EDUC 300 Telling on History (Hammond, 2017 introduction)

 



August 25, 2021

Historicize means to put something in the larger context of history.  In the introduction of CRT&B, Hammond shares about growing up in her family, schooling, and the community in light of larger events.  For instance, she tells us that her grandparents moved to their neighborhood, "at the tail end of the Great Black Migration".   My own great-grandparents moved during distinct waves of migration from Europe and the Middle East.  Another example is when my parents divorced and I was in elementary school. It was during a larger wave of single parent households in the 1970's, and teachers didn't know how to respond. At the time, I did not think of this, but now I can critically reflect on my life and society.

Hammond explains how her family experienced systemic racism in their access to housing, schooling, and community resources. She gained access to a well-resourced school because her mother used the grandparents’ address. Her quote from Payne (2008), “so much reform and so little change,” resonates with me too. We know what to do but it is not enough. Multicultural Education (MCE) seems to be moving towards Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) as an inclusive approach with all students. Hammond distinguishes CRT as rooted in neuroscience. This is fascinating. I believe that a brain-based approach is appealing to an audience that favors “science based” pedagogy.  Hammond keeps her roots in the great researchers of MCE, Ladson-Billings and Gay. Anything we have learned about MCE still applies.  Hammond shares with us an exciting approach to CRT that begins with self-examination. I see hope in this practice as a “mindset, a way of thinking about and organizing instruction to allow for great flexibility in teaching,” (p. 5) Students are individuals not categories.

Comments

  1. Mel TopperSeptember 8, 2021 at 9:19 AM

    People can have bias without knowing them, which is implicit bias. It was surprising to see how students that are bilingual are not happy about being able to speak two languages or more. They feel they are outcast because they are able to speak more or that they look a different way. In Tatum’s book, there were students that talked about being bilingual. A student, Paul, lives in Chicago in a white neighborhood, he was upset about being Mexican (248).
    Culture can also play a role in stereotypes. Hammond makes it very clear that poverty is not a culture (32). There is a stereotype that students that come from poor families are not going to do as well in school or become very successful. If you look at a lot of families nowadays, students are the first in their families that are going to college. If us, as teachers, are going to stereotype students from poor families, then we could be depriving them from bettering themselves to help get them out of poverty.

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  2. Ted HolahanSeptember 8, 2021 at 6:29 PM

    Bias is one thing that I feel that "natives" have against immigrants who are coming over to America because they are unfamiliar with their culture. This is why I feel that it is so important to teach culture in the classroom around the country. Students being labeled as categories is an incorrect way to represent their status they are more individualistic then categorical

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