The Color of Education: Black Students, White Teachers and Grey Education

Hello, my name is Robin and I am smart, for a black girl.

As an 8th grader at a low income public school, I had my first encounter with a black administrator assigned to “help me”. Whatever that meant, I didn’t care, I just remember being happy I finally had my second black teacher, Ms. Bee. After half of a year of observations, conversations and record reviews, she advised my mom that she thought I may have exceptionalities, (it was just a fancy way of saying child genius electrons in my brain, I was Jimmy Neutron, only the black, female and poorer version).

Up until 8th grade, I had only had one black teacher . Most of my elementary teachers were white, which didn’t matter to me because in 8th grade, because I didn’t see race. Instead, I saw bad teaching delivered by burned out and unpassionate teachers. Most of them had written me off, called me disorderly, disruptive and loud. Some even attempted to medicate me, because they were unsure of how to “handle” me. Ms. Bee took the time to figure me out, I wasn’t bad at all actually.

In the article Empowering Educators Through Cultural Competence (2015) written by Jose Vilson, Vilson emphasizes the impact that is made when students believe that their teachers care. Vilson (2015) includes a powerful statement gathered from a teacher who said, “The student might not be able to read, but they can read you” (p. 3). In very few words, Vilson (2015) epitomizes the students ability to decipher a teacher intentions well before they decipher material given to them.

In the article Role of a Teacher as Classroom Manager by Aijaz Ahmed Gujjar and Bushra Naoreen (2009), Gujjar and Naoreen assert that teachers play the most critical role in the educational system. They contend that the development of each generation lies in the hands of teachers. A teachers attitude, delivery, qualifications, training and the investment in their students future tends to be reflected in their lessons and expectations.

In looking back, maybe I acted out because I knew many of those teachers didn’t actually care about my future or understood their role in cultivating it. They read my record and immediately counted me out, but I just wasn’t challenged and a little misunderstood. So, what do you do with a black girl whose behavior is poor but intelligence exceptional? You don’t send her to the principal’s office, you send her to a private high school on a scholarship with 6% diversity and an all white teaching and administering staff. (Problem Solved)

During the second or third quarter of, in my freshman Biology AP course, we broke up into groups and conducted a dissection of a frog. Here we were laughing, cutting, pinning, labeling and making observations. When one of my teammates said that “she had underestimated me”. I laughed it off and asked why, she told me that in her experience, black teammates were usually “lazy, coasting & unknowledgeable” amongst other adjectives. She told me that it was okay because I was clearly not that kind of black , I was lucky I was smart for a black girl. I was getting a “good” education.

In the 1994 article Missing Teachers, Impaired Communities by Mildred J. Hudson and Barbara J. Holmes, Hudson and Holmes proclaim that since Black students were tasked with integrating White schools, there was a subliminal message dispersed about the superiority of White Schools and White education. As Milner and Howard (2004) in the article Black Teachers, Black Students, Black Communities, and Brown: Perspectives and Insights from Experts, phrased it, integration was implemented like there was something secretive and sacred about White education. Yet there it was, 2007/2008 and I had been just made to feel like I was a better breed of black at this white institution. At that moment, race mattered. What made this education “good”?

I spoke with a teacher and an administrator who was confused as to why I was complaining about a compliment. I remember feeling so confused and puzzled because it wasn’t a compliment, it was an insult, but that didn’t matter. It fueled my curiosity about the impact that race has on education. In fact, it made me question whether white teachers had the ability to properly educated black students.

In a society where white teachers with homogenous backgrounds disproportionate dominate the teaching force of diverse students, one could question their preparedness. This is called into question not simply because of race, but also because of experiences, biases and the inherent Whiteness that is perpetuated in the institutionalized racist system we call American education. At the close of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the beginning of Brown v. The Board of Education (1954), black people integrated the physical white schoolhouses, but not much integration has been done for the curriculum for incoming teachers. Milner and Howard (2004) argue that this desegregation of the public school system resulted in a drastic decrease in the black teaching force and a teaching population of mostly white teachers without any experience with diversity. These white teachers continued teaching their integrated classrooms, like nothing had changed. Teachers continued to obtain licenses for teaching like nothing had changed. In 2017, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, teaching force is still comprised of over 80% white individual. Most of whose only experience with diversity is the college credits they earned from reading about it.

Milner and Howard (2004) highlighted the importance of having a good teacher. They argue that educators often represent surrogate parents acting as disciplinarians, therapists, role models and essentially advocates for each of their students. But, what if that teacher is not sure how to decipher cultural norms and therefore struggle with behavior interpretation, discipline and basic understanding? How do you role model cultural inclusion and cultural competence if you as a teacher are neither of those things and haven’t been taught to be that?

In the 2005 article Being a Good Teacher of Black Students? White Teachers and Unintentional Racism by Nora Hyland, Hyland introduces this idea of Whiteness. She defines it as a social construct that uses attitudes, ideologies and practices to deny Black people and other minorities access to opportunities, dignity and freedoms awarded to White people (Hyland 2005). She explores racism in both societal norms and institutions saying that Whiteness is an issue because it is the infrastructure that society has been built upon. Hyland says that schools can be inherently and passively racist because of the “racial neutrality” inserted into the curriculum and conversation. This concept of not seeing race and treating everyone equally and not equitabally because the system and the norms are designed as such.

In the 2005 article entitled Six Key Factors for Changing Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes/Beliefs about Diversity written by M. Arthur Garmon he argues that a teachers predispositions in combination with their life experiences may influence how much they learn about diversity and how they respond to diversity immersion aka teaching. Garmon (2005) dissects the dispositions as he breaks it into three categories including openness, self-awareness/self-reflectiveness, and commitment to social justice (p. 276-79).

In short, this means that individual biases when teaching or administering is a direct result of their experiences and prior knowledge. Since the administrator and teacher at my private school wasn’t black or didn’t understand why being called smart for a black girl was offensive they couldn’t help me.

How Do We Begin To Fix This? Madsen and Mabokela (2002) in their article Leadership and Diversity: Creating Inclusive Schools dissect the important role that leadership and diversity has on creating culturally responsive school environments. They emphasize the importance of cultivating educators into dynamic leaders of diverse student bodies. Since educators are leaders of diverse student bodies, they have to understand the very power that comes with that title. Embracing each culture within the classroom and school in tandem with accepting the differences that cultures may have will create and promote environments conducive to learning for all students. A vast majority of teachers are white individuals without a culturally diverse background, so it is imperative that we begin by ensuring that the teachers in front of our children are open to embracing cultural diversity, prepared to challenge their whiteness and decide whether being a leader of a culturally diverse student body is apart of their passion.

Changing the trajectory of the lives of young people begin with the teachers. I am excited to read more research, talk with more leaders, create more conversations about ways to better prepare teachers for cultural competence. Maybe then more teachers and administrators will understand why I don’t like to be called, smart, for a black girl.

Works Cited:

Gujjar, A. A., & Choudhry, B. N. (n.d.). Role of Teacher as Classroom Manager. Journal on Educational Psychology, 2, 65–73.

Hudson, M. J., & Holmes, B. J. (1994). Missing Teachers, Impaired Communities: The Unanticipated Consequences of Brown v. Board of Education on the African American Teaching Force at the Precollegiate Level. The Journal of Negro Education, 63(3), 388. doi: 10.2307/2967189

Hyland, N. (2005). Being a Good Teacher of Black Students? White Teachers and Unintentional Racism. Curriculum Inquiry, 35(4), 429-459. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3698537

Madsen, J., & Mabokela, R. (2002). Introduction: Leadership and Diversity: Creating Inclusive Schools. Peabody Journal of Education, 77(1), 1-6. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1492995

Milner, H. R., & Howard, T. C. (2004). Black Teachers, Black Students, Black Communities, and Brown: Perspectives and Insights from Experts. The Journal of Negro Education, 73(3), 285. doi: 10.2307/4129612

M. ARTHUR GARMON (2005) Six Key Factors for Changing Preservice Teachers' Attitudes/Beliefs about Diversity, Educational Studies, 38:3, 275-286, DOI: 10.1207/s15326993es3803_7