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YOU ARE!
If you are a student, parent, aunt, uncle or grandparent, you are
responsible for the poor achievement and attitudes of our African-American
students. Our community is in an educational crisis and it is growing!
Did
you see the CSAP test results? African-American students across the metro
area are performing, overwhelming, at unsatisfactory levels. This is not
new. Current scores are similar to pre-desegregation levels.
African-American students lag far behind White students in all
measurements. As a whole, our students are neither prepared to succeed in
college nor prepared to participate in the fast-changing 21st
Century in meaningful ways. |
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If
not you, then who? You are the first teachers long before children go to
school. Why do our students come to school not ready to learn at the same
level as their competition? In school, why are their attitudes so
negative? Why are they not critical thinkers? Why do we have excellence in
athletics, but not excellence in academics? The answer is that our homes
and immediate environment have not prepared our children properly.
That MeaNs you.
No
longer can we blame our history, racism, and poverty. If those strategies
worked, all of our children would be in highly gifted programs right now.
Do you really believe that the forces that created our current conditions
will empower our students to be effective achievers without our demanding
it? Those strategies did not work during the last 200 years. Why would
they work now? |
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First, you must really understand that
you are responsible. No one else has a greater stake in the future of your
children and all African-American students. Be committed to making a
difference now.
Second, research the solutions to poor
academic achievement, lack of motivation, and negative attitudes.
Others have already solved these problems and the information is available.
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Research schools that
are highly successful with low-income and African-American students. How
did they close the academic gap? What did parents do? (See www.ASCD.org
- Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development,
African-American educators groups, college education professors, etc.)
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Ask curriculum
specialists and principals about the best instructional strategies for
effectively teaching African-American students. If they do not know, ask
them to find out.
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Visit your neighborhood
school and spend several hours observing students and staff members.
Repeat this each month. Are the students engaged in learning and
encouraged to think critically? Are staff members using the best
strategies to achieve excellence?
Third, develop a winning strategy,
starting with children around you and widen to the rest. Start where you
are.
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Save your relatives and
those closest to you first.
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Enroll others in your
commitment to make a difference.
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Do what is needed to
change the results the school is producing with your children (as well
as others).
Fourth, understand the following:
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Our children
(regardless of background) have the same potential for academic
achievement as White children if given effective instruction and put in
an environment conducive to learning. Learning ability is not mainly
genetic as most educators assume. Our students, even those from poor
backgrounds, can learn to learn and learn to solve complex problems just
like other students. “Students are undertrained, not underbrained.”
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Effective instruction
(ways of teaching) is more important than covering content (knowledge)
for students who are not achieving at high academic levels. Knowledge is
easier to understand and apply when reading and thinking skills are
excellent. Math success is correlated with reading and thinking skills.
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Our children are
underworked in school, not focused on academics, unmotivated, and have
mastered neither basic skills nor higher order thinking skills. All of
these conditions can be changed.
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Teachers (and you) must
learn to ask effective questions that force students to do the work and
grow in intelligence. Teachers do the vast majority of the thinking and
work. Teachers go home tired; but the students’ thinking skills and
performance are not stretched. Do your children come home tired from
thinking and achieving?
Fifth, do the following:
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Talk with your babies and
children as if they were adults. This will expand their vocabulary and
understanding of complex thoughts. Begin reading to them at birth each
day. Let your children see you reading every day. Make sure they have a
library card and know how to use the library.
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Become an expert at asking
questions that make children think and justify their thinking. Ask: “How
did you come to that conclusion”?
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Each month take your children to
educational establishments (museums, zoo, library, etc.) and ask them to
explain what they see and how do they know that. Ask them what they like
best (least) and why.
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Each day ask for five things
they learned in school.
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For young children, read to them
each day for 15-20 minutes. For older students, have them read to you
and answer questions about the content and how it applies to their
lives. Have them re-read until they fully understand and are fluent in
the passage. Define words as needed. Mastery is much more important than
covering a lot of materials.
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Attend my “Critical
Thinking and Parenting” workshops when they become available. You will
learn practical ways to empower your children’s thinking and academic
abilities. Check our schedule.
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