Picking Battles, Finding Joy: Creating Community in the Uncontrolled Classroom

Every educator has a handful of students who perpetually push his or her buttons. The challenge of creating a strong, nurturing classroom community is especially difficult if you are an urban school teacher. Not because children in an urban area are inherently more wild or difficult to teach. Rather, there is a mythology about how to best control urban children that infects many city schools. This article discusses ways to control classrooms in urban schools and contains the following sections: (1) The Carrot and the Stick--Behaviorism in the Urban Classroom; (2) The Uncontrolled Urban Class; (3) Classroom Mantras; (4) I Will Treat My Students the Way I Would Want My Own Child Treated; (5) Be Critical of What You Are Teaching/ Kick the Curriculum Up a Notch; (6) Pick Your Battles; (7) Create Another Identity for the Child; (8) Assumptions about Race; (9) Finding Joy at School; (10) Every Day Is Another Chance; (11) Don\u27t Ask Kids To Do What We Don\u27t Ask Adults To Do; and (12) Something Bigger

What Works in Race-Conscious Teacher Education? Reflections from Educators in the Field

This paper presents a study about how schools of education impact their students\u27 ability to be successful in urban schools. What experiences--if any--in teacher education programs shape the development of race-conscious White teachers? To address her goal, the author conducted a qualitative study of six teachers currently employed in urban schools. All were considered excellent White teachers of children of color. Through a series of interviews, the author explored the ways race, culture, and diversity were addressed in their teacher education programs and whether the experiences were meaningful. Participants interacted with schools and communities in several different ways during their preparation. Most only participated in fieldwork as student teachers or during their prepracticum requirements. What was common among all of the participants was that their student teaching and/or prepracticum observations took place in an urban district. Each had experiences in diverse schools. All reported having a positive experience with the students they taught. As teacher educators continue to hone their practice and pedagogy, the feedback from these urban educators provides insights as to what is critical in preparing new teachers for urban schools. They provide an oft-forgotten set of voices that can be instrumental in helping teacher educators think through their work

Unraveling the Myths of Accountability: A Case Study of the California High School Exit Exam

Believing that accountability could be a vehicle for change, the California Department of Education (CDE) requires all high school students to pass the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) in order to graduate. In doing so, California joins many others states in mandating a high school exit exam as a current or future requirement for graduation. In this essay, the authors will argue that this testing approach to school change is based on myths about the role of assessment, the information testing can provide and the impact high stakes testing has on urban schools. Although California is the focus of this analysis, these issues are salient across the county. Testing as a solution to poor student achievement is based on faulty assumptions. It is these assumptions this piece seeks to address

A Resource Guide for Schools and Districts: Addressing Racism in the Education System

This resource guide is designed for schools (public, private, charter, online, home, etc.), and school districts. We imagine it as a jumping off point for professional development about issues of equity, justice and anti-Blackness. Inside, you will find sources and readings to help us better understand and support Black youth. These resources can be used for ongoing professional development, for teacher book groups, with teacher leadership teams, as part of new teacher mentoring, and/or with administrative teams as they are charting new ways to support Black youth in your school

A Refugee Resource Guide 2022

Rhode Island has long hosted refugees from around the world. Schools in RI, particularly those in Providence, currently enroll hundreds of refugee youth. After spending a semester conducting research and teaching in a school that serves refugee youth, it became clear that explicit teacher training about this population rarely occurs. This guide seeks to provide resources in which to address this need. At Roger Williams University, I teach courses in our Education programs about race, class, and culture. My professional research centers on the same topics. While on sabbatical, I created several documents for the principal I worked with, to help her locate resources to support her students. I went on to design a course for undergraduate pre-service teachers that I currently teach at Roger Williams. Our campus librarian suggested that the resources I have been creating and collecting could serve a wider public. I decided to take up her idea. This guidebook fuses both of these professional tasks as a form of collegial sharing with the larger k-12 + higher education communities

Pathologizing the Poor: Implications for Preparing Teachers to Work in High-Poverty Schools

The recent economic downturn highlights that poverty continues to be a significant social problem. Mindful of this demographic reality, it is imperative for teacher educators to pay close attention to the manner in which teachers are prepared to educate students from impoverished backgrounds. Given the number of frameworks that offer reductive recommendations for teaching students from impoverished backgrounds, we seek to accomplish two goals with this work: (a) to summarize mythologies about poverty that impact student–teacher relationships and (b) to offer new perspectives on educating students from impoverished backgrounds by providing anchor questions teacher educators can explore with pre-service teachers

A Refugee Resource Guide 2022

Rhode Island has long hosted refugees from around the world. Schools in RI, particularly those in Providence, currently enroll hundreds of refugee youth. After spending a semester conducting research and teaching in a school that serves refugee youth, it became clear that explicit teacher training about this population rarely occurs. This guide seeks to provide resources in which to address this need. At Roger Williams University, I teach courses in our Education programs about race, class, and culture. My professional research centers on the same topics. While on sabbatical, I created several documents for the principal I worked with, to help her locate resources to support her students. I went on to design a course for undergraduate pre-service teachers that I currently teach at Roger Williams. Our campus librarian suggested that the resources I have been creating and collecting could serve a wider public. I decided to take up her idea. This guidebook fuses both of these professional tasks as a form of collegial sharing with the larger k-12 + higher education communities

Pathologizing the Poor: Implications for Preparing Teachers to Work in High-Poverty Schools

The recent economic downturn highlights that poverty continues to be a significant social problem. Mindful of this demographic reality, it is imperative for teacher educators to pay close attention to the manner in which teachers are prepared to educate students from impoverished backgrounds. Given the number of frameworks that offer reductive recommendations for teaching students from impoverished backgrounds, we seek to accomplish two goals with this work: (a) to summarize mythologies about poverty that impact student–teacher relationships and (b) to offer new perspectives on educating students from impoverished backgrounds by providing anchor questions teacher educators can explore with pre-service teachers

Teaching in a Multicultural Classroom

Schools across the US continue to diversify, making multicultural classrooms more of the norm than the exception. Children of color comprised 43% of the public school enrollment in 2004 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2006a). By 2020, it is estimated that students of color will make up half the student population (Weis-man & Garza, 2002). The number of English language learners also continues to grow, representing 19% of public school students in 2004. This gain reflects a 162% increase in students who speak languages other than English at home over the last 25 years (National Center for Education Statistics, 2006a). While widely believed to be an issue confined to urban schools, changing demographics impact schooling across the US. In 2004, students of color made up 23.6% of the public K-12 enrollment in Kansas; in 2005, 23% of students in Minneapolis public schools were English language learners (National Center for Education Statistics, 2004–2005, 2006b). While the US will serve as the focus for this chapter, immigration continues to impact schools around the world. Canada enrolls 40,000 new immigrant students in its public schools each year; 80% do not speak English (Strum & Biette, 2005). European schools also serve students from a variety of language, cultural and religious backgrounds. For example, ~5 million Muslims live in France (Judge, 2004). Issues around culture, identity, and patriotism recently came to a boiling point regarding the wearing of head scarves by Muslim girls in French schools. French law consequently banned pupils in public schools from wearing any conspicuous sign of religious affiliation (Judge, 2004). This example illuminates the “realness” of cultural clashes in school. Regardless of place, teachers find themselves charged with educating children from diverse backgrounds. How can teachers be responsive to this need