Teaching after Brown v. Board of Ed.

Hello students,

As you know on Thursday May 24, we will be attending a special event featuring African-American Storytelling at the Fox Point Community Library from 4 to 5:30 in order to fulfill the education-related event stipulated on our syllabus (and mostly because it will be as fun as educational:)

However, in order to better prepare ourselves for this event, it is important that you complete the following before the event:

1- Read Kozol's "Still separate, still unequal" & Wise's selection from "Between Barack and the Hard place" (course reserve)- as distributed in class beforehand-, and Kirp's Making schools better (New York Times, May 20, 2012), which I emailed to you this week.

2- Carefully watch the four videos (as many times as you need to, take notes, reflect) I uploaded to this blog in the following order:

- Clark Doll experiment (1)
- Doll experiment (2)

These two experiments were instrumental in building the case for Brown v. Board of Ed. (1954) as advocacy for the desegregation of schools

- Revenge of the brown eyes (3)

This experiment (Class divided) was devised and performed in 1968 by a classroom teacher named Jane Elliot after the assassination of MLK. She divided her class of all white eight year old students along the color of their eyes and applied a different treatment in every classroom and playground activity favoring blue eyes on the first day, and brown eyes on the second day. Her goal was to teach them about internalized and institutional racism. This experiment was controversial and criticized. You will be watching what happens on the second day.

- Washington Journal Interview, The New Jim Crow. (4)

Interview of Michelle Alexander about her latest book which addresses the intersection of the war against drugs and the imprisonment of millions of African-American men)

3- Think about how institutional racism is anchored in our society and feeds internalized racism in the way Wise analyzes it, and what the impact might be on Black and Brown students' approach to schools - Delpit's Culture of Power - and school achievement.
Think about segregation/desegregation/re-segregation in the way Kozol/Kirp analyze it. Think about what you are observing in your tutoring site. Think about what "actual diversity" means, and how everyone (race, ethnicity, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, body ability, religion, etc) might benefit from a completely desegregated and truly diverse school environment.

4- Reflect on your blog about all of it. This assignment must be completed before attending the event Thursday May 24 at 4pm.

Clarke Doll experiment (1)

Clarke Doll Experiment (2)

Revenge of the Brown Eyes, J. Elliot (3)

The New Jim Crow (4)

What should I write about in my blog?

Hello FNED 546 Students, As explained on our syllabus, this blog is a place for you to journal, reflect, and share about your experience in Providence schools this month and connect this experience to:
- Course texts, theorists’ arguments/class discussions,
- Your own schooling experience,
- Other personal and professional experiences.
Most importantly, tell us stories from your classroom to illustrate all of the above!

You are required to post 6 sentries:
- Bio,
- Post 1 about the demographics of your school,
- Post 2-5, choose 4 prompts from the list of prompts 2 to 7 below.
Please include the title & number of the prompt in the title of posts 2 to 5 using the bolded words
Of course, please feel free to post more than 6 entries!
We will examine each prompt in class so please bring all your questions!

For your convenience, I am reproducing here the list of prompts from pp 4-5 of our course syllabus !

1) Describe the neighborhood, school building and classroom in which you are volunteering.
What do you notice about the space and structure of the school? How do people use the space? How does this school “feel” to you? What contributes to this feeling? Describe the classroom, the teacher, and the students. What is valued in this school? In this classroom? How can you tell? Check out data from http://infoworks.ride.ri.gov about your school. Give examples.

2) The culturally competent teacher should be able to account for, demonstrate awareness of, and respond to the socio-cultural distinctiveness of her or his students, families, and communities when planning for and delivering instruction.
Describe the linguistic, ethnic, and socio-cultural characteristics of the students in the classroom in which you are tutoring (Use the data on Infoworks as well your observations). What cultural capital do the children bring into the classroom? What assets can be developed that will strengthen our society/democracy?

3) The culturally competent teacher should be able to use a variety of assessment techniques appropriate to diverse learners and accommodate socio-cultural differences that affect learning.
How might the teacher be responsive to the linguistic, ethnic, and socio-cultural characteristics of the students in his or her assessment practices?

4) The culturally competent teacher is aware of the diverse cultural groups represented in his/her classroom, investigates the socio-cultural factors that influence student learning, and is able to integrate this knowledge into his/her teaching.
No one enters a classroom without a personal history; thus, no one enters a classroom completely free of bias. How might your personal history/socio-cultural characteristics intersect with those of your students? What challenges or advantages might you have as a teacher in this classroom? What misconceptions about various cultural groups have you confronted during this experience? Give examples.

5) The culturally competent teacher involves and works with families and community resources, understanding the differences in families, the important influence of family participation in students’ learning, and the benefit of collaborating with the wider school community.
Imagine that you are the teacher of this classroom. What challenges might you encounter in collaborating with the parents of your students? How might you address these challenges? How might you demonstrate respect for the concerns or contributions of parents?

6) The culturally competent teacher communicates in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to socio-cultural and linguistic differences, using a variety of verbal and non-verbal communication techniques that encourage positive social interaction and support learning in their classroom.
How have you (or the classroom teacher) communicated in ways that demonstrate sensitivity and responsiveness to socio-cultural and linguistic differences? Give examples.

7) How is this experience shaping your teacher identity? Give specific examples/stories.

Creating your blog is easy!

Hello Context of Schooling students,

As early as possible during the first week of class, you will set up your own blog for this course. A blog is your very own personal online journal. It is public, in that I and your classmates can read it and comment on it, but it is your space and you can control most of it. (If you want to make it private so that only" members of this class can read it, we will figure out how to do that together).

Creating your own blog will also introduce you to the blogisphere if you do not know this place already. I hope that you will discover creative educational uses for this online medium. You will see how easy it is to use blogger.com and perhaps it will inspire you to bring blogs into your classroom as well!

To start you own blog, you will go to:

http://www.blogger.com

The big orange box at the top right of the page will direct you to create your own blog on a site called blogspot.com. Follow the instructions to open a free account. Do not forget your username and password: You will need them every time to sign in. As you fill in the information you will be asked to name your blog. This title will appear at the top of your blog. Mine is called "Contexts of Schooling FNED 546 May 2012."

Then you need to choose an address:

http://_________blogspot.com

This will be the web address associated with your blog. You can call it anything you like. Be clever or simple (or both). It's up to you.

You will also need to choose a design template for your blog. Look at the options listed and see what appeals to you. You can even change this later and even find fun, creative templates at sites like PYZAM. Once you have the account set up, you can start posting. A "posting" is an entry on your blog. For clarifications, you can have one blog, but many postings. Give the post a title and compose it like you would any journal entry. When you're finished, hit the button at the bottom that says "Publish Post." Your post will not appear on your blog until you publish it. You can always go back and edit old posts, and create new ones.

Your first post

Your first post should be a short introduction of yourself: Who you are, how is your spring going so far, what you do when you are not in class, (just a short bio paragraph - no big deal). You will post the rest of the entries as they are due (please see course syllabus schedule for dates). Pages 4 & 5 of our course syllabus will be posted in my next entry for easy consultation. In addition, you can post any time you feel like sharing something!

IMPORTANT: When you are done creating your blog, and writing your bio, please come back to this blog, and post a comment with your complete/exact blog address so that I can post it in the link list to the right. Once the links to all your blogs are listed, this blog will become our class blog :-)

Some Tips and Helpful Hints

Once you are in your blog, look at the top right hand corner of the screen. If you click on the word CUSTOMIZE, you will be able to make design changes, create new post, edit old posts, etc...(You can only do that if you are signed into your blog). Once you are in the CUSTOMIZE screen, you can do all kinds of things to make your blog a bit more interesting. Change your font or color, edit a post, change your settings: See the tabs at the top of the screen for all kinds of options. Poke around online and make a lists of websites related to education, diversity, social justice, or anything else relevant and post them to your blog. You can add all kinds of things by ADDING A GADGET from your LAYOUT tab. Just do the best you can with this. If you get stuck, don't fret...I'm happy to help you anytime as you work on getting started. Send me an email or grab me after class. And remember, you can't break it! it's just a blog. Everything can be changed if need be.

Good luck! Bonne chance!

Odile Mattiauda