A Tale of Two Teachers | Melissa Crum | TEDxColumbusWomen

I loved my second-grade teacher one day it was picture day and I completely forgot she grabbed a comb and decided to attempt her credits got pinkish bouffant comb back thing this side swoop one day I was particularly honoring and she grabbed my wrist and said Melissa you were not being your best and I was angry she grabbed my hand I'm gonna tell my mom I was seething in my seat she saw me she called me outside gave me a cupcake and said I'm sorry for grabbing your wrist but you were not being your best sit out here eat this cupcake and join us when you're ready fast-forward to 8th grade and I'm sitting in my math class my teacher comes over and gently places her hand on my shoulder and she says to me you're pretty smart for a black girl and I remember responding thank you I'm sure what to do with that comment and those emotions that came with it I went to my principal who I had a rapport with and I told him what happened he sat back in his chair he sighed and he said I'll handle it a few days later I was in class and she came to me with this confused face and she said I'm sorry if I offended you with what I said I just wanted you to know that I think you're smart and it was clear to me that she was completely unaware of how problematic her statement was how it made me feel a few days later I go to my English class where we had the results of a test that told us what reading level we were at what grade we were reading so in eighth grade I was reading an 11th grade level Jerry a white boy who was sitting next to me his test said he was reading at a 12th grade level now remember thinking that must be what she means fast forward my son is getting prepared to enter kindergarten and I have a lot of anxiety around it I wondered how do I go about putting my son in a space to limit these types of biases type of interactions with teachers so I worked with some parents to create a homeschool cooperative where we use the information and the knowledge of the group and the resources in the community to teach our children we started off with two african-american families we blossomed to 7 then 14 children and more people continued to inquire about what we were doing and asking us how to be a part then I began to wonder why do they want to be in a cooperative in the first place what was the impetus that made them want to remove their children from traditional school so I asked their parents then I asked african-american families who are homeschooling across the nation one thing remained consistent every family who decided to homeschool their children it had a negative interaction with the teacher when they were students or negative interaction with the teacher from their children so what we find research tells us that teachers histories are important when it comes to the classroom they bring those stories that guy how they choose curriculum how they choose to teach and how they interact with their students what we also know is that we have to be careful about how we interact with our children and how we think about the work that we're doing with them so I began to wonder how do those microscopic interactions with teachers that have that underlying bias how might that be replicated or manifest in macroscopic situations how might these interactions be supported in state and federal policies that affect education so we know that african-american children particularly boys are disproportionately disciplined they're giving more suspensions in their white counterparts for the same infractions we know the african-american children are disproportionately placed in special education they're also disproportionately medicated in the school system we also know that states like Alabama Virginia and my home state of Florida has race-based academic standards let that sit for a moment race-based academic standards so what that means is a white child may be required to pass at 80 percent where a black child is required to pass at 60 so what does that mean for our children who are we telling who can and can't be intelligent how are we preparing our children for the next grade for college I then began to look at teacher demographics and student demographics so I looked at how who's in this classroom right so we know that children of color have doubled in the last 30 years in the k-12 system we know that 22 percent of children live in poverty and we know that 10 percent of students in the k-12 system are English language learners yet our teacher workforce remains predominantly female white middle class and monolingual English speakers we also know there's challenges around retention in urban in rural areas with this diversity is most concentrated so universities and teacher preparation programs have recognized this they've created diversity training programs which generally are categorized in three different categories first its conservative in which teachers are told that children should be assimilating into mainstream norms and removing any cultural differences liberal which tells teachers to tolerate difference and third in the least utilize is critical critical requires teachers to investigate the influences of power oppression dominance and inequity that manifests in the classroom and extends into federal policies so who's doing this who's able to think about these large macroscopic issues and make them relatable and digestible to a lay audience artist and museum educators I argue that when we incorporate art critical self-reflection storytelling and peer dialogue into professional development we prepare teachers to be better leaders as they reflect on their own biases that they bring into the classroom that increases their engagement in strong relationships with their students and have higher academic achievement in the classroom so let's take this image I asked teachers what do you see often times they say I see two black male figures maybe two friends maybe a father and son then I say tell me a little bit about them who are they I get a myriad of stories but I always get something isn't right here something's wrong they're up to something they're violent then I say what do you see that makes you say that and oftentimes they can't put their finger on what exactly they see what exactly invoke that emotion as we go through this inquiry based process what those teachers tend to find is that they have deep-seated stories about who these black boys are or aren't in the same way they brought those stories to this painting they bring those stories to those boys that show up in their classes critically conscious museum educators are experts at having this inquiry-based interaction they're great at having this dialogue around images that have that encompass these large issues they're able to create engaging and participatory activities that make the complex simple they can harness that learning power within museums and they can do it within an hour my colleague Kiana Hendrick and I created a process called multicultural critical reflective practice it's an ongoing process that asked teachers to identify analyze and challenge those cultural beliefs values and assumptions that color the interactions with their students it can't be boxed it's a blend of different approaches we ask these teachers to confront their preconceived notions that guide their relationships with their students it's an uncomfortable session we bring up these emotions and these deep-seated stories that they didn't realize they had we VOC emotions or change we believe when you feel it you can identify it you have something to hold on to something you can change so what happens we incorporate the works of Emory Douglas or K and a wily or mickalene Thomas or Titus before or when Jackie mu - what happens when we get these images to ask people to ask our teachers to dig into the deep recesses of their minds and harness those problematic concepts that they've been socialized and been told to internalize what we found that is working as we doing this work across the country with educators they're better prepared to have conversations around race sexuality gender cultural differences professors are better equipped to teach their teachers that have these engaging and conscious interactions with it with their students and K through 12 teachers more conscious about the curriculum choices and their interactions with their students so what happens we know we engage students we lessen dropout rates we increase academic performance when we have a more intellectual workforce we know that we have more productive citizens so what happens when we ask social workers nonprofit leaders police officers to do this critical self-reflection to ask them to critically think about the communities they've been charged to help support and protect maybe we get people like my second-grade teacher Miss Whitehurst I don't know where you are right now but I thank you I thank you for telling me to be my best and expecting nothing less I thank you for seeing my humanists and complexity I thank you for helping me see and believe in what you saw in me thank

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 277,172

Rating: 4.837059 out of 5

Keywords: TEDx

Id: sgtinODaW78

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2015