"When you have something that was never designed for you, that wasn’t designed for your body to fit it, your spirit, your history. It wasn’t designed for your identities, it’s not going to fit" -Gholdy Muhammad
Black students enter an education system never meant to lift them, but instead restrain them. The classroom fails to teach black students skills, tools, concepts that connect to their identity. You may teach about racism and equality, but if you do not teach your students how to actively question and critique the system, what are you doing? If we want our students to be armed to fight an oppressive system, we have to water all areas of growth.
Gholdy Muhammad's largest issue with the educational system is just this. We are teaching black students in a system that is "set by Europe and Euro-centricity and whiteness from the earlier days of The New England Primer" (Muhammad). It is not meant to work for black students. In fact, over history we have made sure the system did not work for black students.
Standards and standardized tests lack in equity, but yet our schools place a large emphasis on the tests. Muhammad wants revamp the system by including more than just skills because focusing on repition and the core does not cut it in creating culturally responsive adults.
Presenter Spotlight
The 4 layers of Muhammad's framework are identity, skills, intellect, and criticality.
Firstly, identity is crucial to creating an inclusive and productive classroom. We lack giving room for students to find and establish identity. It is difficult to connect to a classroom when the classroom does not make effort in connecting to you. I would build on identity within the novels and other material we read. Include what Gholdy Muhammad said, ask questions that make students think about their position. I want to bring in material that my students can find common ground with. With books that my students have difficulty finding connections with, I would allow students to explore their identity within the story. For example, we may have to read white canon novels. I could allow students to research the flip side or I can bring in work that is familar, but tells diverse stories.
I want to allow students to find and establish their identity through writing. It is important to give space for expression.
Secondly, skills. There are crucial skills students will have to learn, but I do not want correction or the red pen to overshadow their work. I believe finding the right place within the lesson is key. Or allowing students to gain skills while flourishing the other 3 layers. As an ELA teacher, I could build skills thru insipiring them to read and write. I believe literary skills are grown thru consistent reading and writing.
I will sparingly correct papers and use other methods to enforce proper grammar. It may be best to correct grammar on an essay, but limit on a narrative.
I love the idea of writing workshops and believe they can be less daunting than seeing a red pen. Having students work in small groups to build off one another is wonderful for building connections.
Thirdly, intellect. Intellect can be built on from novels. What concepts(issues) are in the text? I loved the idea of class discussions. Jennifer Gonzalez mentioned her private school friend's classroom having debates. Discourse, debates, discussions! This is wonderful in allowing students to form, express, and defend opinions and observations. It is the key in grasping and understanding concepts.
And lastly, criticality. Criticality is the tool in questioning the opression and racism in the system. As an ELA teacher, it is important to have students question the texts we read. Thruough texts, we can make connections to our own world. Then soon, they can ask questions about our world.
Hi Alie,
ReplyDeleteI love that you talk about encouraging students to engage in “discourse, debates, discussions”! Discussions can be a really powerful way for students to engage with the material that they’re learning about, and it reminds me of the Socratic seminars that I did in high school where we would have sustained discussions about texts. In Socratic seminars, everybody had to speak at least once, and we were allowed to come in with prepared notes, which was helpful for students who didn’t always like to speak. Those discussions were some of the best and most memorable that I had throughout high school, and I think it’s because it encouraged students to construct and share knowledge and we were treated as equals in the analysis of text and discussion of ideas. Would something like a Socratic seminar work for what you talk about with intellect?
I like that you started off with the idea that if students are not critiquing the system and asking questions, teaching them about race will not be as meaningful. This is especially important for me as an educator because my teachers never promoted this in my mostly white school and always said school was not the place for talking about social injustice...huh??????? School is EXACTLY the place to talk about social injustice!!
ReplyDeleteI thought you dove into the four layers of Muhammad's framework very nicely while explaining how you will implement these in your classroom. Your section on skills stuck out to me when you discussed grammar. I think we were conditioned in our own education to believe grammar and mechanics was the most important part of writing a paper, but in reality it is the least important part. Focusing on grammar and syntax takes away from the content within the writing assignment. A little tip I got from a past teacher was to NEVER correct in a red pen, because seeing red scribbled all over a paper can be discouraging. Instead, this teacher recommended we use a fun color that is not so harsh to look at. This teacher also always put stickers on our graded papers, and we LOVED them! I think as HS teachers, we sometimes think we can't use fun things like stickers and prizes, but I always loved getting a sticker!! It is just a little something extra to make the experience of looking over a corrected paper easier for our students.
Hi Alie! I really liked your idea for the second layer, skills. Workshops are great and can be a great way for your students to learn many different skills. Such as listening, revising, and giving feedback. I think you are right that seeing a bunch of red pen is daunting and honestly the students can't learn any valuable skills from it either.
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