Happy New School Year!

✨ “An educator in a system of oppression is either a revolutionary or an oppressor.” Lerone Bennett Jr., historian and author ✨

The Courage to Teach Our Children: There Can Be No Excuses

By Dr. Rhonda Sherrod

As educators, we must continually remind ourselves of who we are! We have the ability to transform the way students perceive—not only the world—but themselves. We have the capacity to help transport our students to places they never dreamed of as we equip them with the tools to see themselves as global citizens who have the right to dream boldly and to see those dreams through to fruition. If you think about it, I mean really think about it, you have no choice but to conclude that we are entrusted with awesome power. And, of course, with awesome power comes awesome responsibility. So how can we wield this power responsibly?

 (READ the rest in the “Heal Us” section down below)

Schools and Education

The head of the powerful Chicago Teacher’s Union, Stacy Davis Gates, is being lambasted for sending her adolescent son to a private school. Here is a comprehensive podcast interview she just gave to veteran Chicago Sun-Times reporter, Fran Spielman.

It is past time for a highly orchestrated approach to the deliberate disinvestment, the sheer lack of concern, and the harm being enacted in majority Black public school systems.

The assault on Black people’s quest for a high quality education has been continuous. Consider the fact that thousands of Black schools have been attacked or burned down since the Civil War; 631 schools were attacked between 1864-1876 alone.

Here’s a wonderful article on the great Chicago educator, the late Marva Collins. She was fed up with the deficient education her students were receiving in the Chicago Public Schools, so she used her own money to start her own school. Her students were so impressive that President Ronald Reagan asked her to be his Secretary of Education. She said, “Nah.”

This is a deadly serious question: Will Black people allow the school systems designed by the white power structure to continue failing and miseducating our children for their purposes (e.g. low-paying jobs to further enrich the power elite, populating prisons with Black bodies, etc.)? Yes, it is that serious. Groups of people across the country have been aggressively trying to, and succeeding in, enacting a racist agenda for a while now…

Pull the “report card” for local public schools and weep. Why is this allowed?

Anger at the head of the Chicago Teacher’s Union may be valid, but the whole situation should be analyzed through a much broader and sophisticated lens. Public schools should be fixed, not privatized and plundered.

Here is an article my students must read to have, at least, some understanding of Black people’s struggle to access a quality education.

A new book, Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal, by Columbia University scholar (and former college hoopster), Dr. Bettina Love, surveys some of the harm to which our students and communities are exposed.

Still Separate, Still Unequal, Education in America 70 years after Brown vs. Board of Education (PBS)

As American auto workers demand a modicum of justice, here’s some info about the historical presence of Blacks in labor efforts and unions:

Black people participated in labor activities even before the Civil War.

More Black labor history 

Black revolutionary auto labor efforts and thought

A few statistics about Black labor

More often than you think, Black workers have been violently run off job sites by white mobs who wanted their jobs. In his book, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America, journalist Elliot Jaspin writes about it. He describes such an incident in this NPR interview.

What Took So Long?

Donald John Trump’s latest indictment

For many Black people the question has long been obvious. Are you kidding? Why isn’t Donald Trump already on trial for his alleged involvement in the sordid events leading up to the January 6, 2021 insurrection? We’re all familiar with the shocking and outrageous testimony that poured forth during the January 6 Congressional hearings, brilliantly chaired by Mississippi Congressional Rep. Bennie Thompson.

And who can forget the extreme harm visited upon long time Georgia public servants, Lady Ruby Freeman, and her daughter, Shaye Moss, as a result of the brazen, audacious lies effortlessly told by Trump acolytes, like Rudy Giuliani?

Now, the daughter of a lawyer and former Black Panther, top Fulton County Georgia prosecutor, Fani Willis, has a bead on Trump. DA Willis has a Malcolm X quote on her office wall: “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against.” In her pursuit of domestic tranquility, I don’t think this DA will miss. 🎉

Trumpsters’ problem with perspicacious Black legal minds

Also, according to a new Court finding, for many years, Trump got away with building an “empire” like this

Books and Literature

With books and libraries under attack, how does a society advance?

Griot writer and culture critic, Michael Harriot’s, anticipated book on Black history, Black AF, is out now

Policing

Nine current and former police officers, in two towns just outside San Francisco, were arrested on suspicion of years of racially targeted policing, brutality and other assorted corruption charges.

Social Justice

Black Thriving in America: 2023 (PDF download), is a report from the Payne Center for Social Justice, using data from Gallup’s Center on Black Voices, focusing on the wellbeing of Black America.

History

In September, 1906 a vicious race massacre was raging in Atlanta because Black people had the audacity to prosper.

Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching, by Harvard scholar, Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, reminds us that Black people’s access to education was often underground, because it has always been considered subversive. Here Dr. Givens talks about Dr. Woodson, the phenomenal educator who dedicated his life to educating Black people about themselves.

“Race, Whiteness, and the fallacy of the American Dream” through film tropes

Culture

Theater

Just in time for autumn, comes a new play about “the election that changed the game.” Mayor Maynard Jackson was a brilliant force to be reckoned with. He was the architect of the “New South” Atlanta of today where untold numbers of Black professionals relocated and found a space where they could ply their prodigious gifts. Now, comes award wining creative, Pearl Cleage’s play, Something Moving: A Meditation on Maynard, about this highly esteemed and deeply respected mayor who changed the game.

Sports

Win or lose, Deion Sanders is on top of the world

And it’s not just the sports world he is influencing, as he upsets the power structure

Science

“Treeless, breezeless tracts of hot concrete and pavement within cities have become known as urban heat islands.”

Politics

MAGA lunatic leaders and other MAGA wing nuts threaten authorities investigating, prosecuting and refusing to go along with Trump, as well as jurors. So, DA Fani Willis has begun asking for protections. January 6th prosecutor, Jack Smith has, too.

Remember that Trump decided to run for president after authorities commenced several criminal and civil investigations into his behavior. Criminal investigations and charges aimed at holding him accountable had been commenced already when he announced his candidacy. He is not being prosecuted because he is running for president.

Mental Wellness

10 things you can do when you’re not feeling strong

Humor

Nephew Tommy challenges “Twilight”

Our children are so talented. Bring the arts back to our schools!

Careful! This can happen

Healing Us

The Courage to Teach Our Children

Dr. Rhonda Sherrod

As educators, we must continually remind ourselves of who we are! We have the ability to transform the way students perceive—not only the world—but themselves. We have the capacity to help transport our students to places they never dreamed of as we equip them with the tools to see themselves as global citizens who have the right to dream boldly and to see those dreams through to fruition. If you think about it, I mean really think about it, you have no choice but to conclude that we are entrusted with awesome power. And, of course, with awesome power comes awesome responsibility. So how can we wield this power responsibly?

Well, first, we have to have what educator and author Parker J. Palmer calls “the courage to teach.” As he strongly cautions us against standing still in our professional development, he writes: 

“Stagnation is the state chosen by teachers who are so threatened by students that they barricade themselves behind their credentials, their podiums, their status, their research. Ironically, this choice for stagnation mirrors the disengagement of the students these teachers fear. Having been wounded by fearful young people who hold their teachers at arm’s length, these teachers fearfully fend off their students, thus feeding the cycle of fear.

“It is not unusual to see faculty in mid-career don the armor of cynicism against students, education, and any sign of hope. It is the cynicism that comes when the high hopes one once had for teaching have been dashed by experience—or by the failure to interpret one’s experience accurately…” [Emphasis added] (pg. 13)

I know about that which Palmer speaks! I am now certain that I have wanted to be a teacher all my life. My family chuckles to this day about how, as a young girl, I taught school every day, without fail. I was quite the rigid teacher and my pupil (or captive)—my baby brother— would call our mom and dad on their jobs to complain about the work I had assigned him to complete before he could go outside to play! However, because I poured so much knowledge into him, and because, like most kids, he was brilliant anyway, when he enrolled in school, he sailed through, achieving all kinds of honors.

But I digress; let’s get back to "the courage to teach." When I became a college educator, as my second career, I was incensed by how immature and underprepared for college level work most of my students were. For a moment, I felt completely demoralized. "I want to be a college professor," my inner voice wailed. And if I am to be honest about it, I was nothing short of devastated. I had moved almost 1200 miles to arrive at the university, the working climate and morale were horrible, I sensed no real collegiality among faculty, the office I was assigned was tacky, ugly, and small—hardly inspiring; and I felt I had made a serious mistake by accepting the job.

However, acknowledging a challenge that simply had to be met, I recovered and began to experiment with different ways of delivering academic content to my disenchanted students. As professionals, we are trained to be problem-solvers; and I realized I could not demand that my students analyze information and think critically if I was not willing to do the same for them. Even more to the point, I have always believed that a world-class education is the one thing that can stand between success and failure for my beautiful, if exasperating, students. I knew how important their education was even if they did not. As the person deemed to be the “expert” in the room, and as the one deemed to have the superior fund of knowledge about human behavior, I made educating each and every one of them—not teaching, but educating them—and making them understand the importance of an education—my personal challenge every single day of every single semester.

Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu talks about teachers who teach the lesson, perhaps brilliantly, but fail to teach the child; and I was one who put a lot of energy into developing my lectures--really wonderful lectures—but I realized, early on, that students were not getting it, even though I felt I was almost spoon feeding the material. But it was only after I made invaluable connections and built important relationships and rapport with my students that they began to soar. I later learned that there is a body of research about schools and “connectedness” that makes it clear that students who have caring, responsive, supportive relationships in school have better outcomes, including being more engaged with, placing more value on, and having a better attitude toward, school and academics.* 

So, I began to do the work necessary to engage them. Mentally, I assessed each student. For each student I asked myself: Who is she? In what is he interested? What makes her smile? What does it take to spark his curiosity? From where does she hail? What is his hometown like? What would compel her to talk? What kind of music does he like? In what and who are these students interested? If I played Nina Simone proudly and emphatically singing “Young, Gifted, and Black,” would they recognize themselves?

If I quoted conscientious rappers like Lauryn Hill, would they respond? What kind of comments can I make on any given day to this or that student to break through the walls that separate us so the student can have not just a good experience, but a phenomenal academic experience that she will always remember? After I made these assessments, indeed, as I was making them, I freed myself to just let it flow. Naturally, organically, and with the force of my personality—which is naturally caring and compassionate—things just turned around. My students began to flourish! I realize now, that I was just exhibiting “the courage to teach.”

The payoff was big. By the end of each semester, because I was willing to put the time in to “problem-solve,” I had classes where the overwhelming majority of the students were so “turned on” to, and engaged with, knowledge, my colleagues began asking me, “What are you doing? Your students love your classes.” I eagerly shared some of the tactics, strategies, and techniques from my repertoire with my colleagues, because I firmly believe that we can all capture the magic we need to light up our classrooms and create ultra-engaged learners. Our students can transform into academic superstars right before our eyes as a result of the lift we give them. That is, of course, the joy of teaching. We just have to, as Palmer says, have “the courage to teach.”

 References:

Kunjufu, J. (2013). Changing school culture for Black males. Chicago: African American Images

Palmer, P. J. (1998). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

 *See, for example:

Rosenfeld, L.B., Richman, J.M., & Bowen, G.L. (1998) Low Social Support among At-Risk Adolescents. Children & Schools, 20 (4), 245–260, https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/20.4.245.

Klem, A.M. & Connell, J.P. (2004). Relationships Matter: Linking Teacher Support to Student Engagement and Achievement. Journal of School Health, 74 (7), 262-273.

Barber, B. & Olsen J. (1997). Socialization in context: Connection, regulation, and autonomy in the family, school, and neighborhood, and with peers. Journal of Adolescent Research, 12 (2), 287-315.

Also, remember, Dr. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – “belonging” is one of those needs!

**A different version of this essay was published on www.theneedtoknow.com in 2017

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MORE HEALING:

A good graphic of how it should be at school

Keep making plays

Have Productive and Difference Making Days!

SHE (Surviving, Healing, and Evolving)

“Unlocking Healing, Fearlessness, and Freedom”

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