Developing Positive Self-Images In Black Children (1988) | Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu

[Music] join dr jawanza kanjufu for his presentation of developing positive self-images and discipline in black children dr konjufu presents realistic guidelines and positive developmental concepts for helping black children cope and achieve before we look at the workshop on developing positive self-images and discipline in black children my major position remains the same i believe the children are actors and they act out what they see in us if they're teaching 201 can i get along with teaching 203 you have the exact same problems with children if parents said you don't do what i do but do as

i say they have not taught them what's correct they're talking to be inconsistent i repeat children or actors and they act out what they see in us and i believe my workshops can be informative but they cannot change attitude i'm very disappointed about that i work hard with regards to research but certain things cannot be changed especially with regards to attitude what am i getting at as we begin to look at trying to close the gap or improve black student achievement my major concern is you cannot teach a child that you do not love and

there are large numbers of children in classrooms where they are not loved i also believe you cannot be the child you do not respect and there are large numbers of black children in classrooms they are not respected and then last but not least i also believe you cannot teach a child you do not culturally understand in other words we have integration should i be clear desegregation but we have many teachers who don't understand the culture of black children and you cannot do the child you do not culturally understand the program is called closing the gap

trying to close the gap between black and white student achievement trying to increase black student achievement for example the average white european child on our california test scoring the 60 percentile nationwide the average white european child in america on our california test is scoring the 60 percentile nationwide the average black african-american child in the same test is scrolling at the 30 percentile nationwide now what explains this 30-point differential there are at least five different reasons and i'm in trouble if you give me more than the file i'm looking for but there are at least five

reasons for this gap what do you think contributes to this differential between the average white child scoring the 60 percentile on the iowa california test and the average blind child scoring the 30 percentile on the same test what are some of the reasons okay and your first name is shirley can you get a water break because you handed so quickly sure i think it's number four on my list and that's the cultural bias of the text and surely i like to call that the curriculum not just the tests but the curriculum in terms of their

culture biasedness i want to also look at the issue of methodology learning styles and i want to look at what you just mentioned and that's the evaluation design the test itself any other reasons beside the curriculum methodology evaluation design any others yes first name gwen perhaps expectations from whom from the teacher okay very honest group gwen when that's number five on my list it's not that i place in this uh category because of its significance or importance i simply want to save the best for last i want to talk about everybody else first and then

we'll begin to talk about you so when we'll be getting it you to you in a few minutes any others yes first night richard expectations from my parents okay and richard that's number two on my list parental involvement and support i was wondering this group would blame the one we love to blame the most that's the parents first name lois lois i think uh the child's expectations and lois do you mind if we also connect that to self-esteem for students okay so in this case we're looking at student self-esteem now there's one more there's there's

probably a lot more but the other one that we have to have in order to continue and that's why we have the number one position it's so easy to so difficult to identify and that's the peer group we are very concerned about the peer group now i'm very proud of this particular group because in most workshops across the country beside these four and the one we were also looking for was the peer group many times people say well it's ability there's at least one or two persons in this audience that believe it's ability and then

every once in a while we get someone also looks at the environmental factors racism economic deprivation sexism and we acknowledge that there's no way in the world these stats are not also affected by economic deprivation and racism and sexism we see in our workshop like this we need we may not be able to change how ronald reagan thinks of david rockefeller or casper weinberger we may not be able to change what white men make 403 dollars a week and black women make about 234 we may not be able to change that but we can change

the influence of the peer group parental involvement student self-esteem the curriculum teacher expectation at least we can make attempt at that now as i said earlier there's at least one person in this room to make things disability i want to pause and look at this because if it's ability then block colleges independent block schools the effective schools project magnet schools cannot produce a quality product if it was ability then black colleges that only received 25 percent of the students but produced 50 percent of the graduates cannot produce that kind of product and if you think

they're inferior those students are going to graduate training at white universities and receive their degrees 75 percent of them receive their undergraduate training in a black undergraduate school so if it was ability the same ability that other schools work with then block colleges independent black schools magnet schools cannot produce a quality product it is not ability and since we cannot change environmental factors let's now look at the other five peer group parental involvement student self-esteem the curriculum and teach your expectations we apologize along as fast as we are we're condensing a six hour workshop into

about an hour and the first air i want to look at is the issue of the peer group what we're concerned with here is that we believe that schools are more than academic institutions they are also social institutions in other words very few of us have been trained on monitoring the peer group and yet this may be one of our greatest competitive influences on the minds of our children it has gotten so bad that when black boys want to do a good job in school they're labeled sisters it's gotten so bad when black youth want

to do a good job in school they're called you're trying to act white and that's deep deep in two areas first of all here we are the people that built the pyramids first to read and write and yet now we're going to attribute academic achievement to another race that's problem number one but problem number two do you know how much pressure's on our youth trying to on the one hand please their peer group that has one set of values and then please you teachers and parents with another set of values a tremendous amount of pressures

on them and we have to begin to understand that pressure we were very much concerned about the jackie robinson syndrome in other words in the class of 30 we'll have our one or two black students in our gifted and talented programs our honors programs our ap programs in other words the jackie robinson syndrome all over again in other words we're going to take our one or two top block students and put them in the class up 30 students do you know what it's like being the jackie robinson of the class and your peer group teasing

you for being in there and you have to be the only one or two in that kind of class there are some other school districts who are trying to close the gap and realize if they want to increase the odds stabilize black student achievement one or two is not enough in other words some schools are now looking at let's say having 10 to 15 students in that kind of setting so they can reinforce not just academically but also socially again a tremendous amount of pressure being the only one or two in the class and you

know what some insensitive teachers in a setting like this when they have to discuss the block issue they ask the blockchain well what do you think about that you know what's like being the only black child having to be the authority on all black issues and you don't want to be black no way no how a tremendous amount of pressure so we want to increase the odds we have to increase the number of students in those classes because schools are more than academic institutions there are also social institutions as well and we have to begin

to look at that we also believe that competition is healthy in other words we are very much concerned that many of our children are shying away from academic competition and they are very much involved in athletic competition in other words we believe that competition is healthy we believe it sharpens your skills we believe that there's a psychology of performance well let's be clear the fear of failure many black youth are afraid of competing in academic activities and more confident in athletic activities and what's sad is many schools allow it not just in ninth grade as

early as fourth and fifth grade we have many black youth shying away from academic competition and more involved in athletic competition as i said earlier we believe the competition sharpens your skills and we believe that our youth needs to be involved in both of these two particular areas in other words in integrated schools not desegregated in integrated schools these principals have told me if i have a 50 50 black white school then i don't want a 100 black basketball team and a 100 white science fair team or white debate team and if it means going

extra step like the boston celtics to get some white ball players i'm going to do that if it means going extra steps to get some black students and debating science fairs i'm going to do that because they are committed to having students involved with academic and athletic competition because it sharpens your skills and we are concerned about that in other words let's move away from the varsity approach the academics where you only have the top one or two students representing the school we believe in the intramural approach we believe in a class of 30 students

let's say i have six teams of five players let's have everyone involved in athletics let's have everyone involved in academics because competition sharpens the skills but you know what's sad even schools give more glory to their ball players than their scholars in other words for the basketball winners they get these big trophies for the debate team to get these little certificates where the pep rallies for the honor roll in other words we give them to the basketball team but why not to the academic scholars and achievers as well in other words we are illustrating where

our priorities are we want to change that priority we've got to find ways to infiltrate the peer group to get them all involved above academic and athletic competition some other ideas on this the university of michigan did a study when you and i were growing up and they wanted to find out was a major influence on children university of michigan reports in 1950 that the greatest influence on children was the home followed closely by school then church then peer group then television now gwen you probably call these the good old days home school church peer

group and television hold your brothers we give you 1980 1985. home is still number one but the streets the peer group that's what we're talking about is now in the number two position television and video games are number three predicting number one sometime this year school has now dropped down to the fourth position and i'm sorry you can't find church anywhere on a map a whole lot has happened in 30 years i want to again pause and look at the peer group your greatest source of competition in other words the power of the peer group

is because they look like each other you will always emulate those people that look like you what am i getting at connecting to the classroom a i became a writer to make sure i'm not misquoted a white teacher can teach a blind child math because expectations transcend rex don't miss quote me i'm in no way saying that a white teacher cannot teach a blind child because expectations transcend race but a white teacher cannot teach a black child how to be black in other words in order to be a black engineer you need to see a

black engineer the power of the peer group they look like each other in other words when i ask black boys across the country to name me five black male entertainers they don't have a problem name five black male athletes they don't have a problem but when i asked them to name me five black men with college degrees they have all kind of problems in other words if we cannot increase black staff at your school then what i recommend you do like what st louis is doing is have a central role model program so we begin

to bring in black role models on a regular basis so we don't want to take the white teacher out of class but if she if he or she has to stay there then we want every week or at least once a month role models coming in so our youth can see black achievers and we need to centralize that kind of program the power of the peer group they look like each other another secret about the peer group you see in most classes let me do it this way i'll use another sheet in most classrooms you

have 30 students and you have one teacher and it's almost 30 against one that's how it's phrased 30 against one you always lose with odds like that we have got to find ways to get the odds in our favor in other words i recommend that a teacher identify who the leaders are you see we must get them to buy into our value system we must find ways to infiltrate the peer group to inculcate our value system into theirs and that first of all means identifying who the leaders are let me give you a secret the

leaders don't walk around saying with a t-shirt i'm the leader i'm running the class they deal with body language they deal with eye contact and so the first step is do you know how to identify the leader and then once you do either before school after school or some break pull him or her over to the side and try to inculcate your value system into theirs then they will begin to proselytize the other parts of the peer group we have got to get more of the peer group buying into our value system you see the

peer group does not have to be negative it can also be positive the question is which value system they're going to promote we have to begin to look at those kinds of issues and so we recommend these kinds of strategies for the peer group we recommend that first of all we begin to put more priorities on our academic achievement over athletic achievement we also recommend moving forward and moving away from the varsity approach to the intramural approach we recommend that you identify who the leaders are we recommend we bring in more role models to our

program provide pep rallies for academic achievement but my major concern here is that schools are more than academic institutions they are also social institutions it is sad to say this but you could have been doing your job parents could have been doing their job and it all go for naught because the black and hispanic peer group are reinforced what kind of gym shoes they wear what kind of clothes they wear how well they fight or dance and not academic achievement this is not theoretical i was in honors classes when i was in high school and

i i was so influenced by my peer group i flunked the whole american food intentionally trying to get kicked out had it not been for my father who then kicked my butt i'd have some very serious problems realizing his size 11 of my rear end was more important than my peer group but let me give you a secret when you want to reinforce academic achievement especially for black boys it becomes suicidal if he's not also involved in the martial arts in other words i was still in honors programs but i was allowed to run track

and also martial arts because my peers did not respect my honors achievement but they did respect my martial arts have helped we have to begin to look at those kinds of areas before we move on to the next area with regards to parents any comments about the peer group it's tremendous impact on academic achievement any comments or questions you got 30 seconds i'm moving on yes sir first night michael michael what can teachers do to influence this in the context of a classroom situation well i tried to mention a couple michael one i want you

to identify who the leaders were and begin to sell your value system to them uh secondly i wanted you to bring more role models into your classroom so they can see blocks in in high professions have advanced themselves two i mean three i wanted you to provide or with your school to provide more academic achievement um in terms of glorifying that in terms of pep rallies and trophies and the like any other comments about the peer group a major source of competition another area parents we're very concerned about the role of parents with regards to

our schools and one of our concerns there's a distinction between involvement and support these two words are not the same but they use synonymously and we want to begin to look at that parental involvement and parental support parental involvement is attending a pga meeting making baked goods for bake sale selling raffle tickets for raffle sale look if i never attend your pta meeting but i monitor my child's peer group i monitor television we go to the library on a regular basis that's support now i know you want them both but between the two of them

i sincerely believe support is a lot more significant than parental involvement but i do agree after we get the support we also need the involvement so i've begun to look at head start to begin to look at chapter one to look at some effective principle terms of what they do with our students and i found there are certain things that they do first of all we have to find ways to market our programs i often ask principals how many parents are going to be here tonight when i'm when i speak to them well i don't

know i send out a thousand flyers that tells me right there they'll know a thing about black culture because the rumor is if you want to make sure black folks don't find out about it put in the book in other words we are not a written people primarily it's the oral tradition if you want me there call me up so a thousand flyers may only generate ten pants but a personal invitation a personal funk that's what head start does that's what chapter one does so they use first of all the oral tradition they find ways

to communicate in other ways beside a printed flyer and then secondly who determine what the workshop should be about you see most schools teach parents the same way they teach children where we decide for them what the workshop should be about that's a mistake in other words if you know that parents are younger these days or less mature a change in demographics then before giving them a workshop on their child's development why don't you give them one on their own development or relationships if you want black men to be there give them a workshop on

a conspiracy to struggle black boys or how to find a job in other words one school district in this country cleveland heights has a 50 50 black white school population but at 97 percent white pta they wanted to bring me in to get more parents to come out but they were concerned with the title the title says developing positive self images and discipline in black children if they kept the word block in the white pants may not show up but if they don't keep the word blocking it the black parents may never attend they decide

to keep the word block in and broke a record that night and black parents say it was the first time you finally gave me a workshop about me now of course let me be honest there were very few white parents there only about 43 of them about 400 black pants so the next day i had to meet with the white pta council we're still working how to get both groups together but we at least solve the objective we got more black pants to come out in other words what i'm really getting at with regards to

this is that black panthers have told me jawanza i know i need to be there but if all we're going to discuss is last month's minutes some budgetary changes and a couple of personnel changes with a boring speaker i'm simply not going to be there i gave you a clue a boring speaker remember in the oral tradition the strength of the black church a charismatic speaker if you want black pants to be there not only have an interesting topic but also the speaker has to be one that's able to keep their attention it's unfortunate we

have to do this but we do and we have to find ways to continue those kind of marketing efforts and then of course there's always those we always can depend on for example providing food it works almost every time providing child care it works the majority of the time providing transportation if your meeting is at night in a low-income crime-ridden area you may need to provide security and then the wonder works every time have the children perform in other words parents black white and hispanic and asian they all love to see their children perform you

know how many programs i've been on where the choir not the class choir the school choir saying before me and then the princess oh and by the way we're bringing dr juwanza in for a 30-minute pen workshop and to make sure you stay and then the choir will then come back with their closing selections it works every time we have to find those kinds of ways and why we have to do that we have to do that because before 1954 when we had teachers who lived on the same block who went to the same church

see black parents have always trusted the teachers they've always felt that you were the primary educator i'm now telling parents unfortunately you may not be the primary educator you may not know what's best for their children a little later all we're going to discuss on the conspiracy to disturb like boys the black children are 17 percent of all children in this country but they're 41 of all the special ed children now 17 doesn't equal 41. and it gets worse if a black child is going to be labeled emr ldbd 85 percent of the time it's

going to be a black boy and see it's called a staffing where you have this white principal white psychologist white social worker white teacher or blocking skin but not in consciousness all telling this parent to sign on the dotted line and because black parents believe in you they say well whatever you think is best now white parents may agree to ld but they're not agreeing to the reward now curriculum of emr and bd because they realize that they are the primary educators of their children and so you can't have it both ways you can't on

the one hand say you want them to be the primary educator and then when they question you get offended you know what they told me i'm not comfortable talking to teachers in other words here we are with our bas mas and phds and use that kind of jargon vocabulary with these parents in other words if you're so secure in your degrees then why don't you communicate with them i believe as jesus said what you're doing to the least of these you also do unto me when you are educated you know how to serve many of

us are uncomfortable talking with these parents and so we have to begin to work on those kinds of issues but some other ideas because our time is running so tight with regards to parenting there's a rumor growing around that low-income parents cannot produce high-achieving students do you believe that it's also going around that single parents cannot produce high achieving students do you believe that and so we don't believe in ireland so my book on images and reginald clarke's book family life and school achievement we looked at that low income high income single parents two parents

and what we found out was it was not how much money was in the home it was not how many parents were there what it boiled down to was the quality of the interaction in other words if you want to produce high achieving students we identified five common characteristics first of all in the high achieving homes these parents believe that the world is going to be better for their children you know in some homes the parents are already downtrodden already beaten and they transmit a dismal attitude to their children we're not in high achieving homes

these parents say well it may not be all what i want to be but it's going to be better for my children they first of all transmit hope secondly in high achieving homes these parents are consistent with their children you know somehow mama got one rule on monday another rule on wednesday not here there's consistency here third in the high achieving homes these parents are complementary to their children you know some homes every other word is four letters not here these parents praise their children fourth in the high cheating homes these parents give their children

high expectations and then last but not least besides transmitting hope being consistent being complementary giving high expectations these parents believe that they are the primary educators of their children in other words they've always been two kind of parents in america there's a teacher paying conference you want to talk to the parent now the first kind of pain not in this study will probably pass the buck would probably say well i don't know what to do with them either i got some my own problems can you solve some of mine too the first kind of pain

will pass the buck but then you get a second kind of parent who listen to you very carefully and upon conclusion we'll say very softly thank you very much for telling me about my child now if you can just leave us alone for a moment i can assure you you won't have that problem anymore in life now you leave the meeting you don't know what goes on behind closed doors but it must be like the godfather where the parent gave the child an offer the child could not refuse or as bill cosby tells theo on

the first day of the show i brought you in here and i'll take you out now these are the kind of parents we like to have more of in other words we want to come back and have a detailed workshop of your parents it's a 16-step parent involvement program and it first of all starts with establishing goals so i believe if you're going to be a good parent you have to establish goals for your children and once you have goals for them then you can go into stage two a home program but so you can't

even go into stage two if you aren't clear on stage one another when i asked black and many parents what kind of goals they have for their children i hear things like well as long as you don't beat me as long as he gets a job lonely stays out of jail we see if your goals are weak then your home program will be weak i have two sons 15 and 10. i only have three goals for them first of all i want them to put god number one in their lives secondly i want them to

be committed to the liberation of black my sons to be the people rather than being the employee now the question is if these are the goals to my sons what kind of game plan home program or strategy can i develop that will hopefully i said hopefully that's the key word you see i control the process i don't control the result it's like it's workshop how i give the workshop my business how you use the workshop your business there's no way i can ever guarantee any of this for my children you see i sleep good every

night because i understand what i control i control the process not the result but the question is if my home program is my process if i want them to put god first in their lives should they go to church should they read a bible or call me maybe if i want them to believe in god they need to go to church and read the bible quran hold on we'll come back to you a little bit later on if i want them to be committed to the liberation of blind people should they begin to read black

children's literature know that malcolm's birth king's birthday is january 15th malcolm's birthday may 19th gary's birthday august 17th and quantum december they should know that if i want them to be the employer should i also get some of my own homework and i just rely on school homework you know we have children that know that six times three is eighteen but when you give them a word problem they don't know what to do if you wanna train a child give the skill first if you wanna educate a child give the need first we have people

with bas mas and phds out of work can't make nothing they have been trained not educated we have to work on that so these against some of the kinds of ideas we want to share with you with regards to parenting that we want them to believe that a primary educator and that means you have got to share some of the power in other words we can't on the one hand say we want them to be the primary educator and then when they begin to question us use our authority over them in other words it should

be a 50 50 proposition with regards to this child's development any comments about parenting the role it plays with regards to our students achievement yes is it gwen right in terms of helping parents with parenting skills what do you recommend you you mention being where the parents are and parents are getting younger i'm thinking again in terms of parenting skills where you let's say that you are in um an urban setting and you have many young parents and they don't seem to know which end is up you talk about process and see that's my point

two things one i don't believe that there's there's not opinion in this country that does not want the best for their child i sincerely believe that but i also believe that before you deal with child development you have to deal with self-development when those parents that are 13 16 19 21 and the like uh they have not found themselves yet and so before giving them a workshop on child development we have to work with them on their own self-esteem on their own relationship on how to find a job so i believe many times we have

not asked them what kind of workshops they are interested in and head start is more successful because they ask the parents what they need rather than us deciding for them what they should have okay let me go on because of our time let me move to the third area and that's one of my favorites and that's the issue of student self-esteem i sincerely believe that education is more than reading more than writing is more than man should first of all teach our children who they are you see if you don't know who you are then

you will not know what to do with your life and if you don't know what to do with it then you won't know how to achieve your goals so alex haley raised the question the question of who am i and he asked his mother father aunts and his uncles who he was some people told alex they were negro some told haley they were colored others told alex they were black some said they were afro-american some tell alex they were african and lastly some said american now we have the only children and some adults that give

six different answers to a very simple question like who am i again you cannot teach a child that is first of all not know who he is it's more important than reading math and science so we began to ask ourselves why do germans call themselves germans why do chinese call themselves chinese and we were told there's a land called germany there's a land called china so let's go back to a world map germans are germans land called germany chinese are chinese land called china let's go to a world map is there a place in the

world called negro lane what about color land what about black lane what about afro-america land there's only two answers left africa and america but be honest what comes the most to our children's mind when they hit it with africa turn saying run around no clothes on be honest and what about america red white and blue and apple pie that's because this word right here which is nothing but his story you didn't know that it's all history is somebody's story you know what i'm talking about columbus didn't discover america he was lost and he end discovered

him and abraham lincoln didn't for any slaves or another way to look at it my story is very very close to the word mystery and i want to clear up a couple of mysteries right now the book is titled great people past and present what happened to a people that built the pyramids and yet now live in projects what happened what happened to a people they're the first to read and write using a term called hieroglyphics and yet now can no longer read or write in essence what happened to a people in terms of egypt

it's amazing king tut came to america and we didn't realize that king tut was one of us somebody mysteriously took egypt out of africa and placed it in the middle east now how do you take a country out of a continent and then call it something else as a result we didn't realize that egypt is in africa egyptians are africans and we were the ones that built those pyramids but my new history book lessons from history celebration and blackness for elementary and there's also one for high school you see we are concerned about some issues

here the first one being where do you start you see we have found that many black youth and bears talking about the history the jews now about the holocaust but us about slavery i think one reason is where you start the law says where you start will determine where you end up now where do you want to start our children if they start in 1619 they start on a plantation that means they'll probably end up in a ghetto but if you start four million years ago on a pyramid they end up being free now where

do you want to start on a plantation on a pyramid because depending upon where you start will determine where they end up our first problem is we've been starting in the wrong place and you cannot discuss 4 million years in 28 days black history month now i'm glad we got the month it used to be a week but you can't discuss 4 million years in 28 days it's going to be not enough time and then the other issue what are we going to discuss you see if we're all we're going to discuss our names and

dates and events then you can do that in about 28 days when was king born 29 when he go 36 63 when he get the nobel prize 64. when did he die 68 that would never change but if you want to make it relevant you connect the past with the present and with the future in other words what were our mistakes because the mistakes you want to avoid and the strengths you want to reinforce i'll say it clearly those that don't know their history don't know their mistakes are destined to repeat it over and over

and over and over again our children need to know their story and it did not start here and it should be more than just names and dates and events but let me calm down and go on there's still two answers left africa and america but there's a tremendous difference between who you are and where you're born my hometown chicago the ex-mayor daily if you had asked daley where he was born he said he was born in the usa but asked ellie who he was asking where his roots are and he said his roots are in

ireland next stop east coast philadelphia the ex-mayor there rizzo if you ask rizzo where he was born he too would say the usa but ask rizzo who he is ask him where his roots are and he said his roots are in italy but i think you know what i'm talking about you and your husband you and your wife are traveling across the world and you're pregnant and you gave birth to a child in russia would your son or daughter be russian you're not sure next stop china and you gave birth to a child in china

would your son or daughter be chinese hold on you're still not sure suppose you gave birth to a child in the airplane in the middle of no flex we're gonna call your child in delta airlines and united airlines just because you're born in america doesn't make you an american if someone asks you where you're born you're born in america but if someone asks you who you are what your roots are you obviously african-american or european-american or mexican-american but the who always comes first education is more than reading should first of all teach you who you

are but you know what else that you're teaching it should make you feel good about yourself now the question is what makes you feel good about yourself what gives you strong self-esteem we believe first your relationship with god second unconditional love from your parents third high expectations from teachers fourth feeling good about your race color of your skin and texture of your hair and lastly knowing where your talents are because of time i want to look at this one the issue of race there's a rumor going around that some of us hopefully not in this

room are still using terms like good hair and that to me is deep you see if you know what good hair is then you must know what bad hair is if you know what pretty eyes are you must know what ugly eyes are that's dialectic the law of opposites our best seller for children is called colors around me we believe that our children come in all different colors but no matter what color they are they are beautiful just the way they are now what i've noticed speaking to the primary grade children across the country they

clap for all of them so the emily is brown like chocolate cake and very pretty and robbie is red like cinnamon rolls and very handsome the primary grades clap for all the children but the upper grade laughs and michael who's black like licorice candy and they also laugh at joseph who's black like ebony wood now you would think that the older our children are the greatest selfish thing would be but exactly the opposite and my question to you what is it about america's images where the longer these children live here the less they feel about

themselves and remember renee is golden like a peach and the upper grade clap for renee and they laugh at joseph what a reason is very simple we allow somebody else to define for us what beauty is if a mirror defines beauty as light skin long hair and blue eyes is beautiful haven't they told you what ugly is it must be the exact opposite it must be dark skin short hair and broad features once you know it is you automatically know it's not but you know what's amazing when i was in florida i found europeans trying

their best to run down to florida to get a suntan to look like us and then i found us running home with noxzema and cream trying to look like them you didn't know that racism is a sign of insecurity people that are secure are comfortable with differences only insecure people we need to rationalize because they are different it makes them better but let me tease you one step further it's the first day of school when renee comes walking to your classroom with her pretty dress on her hair floating in the wind and like all little

boys joseph comes in behind her but on this state of accident on his way to school did not make it to the executive room in time now do you sincerely believe that joseph can learn as much as renee if you don't you are fit to teach our children there are teachers who believe that rene is smarter than joseph and when they believe that she just becomes smarter than joseph do you know how many black women even in this room can't swim afraid here's going to go back go back to where what you're afraid of going

back to this is deep do you think that what happened in slavery is over read peculiar institution by kenneth stamps the slave-making process we have to work on those kinds of issues before we go into our next workshop on curriculum any comments about student self-esteem the role it plays in academic achievement i believe you cannot do a good job in school if you don't like the way you look yes how do you attack the racial self-esteem within the peer group for example a boy saying she's good looking for a black skin or dark skin girl

or or vice versa how do you attack that in the peer group what are some ways of looking i think we have to confront it head on in other words the real damage now is not done between white and black it's done among the black peer group black adult as well and so we have to confront that we have to show them the beauty and strengths of their color in other words we don't have time to discuss this this afternoon but what are the benefits of dark skin what are the benefits of your natural hair

see we hear all about the benefits of being light-skinned or being white or having european style hair what are the benefits of dark skin there are a lot of benefits yes you mentioned um that school should have more than just read write rumor take correct what affects you feel that this new trend of back to basics you know it says only teach math reading and writing will that not eventually have effect on how we teach black kids because boards of education are trying to get away from black history and black history month and all that

stuff well i think that those progressive educators realize that back to basics doesn't have to exclude uh black history that if the accent is on reading we don't have a problem with that we're also in favor of moving to phonetics rather than the side approach and the word approach so i don't have a problem with back to basics but when you have back the basics just be sensitive about the literature in which you choose we have to begin to work on those kinds of situations because of our time let me begin to move on our

next workshop is on curriculum and methodology and learning styles one of our concerns comes from james banks multicultural education it's the code word now multicultural now my concern is if it's multicultural not quote-unquote white history then we will no longer have world history through european eyes we will put the event in the middle and we will see what everyone says about the same event in other words we'll call this the uh the agents and africans and the europeans and the hispanics and the native americans i also gave you a clue this is also the order

world population we are not the minority there are 700 million of us living in the world ages are first and we're second we're not the minority eighty percent of the world's population has color we are not the minority but the point i want to make here is if the event goes in the center not a people but an event then we go around the world giving each group an equal amount of time to give their side to the story that's what will make it multicultural for example if the event was columbus coming to america europeans

would say columbus discovered america but the native americans say columbus was lost and they discovered him same event but these two groups see a different slavery european to say slavery was good for america but africans would say the black fan was almost not quite was almost destroyed world war ii europeans say world war ii was good for the american economy but asians would say they were placing camps in california same event but these two groups see it differently if it's multicultural no group is in the center but when you run the world then you can

do whatever you want columbus can discover america lincoln can be the one to free the slaves you can even make if you want to america large and africa africa is 2.5 times the size of the united states but when you run the world you can make america large in africa you can even move africa over here and put america in the middle i challenge it in your school system do you have maps showing africa larger than america do you have maps that show africa in the center of the world that's exactly where it is a

multicultural education but beyond content let's also look at learning styles the work is from piaget from asia hilliard from janice hale benson titled black children their roots their culture their learning styles remember when you were in school it's called a split brain theory the rumors are walking around with half a brain the split brain theory remember when you were in school the rule was that instructors teach their subjects but teachers understand how children learn there are two sides to the brain there's the right side of brain which is holistic it sees everything very good in

areas like music and in sports that's the right side of brain but you also have the left side of brain very analytical it breaks things into parts very good in math and in science now it has been said in some private academic circles that people of color are better on the right side of brain and the people that lack color are better on the left side of brain now my question to you did god go to sleep with black folks on the left but wake up on the right did god wake up europeans on their

left but go back and sleep on their right and before you answer please remember 86 of the nba national bath association starters are blocked but only one percent of the engineers in this country are black isn't it true that all black folks can dance that we all got rhythm is it physical or is it cultural come on now can't hear you cultural now i agree with you terry but our children don't our children believe i could probably ask anyone here in cincinnati in terms of the youth to go 101 any white boy in a basketball

court they'd have no problems but we'll be scared step in the laboratory i believe as you do i believe it's culture but our children believe they have a better chance of doing well on the right side of brain you see my concern is that that you do most will be that that you do best but more importantly that you are allowed to do we've always been encouraged to sing and dance and play basketball but not to become involved in math and science but remember there are five ways to communicate an idea in a classroom and

those five are written which is left right oral stories right brain pictures right brain fine arts right brain and artifacts right brain there are five ways to communicate an idea in a classroom most schools use an exclusive left brain methodology and a left brain test with large numbers of right brain thinking children a tremendous tragedy there are two ways to learn left and right side of the brain now here's where the exercises go if you want a left brain lesson plan it goes like this read the definition write the definition purely left brain read it

and write it if you want to go from left not to right but left the whole brain using both sides read the definition and then draw what you think you just read then you'd have to integrate the left and right side of the brain you know we have people in this room with bas mas and phds still drawn with stick figures still drawing like fourth graders it's not your fault when you were in school they belittle the right side of brain let me give you a homework assignment i want you to develop a right brain

lesson plan and then evaluate it with a right brain instrument we have got to find ways to meet our children where they are they have a strength that we have not been using and i wish we could have a lot more time on this major area of learning styles but because of our time we're now down to about five or seven minutes i want to now move into the best for last i want to now look at teacher expectations i want to now talk about you i'm now quoted from the work of wilbur brookover and

ron edmonds they wanted to find out what was the major reason for academic achievement i am proudly poor third not number one is the student's socio-economic background some of us still keep believing well how much money is in the home how many parents are there it is not number one it is third on the list the second is the school per pupil expenditure some of us still keep believing well what color is the school bus how big is the carpet well that is also not number one how much money is in the school on the

home has never been number one number one is never change number one remains teacher expectations tuscaloosa alabama 1920 one-room school check 40 students the roof was leaking only two books and all 40 students learned beyond piaget beyond montessori beyond glasser beyond good land education boils down to one word and one with only do you believe that our children can learn that seems very simple the key word is expectations you know the program it's called tesla teach your expectation student achievement the theory is if you increase this you increase this but we found out was teachers

are human many teachers lower expectations on four factors brooke over gives those four as race income gender and appearance in other words many teachers lower their expectations based upon the race of the child the income of the child the gender of the child and how the child looks one teacher wanted to give me another i want to share with you now she also said juwans i know it's not right but i also am affected by the parents show up in other words i've noticed i respond differently to certain children if i know the parents are

involved i know it's not correct but i asked exactly what i do five major areas that affect expectations so again a program is called tessa it goes into your classroom with a video camera with your peers with an administrator trying to see if they can monitor expectations and you know the three strands of tessa one is response opportunities another one is feedback and the last one is personal regard what tesla attempts to do is to see if you can give all 30 children the same number of opportunities tesla believes you learn best when you're involved

in the process now this is very hard to do if we talk about a white teacher with 30 white children or belong to you with 30 black children to give all 30 children the same number of opportunities to respond tester believes this is necessary in order to grow and develop now many things to say is what juwanza the reason why i don't call on willie is that will you don't know the answer well see the problem is when you stop calling on willie back in october if you wanted to call him now in may he

wouldn't know the answer because he believes you're going to call on anyone and then the other one i hear so much of well time is so tight i can't afford to waste time unwilling well see the problem is that may be correct in the short term but when we talk about somebody's life that we're now destroyed that could be involved in prison later in the long term it's better to call on willie now than they haven't taken all that money from us in prison later on we've got to begin to look at having all the

children involved and then the next area feedback two students willing the low achiever and the high achiever you call on willie first he gets the answer wrong you probably stay with willie one second then you go on the end she also got the answer wrong but she's your higher achiever so you stay with ann lo long come on ann you know it and they begin to give a clue and clue five minutes later and finally comes with the answer in other words it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that anne feels better about herself because we've given

her more feedback more reinforcement and then of course the last one the one i'm concerned about the most and that's personal regard that's attitude tesla believes you should touch the children let them know that you care let them know that you love them so what happens we send teachers a test of training and they come back saying i touched you i love you i like you but the problem is the children know it's still not there it's not real this cannot be taught you either love them or you don't in cincinnati or where we are

in the country please don't put all the schools in the same category ron evans before he died develop the effective schools project what makes effective schools there are three major factors one they have strong leadership in other words please don't think every school in cincinnati or in princeton county school district are in the same category because first of all good principals spend very little time in their office you see the good ones are instructional leaders they're involved in the classroom they're involved in the corridors in other words they realize they should be involved in the

educational process they get there early and stay late paperwork done early they be involved with the students throughout the day good principals also have workshops for their teachers especially in the third and fourth quarter where you begin to have teacher burnout you don't need me now in august and september oh but in january and march and april where you have teacher burn there's some serious problems there i know you're not gonna like this i also leave the principles should take their teachers out to lunch have teacher the month awards in other words a good principal

is a good coach they have to find ways to keep their staff motivated good schools have strong leadership secondly they have teachers as i said earlier who give high expectations what am i getting at it has been said that in low achieving schools the most negative room in the school is a teacher cafeteria because in that room you hear comments like this you can't help these children these children can learn and you know what happens for the new teacher just coming in they get swayed the negative way but you see in high achieving school the

principal plans to spa in the teacher cafeteria they want to know who's making those kind of comments it's amazing the good teachers in 201 and 206 you know what they tell me they don't go to the teacher cafeteria but the poor ones in 202 and 204 in there all day long it's amazing how the negative forces do a much better job of organizing than the positive forces and then the last factor time on task there are many schools giving children a lot more time on instruction than other schools we have to work on these three

areas strong leadership high expectations and a lot more time on tax closing point there are three kinds of adults in our classrooms instructors teachers and coaches we have a lot more instructors than we do teachers let me define terms an instructor means just that i teach chemistry teach geometry i got mine you get yours and they mean that they only deal with their subject matter they don't deal with learning style they don't deal with motivation self-esteem finding that job description i got mine you get yours now you know what's sad with a high dropout rate

we have a lot more instructors in the upper grades than we need to need to second group they now deal with subject matter but they also deal with learning style they realize that children have different learning styles you know what teachers do they give right brain lesson plans as well and they use right brain ways to evaluate learning not just a test but hands-on learning activities and then the last group they didn't always deal with subject matter not only deal with learning style but they also deal with motivation they also deal with self-esteem what am

i getting at you see a coach understands here's our instructors do it class turn to page 10. now the students probably turn this same level enthusiasm you said turn to page 10. a coach realizes i can't teach these children they first of all don't believe ask them to offer them so a coach would close the book and begin to ask what do your adults tell you you know what i found out they say two things one get a good education and the second thing you tell me is to work hard so then we ask the

young people what do you want to say well get a good education for what and work hard for who now these to me are two very good questions if working hard was the solution black people should be running the world do you know anybody who's worked hard enough our children are tired of being employee quit telling them to get a good education to get a good job teach them they can also be employer but the real issue here as our time begins to run down a good education they watch you with your good education but

many of us work a j.o.b now all the good education got you was a jlb that you don't like that means they never end up living for t-g-i-f money now all you have to do is move everything was with some money are treating the shark there are other ways to make this beside a good education with the four main sources being drugs sports music and crime you are not going to motivate black youth if all you have to offer them is money closing point the issue is not money the issue is talents you didn't know

i'm at work right now you see if you have a job you watch the clock all day long but if you have a career then you know where your talents are and you love what you do so much you'll be willing to do it for free but because you do it so well you get paid for it last question i want all the instructors to raise their hands i want all the teachers to raise their hands i want all the coaches to raise their hands very good thank you very much give yourselves a strong rob

applause