I am applying for the award based on my commitment to working on racial issues in Minneapolis schools. My adult life has been spent working on creating a deeper understanding of cultural issues related to both ethnicity and race. I grew up in a mono-racial culture as a bi-cultural child and student. As a student both in Iceland and in the US, I have struggled with being an invisible outsider. I am racially and ethnically European American, however being both Icelandic and Irish American I have worked to function in disparate cultural enclaves. The skills I developed as a child and an adult have carried into my research interests. My focus on better understanding the US racial divide came when as a young college student I became the parent of a mixed race child. I was forcibly entered into this racial divide that I had not experienced before as a white European American. However, my real wake up call came when my son began having academic issues in high school and after I read bell hooks’ We real cool. Suddenly I realized that the problems we had been experiencing were not due to a deficiency of his home life or his ability to learn, but rather based on how he was perceived in his school community. Then by chance many of the parents who’s children were of mixed race origins began describing similar experiences with their students. I began to suspect that this was a much greater problem and could perhaps be traced at the institutional level. These experiences shaped what then developed as my doctoral dissertation topic.
Currently a doctoral candidate in Comparative International Development Education, I am gathering data. I spend two days a week volunteering in classrooms at a local high school. I have struggled to finish my program, as a single parent working full time on my degree with little support from outside funding sources. My goal as a PhD is to further explore and develop deeper understanding of the racial divide that persists in U.S. schools. My dissertation topic focuses on teen racial identity, more specifically on multi-racial teen identity. In a culture as diverse as ours, the continued reliance on simplified racial categories for understanding and reaching out to students is stunting our ability to help students achieve at higher levels. Over and over again we hear stories of students failing. The Twin Cities continues to have in-excusably low minority graduation rates (50%), yet in the classrooms little changes. For sure there are minority students who do succeed, but my current project has reveled that the average minority student is getting a 2.0 or less, just enough to stay on the basketball team (Observation notes 2.10.2011). Their only desire is to be done with high school and what little enthusiasm they muster is clamped down to follow the set agenda for the day, even when the questions are related to the material and cover things that have previously been discussed. I do not doubt that there is a sincere desire on the behalf of teachers and administrators for the students to succeed. But the one size fits all model is failing. It is failing rapidly, in a time when budgets are getting tighter and tighter, the need include everyone is stronger than ever. We are slipping in status world wide in terms of innovation and college completion. Yet schools is where we hope develop students for an innovative society, and we leave out 50% of the possible population by continuously failing to help minority students, we close down under-preforming schools, bring in business models to educate students, and still show no or little performance improvement. Is this solely tied to race? no I do not believe it is, social and economic class plays a large role in it as well. My research examines how these three aspects affect students who come from largely middle class white backgrounds, even though the students are mixed race. The largest proportion of interracial couples is among more educated groups, yet these students have been labeled as the students who face the most challenges academically. My goal is to expose the myths surrounding the mixed race arguments of instability, social unfitness and the categorical penchant to label all students mono-racially. Chances are any student at teacher encounters, is ethnically, culturally, economically or racially mixed. Just as we say we can’t judge a book by its cover, we can’t judge students by their covers yet we do so daily.
This grant would help me finish gathering my data enable me to purchase analysis software and allow me to spend some time working directly with students so that I can get a more holistic view of their experiences and some space to just write, by minimizing my financial worries. It is difficult to write and conduct research when a student is worried about loosing housing or whether she can pay the heat bill or buy food for her small but important family.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
This week and thoughts 20110218
This week I went to a school "coffee" house where one of the students in my study performed. She didn't think she did too well, then last night I went to see another student in the study play basketball. That was fun, I had forgotten how much fun games were. Tay only played a short while and the last team he was on was not so great since the coach preferenced his players (students from his school) over the other students from a different school, even though Tay and his school mates were better players. Ah I have hit my other nerve of late, how I failed to get my son the proper education.
Is it bad that one of the reasons I am writing what I am is to better understand why I failed to get him the help and schooling I thought was good for him. I know for sure that this system is massively broken, so broken in fact that most of the kids I know have gpas under 2.0 and they are fine with that. I listen to students tell me they are not smart and try and get me to buy into that belief. This is after they have just demonstrated that they have learned the needed materials even when they have their heads on the desk, look like they are sleeping or are wandering around the class room. So many of them have told me that they are not good at math and that they hate math. Now I am not one to say I love math, but I do like it quite a bit, and find myself doing little math problems every day. We are miserably failing these students, boxing them up sending them off to community colleges and state schools, terribly under-prepared and behind, to such an extent that it is unlikely that they can catch up to the rest of the world by the time they graduate. We know this and we keep doing the same old same old.
Sit up, stop talking, face forward and pay attention to this deathly boring power point that some educational production house put together to help a teacher who can't keep up, who has so much other work and other stressors that the time she needs to get the work for tomorrow is overshadowed by the time she has to spend on recording and filing and grading what happened today. One of the students got to check her answers and copy answers out of the book. I told her the only reason I wasn't doing anything about it is because by copying the answers she was still learning something and that counts almost as much, although it lacks the development of critical thinking skills. It will be interesting to follow the other students around and see the other class rooms. Better teachers hopefully, although the history (AP) didn't really impress me at all.
One of the the things that really blows my mind is the paucity of books in the classrooms. Are they really so scared that the student will steal the books that they don't have them. Chris We. asked me yet another odd question this week about setting fire to farts. Of course I had a smart response and told him that it would most likely burn the ass hairs off first, at which point Kevin tried to ask the teacher if that would really happen, but my don't you dare got him to stop. Ok so I sit in the back of the room and chatter and make jokes, but they come to me for help and poke me for attention and beg me not to leave. Greet me in the halls, talk to me at games, bumm a dollar from me, like it when I give them chocolate, act all surprised when I know a biggie song or who Ez E is. I have offered to help with class work, especially math, since that seems to be the biggest piece. It is as if there is little actual reinforcement, oh plenty of repeating of work answering the same questions over and over in slightly different forms, but really no active application or learning of the terms. Many of them seem to not want to read the stuff, and I wonder how many of them are functionally literate. I know they read their phones and look on the internet all the time, but that is different and requires a totally different set of skills. No one has taught them how to read a text book, all that money is wasted on these very expensive books that they never read and barely touch. If they are assigned work in the book, they go straight to the work and ignore the previous pages, they want not to have to read them and just get the answers. Again and again they have this disconnect between what they have to do and what they have learned. For example. I had to go around the room and help everybody understand the 3CO2H2O was really CO2H2O CO2H2O CO2H2O. Some how they had not learned that or had missed it. Not really surprising given the teacher. ChrisWe asked me to rate the teacher on a scale, and then rather astutely asked how much of it was the teacher and how much of it was the students. I of course told him that it was not for me to judge. He told me if you are a bad teacher then the kids are going to be bad, if you are a strict teacher and a good teacher the kids will respect you and work for you. It is funny that he knows this but still can't stop talking and asking off task questions and trying to get away with no work. Will asked me if mixed kids were more likely to be adhd, and I said I didn't think so, he also told me he was. I believe it, it is really hard to get him to focus, but when I have him at the back of the room just him and me and Rodney they work hard and do well. Isiah is a bit of a distraction but most days I can get them to settle down and work. Same is true of Kevin and Chris. I am a bit worried about my report with Chris Wa, he is so angry and resentful, and I have annoyed him a few times, by asking him to settle down. He hate the class and doesn't want to be there and is not making much of an effort to help out with the study and class, but last class one of the squeeky girls sat by him and they chattered the whole time and missed the majority of what was need. He gets up and leaves when ever he wants, doesn't seem to get in trouble for wandering the halls. He seems to know how to avoid the hall monitors. A few of them spent much of the time out in the halls. I have to work on Brandon a bit, he is quiet, and sits there, just being distracted. Not like the ones who are constantly seeking attention. Like Chris We and Wa, or Kevin. I showed Carnell a picture of Tay last night and he said your son looks black. He's your right not adopted. And I smiled and said yes. There was a mixed race couple at the game, their son was playing. Honestly I would have been hard pressed to guess he was mixed, but then his dad looked mixed himself, probably about my age a bit older, very light skinned, and with more European features, so the son was literally white and the only clues were the fact that he had thicker lips and course hair. So if the dad hadn't been there then he would have easily passed as a white kid. I think that Sue M. (AP) is slowly warming up to me, not so put off by me. Smith is not interested in race at all, even with the growing population of non whites in the school. The kids are fairly unconcerned overall about race, usually the discussion is done in a joking fashion, although there are some slights like when Kevin told Chris he was not black. Then there are the discussion like with CWe trying to convince me he is black or mixed. And asking Kevin to agree and my asking if he is honorary. Then the boys telling me Markus is Hawaiian and white. OR Rodney trying to convince me he is mixed. I had a really interesting discussion with Chris We, Kevin and Erick about why latinos, somalis and asian sit apart but the Afro Am and white kids mix much more. Chris wanted to know why and thought it was because the other groups were being exclusive, and we talked about how they feel more comfortable in their ethnic groups the one time during the day where they can sit and speak in their native languages and have a communal understanding of each other because they have similar experiences.
Is it bad that one of the reasons I am writing what I am is to better understand why I failed to get him the help and schooling I thought was good for him. I know for sure that this system is massively broken, so broken in fact that most of the kids I know have gpas under 2.0 and they are fine with that. I listen to students tell me they are not smart and try and get me to buy into that belief. This is after they have just demonstrated that they have learned the needed materials even when they have their heads on the desk, look like they are sleeping or are wandering around the class room. So many of them have told me that they are not good at math and that they hate math. Now I am not one to say I love math, but I do like it quite a bit, and find myself doing little math problems every day. We are miserably failing these students, boxing them up sending them off to community colleges and state schools, terribly under-prepared and behind, to such an extent that it is unlikely that they can catch up to the rest of the world by the time they graduate. We know this and we keep doing the same old same old.
Sit up, stop talking, face forward and pay attention to this deathly boring power point that some educational production house put together to help a teacher who can't keep up, who has so much other work and other stressors that the time she needs to get the work for tomorrow is overshadowed by the time she has to spend on recording and filing and grading what happened today. One of the students got to check her answers and copy answers out of the book. I told her the only reason I wasn't doing anything about it is because by copying the answers she was still learning something and that counts almost as much, although it lacks the development of critical thinking skills. It will be interesting to follow the other students around and see the other class rooms. Better teachers hopefully, although the history (AP) didn't really impress me at all.
One of the the things that really blows my mind is the paucity of books in the classrooms. Are they really so scared that the student will steal the books that they don't have them. Chris We. asked me yet another odd question this week about setting fire to farts. Of course I had a smart response and told him that it would most likely burn the ass hairs off first, at which point Kevin tried to ask the teacher if that would really happen, but my don't you dare got him to stop. Ok so I sit in the back of the room and chatter and make jokes, but they come to me for help and poke me for attention and beg me not to leave. Greet me in the halls, talk to me at games, bumm a dollar from me, like it when I give them chocolate, act all surprised when I know a biggie song or who Ez E is. I have offered to help with class work, especially math, since that seems to be the biggest piece. It is as if there is little actual reinforcement, oh plenty of repeating of work answering the same questions over and over in slightly different forms, but really no active application or learning of the terms. Many of them seem to not want to read the stuff, and I wonder how many of them are functionally literate. I know they read their phones and look on the internet all the time, but that is different and requires a totally different set of skills. No one has taught them how to read a text book, all that money is wasted on these very expensive books that they never read and barely touch. If they are assigned work in the book, they go straight to the work and ignore the previous pages, they want not to have to read them and just get the answers. Again and again they have this disconnect between what they have to do and what they have learned. For example. I had to go around the room and help everybody understand the 3CO2H2O was really CO2H2O CO2H2O CO2H2O. Some how they had not learned that or had missed it. Not really surprising given the teacher. ChrisWe asked me to rate the teacher on a scale, and then rather astutely asked how much of it was the teacher and how much of it was the students. I of course told him that it was not for me to judge. He told me if you are a bad teacher then the kids are going to be bad, if you are a strict teacher and a good teacher the kids will respect you and work for you. It is funny that he knows this but still can't stop talking and asking off task questions and trying to get away with no work. Will asked me if mixed kids were more likely to be adhd, and I said I didn't think so, he also told me he was. I believe it, it is really hard to get him to focus, but when I have him at the back of the room just him and me and Rodney they work hard and do well. Isiah is a bit of a distraction but most days I can get them to settle down and work. Same is true of Kevin and Chris. I am a bit worried about my report with Chris Wa, he is so angry and resentful, and I have annoyed him a few times, by asking him to settle down. He hate the class and doesn't want to be there and is not making much of an effort to help out with the study and class, but last class one of the squeeky girls sat by him and they chattered the whole time and missed the majority of what was need. He gets up and leaves when ever he wants, doesn't seem to get in trouble for wandering the halls. He seems to know how to avoid the hall monitors. A few of them spent much of the time out in the halls. I have to work on Brandon a bit, he is quiet, and sits there, just being distracted. Not like the ones who are constantly seeking attention. Like Chris We and Wa, or Kevin. I showed Carnell a picture of Tay last night and he said your son looks black. He's your right not adopted. And I smiled and said yes. There was a mixed race couple at the game, their son was playing. Honestly I would have been hard pressed to guess he was mixed, but then his dad looked mixed himself, probably about my age a bit older, very light skinned, and with more European features, so the son was literally white and the only clues were the fact that he had thicker lips and course hair. So if the dad hadn't been there then he would have easily passed as a white kid. I think that Sue M. (AP) is slowly warming up to me, not so put off by me. Smith is not interested in race at all, even with the growing population of non whites in the school. The kids are fairly unconcerned overall about race, usually the discussion is done in a joking fashion, although there are some slights like when Kevin told Chris he was not black. Then there are the discussion like with CWe trying to convince me he is black or mixed. And asking Kevin to agree and my asking if he is honorary. Then the boys telling me Markus is Hawaiian and white. OR Rodney trying to convince me he is mixed. I had a really interesting discussion with Chris We, Kevin and Erick about why latinos, somalis and asian sit apart but the Afro Am and white kids mix much more. Chris wanted to know why and thought it was because the other groups were being exclusive, and we talked about how they feel more comfortable in their ethnic groups the one time during the day where they can sit and speak in their native languages and have a communal understanding of each other because they have similar experiences.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Living the lingering slow death
Two days a week I volunteer in a local high school. I have been there since September. It is part of my doctoral research. I have been helping out in classrooms while I recruit subjects for my study. The school is a classic American high school, as if I had walked into a scene from American Grafitti. Pale yellow walls, grey lockers, plain linoleum on the floors. It is an older school, the main office has wooden counters and some of the rooms have hard wood floors. The classrooms are a mix of old fashion student desks, with one or two computers, a whiteboard instead of a blackboard, a projector, a screen and speakers. Each teacher gets a wireless mic. The student desks and chairs are hard and uncomfortable. Not much encouragement for a student to sit still. At the end of the day students have to help put up the chairs, and let me tell you they are heavy.
This school is orderly, there is not much noise during the day even at lunch time. The only real altercation I have heard of was a fight last week during lunch time between two African American girls. One of the girls was manhandled into the classroom where I help out by one of the hall monitors. Yes they have adult hall monitors, people who patrol the school halls, keep kids orderly, find out why they are wandering around, escort them to class, in a certain way they are the muscle of the school. The teachers can call on them to remove students from the room who are too disruptive. The school also has on police officer on duty. He's a nice guy, but wanders around with a Beretta on his hip.
Various hallways have paintings by students, the whole back wall of the lunch room is a big student drawn mural. The hall ways are crowded with poster of come to the winter formal, join the theater group, see this choir perform. Once a semester there is spirit week, where students wear garb appropriate to the day. Last Tuesday was Zoo Animal day (it was changed from Jungle Fever Day for obvious reasons implied in the term) and Thursday was class color day (red for seniors, blue (baby) for juniors, green for sophomores, I never figured out what the freshman color was, but then who wants to admit freshmanese).
For the first few weeks, each day that I spent in the school, it took me a day to recover from the pent up energy of 1700 hormonally challenged bodies crushed into a school that doesn’t really fit them. Now it makes me smile to drive all the way to the school at 8 am. The smile is not for the school or the building, but the students. The other parents' babies who are on the threshold of adulthood. The boys and girls who want to stay children but constantly try on the suit of grown-upness only when they want. But why do I title this post lingering slow death, because each day I am there, I see students sitting still, finding ways to get out of work, deadening their creativity and curiousity. Ok, I am being a bit over the top. But really, did you all know that because of the electrons in each atom we never touch anything, or was it the classic “too cool to react” scene.
Yes I know I am a geek, otherwise what would I be doing in these rooms. As one of the students says every time he sees me “What are you doing here, when you don’t have to be?” And he is right, why on earth would anyone want to be in the school, any school. What makes you want to get up and be on time when you know you are stuck in classes that make you pretend you are working, pushing paper, writing nonsense, answering test questions that you will never have to recall again. Stuck everyday for four years in walls that suck any desire from your veins to learn. Sure plenty of kids matriculate fine through these walls, but what can they honestly claim they have learned except a scripted set of answers and actions that will presumably get them into the college of their choice. All of us are players in this fake learning labeled public education and we do it with a smile.
This school is orderly, there is not much noise during the day even at lunch time. The only real altercation I have heard of was a fight last week during lunch time between two African American girls. One of the girls was manhandled into the classroom where I help out by one of the hall monitors. Yes they have adult hall monitors, people who patrol the school halls, keep kids orderly, find out why they are wandering around, escort them to class, in a certain way they are the muscle of the school. The teachers can call on them to remove students from the room who are too disruptive. The school also has on police officer on duty. He's a nice guy, but wanders around with a Beretta on his hip.
Various hallways have paintings by students, the whole back wall of the lunch room is a big student drawn mural. The hall ways are crowded with poster of come to the winter formal, join the theater group, see this choir perform. Once a semester there is spirit week, where students wear garb appropriate to the day. Last Tuesday was Zoo Animal day (it was changed from Jungle Fever Day for obvious reasons implied in the term) and Thursday was class color day (red for seniors, blue (baby) for juniors, green for sophomores, I never figured out what the freshman color was, but then who wants to admit freshmanese).
For the first few weeks, each day that I spent in the school, it took me a day to recover from the pent up energy of 1700 hormonally challenged bodies crushed into a school that doesn’t really fit them. Now it makes me smile to drive all the way to the school at 8 am. The smile is not for the school or the building, but the students. The other parents' babies who are on the threshold of adulthood. The boys and girls who want to stay children but constantly try on the suit of grown-upness only when they want. But why do I title this post lingering slow death, because each day I am there, I see students sitting still, finding ways to get out of work, deadening their creativity and curiousity. Ok, I am being a bit over the top. But really, did you all know that because of the electrons in each atom we never touch anything, or was it the classic “too cool to react” scene.
Yes I know I am a geek, otherwise what would I be doing in these rooms. As one of the students says every time he sees me “What are you doing here, when you don’t have to be?” And he is right, why on earth would anyone want to be in the school, any school. What makes you want to get up and be on time when you know you are stuck in classes that make you pretend you are working, pushing paper, writing nonsense, answering test questions that you will never have to recall again. Stuck everyday for four years in walls that suck any desire from your veins to learn. Sure plenty of kids matriculate fine through these walls, but what can they honestly claim they have learned except a scripted set of answers and actions that will presumably get them into the college of their choice. All of us are players in this fake learning labeled public education and we do it with a smile.
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