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Reality Teaching Workshop Facilitators: Dr. Brenda Townsend Director of LASER Dr. Gwendolyn Webb-Johnson, 2002-2003 LASER Research Associate Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Part 1
This purpose of this reality teaching workshop was to show teachers how to teach urban, culturally diverse students; connect with their families; and get positive results. Live demonstrations were done with teachers and 20 students and their parents. The demonstrations included effective and culturally responsive instructional, communication, and behavioral strategies for teachers, principals, social workers, and school psychologists.

Dr. Webb-Johnson facilitated the morning session. She started out by saying that culturally responsive strategies are ones that work for all children but that this session would focus on ones designed with African-American children in mind. The reason for this focus was the disproportionate representation of African-American students in special education and the fact that in special education they are still not getting an adequate education.

Dr. Webb-Johnson gave a brief explanation of how she was going to work with the students in her demonstration. Then the group of elementary school students came in. Since it was December she taught them the seven principles of the African-American holiday Kwanzaa. These are also important principles of life, such as responsibility and one’s role in making a difference in the world. She used this cultural context to help connect to the students’ background and model dimensions of African-American culture.

The following are the key activities that occurred in the class:

• Teaching the students to pronounce the names of the principles, which are in Swahili, and explaining their meaning. With this, and at other times in the lesson, drawing on the African-American oral tradition of call and response.

• Telling some of the background of African-American History Month and the oral tradition

• Teaching a song, “Run, Sally Run,” that is sung on playgrounds across the country and the history of the song from the times of slavery. Adding clapping to work on rhythm and eye-hand coordination.

• Teaching affirmations in the call and response tradition that remind students that they can do their best

• Teaching a science lesson through using singing, call and response, and experiential exercises. Also, incorporating the importance of helping each other.

The following points came out in the discussion of the demonstration:

• In the classroom we need to accept cultural differences, look at the strengths in the cultures the students are bringing, and use those strengths as a foundation to assist children in studying issues that are difficult for them. For example, the affirmations used in the demonstration were based on dimensions of African-American culture.

• African-Americans and Hispanics are more people-oriented, whereas European-Americans are more object-oriented. If we want African-American and Hispanic students to learn within an object-oriented environment, we have to teach them the provisions of that object-oriented environment, and that it is not better than theirs but just different.

However, we have to start from the students’ base of strength and put people-focus on what we do in the classroom to draw the students in.

• We do not have to reprimand children, just redirect them with enthusiasm and wait. For example, African-Americans and Hispanics have been socialized to be diunital, meaning that they can attend to two things at a time. When they say something that seems out-of-turn, we need to try to affirm it rather than saying “Sit down! Be quiet! You talk too much! You’re too loud!

The next demonstration was with middle school students. Dr. Webb-Johnson led a lesson that combined social studies and science. She presented information and asked questions about the contributions of African-Americans in creating inventions. This lesson also used affirmations.

Dr. Ronald Rochon’s Presentation to Parents and Teachers
During the rest of the morning, Dr. Ron Rochon discussed issues of identity development among African-Americans in relation to academic development. He has been trying to find ways in which to provide students with a stronger sense of affirmation as it pertains to their identity.
It is very important for students to understand and know their history. Outside the classroom students and their teachers see many negative images of African Americans in the popular media and advertising, including on the Web in an enormous amount of material that is accessible to anyone of any age. Dr. Rochon suggested that within the classroom teachers talk about the history of imagery, identity, and relationships. Students need to learn the history of oppression of African Americans and how that is related to a lot of the images they see. Then, they can choose whether to continue watching and listening to media that contain those images. Both educators and parents need to provide young people with healthy choices and information about who they are. At home, parents can make it clear that there are certain things that are non-negotiable.

In order to have constructive conversation with young people, we have to engage them with the material that they are studying and that is important to them. We need to create new material that provides new answers and a new way of thinking and being, and that goes beyond the stereotypes and helps students understand their internal and external beauty.

Part 2
Dr. Webb-Johnson started by reviewing the homework with the middle school students that they did since the morning session. She then led them in affirmations to empower them in their learning and a rap to help them learn the 50 states in alphabetical order.
The younger children came back in, and all the students did some affirmations together. Next, all the students participated in a call and response exercise led by Dr. Webb-Johnson about Kwanzaa that the younger children had already done in the morning. Then they did a Kwanzaa candle lighting ceremony in which the students said what they were grateful for in relation to the seven principles of Kwanzaa and life.
Next, Dr. Webb-Johnson led the parents in the audience in a brief affirmation to empower them regarding what they want from schools and teachers.

Dr. Cobb-Roberts then asked the children questions on what they think about school. Some of the responses to the question, “What’s good about school,” were:

• Playing

• Doing all my subjects

• Being able to get an education

• Learning something new every day

• Learning about stuff you don’t know about

• The teachers

• Certain classes, e.g., writing, math, gym

• Community, e.g., talking with others and meeting new people

Responses to the question “What’s challenging or difficult about school?, included:

• Trying to focus on listening to teachers

• Remembering everything you have learned, including to do well on the test to pass to the next grade

• All the tests

• Teachers get boring, especially when they don’t do anything but talk. We need to do more activities and get people involved.

• Specific subjects, e.g., science, math

• Reading out loud

• Students get in trouble, and then the teachers don’t have an opportunity to explain the work because they’re dealing with the behavior problems

• Bad teachers

There was a brief discussion about how a personality difference between a teacher and student should be handled.

Some of the answers to the question about how their experience in the workshop was different from their everyday experience in school included:

• You get to do more things.

• You get time to study.

• The teacher was so enthusiastic.

• You get to go over things and hear other people’s ideas and come up with your own.

• The work seemed easier and was more interesting, and people were listening to what we had to say.

• We learned more about our culture.

Next, Dr. Cobb-Roberts asked the parents, teachers, and counselors to respond to some questions. Responses to the question, “What do you think is good about schools today?” included:

• School needs to be more exciting, which includes that the teachers need to be more excited about what they are teaching

• Technology needs to be used more.

• Every day is a new opportunity.

• The children

• The diversity

Responses to the question, “What do you feel is challenging about our schools today?” included:

• State testing

• Lack of parental involvement and parents feeling intimidated about going to the school

• The different ways of communicating and interacting that exist because of cultural differences

• Helping teachers learn enough so that they can work with the diverse student body and meet the parents as well as the students where they are

• Discipline

• Parents do not have enough information to help students with their work. The children should be bringing more books home to work with.

• The spectrum of parental involvement that occurs, the reasons for it, and how to work with it when the students are from diverse backgrounds

• We need more money, including so that good teachers will stay

• Bureaucracy

Next, Dr. Cobb-Roberts asked the parents, teachers, and counselors to
ask the students questions about their experiences in the demonstration and in school every day. It came out that the students want to have more interesting topics to learn about. When Dr. Cobb-Roberts asked students if they felt that they could ask their teachers for topics they are interested in, a student responded that it depends on the teacher. When a teacher asked the students what topics they want to learn more about, a student responded that it is not necessarily what you learn but how you learn it. A discussion continued between the adults and students about the interactions that might occur if the students asked teachers to do something differently in class.

Other brief discussions among the adults and students focused on:

• How the students can be kept on track when the teachers give them more creative and fun things to do

• The kinds of experiences the students have had where they are treated differently because of their culture or race and how they handle those situations

• Teachers feeling limited in their creativity by the demands of the state tests and their principals

• How students know when a teacher cares about what they are learning

• Whether the students would prefer to be tested for the state test or for preparation in life. The responses from the students were very mixed.

Dr. Cobb-Roberts concluded the workshop by challenging the students to take back what they learned from their experiences in the workshop to their teachers, and challenging the parents, administrators, and teachers to take back what they experienced to their schools and districts.