Education Week - October 15, 2014 - 25

Where Do Biases Start?
A Challenge to Educators
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28
critical awareness of cultural context in relation to
lessening punitive practices against African-American
males in K-12 schools?
Preservice teacher education programs might be
a great place to start addressing these questions.
I offer the following recommendations:
*
Study race and
masculinity. The study
of race and masculinity
in relation to the
punishment of black
males must become an
integral part of preservice
teacher education
curricula. There is a
documented, patterned
history in government,
academia, and news
media of developing
racially coded narratives
of black males
being aggressive, dangerous,
and menaces
to society. These packaged
narratives exacerbate
negative practices
toward minority
youths in schools and
the larger society.
Stop-and-frisk
policies, stand-yourground
laws, and
suspension and expulsion practices that filter
students into the school-to-prison pipeline are examples
of this. Subsequently, a historical analysis
in the social construction of race and masculinity
in relation to past and present punishment practices
toward black males would give preservice
teachers insights into the differential treatment
of this population.
* Explore critical media literacy. A majority
of the education students I teach at the university
level come from isolated, segregated, affluent,
white communities. Many desire to be teachers
in urban school settings, but have had limited
contact with communities of color. Subsequently,
much of what they know about the black community
comes from the radio, music, movies, or
television. These media often provide a narrow
characterization of black male identity related to
crime, sports, and entertainment.
Therefore, teacher education programs should
offer opportunities for students to engage in critical
media literacy. Students should learn to examine
how representations in the news and popular
culture can intentionally or unintentionally reinforce
stereotypical representations of black males
as criminals in our subconscious. When preservice
teachers develop the skill set for critically reading
how the media as an institution possess the power
to distort racial identities, they gain a new consciousness
that counters the image of black males
as thugs to humanize their perceptions.
* Pursue community engagement. Given the
de facto segregated living conditions of many preservice
teachers, social interaction with diverse
populations becomes extremely important in
urban teacher education programs. Unfortunately,
the term "urban" has come to mean "black," and
the term black has come to mean all that is dangerous,
poor, and dysfunctional. Therefore, schools
in urban areas have come to mean teaching dangerous
poor black children and teens. These cultural-deficit
labels come to typify how black boys
and men are viewed within mainstream society.
To counter these narratives, I have developed
relationships with community leaders in some of
the poorest areas of Pittsburgh and host many
classes and community
forums in these areas.
At these classes and
forums, black youths
become "teachers," sharing
their experiences of
institutional racism; the
aftermath and effects in
the trauma of poverty,
violence, and racial profiling;
and the impact
of these challenges on
their education experience
in schools. Preservice
teachers come away
from these discussions
developing empathy and
understanding the emotions
that emerge from
institutional and societal
neglect. These narratives
become the unofficial
curriculum to guide
my students' thinking in
how to develop positive
pedagogical relationships
Darius Frank for Education Week
with urban youths.
* Engage with hiphop
learning communities. For better and
worse, many students see themselves through the
prism of hip-hop culture. To disengage with it is to
disengage with the soundtrack to their lives. Hiphop
is a culture upon which the very best of the
social-political tradition, rather than its gangsta
proclivities, can be mobilized into an educational
medium. Being socially and politically conscious
means expressing discontent with institutional
inequality; promoting peace and unity; and empowering
youth voices for social justice.
When young people recognize that teachers
know something about their culture in a way that
does not denigrate or demonize them, an immediate
pedagogical bridge is made in the teacher-student
relationship. For example, I have invited socially
aware hip-hop artists from the community
into my classrooms and students from my classes
into local hip-hop communities. These invitations
create co-learning opportunities. The artists perform,
relate their lyrics to contemporary issues,
and discuss the music's impact on urban education.
These learning experiences open preservice
teachers' minds about innovations in teaching
and how to make the curriculum relevant to the
lived experiences of urban youths. They also increase
these future teachers' familiarity with the
language, culture, community, and social and political
context from which hip-hop emerges.
Moving forward, the challenge is to utilize contemporary
events in popular culture as a canvas
to educate preservice teachers about how race,
representation, and masculinity in media can affect
how we treat others, such as black males in
urban education. When we do this cultural work
in urban education, perhaps the Trayvon Martins,
Jordan Davises, and Michael Browns of the
world will not die in vain, and we will keep kids
in schools rather than push them out. I
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Education Week - October 15, 2014

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