Learning or unlearning racism: transferring teacher education curriculum
to classroom practices
Beverly E. Cross
In the United States, urban public schools are attended primarily by
students from various racial minority groups. Statistically, teachers in
these schools are often White and becoming more so annually. Issues of
race and culture are critical in today's educational contexts at every
level--including pedagogy, curriculum, and teachers. Considering the
severity of what these statistics mean for educational quality and teacher
quality, research efforts to understand this situation are essential.
This article presents the findings of a study about what a group of teacher
education graduates learned about race as they prepared to teach in
multiracial classrooms. The findings of this study are then used to
discuss what the university curriculum may actually produce and what
future considerations would be beneficial to enable teachers to teach in
a context where their race and culture differ dramatically from their
students.
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Background
AS THE NEW CENTURY BEGAN, the United States set the stage for one of the
most pressing issues facing education when it hosted the National
Conference on Teacher Quality in Washington, DC. Yet the educational
practitioners, scholars, policy makers, and political figures in
attendance participated in only limited conversations about teaching in
multiracial environments such as those that exist in large urban school
districts. As has been the case for years, it appears that neither the
race of a teacher nor a teacher's ability to teach in multiracial
environments is considered a component of a teacher quality. The absence
of meaningful dialogue at the national level about the role of race in
teacher quality is perplexing. Educators and teacher educatorsare
struggling to improve the quality of teaching in urban schools as one means
to improve educational achievement for large populations of low-income
children of color.
Preparing teachers to teach in urban schools is shaped in large part by
many contemporary demographic factors, including the following:
1. America's teaching force is becoming increasingly White. Currently
approximately 85.6% of public school teachers are White, with increases
projected annually (NCES, 1999).
2. Teacher educators (those who prepare teachers in universities and
colleges) are overwhelmingly White (Talbert-Johnson & Tillman, 1999).
3. During the last 30 years, urban schools have become "intensely made
up mostly of students of color" (Piana, 2000) and this is projected to
reach 48% by 2020 (Pallas, Natriello, & McDill, 1989).
The confluence of these three factors creates an enormous gap between who
prepares teachers, who the teachers themselves are, and who they will
likely teach. Scholars describe this as a cultural/racial mismatch, (1)
or gap, that results in a significant detachment of White teacher
educators and White teacher education students from children of color.
This detachment has serious consequences for what children of color will
learn and what teachers will experience in the profession. It essentially
raises the challenge of how to address "the huge problem of an
institutionalized white, largely female, teaching staff" (Sleeter &
McLaren, 1995, p. 24) teaching primarily students of color. Gay (1995)
articulates how the mismatch is manifested in virtually every component
of teaching:
The fact that many [teacher education] students
not share the same ethnic, social, racial and linguistic
backgrounds as their students may lead to cultural
incongruencies in the classroom which can mediate
against educational effectiveness. These incompatibilities
are evident in value orientation, behavioral
norms and expectations and styles, social interactions,
self presentation, communication and cognitive
processing. (p. 159)
Presently some 90% of the more than 1,200 teacher preparation programs
in the United States follow a traditional curriculum that includes liberal
arts courses, methods courses, foundational work, and student teaching
(Boyer & Baptiste, 1996). These programs provide beginning teachers with
knowledge about teaching through coursework and field experiences. Much
of what they learn, however, "does not reflect social reality and is
therefore derelict in preparing them to function in culturally
pluralistic and global society" (Sue, Bingham, Porche-Burke, & Vasquez,
1999, p. 1066)
This article examines the extent of this conscious neglect in learning
how to better prepare teachers to teach in multiracial contexts. This will
be achieved first through reporting on a scholarly research study of one
teacher education program's attempt to teach about race. Important
curriculum considerations follow this report and offer insight into
moving beyond the traditional means currently used by well-intentioned
university faculty to retrofit White, privileged students to teach in
multiracial schools.
A Scholarly Research Study
In response to the racial/cultural mismatch described previously,
universities around the United States have attempted to design programs
to better equip largely White, female students to teach in multiracial
contexts. The following short research summary describes (a) the efforts
of one at teacher education program to incorporate issues of race into
the teacher education curriculum and (b) the graduates' reflections of
how that curriculum has prepared them to teach in multiracial class rooms
now that they are full-time teachers.
The elementary teacher education program from which these teachers
graduated is framed around four components, similar to the ones just
described: admission application requirements, education requirements,
focus area content credits, and credits in the professional sequence. The
program is also grounded in seven core values that basically outline the
key curriculum goals of the program. To address the cultural/racial gap,
one core value states that graduates will advocate for and provide
equitable education for all children and will keep issues of race, class,
culture, and language at the forefront of equity considerations.
This core value is designed to address essential issues in preparing
mostly White, rural and suburban females who enter the teacher education
program to teach in a large, urban school district like Milwaukee's
(frequently characterized as one of the most segregated cities in the
United States) The school district's student population is roughly 81%
minority, and the teaching population is 71% White (Public Policy Forum,
2001). The program designers chose to acknowledge the cultural/racial gap
that exists between the current teaching population in the city, its
teacher education student population, and the children served in the
school district. Thus, they intentionally included fieldwork and
coursework throughout the program to enable program graduates to bridge
the cultural/racial gap they will face as teachers. This goal is laudable
considering previous research demonstrated that student in such programs
often hold intractable racist views (Tiezzi & Cross, 1997), and that
coursework and field experiences frequently reinforced those beliefs.
The study explored what teachers whoare graduates of the program and who
taught in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) learned about race through the
curriculum. The study asks whether the curriculum led to learning of
unlearning racism.
At the time of the study, the 2001-2002 academic year, only 12 program
graduates were known to teach in Milwaukee Public Schools and all agreed
to participate in the study. These 12 represented 24% of the program's
graduates. Only graduates who teach in MPS were interviewed because (a)
they experienced the program's curriculum aimed at preparing them to teach
in multiracial schools, (b) they were graduated and could have an honest
dialogue without apprehension due to grades, (c) they taught in racially
diverse environments, and (d) they taught primarily students from racial
categories different from their own. The graduates taught in 11 different
schools. All were in elementary schools except one male (the only male
graduate who met the criteria) who taught in middle school. All graduates
were White except one Asian female teacher.
The graduates were first contacted via telephone regarding participation
in the study. The interviews were then conducted in their schools and
lasted approximately one hour. Graduates were asked the following
questions:
1. What were you taught about race and racism in your teacher education
program?
2. How has what you were taught been beneficial of nonbeneficial to you
in your actual teaching?
3. What do you wish you had been taught about teaching a racially diverse
student population?
4. Based on your teaching experience, what would you recommend be included
about this area in the teacher education program?
The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. The analysis involved
a recursive, constant comparative process of examining the transcripts
for similarities, differences, categories, concepts, and ideas that were
evident. This inductive method assured that the participants' voices and
ideas determined the categories, patterns, differences, and,
subsequently, the findings.
Each interview began with the teacher outlining the racial composition
of their classrooms. The racial composition consisted of 72.6% African
American students, 13.25% White students, 6.46% Asian students, 3.92%
Hmong students, 3.63% Latino students, and .58% Middle Eastern students.
Clearly the racial/cultural mismatch existed--the teachers were White and
the majority of students were children of color.
Key discoveries about race
After recording the racial composition of the teachers' classrooms, I
asked them what they had learned in their teacher education curriculum
about teaching in such racially diverse classrooms. One teacher stated,
"This was natural for me because I am a product of MPS and so it was not
a culture shock for me like it was for my friends and fellow classmates."
The reaction of her classmates confirmed that they had experienced a
culture shock. In fact, they appeared startled to be asked about the
relationship of the race of the children to their teaching. All but one
of the teachers stared at me in prolonged engagement. It seemed odd to
them that racial diversity goes beyond counting the racial composition
of the children they taught, and could, in fact, relate to their teaching.
After sincerely pondering the question for a while, all of the teachers
gave consistent answers for what they learned about teaching in
multiracial classroom contexts. Listed in order of most frequent
responses, they were as follows:
* Respect children's language.
* Use diverse literature.
* Recognize cultural diversity.
* Acknowledge background knowledge and experiences.
Respect children's language. The teachers recalled being told in their
classes not to criticize of humiliate students who spoke another language
or who spoke another form of English. They were clear to distinguish these
two. For example, two teachers addressed the importance of recognizing
students who are learning English as a second language and respecting
where these students are in terms of developing a second language. Others
spoke to the importance of not publicly correcting Black students who
spoke Ebonics. They stated that they would quietly inform the student of
the "correct" way to pronounce words or speak. One teacher stated she even
allows students to speak Ebonics at certain limited times during class.
When asked if they were taught how to integrate language diversity into
their teaching, the teachers responded no. They stated they were simply
taught to avoid put-downs (i.e., public negative labeling of nonstandard
English as slang, ghetto, or bad English) and correcting students. They
could not recall being taught, for example, how to use the students'
language as a bridge for teaching English, connecting to the students'
culture, examining issues of the social production of language or to use
English as a tool of power and social control. The teachers seemed to think
that their responsibility for language diversity ended when they heeded
the warning not to put the students down for the way they spoke.
Use diverse literature. The teachers were quick to respond that they
should use a variety of books that represent various cultural and racial
groups. They would frequently pull a couple of books from their desks or
bookshelves that illustrated their favorite ways of doing this. One
teacher stated, "I just see kids--not their race--but I try to connect
to the children through literature, biographies, and speakers. I learned
this through the field experiences that exposed me to different cultures."
The teachers largely agreed that using diverse pieces of literature
represented their attempt to bring the culture of the students into the
curriculum. addition, several stated that using such literature also
represented their way of bringing the background lives of some students
into the classroom. When asked what else they did with the literature to
make it significant in their racially diverse classrooms, there were no
responses, The teachers felt that if the literature contained characters
from their students' racial group, then that was meaningful and good urban
teaching.
Using this literature did not appear to have importance beyond
representational importance. That is, if the characters in the stories
were diverse, that was equivalent to including diversity in teaching.
Examining the stories through lenses that have to do with equality and
issues of race, class, culture, and language were not important.
Recognize cultural diversity. The teachers reported that they had learned
to be sensitive other cultures by recognizing that there are differences.
When asked what this means for them as teachers, they replied, "Just
realize that there are differences in language, behavior, dress, and so
on." Some reported that it meant "Getting to know more by observing." They
seemed to want to carry on with the observation stance they learned through
the program's field experiences. This distant stance had not shifted into
any active behaviors or strategies related to teaching children from
racially diverse backgrounds.
In addition, culture resided in student behavior for these teachers. Only
one other view of culture was introduced by the teachers, and that view
focused on religious holidays. One teacher also stated that she needed
exposure to various cultures and that the program had given her
experiences only in Black and White environments. One other teacher
identified a similar view of culture when she stated, "We learned about
Native Americans" through the program. This view of culture focused on
heroes, holidays, foods, and discrete cultural elements aligns with the
contributions level of multicultural education identified by Banks (2001).
These teachers believed this type of knowledge of other cultures would
enable them to recognize and relate to cultural differences. But they
could not identify how this form of cultural knowledge regulated to their
teaching.
Acknowledge background knowledge and experiences. To these teachers,
acknowledging background knowledge and experiences meant that they should
use the students' life experiences as explanations for behavioral
problems. Here, the teachers saw the children's backgrounds as negative,
It something to be explored when there is a problem. Instead of desiring
to always learn as much as they could about their students as a means to
better teach them, the teachers wanted to delve into their backgrounds
only to problem solve. Although one teacher felt comfortable that the
field experiences had prepared her to address students' backgrounds, she
recalled an incident where the African American children in her classroom
were teasing each other based on their skin tone--some being light skinned
and some dark skinned. She felt unprepared to deal with this teasing and
ignored what she heard. Another teacher stated that the students "bring
a lot of background knowledge," but when asked, she could not think of
any examples of that knowledge.
Interestingly, she could recite the core value but could not identify how
it translated to her teaching Still another teacher stated "We should
include the experiences of parents yet recognize that parents may not have
a lot to offer." Negative perceptions about the students and their
families inhibited the teachers' abilities to think positively about the
race or culture of those they were teaching. This certainly dial not lead
them to think that the race of culture of their students had any positive
implications for their teaching. They could not cite means in which the
students' lives could benefit their teaching, or how making significant
connections to the students was a basis for good teaching.
Curriculum Considerations
The findings represent what the teachers learned from their program about
teaching in multiracial classrooms. These findings lead to some
consideration for teacher education curriculum reform.
1. Field experience potentially teaches passivity toward culture and
should be modified beyond clinical observation to skill and knowledge
competence to teach racial minority students.
Field experiences have long been acknowledged as an integral and even
necessary element of preparing teachers. It has taken on particular
importance in recent years as teacher educators have attempted to respond
to the large need for well-prepared teachers for urban schools. There fore,
around the nation, more and more teacher education students are expected
to complete some type of field experience in urban schools. The teachers
in this study reinforced the critical role that these experiences played
in their development and preparation to teach. In fact, the teacher who
completed her K-12 education in MPS stated, "There is only so much you
can read or be told; it is the hands-on or being in the classroom that
matters." Another teacher stated, "Nothing could prepare me for this other
than being here." Still another noted, "We were not taught how to do this
[teach in multiracial classrooms]; no specific content was taught. It was
the field experience and student teaching that helped."
By design, the program is set up so that great deal is learned from the
field experiences The almost exclusive reliance on fieldwork should be
challenged because of its potential role in reinforcing stereotypes and
how it can impose the power of whiteness upon African American, Latino,
and other students of color. Field experience taught these teachers to
observe others. But a shift had not occurred from observation to
engagement or dynamic cross-cultural interactions. These teachers still
have the racial minority students they teach under some White telescopic
lens. They were still observing them but not connecting to them; looking
over or down on them, but not teaching them in culturally responsive ways.
This finding raises numerous perplexing questions for teacher education
curricula: Why does the massive number of credits outside of field
experience not inform these teachers' views of teaching in a multiracial
environment? Why is it when these teachers were asked about teaching in
a racially diverse environment, they appeared puzzled, even baffled? Why
did they stare as though a really bizarre, even inappropriate, question
had been asked? Why is the only answer field experience? Why were the
teachers quick to identify the racial composition of their classrooms,
yet saw no relevance of that information to their teaching? How can teacher
educators build on this potent strategy to move beyond observation to
acquire important cross-cultural skills and knowledge? How can the two
be combined so that the learning produced from the field experience is
not what these teachers learned--that culture is passive and unrelated
to their teaching?
2. Learning about race needs to go beyond being a personal benefit to White
teachers to competence in teaching in multiracial contexts.
The teachers viewed field experience as something offered to them as
individuals for their personal benefit. They were provided exposure to
others who are racially different from them and developed some comfort
around them. While this is not an insignificant outcome of field
experience, it was unidirectional for these teachers. The field
experience did not influence their perceptions of what they should do in
terms of curriculum, expectations, and pedagogy, nor did what they learned
from them translate into considerations for the children they taught. The
curriculum taught them that race and culture are something you observe
for your own benefit. The teachers also learned that observation does not
connect to what and how they teach--it merely serves their need for feeling
comfortable and confident when facing a group racially different from
their own.
It seems clear that the teachers were given permission through their
university curriculum to exercise some form of White observational power
over racial minority students for their personal benefit. Because their
observations were university established, set up, and endorsed, they were
given sanctioned authority to observe the African American, Latino, and
Hmong students, and to simultaneously keep Whiteness invisible. They were
able to see others and not be seen themselves. The teachers did not have
to question or examine themselves, their status, of their positions in
society and how their positions relate to racial minority groups. This
resulted in an act of White power--the use of others for personal gain
because this observation did not influence their teaching competence.
Educational literature is quite illuminating on the systematic ways in
which teachers can be taught about teaching in multiracial educational
settings. Exposure is simply insufficient and, in fact, may produce
contradictory learning from that intended by the university faculty.
Various typologies and strategies exist to help White teachers think about
and reflect on themselves as teachers of students from racial groups
different from their own. The exposure level is flawed and obviously
dangerous.
This finding raises some important questions for teacher education
curriculum: How can programs be elevated from the simplistic level of
exposure to higher levels? What are the ramifications for the children
they teach if teachers do not develop higher levels of understanding? How
can a program standard (or core value) be actualized in practice,
particularly as it relates to something as important as teaching in
racially diverse environments? The core value calls for teachers to be
able to advocate for students. This is unlikely if they exit the program
at the exposure, self-benefit level of understanding.
3. Including diverse literature in the classroom an important but limited
curricular adaptation, but it may absolve teachers of their
responsibilities in teaching in multiracial classrooms.
The teachers seemed certain that once they brought a variety of diverse
literature into the classroom, they bad fulfilled their expectations for
teaching in racially diverse environments. That conclusion has great
implications for teacher education and for schools. The teachers reported
that the schools they taught in did not expect them to integrate diversity
into their curriculum. One teacher stated "We do Black History month and
add books," and that is all that is expected. If schools do not have
explicit expectations for teachers regarding working in multiracial
classrooms, whatever they do may come from expectations and skills
communicated to them in their university programs.
For years U.S. educators have attempted to include diverse literature in
their classes. Even textbook publishers have made small efforts to do the
same, largely resulting in simply adding materials. The addition of
materials has not necessarily led to changes in pedagogy or transforming
the curriculum so students see their lives in the curriculum. The result
is as Loewen (1995) analyzes throughout his text: The longer students stay
in school the stupider they get, the more hawkish they become, and the
less they are able to think critically. Loewen links his conclusion to
the fact that the curriculum, regardless of such efforts as those engaged
in by these teachers, rests in excluding diverse racial groups from
serious consideration.
Several question surface from this finding: How can this expectation be
taken to fuller scale so that this limited view of teaching for diversity
gets expanded? What could be done in the teacher education coursework and
other experiences to go beyond including literature--a well-acknowledged
important beginning in diverse classrooms but certainly not the ultimate
in what should be expected? What could be offered through the program that
goes beyond such simplistic expectations? How could the typologies that
exist be useful in helping university instructors and their teacher
education students examine their own race, how it positions them, and what
it means for teaching in racially diverse environments? How can we more
authentically challenge knowledge construction and more equitably
integrate the experiences of various racial groups into the core of the
curriculum?
Conclusion
In recent decades, some educators have explored the role of schools in
maintaining social stratification and inequalities. It is becoming
increasingly clear that teacher education also plays a crucial role in
reproducing these inequalities. As Haberman (2002) states in reference
to the role of schools and educators in maintaining unequal education:
The achievement gap is not an aberration of American
society nor is it an unintended consequence. Quite
the contrary. It reflects the will of the overwhelming
majority of Americans who believe that education is
a personal--not a common--good and that the highest
quality education is a scarce resource.... The
school system's stated goals are lofty, but its actual
work is sorting students, not equalizing their opportunities
to learn. Understanding that teacher education,
like the public schools, reflects rather than
shapes American society is basic to any discussion
on removing achievement gaps. (p. 2)
Even well-intentioned teachers in schools and teacher educators in
universities slip into this role of assuring inequality for children of
color, frequently under the guise of helping. Teacher education curricula
represents one means through which this role operates paradoxically. The
evidence from this study raises the question of how teacher education
curricula needs to be examined to unmask its hidden assumptions and
practices to sustain education's role in maintaining inequality.
Educators at all levels need to constantly examine their efforts to
determine how their work may actually trivialize race and exacerbate an
already dismal situation--they may actually teach racism.
1. The following websites offer teaching suggestions written by teachers
for teachers. Included are publications, teaching ideas, and videos to
link teachers together in their struggle for equity and social justice
through teaching. The sites also provide means to connect with teachers
across the United States who have similar interests.
Rethinking Schools web site www.rethinkingschools.org
Student Press Law Center web site www.splc.org
Teaching for Change web site www.teachingforchange.org
Note
(1.) The work of teacher educators such as Gloria Ladson-Billings at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison, Christine Sleeter during her work in
Wisconsin and at California State University-Monterey Bay, Jacqueline
Jordan Irvine at Emory University in Georgia, Jeannie Oakes at UCLA, Sonia
Nieto at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Lynda Tredway at
University of California at Berkeley, and Geneva Gay at the University
of Washington in Seattle, for example, can be valuable in exploring
systematic ways to prepare teachers for teaching in environments where
the cultural mismatch exists.
References
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dimensions and practice. In J.A. Banks & C.A.M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook
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for multicultural understanding: A practitioners handbook. San Francisco:
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Haberman, M. (2002, April). Can teacher education close the achievement
gap? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education
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Loewen, J. (1995). Lies my teacher told me. New York: Touchstone Press.
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Piana, L.D. (2000). Still separate. Still unequal: 46 years after Brown
v. Board of Education (Fact-sheet on Educational Inequality). Oakland,
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Sue, D.W., Bingham, R.P., Porche-Burke, L., & Vasquez, M. (1999). The
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Talbert-Johnson, C., & Tillman, B. (1999, May-June). Perspectives on
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29(2), 113-125.
Beverly E. Cross is associate professor of education at the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
COPYRIGHT 2003 The Ohio State University, on behalf of its College of
Education
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group