Dr. Miller | EDCU 5560: Teaching and Learning in Urban Classrooms
Spring, 2014, UMKC
March 11, 2014
Focus: Building Relationships, Learning Community & Working with Families
Readings:
• Howard, Chapters 4, 5, 6,
• Steinberg, Chapter 17
•Teaching to Change the World, Chapter 11
Essential Questions
 What role does the family or “home” play in a students’ learning?
 How do I involve and engage family in the learning process?
 What role do students’ communities play in their learning?
Line activity
Emphasis on EQ: What role does the family or “home” play in a students’ learning?
1 completely agree, 2 somewhat agree, 3 neutral; 4 somewhat disagree; 5 extremely
disagree
Steinberg, Chapter 17—
 A “real” family is comprised of mom/dad/child/grandparents/etc.
 Urban families are plagued by issues that differ from non-urban families
 Urban families do not care if their children go to college
 The media works hard to reflect the true realities of urban families
 “The system” mostly prejudices people to pathologize and undervalue the plight of urban families
 Obamacare will fix problems with health care in urban families
Quadrant- 5 quads
Emphasis on EQs: What role do students’ communities play in their learning and How
do I involve and engage family in the learning process?
1 completely agree, 2 somewhat agree, 3 neutral (put in middle); 4 somewhat disagree; 5
extremely disagree
Teaching to Change the World, Chapter 11
(*Each person, write a statement about the chapter that lends itself to a perspective)
 Full Group: At the end: How do your schools engage in fairly extraordinary
ways to connect community/family to school?
 What local resources have you tapped?
Activity 3 see sheet below
• Howard, Chapters 4 do chart and discuss in teams of 2
•Chapter 5- small groups
•Chapter 6-
Chapter 4: Howard
Fears about working with
students whose ethnicities
differ from my own
Excitement about working
with
students
whose
ethnicities differ from my
own
What I can do (e.g.,
discourse, lessons, posters,
classroom design,) in my
classroom/school/local
community to demonstrate
that I am an ally/advocate
for all students
How does Dutro’s writing
on critical witness, connect
with Howard’s chapter 4?
List some parallels…
Howard, Chapter 5: White Identity Development
 Refresher: what is white privilege?
 Privilege is rarely seen by those who hold it…
 Whites are unaccustomed to seeing themselves as raced or racial beings, why?
 Whiteness has gone unnamed and unexamined because it is so normalized
 Because of its normalized invisibility, it has fostered an illusion that those who succeed do
so because of intelligence, hard work, all more so than because of their skin color
 We have all been constructed: white has been constructed to feel superior, more intelligent
etc.
 White power secures its dominance by seeming not to be anything in particular …whiteness
never has to speak its name, never has to acknowledge its role as an organizing principle in
social and cultural relations.
 Some whites have a hard time doing this kind of work because they have spent so long
benefiting from it- it is in coexistence with their way of life
 First step toward dismantling the system of privilege is to name it and speak out about it.
 Whites benefit from white privilege- can’t help what we benefit from but we can shift our
attitudes towards it Failure to acknowledge privilege, to make it visible in legal doctrine, creates a serious gap in
legal reasoning, rendering us unable to address issues of systemic unfairness…
 The invisibility of privilege strengthens the power it creates and maintains- the
invisible cannot be combated and as a result, privilege is allowed to perpetuate, regenerate,
and re-create itself. The silence sustains it.
 Take a minute, and depending on how you see your ethnicity, look through pp. 92-98 or
90-91 and determine/acknowledge where you are (phase/between, etc) in your own racial
identity development.
 Discuss in small groups.
Small groups: Teacher Activities: (15 mins)
A. BRAINSTORM activities that MEDIATE and DISRUPT how white students benefit from
white privilege. Consider building in White racial identity discussion in relation to racism
(Phase 1: contact, disintegration, reintegration and Phase 2: pseudo-independence,
immersion-emersion, autonomy), pp. 92-98
B. BRAINSTORM activities that affirm how Black students experience themselves in
relation to white privilege and how to navigate through the murkiness/tensions that can
result in building mutually supportive alliances. Consider building in Black racial identity
discussion, (pre-encounter, encounter, immersion/emerison, internalization,
internalization-commitment) pp. 90-91. Remember the video, Girl Like Me?
Report out….
Chapter 6- discussion on Obama and Articulate
Obama- the master Styleshifter (some might call it codeswitching but that has a different
connotation)
 Sytleshifter: shifting between discourse models and linguistic forms in the same interaction
 Obama shifts between language (grammatical structure) and style (language use)
 See youtube clip: “Nah we straight.” (see pp. 7-9) (it can be said in three ways, compared
to American English, which has one acceptable form)
 We are straight; We’re straight; We • straight.
 Go to saved NPR clip.
 See transcript below
 Obama uses verbal/emotional persuasion: repetition (altering pitch and stress), codeswitching, rhythmic patterns, metaphors, stories (connected to larger themes), adopts a
Pastorial African-American vernacular and references Biblical verses, uses passion and
rousing speech tools of preachers from Black churches (signifyin’), and has a slow
cadence and uses pauses pregnant with meaning.
 Election: Understands White, main stream linguistic codes; knows how to speak familiarly
Black; can bring together “White syntax,” with “Black style”—this made him appear both
“American” and “Christian” (through his use of language and style, he reminded folk of
MLK (linguistic links) and they could make links); needed to “sound White” to get elected
 He demonstrates a linguistic flexibility which is a creative response to the awareness of
how linguistic prejudice manifests
 Satisfied the psychosocial demands of Whites, Blacks, and all others
 Considered the first “Hip Hop President”
 Linguistic role model for how to use language varieties well
Black English
 Complex verbal system which derives from a Creolized form of African and European
language varieties-distinct from white, mainstream English
 Black English is irrefutable evidence that there is a distinct, healthy, functioning African
American culture which is not white and does not want to be white.
 Black students who speak BE, for survival sake, are forced to be bicultural/bilingual in a
white social system. The same societal pressure does not exist for many Whites unless
they choose it (neoenslavement)
 When people refer to Black English as ignorant, they are actually showing their
ignorance of linguistic principles
 Black English syntax contains rules and use:
Rule
Copula absence
Invariant be for habitual aspect
Equatives
Intensified continuative (use of steady)
Stressed been to mark remote past
Mark future or conditional perfect (use of be
done)
Aspectual stay
3rd person present tense, s absence
Possessive s absence
Multiple negation
Example
“Nah, we  straight”
“He be talkin a lot in class”
“We be them bad boys”
“She steady prayin her son come back from
Iraq”
“I been told you not to trust them”
“By the end of the day, I be done collected
$600”
“She stay up in my business”
“I know who run this household”
“I’m braidin Talsesha’s hair”
“You can’t help folks who ain’t gonna make
it nohow”
“Ain’t nothing gonna change”
“Tell me we wouldn’t be treated different if
we was white:
Negative inversion
Generalization of was w/plural and 2nd
person subjects
Cultural modes:
 Signifyin (bustin, crackin, cappin, dissin)
 Playin the dozens
 Call and response
 Tonal semantics
 Battin and entering the cipher
 Artful use of direct and indirect speech
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Issues with “Articulate”
Articulate is used by members of dominant culture to describe the speech of those on the social and
linguistic margins.
When someone praises another for being articulate, i.e. how well they speak English, it engages in
paternalism and infantilizes Black (or others) intelligence and morality (i.e., moral failings). Implication is that
most Black people don’t have the capacity to engage in articulate speech when White people are
automatically assumed to be articulate. They are deficient (not). Yet celebrates Black movement toward
White mainstream and away from cultural separatism. “Compliments” can perpetuate racist ideas.
Subtextual racism: When a Black person is given a compliment for being articulate with other adjectives
like, “handsome,” “clean,” “good,”… it is a backhanded complimentBlack people can call the lie- they know they are being praised for abiding by white Norms
If an adult Black person is given the same compliment, do you think it is read the same as a Black youth?
One who is 5? 10? 15?
Brings to the fore related issues of racial segregation, cultural assimilation, assimilation, and linguistic
policing- that in order for a Black person to “make it” in America, he or she must be an exception to the racist
view of Black deficiency and must prove it by not speaking like other Blacks.
Query: Does it matter who is making the comment about articulate? Explain.
*** ACTIVITIES***
 WHEN STUDENTS ASK WHY IS THE SYSTEM THIS WAY: Work to show them that the
system is rigged and how they can work to change it.
 Have students analyze their own and others’ (esp. voices in the media) discourse
patterns.
 Do Linguistic Profiling Activity (John Baugh) see p. 187 for worksheet
 Watch American Tongues:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8711115/american_tongues/
Dr. Miller | EDCU 5560: Teaching and Learning in Urban Classrooms
Spring, 2014, UMKC
March 11, 2014
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Transcript of Ben’s Chili Bowl
Barack: (Handing over his money to the cashier) You just keep that. Where’s my ticket? You
got my ticket?
Cashier: (offers Barack his change)
Barack: Nah, we straight. (Reaching over to take his soda)
Customer: You got cheese fries, too?
Barack: Nah, nah, that’s you, man… (video cuts away and returns after Barack receives his chili
dog)
Barack: Now, do y’all have some Pepto Bismol in this place?
All Present: (all laugh)
Barack: (walking back up to the counter, addressing ashier again) Hey, home come he’s got some
cheddar cheese on his and I don’t on mine?
All Present: (laughter) Woahhh!
Cashier: Whatever you like, sir.
Barack: We got some cheese, you can sprinkle on it (gesturing the sprinkling of cheese, then
signifyin)? Not, not, not, not the Velveeta but the…
Customers: (Laughter)
Customer: The cheddar cheese!
Barack: The cheddar cheese