My name is Christine Baker and I am a student at the College of New Jersey. For my Introduction to Professional Writing class I am working with a group on a project that will be featured as part of the ASALH website. ASALH is an organization that supports the education of African American life and history. The project will be focused around the Brown vs. Board of Education project which promotes equality in education. The purpose of this project is to educate and inform the masses about racism and equal opportunity in education as well as desegregation and curriculum requirements in the schools.
One of your past students recommended you for your opinions on the area of equality in race and education rights due to the fact that you have taught in other areas of the world. My group was interested in learning more about the views of equality in race and education in other parts of the world. I believe that your experience in this area would give a lot of insight on the subject of racism and how to combat it in the schoolsystems. It would be greatly appreciated if you could give some feedbackon the subject if possible. Some questions my group has for you are:
1.) How do you perceive the current state of race in education in terms of student-to-student and student-to-teacher interpersonal relations? In other words, do you believe that equal education is promoted enough in the school system through teachers and their students?
2.)How effective do you believe race education is in schools today?
3.) Given your assessment of today's state of affairs, what needs to change? How should things be? What sort of environment should students be learning in?
4.) In your opinon, what policies need to be instituted for that to be accomplished? Do you recommend certain school curriculum?
5.) Does this battle for equality in race and education have to start in the school systems and if not where else can it start?
Thank you very much for your time. My group and I greatly appreciate it as well as ASALH members who support equality in the school systems.
~Christine Baker
baker12@tcnj.edu
Professor Stuart Carroll
Teacher Preparation / Global Studies
Coordinator, Master of Arts in Teaching
The College of New Jersey
1.) How do you perceive the current state of race in education in terms of student-to-student and student-to-teacher interpersonal relations? In other words, do you believe that equal education is promoted enough in the school system through teachers and their students?
Most of the schools in Trenton are quite segregated. In the classrooms which are mixed, I have not seen any incidents of racism between students. The children are aware of race and may talk about it but never in disparaging ways.
Teacher-student relations are another story. I think a lot of white teachers in Trenton have little respect for their black students and have low expectations of them. This is not universally the case, but it is the norm. I always wonder how these teachers would feel if their own children were treated the way they treat their students. There is little respect for or interest in the children's backgrounds or cultures and there is an assumption that all of the black children are from dysfunctional homes. Middle class black teachers of poor urban black children don't necessarily treat the children better, by the way. My theory is that they so badly want the children to do well that they get unduly angry when the children disappoint them.
This is much less the way with Hispanic children. Most black and white teachers will cut them some slack because they are immigrants or non-native speakers. Their Hispanic teachers really like them. There are a few black and white teachers who have negative attitudes towards immigrant children but this is rare.
In Israel, where I taught for many years, there are great divisions among the eastern European Jewish children and the North African Jewish children. Ethnicity and group identity are not sources of embarrassment, however, and teachers and students can joke about the various ethnic groups without meanness. Sometimes there are significant tensions between native born Israelis and Russian immigrant children. Teachers tend to like the Russians, however, since many of their families value education highly.
2.)How effective do you believe race education is in schools today?
Hmm, a tough question. Most of the time I think race education is pretty shallow. It touches on themes of fairness and the need not to discriminate but it doesn't do much historical analysis or really look at inequality in American society. There's a lot of celebration of diversity without much thinking about it. But there isn't much thinking about anything in schools so this isn't that surprising...
3.) Given your assessment of today's state of affairs, what needs to change? How should things be? What sort of environment should students
be learning in?
Students need teachers who are genuinely curious about their cultures, who value them and bring them into the classroom in meaningful ways. Teachers need to do home visits and spend time in the communities where they teach. The curriculum needs to be a lot more political so that poor minority children will understand how their families were short-changed historically and will consider how to go about demanding and obtaining their rights in the future. Students need to see how knowledge can become power if used properly.
4.) In your opinon, what policies need to be instituted for that to be accomplished? Do you recommend certain school curriculum?
A tough question again. What you really need is a sea change in school cultures. I guess black children can benefit from an Afro-centric curriculum but I hate when these go overboard and start to put the need to build national pride above the need for academic honesty. For example, nobody really knows if the ancient Egyptians were black, and to treat this as a fact just to create a black equivalent of the ancient Greeks and Romans seems wrong. African Americans have benefitted from the Greek and Roman influences on this country as much as European Americans have and nobody should act as if they don't own it because of where they originated.
5.) Does this battle for equality in race and education have to start in the school systems and if not where else can it start?
Schools are as good a place to start as any. What other cultural institutions do we have?
That's it. Hope you don't mind that I don't talk much about Israel. It just didn't seem relevant. Please e-mail me if you have any further questions.