability to be a constructive member of the classroom.

Equity Pedagogy Teachers used to ask: how come these students don’t know this? They must be lazy or deficient. Now we ask: what do students need to know? What range of teaching strategies and information presentation modes can I use to get this concept across?

Empowering school culture and social structure
If one group or another typically does not participate in a school activity (type of class, club, sport) then it’s possible that subtle messages have been sent that members of this group are not welcome. When school activities reflect the diversity of the school, then students who have an interest in that activity are likely to choose to participate.

Why is this so important?
Students begin school when they are young—five years old. They don’t know what they might be. One purpose of school is to give students opportunities to explore career possibilities and personal interests, to find out who they are in relation to careers and what they do on their own time. If only one ethnic group participates in science club or in the orchestra, then students from other ethnic groups who might be good at this will not select it—they lose educational opportunities.

What is culture? The knowledge, values, attitudes, and traditions that guide the behavior of a group of people and allow them to solve the problems of living in their environment.

Something to remember Culture is important but doesn’t completely define a person. General characteristics of a culture may not be apparent in every person who is part of the culture. Don’t allow cultural information to become stereotypes.

Appalachian Culture and Schooling
In traditional Appalachian culture, there are two concepts of knowledge: “horse sense” and “book learning.” Horse sense refers to the fact that horses are careful about where they step, often more careful than the people who are riding them. Horse sense is superior to mere book learning, a type of knowledge that is not particularly helpful in the hard-scrabble life of subsistence farming.

Within Appalachia, there is a history of exploitation: outsiders came in and bought mineral rights to land and lied to the farmers. Then they came in again and hired locals to mine the coal from the land in terribly unsafe conditions. Outsiders also came in as social workers, medical personnel, and teachers, often with the attitude that Appalachian culture was deficient and that Appalachians were ignorant and stupid.

Many Appalachians moved to the Columbus area when jobs became scarce in the coal fields during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Their grandchildren now attend Columbus public schools. Often within these families are negative memories of school, of teachers who did not appreciate the types of knowledge that are important to Appalachian people, teachers who communicated disrespect for people of this culture.

This is Jessrie Tussey, of Greenup County, Kentucky, who went through the eighth grade in school. She loved school and was encouraged by her teacher to go onto high school but her family needed her to work on the farm, so she left school. When working with students from this culture, understand that the parents of your students may not be fully supportive of school unless you as a teacher exhibit horse sense and respect. There may also be some negative family experiences with school; with your understanding, respect, and support, you may be able to overcome these barriers. I have used the example of Appalachian culture because of its importance to the Columbus area, but these principles apply to working with families of many cultures.

Economic and Social Class Differences
Socioeconomic status (SES): relative standing in the society based on income, power, background, and prestige.

Economics Money (or the lack thereof) has often been a divide amongst Americans.

Economics It’s hard to even define who is wealthy and who is poor. The concept is relative: to a person who struggles to find money for a burger at McDonalds, a middle class person making $60,000 a year is wealthy. To a middle-class person, someone making $200,000 is wealthy. To a person making $200,000 a year, a person making $1,000,000 is wealthy.

Economics People’s economic positions influence their perspectives. For example, the loss of a material item such as a pair of glasses might be annoying to some people and a complete disaster to others, depending on how much money they have access to. The people who would be slightly annoyed may have a hard time imagining the perspective of the person to whom it is a disaster—and vice versa.

Culture and Economics Ruby Payne (A Framework for Understanding Poverty) argues that each economic class has a culture that is largely invisible to itself. Part of the difficulties we face as educators is the potential for misunderstandings because of economic class differences. Are people poor because they have a bad culture? No. The “culture” of poverty, according to Celano and Neuman (reference cited later in this slide show), is a “rational response” to the conditions of poverty—in other words, people who deal with unmitigated poverty react in certain ways and these ways are reasonable under the circumstances.

Economics and Language: Register
From: Payne, R. (revised, 2003) A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Aha! Process, Inc., p. 42 Economics and Language: Register Register Explanation Frozen Language that is always the same. For example: Lord’s Prayer, wedding vows, etc. Formal The standard syntax and word choice of work and school. Has complete sentences and specific word choice. THIS REGISTER IS NOT TYPICALLY USED IN HOMES OF PEOPLE IN POVERTY, YET ALL STANDARDIZED TESTS ARE WRITTEN IN THIS REGISTER. Consultative Formal register when used in conversation. Discourse pattern not quite as direct as formal register. Casual Language between friends and is characterized by a 400- to 800-word vocabulary. Word choice general and not specific. Conversation dependent upon non-verbal assists. Sentence syntax often incomplete. Intimate Language between lovers or twins. Language of sexual harassment.

Economics and Language: Narrative patterns
Payne also points out that people from different classes tell stories in different ways and for different reasons. In homes that use higher registers, stories are told chronologically or they move directly toward a point. In homes that use lower registers, stories are told for the purpose of entertainment or to reinforce a relationship between speaker and listener. Therefore the stories are told not from “beginning to end” chronologically but the most emotionally interesting aspect is usually presented first. Or, the person may be seeming to “beat around the bush” before getting to the point.

I take my husband to the doctor
These differences in expectations can influence the quality of health care… I take my husband to the doctor Chronology What the doctor is expecting to hear: I’ve had the swelling since May. I have had a CAT scan and an ultrasound which found nothing. How long have you had this swelling? Emotion What the doctor hears: It kind of worries me because it might be cancer. My buddy had a swelling on his leg that was cancer. My husband grew up in poverty. Recently, he had a swelling on his leg and he went to the doctor to try to find out if he was okay (it turns out that yes, he is).

Appalachian discourse patterns
Conversations typically begin with the establishment of the relationship. The first information exchanged is usually where both participants are from (in Kentucky, this information consists of the name of the county, e.g., Pike County). The next part is establishing who knows whom—both participants mention people they know who lived in the area the other person is from. Often someone will know either the person or a close relative. Once this is established and pleasantries about the weather have been exchanged, then business can take place. This is a very civilized way of doing things, a lot better than just taking care of business without developing the relationship. In the long run, relationships count.

Parent-teacher conferences
While suburban schools might be able to get away with short teacher conferences because discourse patterns used by both parents and teachers are the similar and are efficient (everyone tends to get to the point quickly), this is not so in schools that serve families in poverty. Storytelling takes time and you will need to listen and participate in order to establish the relationship. If there is no relationship, you will not get anything constructive done.

Cultural Differences: Time
There are two basic approaches to time that cultures tend to take: clock time and “experience” time. The dominant culture within the US is clock time based and most institutions, such as schools and government offices, are set up along clock time values. Clock time people are constantly aware of time in relation to the clock. An experience begins or ends when it is scheduled to do so, no matter what is going on. For “experience time” people, an experience is not over until it’s over, no matter how much clock time that takes. Clock time people get upset at experience time people because experience time people often don’t arrive or leave by the clock (they may be significantly late and they may hang around longer than expected). This discrepancy is a source of disrespect for experience time people—that experience time people are lazy or irresponsible. Experience time people get upset at clock time people because clock time people cut things short just because a machine tells them to; they may feel that clock time people are not “with it” or are grossly insensitive.

Clock time vs. experience time at a conference
I once attended a conference run by clock time people but that included experience time people. At this conference was Paulo Friere, a famous educational philosopher, in one of the last appearances he was able to make. He spoke to the conference, struggling to use English (Portuguese was his native language) and to express complicated ideas. The clock time folks cut him off when the clock told them the session was supposed to end. This was upsetting even to some who had been raised in clock time cultures!

Conference story, continued
At a subsequent session in which people were invited to air their concerns, a Native American woman spoke. She said: “In my culture, we listen to our elders with respect no matter how long it takes. I feel this was not done at this conference.” If you are a clock time person, you need to be aware of the strengths of cultures that run on experience time and you need to let go of the clock. You need to let go of disrespect for experience time people. If you are an experience time person, when you deal with clock time people, you need to accommodate them somewhat and understand that they don’t intend disrespect when they are paying attention to the interaction but also to the clock.

Poverty and School Achievement
Health, environment, stress Low expectations, low academic self-concept Peer influences and resistance cultures Tracking: poor teaching Home environment and resources

Health, environment, and stress
Lead poisoning is more common for children in poverty because they tend to live in older houses that have lead-based paint (paint manufactured before the mid 1970’s frequently had lead in it. Lead-based paint is brittle and tends to chip; toddlers tend to put in their mouths whatever is on the floor). Lead poisoning leads to neurological damage. Children in families of poverty breathe more polluted air, and have less health care than children in wealthier families. For you Praxis takers: remember this about lead paint—it has shown up on some Praxis II PLT exams.

Poverty and teeth One of the characteristics of poverty that can make middle class people feel uncomfortable is the results of poor dental care to which most people in poverty are exposed. All the commercials for teeth-whitening products and dentists who repair smiles play on the anxiety middle class people might feel about their own teeth. In rural areas, children often drink well water, which has no fluoride in it, so their teeth are more prone to cavities. Additionally, with health care being as expensive as it is, dental care is often extremely low priority for these families. As a result, children don’t get preventive care. Children in families of poverty may be given sugary pop (“soda” to those outside the culture) to drink from a very young age because it is cheap and it tastes good. Finally, dentists who serve people in poverty usually don’t try to save teeth; they tend to pull them. It’s cheaper to pull a tooth than to give it a $600 crown. It is common to see people in their twenties with few or no teeth. This means that many people will be missing individual teeth, will have obviously diseased teeth, or will be missing all their teeth entirely (and may not have money for false teeth). They see the same commercials, and they may feel terrible about their appearance, but they don’t have the money to do something about their teeth. Poor teeth contributes to nutritional problems—it’s hard to chew food properly with a toothache or no teeth.

Low expectations—low academic self-concept
Traditionally, teachers have thought of low income students as not being bright—primarily because cultural differences made it hard to identify HOW children in poverty are smart. When students experience this attitude from their teachers, they begin to feel that nothing they do will be effective. They experience “learned helplessness.” See last chapter for more information on learned helplessness.

Peer influences and resistance cultures
Resistance culture: group values and beliefs about refusing to adopt the behaviors and attitudes of the majority culture.

Peer influences and resistance culture
The attitude of some is, since we can’t join the dominant culture, let’s create our own culture that is opposed to it. Students who subscribe to resistance cultures choose not to appear to do well in school since that goes against their peer culture. Not all students in poverty become part of a resistance culture. The best insurance against resistance cultures is for students to have real, significant success in school before adolescence.

Tracking: poor teaching
Tracking: assignment to different classes and academic experiences based on achievement. Tracking has traditionally relegated low SES students to dumbed-down classes, poor teaching, and an inferior education. It has given many of them the message that they are not capable of learning. Unfortunately, this message tends to stay with people throughout their lives, significantly influencing their ability to work, especially in a technological age.

Cycle of poverty Receive poor schooling Drop out Schools that: Track
Fail to understand and support students in poverty Think of students in poverty as stupid Fail to address learning and other needs of students. Born into poverty Get low- paying job Have kids who are.. How would this cycle look if schools addressed the needs of ALL students???

Home environment and resources
From: What’s Holding Black Kids Back? Kay S. Hymowitz Social scientists have long been aware of an immense gap in the way poor parents and middle-class parents, whatever their color, treat their children, including during the earliest years of life. On the most obvious level, middle-class parents read more to their kids, and they use a larger vocabulary, than poor parents do. They have more books and educational materials in the house; according to Inequality at the Starting Gate, the average white child entering kindergarten in 1998 had 93 books, while the average black child had fewer than half that number. All of that seems like what you would expect given that the poor have less money and lower levels of education.

But poor parents differ in ways that are less predictably the consequences of poverty or the lack of high school diplomas. Researchers find that low-income parents are more likely to spank or hit their children. They talk less to their kids and are more likely to give commands or prohibitions when they do talk: “Put that fork down!” rather than the more soccer-mommish, “Why don’t you give me that fork so that you don’t get hurt?” In general, middle-class parents speak in ways designed to elicit responses from their children, pointing out objects they should notice and asking lots of questions: “That’s a horse. What does a horsie say?” (or that middle-class mantra, “What’s the magic word?”). Middle-class mothers also give more positive feedback: “That’s right! Neigh! What a smart girl!” Poor parents do little of this.

From: Access to Print in Low-Income and Middle-Income Communities: An Ecological Study of Four Neighborhoods. by Susan B. Neuman , Donna Celano This study attempted to examine four community environments, placing print resources specifically under scrutiny. It documented how differences in economic circumstances translated into extraordinary differences in the availability of print resources for children who live in low-or middle-income communities. Inequity was reported in the number of resources, choice and quality of materials available, public spaces and places for reading, amount and quality of literacy materials in child-care center resources--even in the public institutions, the schools, and local public libraries in the community. Long before formal schooling begins, considerable variations in patterns of early literacy development are likely to be evident based on the ways in which print is organized in communities. “Access to Print in Low-Income and Middle-Income Communities: An Ecological Study of Four Neighborhoods.” Donna Celano and Susan B. Neuman. Reading Research Quarterly. Vol. 36, n

What might be the consequences of differential access for children's literacy learning? Stanovich and his colleagues (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Stanovich & Cunningham, 1992; Stanovich, West, & Harrison, 1995), for example, have proposed an environmental opportunity hypothesis. Children gain familiarity and practice with exposure to print, creating a reciprocal and increasingly positive relation toward initial and developing reading acquisition. However, those children who lack exposure and experiences with print are less likely to be skilled at the initial acquisition process, less likely to become involved in reading-related activities, and less motivated to read, beginning the spiraling effect of the rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer phenomenon. Once children are in public schools, the problem often becomes exacerbated through remedial instruction that exposes less skilled children to fewer interactions with text than their more skilled peers (Allington, 1983), providing them ultimately with the very poorest language and literacy instruction. Such unrewarding experiences in reading multiply, with the consequences that children attend less to the comprehensibility of reading, its purpose, and potential usefulness. Access to print, continued.

Ethnic and racial differences
Ethnicity: a cultural heritage shared by a group of people. Race: a group of people who share common biological traits that are seen as self-defining by the people of the group. Minority group: a group of people who have been socially disadvantaged—not always a minority in actual numbers.

Legacy of discrimination
Part of the historical oppression of enslaved people included laws against teaching them to read and write.

After Emancipation, African Americans generally had access to inferior materials in their schools. African American teachers in these schools were often strongly committed to providing children with a good education as a means of liberation but they worked with second hand torn up books and in buildings that were often inadequate.

Therefore, a significant portion of the Civil Rights Movement concerned access to education. The desire was for access to the same materials as white children, not a desire to take on the type of majority values that disrespected the rich history and culture of the African American people.

Resistance to integration by those who ran the schools included tracking African American students in non-college prep course work, relegating a disproportionate number of African Americans to the educational ghetto of special education (particularly in the days before mainstreaming), and disrespecting African American culture in general.

What is prejudice? Prejudgment or irrational generalization about an entire category of people.

Prejudice Human beings rely on vision—categorizing quickly what we see so we can survive. This was a critical skill in the prehistoric days. Anything different in the environment could be a threat.

Prejudice We still have this skill and the feelings that are associated with it, but we live in a much different age. We live in a diverse world and we experience people who are different from us all the time. Moreover, we need to develop constructive relationships with people who are different from us—we need to know how to work together.

Prejudice So, we need to overcome our tendency to judge, based on appearance. You can’t judge a book by its cover—or a person by what he or she looks like…

The development of prejudice
Prejudices develop early—and are brought to school. We need to help students overcome prejudicial thinking.

Stereotype Stereotype: schema that organizes knowledge or perceptions about a category. Our mind uses schemas (networks of knowledge) to organize knowledge. We will learn more about this later on.

Stereotypes Changing schemas is not easy—and yet these can strongly influence how we interact with other people, particularly people we don’t know.

Stereotypes Those who supported the desegregation of schools hoped that when children of all races attended school together, they would get to know each other and overcome some of the negative stereotypes.

Desegregation: my story
I grew up in Kentucky, which never seceded during “the” war (the Civil War, but you never had to say this—“the” war was all you had to say), but was a slave state. Brother fought brother, so they say. After Brown v. Board of Education, school districts were supposed to be integrated. But school boards in Kentucky and other places simply drew lines such that we still had black schools and white schools. Real estate agents would never sell a house in a white neighborhood to an African American person.

When I was in junior high school, a new decision came down that said schools had to be integrated, by busing if necessary. I was in line to change schools from the white suburban school I attended during seventh grade to what had previously been an African American inner city school. Several of my friends’ parents put them in private school in order to avoid this change, but I got on the bus and went to my new school.

This was the age of Motown and Superfly and while the white students came into the school, the school retained much of its dominant African American culture. The two years I went to this school were the best two years of my public school education. While I remember moments of discomfort, I remember a lot of enjoying all aspects of my school, from the academics to the many clubs one could join, from the many forms of popular music in the school to the interactions I had with the whole range of students who attended the school.

Many years later, I would work at an inner city battered women’s shelter and later run my own shelter in a small town. I credit my experiences in Lexington Junior High as the foundation for my being able to talk with, listen to, and help a wide range of women and their children.

Overcoming prejudice is not as simple as simply having two groups of students go to school together. For example, in my high school, African American students were typically tracked lower than white students. All the high-track courses took place in classrooms in one hall and the low-track courses took place in another hall. I went to a segregated high school—we were all in the same building but there were only two African American students who were in the high track and were in the courses I took. I don’t think anyone learned much of anything about overcoming stereotypes at this high school during that time.

Discrimination Treating or acting unfairly toward particular categories of people. Statistics (given in your book) show that certain groups continue to be disadvantaged in certain career paths but also in terms of the criminal justice system.

Discrimination Each generation has gotten somewhat better about discrimination and yet the cutting edge knowledge in a given generation suggests that more could be done. During the Civil Rights movements, there were egregious forms of discrimination—such as “whites only” water fountains. Cutting edge knowledge then suggested that this was unfair. Many at the time resisted that knowledge.

Discrimination We all accept now that “whites only” water fountains and other “Jim Crow” practices are wrong. Some of us may think that everything is just fine. Cutting edge knowledge now says we still have things to work on. Discrimination has become more subtle than signs over water fountains. Each generation has to find a way to understand and incorporate its cutting edge knowledge for the benefit of all people. Racism benefits no one, least of all the racist.

Stereotype threat The extra emotional or cognitive burden that your performance in an academic situation might confirm a stereotype that others hold about you. This is an added pressure in addition to the normal pressures of assessment.

Stereotype threat Can affect anyone Is a form of anxiety
Anxiety makes test performance even more difficult.

Disidentification One longterm effect of stereotype threat is disidentification. The thinking is, “they say I can’t do this, and since it’s hard for me to do it, then instead of being part of their stereotype, I’ll redefine the task as uncool and choose not to do it.” It’s choosing to flunk instead of being flunked. Unfortunately, not all who choose to flunk would flunk. So, it’s self-defeating.

Combating stereotype threat
When people believe that intelligence is improvable (in other words, they have the possibility of controlling something), they tend to do better. Guess what you need to tell students?

Girls and boys: differences in the classroom
Sexual identity: a complex combination of beliefs and orientations about gender roles and sexual orientation. Gender-role identity: beliefs about characteristics and behaviors associated with one sex as opposed to the other. How much of this is “nature” and how much of this is “nurture” remains to be seen. Lots of people have strong opinions in several different directions—and current research on both sides reflects this divide.

From the Hippocratic Oath
Doctors at the beginning of their careers swear an oath that includes the following: “I WILL FOLLOW that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievous.” Perhaps we, as teachers, need to do the same—use our best professional judgment and attempt to do no harm, particularly when dealing with issues that potentially have a great emotional impact on students.

Gender roles These result as a complex mix of biology (hormones, etc.) and experience. Gender schemas: organized networks of knowledge about what it means to be male or female. Our gender schemas have a significant influence on how we feel about ourselves and what we expect from ourselves.

Gender biases in the schools
Different views of males and females, often favoring one gender over the other. The problem with gender bias is that it limits people’s possibilities: perhaps a young man is well-suited intellectually and emotionally for a career in nursing, but if he never sees a male nurse, he might miss out on the possibility of a very satisfying career. Perhaps a young woman is equally suited for a career as a scientific researcher, but if she believes that girls aren’t good at science, she may miss out on being everything she is capable of being.

Gender stereotyping in curriculum
Traditional curricular materials supported gender biases (as well as leaving out people of color). In the world of Dick and Jane, a series used in schools from the 1930’s until the 1970’s, little girls wear dresses and little boys take the lead in many activities.

Research?????? Girls do worse than boys in math and science
Boys are more often in remedial classes ????? Girls’ participation in class declines as they grow older Boys get called on more than girls Women earn more college degrees than men Boys fail more often than girls

What to do? Communicate openly with students about gender issues and concerns Eliminate gender bias in instructional activities (make sure girls are doing math and that everyone gets called on equally, for instance) Present students with nonstereotypical role models (male nurses, female scientists, etc.)

Language differences in the classroom
Dialects Bilingualism

Dialects Dialect: rule-governed variation of a language spoken by a particular group. These variations from “standard” are not errors. They occur as a result of history (e.g., Appalachian English is a different outgrowth of Elizabethan English) or influence of other languages (certain aspects of African-American dialect were influenced by various African languages; aspects of Cajun English are influenced by French).

“The work we done was hard… at night we’d sleep ‘cause we were tired…”
Phun with Phonics “The work we done was hard… at night we’d sleep ‘cause we were tired…” In this excerpt from her autobiographical song, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Loretta Lynn creates a rhyme between “hard” and “tired.” In Appalachian dialect, these words rhyme because of the dialectic tendency to shift the long-I to an “a” sound. Loretta Lynn, Appalachian singer

Are ye ready to dig out them taters?
More Phun with Phonics Are ye ready to dig out them taters? First syllables tend to get dropped (“taters,” “maters,” etc.) unless they are important for understanding the word. If they are important, they become accented: HO-tel, PO-lice, UM-brella

Phun with Phonics in School
This means that a child who speaks Appalachian dialect at home will have a hard time with phonics materials written in “standard” English. The vegetable we love to mash and smother in gravy on Thanksgiving does NOT begin with a “P” sound in this dialect. “Tar” and “tire” are homophones.

Phun with Phonics in School
Appalachian dialect uses a different vocabulary. I remember hearing about a big-city kindergarten teacher completely misunderstanding a rural child who said, “I ain’t got ary pencil.” The child meant that he did not possess a pencil. “Ary” and “nary” are substitutes for “any.” Some of this vocabulary is from the English of Shakespeare’s time—it was preserved in Appalachian English while it was lost in standard English.

Advantages of dialects
Dialects say things that standard English cannot. For example, standard English used to have a way to indicate second person singular (thou) and second person plural (you) just the way German and French do (and other languages). But that distinction got lost around two hundred years ago. Therefore, it’s easy to get misunderstood: “I would like you to come to my party.” Does that mean one person or all of us standing here? As a result, several English dialects have developed ways of differentiating between you singular and you plural: “you/y’all” in Southern, “you/you-uns (ones)” in Appalachian, “you/youse-guys” in New York City dialect.

Advantages of dialects
There is a certain amount of charm in the regional and ethnic differences of American speech. New Englanders say, “In Vuh-mont theah ah two seasons: win-tah and put’ neah wintah.” (Translation: “In Vermont, there are two seasons: winter and pretty near winter.”). Some books (notably, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple) were written in dialect and this adds to how vividly the story can be imagined by the reader—it adds a significant sound element. I grew up in Kentucky, living with a father who was from Maine. Then we moved to upstate New York for a year…I enjoyed hearing all these differences in speech patterns and vocabulary and eventually learned how to speak all these dialects.

Code-switching Successful switching between cultures in language, dialect, or nonverbal behaviors to fit the situation. Dialect speakers need to be able to do this—to use their home dialect at home and to use academic English. Students can be taught directly to do this.

Dialects: what to do? Talk to kids about school English and home English Kids need to learn school English in order to succeed academically but home English must be valued, too. To fail to value home English means that we are rejecting a child’s home culture. This can be devastating to a child. Encourage translations between home and school English, in both directions—this helps students to code-switch. Encourage exploration of dialects and the advantages that dialects bring to language Use literature in dialect as well as literature in academic English

Bilingualism The ability to speak two languages fluently.
This term is actually a joke—in many cultures, children grow up speaking three or four languages. I was once in a bookstore in Brussels, Belgium. I heard the owner of the store speak to people in fluent English, Flemish, and French—in rapid succession. Many people in Europe speak three to five languages. There are three official languages in Switzerland: English, German, and French. People in India regularly speak Hindi, English, and a local language, of which there are many. The great linguist, Charles Berlitz spoke many languages and the language in which he dreamed depended on the person he was dreaming about—he dreamed in the subject of his dream’s language. We should call this concept “multi-lingualism,” but the U.S. is so notably monolinguistic that we can only imagine learning two languages.

Bilingualism: cultural issues
But language is not just language. It is a representation of culture, and this can get tricky for multi-lingual students. Some languages are preferred in school settings, notably English. It is common for children to learn English at school and then to stop communicating in their native language at home because the home language represents a culture that is not American and the students are trying to fit in. This situation cuts the students off from their own heritage and it can also create significant disciplinary problems—the parent cannot speak enough English to be aware of exactly what the student is doing or to place limits on a child’s behavior.

Becoming multi-lingual
Learning another language is not just a matter of picking up grammar and vocabulary. A language represents a way of thinking and this way of thinking differs from other ways of thinking. So, you have to learn the thinking pattern as well as the grammar and vocabulary.

“Bilingual” education
Remember that English may be a third or even fourth language for some students, so “teaching English as a second language” is a serious misnomer. English Language Learners (ELL) [a more accurate term than ESL—English as a Second Language]: students whose primary or heritage language(s) is/are not English. ESL: designation [however problematic the name] for programs and classes to teach English to students who are not native speakers of English.

Semilingual students Students who are not proficient in any language; speaking one or more languages inadequately.

Semilingualism and the history of deaf education
Across the history of the education of people with hearing impairments, there have been two major camps: the oralists (speech) and the manualists (sign). The oralists argued that teaching deaf people to speak orally and read lips would make it easier for them to communicate with the mainstream. Unfortunately, these are very difficult skills for the profoundly deaf to acquire. The manualists argued that deaf people should primarily learn sign as their language and then they can learn English secondarily.

Semilingualism The oralists held sway for awhile:
“Signing in the classroom became a forbidden thing. Anecdotally, people have shared stories about being forced to sit on their hands. It was not uncommon for children to have their hands slapped for signing. The issue of corporal punishment, when seen in the light of earlier teaching practices, does not seem cruel. Children, both hearing and deaf, were disciplined this way when they disobeyed. However, upon reflection, these deaf children had poor communication with their teachers and no effective way of communicating among themselves. The fairness of harsh discipline under these circumstances is questionable. As a result of these attitudes and practices, signing was done in secret and ASL was often taught to the younger children by the older youths in the residential institutions.” Options in Deaf Education—History, Methodologies, and Strategies for Surviving the System By: Cheryl Zapien July 15,

Semilingualism Insisting upon oral methods only created generations of semilingual people among the profoundly deaf—they could not communicate in English terribly well and they had no native sign language in which they could communicate well. It was often extremely difficult to teach these people to read well because reading is a skill that is built on the ability to speak and understand language.

The tragedy of semilingualism
Because language is so central to thinking, when people are denied access to some kind of complex language, they are denied access to a significant portion of the ability to think and to the ability express their thinking.

Creating Culturally Inclusive Classrooms
Culturally relevant pedagogy Fostering resilience Culturally inclusive classrooms: classrooms that provide culturally diverse students equitable access to the teaching and learning process.

Culturally relevant pedagogy
Excellent teaching for students of color that includes academic success, developing/maintaining cultural competence, and developing a critical consciousness to challenge the status quo.

In other words… There are two basic views of education. One view is that the purpose of schools is to replicate society as it is—underclass and all. The argument is that we need a class of cheap workers because of all our service industries (Walmart and McDonalds workers). According to this view, it’s okay to track students because we need underachievers. If everyone were an overachiever, who would be willing to work for minimum wage? This is the way we keep the cost of goods cheap.

In other words… continued…
The second view is that the purpose of education is to “liberate” people—to help people rise above their class level, to break the cycle of poverty that was shown in a previous slide. History is replete with people who, because of education, were able to rise to great heights, such as the great orator, abolitionist, and former slave, Frederick Douglass. The goal in this view is to eliminate the underclass so that everyone has a chance to use his/her talents to the maximum.

Democracy Since we have a government that is “by the people, for the people, and of the people,” it does make sense that we educate “the people” to the best of our ability. We have a long way to go to live up to this ideal, but this generation is making significant strides in this direction.

Experience academic success—we need to teach so that all children experience real (not pretend) success. This means that we need to develop a variety of ways of getting ideas across to accommodate the diverse mindsets and experiences of our students.

Develop and maintain cultural competence: students need to develop cultural competence within academic culture while maintaining competence in their home culture. This can be done when we model and teach respect and admiration for home cultures. We need to actively teach code-switching strategies. We can use examples from students’ home cultures to teach concepts (such as using rap to teach rhyme and other poetic devices).

Develop a critical consciousness to challenge the status quo: every generation has areas in which it is making positive strides and areas in which negative conditions remain. African American students during the Civil Rights movement had to challenge the status quo of Jim Crow laws in the south. Today’s students of color and/or poverty need to challenge the idea that the underclass must remain intact and that certain groups of people are relegated to holding three minimum wage jobs (if they go the legal route) just to make ends meet.

Fostering resilience Resilience: the ability to adapt successfully in spite of difficult circumstances and threats to development.

Students At Risk for Failure
Factors: Poverty Inner City Transient Minority ELL Divorced families Some researchers prefer the more positive term: “students of promise” —students who potentially can succeed. Think about: What does this mean for our society? What can we as educators do? Consequences: Dropping out Bad grades Failing Lack of motivation Poor attendance Drug use Classroom management problems Low self-esteem Crime Low test scores Suspension

Resilience: a learner characteristic that raises the likelihood of success in school and in other aspects of life, despite environmental adversities. Resilience Another definition of resilience: the ability to be flexible and to handle a variety of circumstances without being side-tracked from your own goals by adversity. Participation in after-school activities High, uncompromising academic standards Think about WHY these things promote resilience Strong personal bonds between teachers & students Order and high structure

Cultural values and learning preferences
Teachers who design culturally inclusive classrooms: Recognize various ways students display capabilities Respond to students’ preferred ways of learning Understand that a particular group’s cultural practices may not apply to everyone in that group

Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics: the study of the formal and informal rules for how, when, about what, to whom and how long to speak in conversations within cultural groups. Pragmatics: the rules for when and how to use language to be an effective communicator in a particular culture. Participation structures: the formal and informal rules for how to take part in a given activity.

Sociolinguistics The rules for how to participate are significant but often unspoken. For instance, in some families, it’s common for people to talk over one another—not to wait their turn to speak. Yet in classrooms, this behavior is considered rude and inappropriate. Traditionally, children have been expected to figure out how to participate in classrooms appropriately and children who have not been able to figure this out for themselves have been punished or considered dumb.

Culturally relevant teaching
Culturally relevant teachers don’t make students guess what is appropriate: they make all aspects of the classroom, including rules for how to “do” school (e.g., how to converse in the classroom, how to transition from one activity to another, how to behave in the halls) explicit rather than implicit.

Culturally relevant teaching
This is like Universal Design for Learning: when we accommodate the needs of one group of students (students not from the dominant culture) we are actually helping all students. There are students from the dominant culture who are not good at picking up implicit rules about interactions, notably people with Asperger Syndrome or Autism. Making rules and practices explicit potentially benefits all students.

The digital divide The disparities in access to technology between poor and more affluent students and families.

Technology and the workforce
A century ago, there were many jobs that did not require a person to be able to read. A person with little or no formal education could support a family with one of these jobs. With the industrial revolution came jobs that required more education, including the ability to read.

Now, with the information technology revolution, people not only need to know how to read well, they also need to know how to use a personal computer. Even cash registers are now computers.

Computer literacy is AS important as linguistic literacy. Yet because of the digital divide, the underclass remains, because their children don’t have easy access to information technology.

Technology and the workplace
Schools have the potential to reduce the effects of this divide, by providing access to computers and computer education to students.

Vocabulary Bilingual- ism Culturally inclusive classrooms Discrim-
ination Gender biases Minority group Prag- matics Semi- lingual Stereo- type Code- switching Culturally relevant pedagogy English as a second language Gender- role identity Multi- cultural education Race Sexual identity Stereo- type threat Culture Dialect English language learners Gender schemas Partici- pation structures Resilience Socio- economic status Tracking Cultural deficit model Digital divide Ethnicity Melting pot Prejudice Resistance culture Socio- linguistics

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