I keep coming back to this shyt b:c it’s so wrong on so many levels.
Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a young, bright, eager black student.
Research has shown that blk kids actually outpace white peers in literacy prior to entering the k-12 school system. By the time they are in 3rd grade, they are 2-3 years behind.
Our education system is a fukking joke. Stop blaming parents. Stop blaming students.
Here’s why:
1.)
Curriculum- What the fukk is even being taught? Nothing useful to a young blk student. Nothing that will help them make sense of their chaotic world rife with racism and systemic white supremacy or dire poverty. Fukk Pythagorean theorem when I’m hungry or McKinney Vento (I.e. homeless). But even beyond that, the curriculum is COMPLETELY and UTTERLY white and Eurocentric. If white students had to learn something they did not see themselves in at all, do you think they’d be good eager learners?!
They shooting schools up, hanging nooses on campuses, having orgies and bullying even tho the school system is DESIGNED for them. Don’t front.
2.)
Instructional strategies- Not only is the curriculum not culturally responsive to black kids, but the way it’s taught is fukking inadequate. We talking basic pedagogical principles.
Who the fukk...wants to sit there....for fukking 90 mins...and listen to a boring ass white bytch...lecture. It’s intellectual torture. Kids like movement. Experimenting. Engagement. Dynamic authentic learning experiences. Which most inner city poor black schools don’t offer! It’s just the same ole shyt. Day in and day out. Sit, spit, forget. All by design b/c zoning, property taxes, educational legislation passed by conservatives to line the pockets of rich business owners....think I’m lying? Ask urself why after 2001, ur baby gets...
3.)
TESTING- ASSESSMENT, ASSESSMENT, ASSESSMENT.
The average student (in a poor public school but not a rich white private one) will have to have an average of 10 standardized tests per year for any given grade level. Literacy exams, MAP testing 3 times a year, quarterly local exams, end of year exams in each subject area. Not to mention, quizzes and individual class teacher made tests.
Why all the testing? NCLB Act placed an emphasis on evidence based practices in 2001, b/c Bush was pressured by big testing companies to renew emphasis on it.
Big Business Going to Bat for NCLB READ ABOUT THIS shyt.
4.)
Majority WHITE FEMALE RACIST TEACHING WORKFORCE- So let’s say that the average young, plucky, black student isn’t as enamored with ya’ll PAWGS as some of you on this site are. They find them boring. These young white chicks don’t know how to teach b/c they come from white teacher preparation programs at white colleges, armed with their racism and implicit biases against black students and zero pedagogical knowledge of how to convey information in an intellectually stimulating way, no concept of basic behavioral modification techniques or classroom management and no cultural competence.
So when Daquan, who is biologically hardwired for movement and engagement, finally can’t take it anymore b/c he learns through social interaction, and dynamic learning processes...and he says FUKK THIS shyt I HATE THIS PLACE....the PAWG is going to have him suspended and referred to special education b/c she sucks as a teacher—not b/c he was a bad student.
Oh and she also keeps him from getting identified for talented gifted programs too.
5.)
Administration-School districts elect leaders that won’t rock the boat of politics. So it’s literally an ole boys club of nepotism. The few principals that DO make meaningful changes are punished and outted within a few years. Thus there is a never ending cycle of horrible leadership.
6.)
Education as a trend-Tried and true evidence based educational strategies have been replaced with trends. Wonder why they stopped teaching phonemic awareness in school and switched to sight words or teaching nascent readers to just memorize common words instead of learning word roots? Wonder why they teaching ur child to draw a fukking house to do basic multiplication instead of requiring them to memorize basic math facts. It’s because new district leaders take b*stardized versions of educational researcher’s work, and remix it and apply it to curriculum. They don’t properly train teachers in it. Don’t have an understanding of how to utilize the strategies, and so teachers are required to teach something strange and new every fukking year.
In short: This country sabotages public education with its own greed and incompetence, and when the kids can’t perform, they sit back and
Meanwhile, private schools are taking kids on camping trips, still have actual fukking textbooks, authentic learning experiences, 21st century technology, emphasis on the arts that was gutted in public schools, no racism, fully culturally responsive curriculums, small classrooms, pools, field trips b/c a free and public education was designed to fail from the beginning.
Btw did u know most HBCUs in the U.S. we’re created by whites in the 1800s to normalize us savages and provided with a curriculum bereft of abstract thinking, higher disciplines and crafted to keep us in the trades? NC A&T, Hampton
Do some reading on the educational historiography of African Americans in this country sometimes. Look up Sam Armstrong or google normal schools. They did it to Native Americans too.
There was NEVER supposed to be a free and public education for majority of Americans. It was only supposed to be for rich, elite white males. The demonization of public education started waaaaaaaay back.
So before you shuck and jive on the “dem blk chillens sho is bad” train, you try to survive as a 12 year old in sorry ass schools, with sorry ass racist teachers, with little meaningful intellectually engaging content, and getting tested like a fukking guinea pig every other day for nothing.
Some of you didn’t even make it to the end of this post.
The kids aren’t the reason why I left k-12 school system to do educational research, consultation and work in teacher preparation programs.