A Reflection of the Dicersity Speaker Event

I am very passionate about the education of Black and Brown children in the United States and it is my aspiration to work with a predominantly Black, urban population. That being said, when I saw that there was going to be a Diversity Series presentation about public education in urban schools at my university, I was excited to attend the event. I thought this would be a great way for me to get an insider’s look at an urban public school from a teacher’s perspective. I enjoyed the presentation from Dr. Kozol and then the dialogue with the panel. This discussion sparked a lot of my interests and made me think a lot of the public school system.

 Dr. Kozol spoke about his experience working in urban public schools. While he was telling his personal story, I was not shocked to hear that he had been fired from an elementary school for reading the poem A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes to his students. The school made the claim that they did not want him to read Langston Hughes because Hughes did not have more than a sixth-grade education. Dr. Kozol mentioned that he believed the true reason the school did not want him to read the poem is because Hughes is a Black poet. The school’s reaction to Dr. Kozol reading this work can be very detrimental to the poor, Black children at the school because not only did the school reject the notion that a Black person can be a noted poet who is taught in school, but they also implanted the idea that a poor person could not be a phenomenal poet. The blatant rejection of the work of Langston Hughes, feeds into the notion that you cannot be successful if you are poor and Black.

By rejecting the reading of Hughes’ poetry, the school also took away the incorporation of Black writing and Black words in the school setting. There is research now that supports the claim that Black history needs to be taught in schools, especially in Black schools. Neglecting Black history fails to admit to the students and to the country that the United States of America was built by the hands of Black men and women and also from the blood of the indigenous people that had their land stolen from the early settlers. When Black children are being taught Black history, then they have the opportunity to learn that people who look like them have made significant contributions to society and that they have the tools to fight against their oppressions. Even historically, it has been consistently difficult for a Black person to receive an education and there is still systematic racism in place (i.e. predominantly Black schools that are underfunded) that limits a Black child’s ability to receive an adequate education by modern societal standards.

Following the discussion, I followed some friend’s downstairs to attend the reception. At the reception, I heard a lot of the White, Towson faculty members talk about how “inspiring” and “motivational” the discussion was because of the work he had done in public education. Hearing them speak of him like this really irritated me because there was nothing that he said that I had not already learned from Black teachers, professors, school counselors, and school psychologist. I did not get irritated solely because he was a White, wealthy male. It irritated me that Black people have been speaking out about the systematic oppression of the public school system for several years, but a lot of times people do not listen to minority issues until a person of privilege speaks out about them. When Black people speak about the problems and oppressions no one is around to listen and some even say that we are just “complaining” and we just need to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”. All in all, I am glad that Dr. Kozol is an ally to children who attend these urban public schools because at the end of the day the only important thing is that these children are given opportunities for success.

Education is the first step to being relieved from the oppression of poverty and when that access to a quality education is denied to Black and Brown children, then it promotes the cycle of poverty and it teaches these children to get used to failure. Dr. Kozol is a strong proponent of equal-opportunity education for all students. His advocacy and experience inspired me to also be an advocate for Black and Brown students that are not given equal opportunity to education.

The Invisibility of Black Girls: An Op-Ed

When there is controversy about Black children in the school system, the narrative often revolves around the boys. Black boys are more likely to be placed in special education, black boys are more likely to attend schools without adequate resources, black boys are not reading at an adequate level, and punishment for Black boys is harsher than for any other demographic, but what about Black girls? These topics revolving around our Black boys are very important and should still be discussed. However, the literature highlighting the plights of Black boys while dismissing the victimization of our Black girls, eludes to the belief that Black boys are the only demographic that need saving when it comes to public school systems within the United States. Recent research is showing that Black girls are punished in school "at rates that are even more disproportionate than those experienced by Black boys" (Morris, 2016). While they only consist of 16 percent of the entire female student population, Black girls are disproportionately 33 percent of all girls referred to law enforcement and more than 33 percent of all female school-based arrests (Morris, 2016). 

The criminalization of Black girls in the public-school system is partly due to the fact that the narratives of the public-school system are rooted in "White supremacist ideology that permits racist and sexist conditioning" (Haynes, 2016). This ideology aligns with the belief that "White femininity is the only acceptable standard in public school systems" (Haynes, 2016). It is problematic to attempt to force young Black girls to conform to standards that perpetuate ideals of White supremacy. Making White femininity the normative ideology places surveillance on Black girls because their actions, choices, and appearances do not always fit neatly in these societal norms (Haynes, 2016). These ideals of white femininity also place our Black girls within an anti-Black context which creates tension between Black girls and the staff, teachers, and administrators that hold to these impractical expectations.

In addition to ideals of white femininity, Black girls are also experiencing trauma inside and outside of school. In general, people who have experienced abuse and violence commonly experience psychological disorders in addition to other behavioral challenges that can have an impact on learning and relationship building (Morris, 2016). This trauma is often masked as anger and causes others to fear Black girls and interpret them as aggressive which perpetuates the stereotype of “the angry Black woman/girl”. “School administrators in high poverty areas tend to see ‘Zero-tolerance’ responses as the best way to curb negative student behavior” (Morris, 2016). This “zero-tolerance policy does not allow girls to heal from their trauma and in fact only causes more trauma from the victimization in their school systems. Also, Black girls are often condemned and punished further for speaking out about mistreatment in school and so, like most Black people, they often suffer in silence.

I offer a few strategies for change so that these Black girls in public schools can express themselves without fear of punishment for being themselves. My first strategy is to increase methods of healing for our Black girls by providing them with school counselors to allow them to have access to the help that they need before classifying them as delinquents. This policy would eradicate the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy which builds on the trauma and makes it harder for our girls to succeed in school. Focusing on healing will benefits Black girls by helping them heal from the trauma and also find healthier, more socially acceptable ways to cope with trauma in the future. The second strategy is to educate the teachers and administrators about the master narratives of the public-school system; such as ideals of white femininity so that they can educate our Black girls, and Black students in general, in a way that does not dismiss their Blackness and force them into a constraint of whiteness that they cannot fit into.

References

Haynes, C., Stewart, S., & Allen, E. (2016). Three Paths, One Struggle: Black Women and Girls Battling Invisibility in U.S. Classrooms. Journal Of Negro Education, 85(3), 380-391

Morris, M. W. (2016). Protecting Black Girls. Educational Leadership, 74(3), 49.

Morris, M. W. (2016) Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. The New York Press. New York, NY