Once upon a time, I wanted to be a teacher in an urban school because I thought I could make a difference and it makes me feel more . . . relevant? alive? important? idk . . . to make a difference in the life of a child for whom a difference might be the difference between being intellectually stimulated or not, versus the difference between going to Harvard or Yale. I grew up in the 'burbs and while there are things I appreciate about that - going to the park without worrying about getting killed being foremost (one of my students recently told me about a friend who was killed at the park around the corner from my house, which is why said student doesn't go there anymore), I spent (spend?) a lot of time being frustrated by the fact that so many people in the 'burbs could live their life like it was normal, like shit didn't happen in the real world, and like the fact that the choices they made didn't have an impact down the road. I happened to grow up in a really liberal town, too - and it galled me that people felt they were morally okay because they recycled, and got good grades, and played soccer, and listened to NPR. All of which I think are good and all, but does it balance the racism which many subconsciously betrayed? Or, from my perspective, even worse, more obvious, and absolutely pervasive, the fact that by participating in, nay, embracing the capitalist economic structures that allowed them to buy their million dollar homes they were condemning others to live in substandard and segregated housing?
Okay - enough about me . . .
This American Life recently aired a show about the achievement gap. Lo and behold, it turns out that the achievement gap isn't caused, or solved, by teaching to standardized tests. Now, now, I know it sounds sacrilegious. I know that you can't believe this. I know that you want to go running from the room in horror and disbelief. Sorry I just blew your mind. It turns out that a lot of the achievement gap can be traced to how stress changes the wiring in the brain. You know, that incidental stress that comes from watching violence happen on a daily basis. From having your best friend shot for no reason. From having your house robbed by your neighbors. From being homeless and hungry. From the fact that your parents are unemployed and have stopped even trying to look for work. From the fact that there isn't any prospect of a job when you graduate. Turns out these things can have major cognitive and social skill impacts. And that this gets in the way of learning. No shit. It's true. I know it's hard to believe, but there it is. It was on NPR, so it must be true.
Which isn't necessarily to let schools off the hook entirely - school can be a place that can provide some measure of stability and sanctuary. But they have to conceive of themselves differently. They have to train teachers differently. They can't just say rigor, or "whiteboard configuration", or MCAS and expect shit to change. Testing hasn't made a difference in children's lives, except to make them more stressful. If anything, public schools have become more bureaucratic and cold with the mantra of high expectations, not the places that love students and hold them to high standards at the same time.
I'm not a fan of charters, or private schools. I believe in public education. It says some pretty fucked up shit about who we are as a community when we are unwilling to work together for our children and instead outsource the work to the most efficient company that comes along. But I think some of the more successful charters can teach us some things about building community in a school - about building the kind of culture that loves children but also challenges them. I brought this up once to a boss of mine and was given the wide-eyed, eye-roll and a firm "Not gonna happen" - after all, who has time for that when we need to work on rigor and analyze data and shit.
And, let me not finish without talking about William Julius Wilson, who in the last year or two published a book with the title More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. Now, I've been enamored of Mr. Wilson's work since my college years sometime in the previous millennium. Sadly, I'd had him confused with James Q. Wilson. Unfortunately for me, they share little more than a last name. In any case, in WJW's book he talks about the idea that came up a lot at the time, though I've not heard much recently, that black men need to be more responsible. You know, raise families, get jobs, etc. President Obama even had a speech where he talked about this idea. WJW says, basically, well okay - sure. But . . . what does this mean in the context of an unemployment rate, or better yet, a joblessness rate that is multiple times higher than the national rate? The wage gap? What I want to know is what we're going to be doing about these problems? Why don't the Republicans and their corporate/"philanthropist" brethren start focusing on the economic structures that create the "standard of living" gaps that lead to the achievement gap? Oh, right . . . sorry.
