Sadowski’s examination of Fordham and Ogbu’s understanding of “acting white” includes descriptions of black students’ “strategies to negotiate between racial group loyalty and academic achievement.” While Fordham and Ogbu often see this notion manifest in students “not trying”, “skipping school” and “maintaining a low profile”, I wonder if the requirement of dress shirts, slacks and ties forces students’ bodies to act white in conjunction with other school-driven forces. I am reminded of Foucault’s idea of “docile bodies” — those that are easily manipulated by the state. I wonder how certain uniforms, often those seen in charter schools, often restrict movement and access to the body thus forcing some notions of whiteness (stillness, dis-embodiment in the classroom, etc) upon students. I also wonder how these restrictive outfits may produce oppositional results as they are often uncomfortable — forcing student to squirm inside. This moment of discomfort within a paternalistically prescribed uniform is but one example of “the burden of acting white.”
Category Archives: Observing to Learn and Learning to Observe
Students as “Full Human Beings”
“The Prospect Center processes are also useful and are more widely associated with the powerful and respectful way the allow teachers to assess children, not as students with deficits of understanding but as full human beings making sense of the world (Knoester 149)” Continue reading Students as “Full Human Beings”
Descriptions enhance our effectiveness as teachers
“Describing I pause, and pausing, attend. Describing requires that I stand back and consider. Describing requires that I not rush to judgment or conclude before I have looked. …I have to set aside familiar categories for classing and generalizing. I have to stay with the subject of my attention.I have to give it time to speak, to show itself.To describe teaches me that the subject of my attention always exceeds what I can see…I learn that when I see a lot, I am still seeing only a little and partially. I learn that when others join in, the description is always fuller that what I saw along.” (Carini 2001, 163) Continue reading Descriptions enhance our effectiveness as teachers
The fixed mindset threat
Ogbu and Fordham argue that black students and other ‘minorities’ (e.g., Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and others whose groups have been dominated by white European culture) come to equate academic success with “acting white.” For these researchers, such perceptions lead to the devaluation of academic pursuits and the adoption of self-defeating behaviors that inhibit possibilities for academic success (Noguera, P.A., 2008, p. 28).
The theory that students of color or minorities associate school-related success to the notion of “acting white” carries more damage than good. On the one hand, it is an explanation to the gap between students of color and white students. On the other, it threatens to encourage one of the teacher’s deadliest sins a teacher ‑ establish preconceived notions of students, in this case, students of color. Teachers who adopt this idea that students do not perform well because they do not want to betray their community and do not act upon it is the same as thinking students of color do not perform well because they are students of color.
BDT FTW: Overcoming the discomfort
My MVP this week comes from Beverly Daniel Tatum. I’ve used her work both as a student and as an educator (it was the jumping off point for my favorite lessons with my Italian students, focusing on privileges).
The passage from her essay “Opening the Dialogue about Race at School” that struck me is:
“We needed to respond, we responded, and now we don’t have to talk about it anymore” (49).
I feel like this quote is unfortunately true for so many well-intended groups, both in and outside of school settings. Something sets off the community, there are efforts of reparation but they don’t survive the long run. Tatum goes on to remind us that despite the initial discomfort one might feel when broaching a subject such as systemic racism or societal inequalities, it is nevertheless important to keep pushing forward; the discomfort will eventually subside. Tatum notes that the discomfort may even develop into excitement or relief.
This idea ties into our reading from last week by Michelle Fine on the silencing culture that can be found in our schools. While it may be daunting to address the elephant(s) in the room as an educator, it is important to teach your students that, firstly, their experiences are valid and have a place in the classroom and, secondly, that they should not be intimidated into keeping quiet about what they see going on around them. We have a responsibility to continue responding to the issues and experiences our students bring to the classroom.