From Rage to Hope

Strategies for Reclaiming Black & Hispanic Students

Author – Crystal Kuykendall

Chapter 1: Dealing with Differences

·         An historical overview of many of the polarization and racial animus that existed in America targeting Blacks, Hispanics, Mexican, and Japanese people. The atrocities continue to plague this country because of ineffective practices that lead to injustice, inequality, and sometime death.

·         Despite the rapid increase of cultural diversity, many Americans still refuse to accept and embrace people that are different from themselves. The author suggests that people have been conditioned which often causes them to draw conclusions about others based on limited cultural perspective.

·         Dealing with differences in a school or classroom can be dangerous, especially when educators may not have a cultural awareness of their students. Therefore, the author challenges all

“Merchants of Hope- anyone who enriches the life of another” to step outside of their own cultural orientation and develop an appreciation for people of diverse cultures.

·         Teachers must embrace and use a variety of strategies that celebrate and show appreciation for cultural diversity and learning style differences.

·         Inequality in the classroom is a result of ineffective instructional practices and teacher behavior, especially for Black and Hispanic students. They receive the message that they must adopt the mainstream cultural standards and behaviors to succeed in school.

·         Many educators negatively respond to students that are different by:

o   Isolating them

o   Expelling them

o   Ignoring them

o   Failing to love them

Unfortunately, this type of relationship negatively impacts student attitudes about their teachers and students’ classroom performance in school.

Teacher attitudes are affected by the following student differences:

o   Prior achievement

o   Prior behavior

o   Prior placement

o   Socioeconomic status

o   Language ability

o   Physical attributes

o   Gender

o   Race/ethnicity

o  

Dealing With Differences- Provide supportive feedback to ALL students

·         Make direct, sincere, loving and encouraging eye contact

·         Provide adjusting feedback on a specific behavior in private

·         Provide descriptive rather than evaluative feedback

·         Provide feedback that reflect care and concern for a student’s needs

·         Provide feedback in a timely manner

·         Develop relational capacity with ALL students (check in with students to better understand their comments and feelings

Promote Lifelong Success in Students:

·         Self-assess how you’re dealing with student differences (answer 8 questions on page 28-29)

·         If you answer “yes” to these questions, you have the capacity to augment, strengthen, motivate

and enhance the self-image of all students.

Chapter 4: School-Related Obstacles to Student Achievement

Black & Hispanic Students

·         Lack of pluralistic curricula – deficiencies exist in knowledge of their history and literature, curriculum must be inclusive and emphasize positive aspects of their life experiences, lifestyles and social and behavioral norms ,students’ cognitive development. shapes a

o   What is taught?

o   Why is it being taught?

o   Who is educating our Black and Hispanic children:

o   How is instruction being provided?

·         Incongruent teaching and learning styles

o   Black and Hispanic students become less motivated and begin to question their self-worth. Culture plays a crucial role in shaping student learning styles, cognitive development and approach to academic achievement. Therefore, teachers must become eclectic; expand their repertoire of instructional strategies that include a variety of approaches that children use to learn.

o   Research indicates many of our Black and Hispanic children ad field-dependent learners (f-d learners attend to the social and personal relevance of learning experiences). They prefer more personal environments which are student-centered, and they prefer small-group activities, think-pair-share, where they can have opportunities to exchange information with peers. (accountable talk)

·         Academic tracking and ability grouping

·         Test bias

·         Negative labeling

Chapter 7: Creating a Positive School and Classroom Climate

·         Generates enthusiasm, clarifies values, builds self-confidence and strengthens relationships

·         Students who are pleased with the physical structure of a school are more comfortable about being in school.

·         Students should feel pride in the physical condition of the school

·         Use student artwork to enhance the school’s appearance, and give students ownership of the beautification of the school

Internal Climate of the School

·         Safe and orderly

·         Appropriate standards of behavior

·         Recognition of diverse gifts & talents in students

·         Positive commitment of all staff to student achievement (food service staff, custodians, engineers, secretaries, bus drivers, nurses, crossing guards and other support staff)

·         Display of student work on bulletin boards, murals, walls of fame, school slogan, school song and other school-spirit activities

Recognition of Diverse Gifts and Talents in Students

·         Create clubs and programs that reflect appreciation of diverse gifts and talents in all students

o   Rappers Forum

o   Artists’ Alley

o   Music Makers

o   Leaders Forum

o   Current –Issues Debate Team

o   Comedy Club

Classroom Climate- To enhance the academic self-image of all students.

·         Physical Setting

·         Teacher Behavior

Foster a Climate of Acceptance and Understanding