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202 reviews for:
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'All Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education
Christopher Emdin
4.11 AVERAGE
202 reviews for:
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'All Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education
Christopher Emdin
4.11 AVERAGE
I loved this. I've learned so much from it and I have already started incorporating the lessons Emdin includes. Working at an elementary school has its challenges, especially due to my lack of teaching experience coming in. I knew that my priority was to always make the students feel respected and loved, but I didn't know how to go about it. Every time I would get frustrated or yell, I always knew the students felt horrible and I did in return and it just felt so ineffective. While I am sure that I will still make mistakes, I've found myself so much more even-tempered in my strategies and I find myself becoming not only a better teacher, but a more compassionate person from this pedagogy.
I'll be going to get my Masters in Elementary Ed in the fall and I know that I don't want to have a traditional classroom. There are teachers that I've seen that I thought had bad classroom management and would get frustrated with, but I knew that the students loved. This book made me realize that I probably pre-judged and, as a teacher, the way the students feel/learn is far more important than how the co-teachers feel about what's happening.
I am so grateful that Emdin also included his own story of growth as a teacher. It made me feel better about my shortcomings and my attempts to improve myself. I feel hope that I can be a great teacher. I even try to use my journey to becoming a better teacher as a way to relate to the students that are frustrated with their failures and when they want to quit something, because it's "too hard."
All in all, this book was just what I wanted/needed and I will be returning to it in the future! If Emdin has any other literary pieces, I will be sure to check them out.
I'll be going to get my Masters in Elementary Ed in the fall and I know that I don't want to have a traditional classroom. There are teachers that I've seen that I thought had bad classroom management and would get frustrated with, but I knew that the students loved. This book made me realize that I probably pre-judged and, as a teacher, the way the students feel/learn is far more important than how the co-teachers feel about what's happening.
I am so grateful that Emdin also included his own story of growth as a teacher. It made me feel better about my shortcomings and my attempts to improve myself. I feel hope that I can be a great teacher. I even try to use my journey to becoming a better teacher as a way to relate to the students that are frustrated with their failures and when they want to quit something, because it's "too hard."
All in all, this book was just what I wanted/needed and I will be returning to it in the future! If Emdin has any other literary pieces, I will be sure to check them out.
This gives me a great deal of insight and a ton of ideas for working in an urban classroom. There are so many tips and tricks the author offers. Some of them I might try. The most important lesson, however, is the overarching one of listening to the language of the learner. Bring his or her world into the classroom and use their experience as a bridge to gaining knowledge. THAT, I will use.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
There were things in this book that I want to implement, but I don't think most of it will work in my special education classroom
So many bookmarked pages. Great as a fourth quarter read, when you want to think ahead to a new year. The kind of book that restores joy and hope in teaching.
A necessary read for all white educators (and the rest of us too)!
Edmin says, "The kind of teacher you will become is directly related to the kind of teachers you associate with. Teaching is a profession where misery does more than just love company--it recruits, seduces, and romances it. Avoid people who are unhappy and disgruntled about the possibilities for transforming education. They are the enemy of the spirit of the teacher." If only those at the higher levels (district/state/federal) would understand this, education in the schools would be transformed!
Excellent distillation of urban studies, race-gender oriented critical-theory, and education philosophy applied to the urban classroom, for a non-academic audience.
This book was written for me (And for you, too, especially if you teach or are interested in the education debates). A personal anecdote: Kids hang out in my room after school, including many I don't teach (they come with friends). Anyways, the other day, I had to kick everyone out due to a faculty morale-building activity (well so that wasn't the name of the event, but its purpose, close enough). When I told the students where I was going, one of the friends, looked at me and said,
"Why do the teachers need morale building? Is it because they feel so bad working with all the black children?"
I think that's the first time I've experienced the phenomenon known as "mouth gaping open". I was just completely shocked, because the only reason I'm still here, 10 years later, despite all the bull bursting the seams of the system and despite the current atmosphere of teacher-demonization, is my kids.
But, after thinking about it for a moment, the comment made sense: here we are, a staff of majority-white teachers, a 99%-black student body, and there's the news everyday, another black kid getting shot by authorities, droves of teachers leaving the cities (5-year turn-over rate in DC Public Schools where I teach), etc. & so on.
My school is not quite like those Emdin describes, because we are an application school in not-quite-the-poorest part of DC. Teachers at my school have stuck around (not all, but a lot more than in the rest of our District). In Southeast DC, for example, there are some schools that have a turn-over rate of 1-2 years, meaning every other year, 100% new staff is in place. And, we've been making some progress on the issues Emdin describes, like truly engaging children on their own terms. Still, there's so much to learn here, and it saddens me that there really are schools (probably a majority of urban schools, I would not be surprised) where the situation is as bad as described by Emdin.
The other aspect of this work that saddens me is that, read away from the academic world, it might even sound radical, when all it is is a reiteration of basic commonly accepted paradigms in the education-research world. Reminds me of my eternal struggle in grad school: the disconnect between academia and "the real world" (ever notice there are no people with education masters or PhDs making education policy decisions? Next time you wonder why there is an "education crisis" in the US, start here).
Basically, the premise is the obvious fact that we have mostly white teachers imposing pedagogical methods and employing experiences born in privilege, teaching black and hispanic urban children. (Sigh, already I am imagining the hate-filled comments on a Hill or Politico forum if I were to post even just that sentence. Thank goodness this is GoodReads). The problem is even broader, because the entire system is constructed on a structure that privileges some over others (just take a look at American jails as an example). What this means in education is that it's not just white teachers who adopt these pedagogies of subjugation, but really, most teachers, because most have been taught to teach in ways that value obedience, physical rigidity, etc.
Emdin employs the term neoindigenous to draw parallels between colonized indigenous groups and urban students in public schools, and frames urban pedagogy as an extension of Freirean critical pedagogy. Like Freire, who drew from a rich tradition of liberation theology, Emdin uses the black church as a model for implementing the "Seven Cs" of urban reality pedagogy: cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, cosmopolitanism, context, content, competition, and curation. After introducing the framework (25%), the remainder of the book is an exploration of the 7-Cs in practice, with some beautifully illustrated examples.
I have one major complaint, but it's not detracting from my rating: Emdin should have done more to contextualize his research and to broaden its appeal. Sadly, much of the U.S. (judged by The Hill and Politico forums, which I sadly visit too frequently) isn't ready for this, as it stands. I was thinking the whole time, if I was some of the commentators I've seen on said forums, I would be denouncing this book as radical trash. But that just couldn't be farther from the truth: Emdin's research is really no great revolution, I mean, of course it's important, but it's in no way radical based on other prior research. It's just that that research never makes it public, so this may seem to come out of nowhere. I would have appreciated a chapter placing this work in a broader context, explaining it as a logical and natural extension of everything that has come before. That probably wouldn't convince those who believe academia is the spawn of the devil, but still, it'd do something.
*I received a free copy through the GR giveaways program. For which I am eternally grateful, because I needed to read this book, and I should have bought it regardless of whether I won.
This book was written for me (And for you, too, especially if you teach or are interested in the education debates). A personal anecdote: Kids hang out in my room after school, including many I don't teach (they come with friends). Anyways, the other day, I had to kick everyone out due to a faculty morale-building activity (well so that wasn't the name of the event, but its purpose, close enough). When I told the students where I was going, one of the friends, looked at me and said,
"Why do the teachers need morale building? Is it because they feel so bad working with all the black children?"
I think that's the first time I've experienced the phenomenon known as "mouth gaping open". I was just completely shocked, because the only reason I'm still here, 10 years later, despite all the bull bursting the seams of the system and despite the current atmosphere of teacher-demonization, is my kids.
But, after thinking about it for a moment, the comment made sense: here we are, a staff of majority-white teachers, a 99%-black student body, and there's the news everyday, another black kid getting shot by authorities, droves of teachers leaving the cities (5-year turn-over rate in DC Public Schools where I teach), etc. & so on.
My school is not quite like those Emdin describes, because we are an application school in not-quite-the-poorest part of DC. Teachers at my school have stuck around (not all, but a lot more than in the rest of our District). In Southeast DC, for example, there are some schools that have a turn-over rate of 1-2 years, meaning every other year, 100% new staff is in place. And, we've been making some progress on the issues Emdin describes, like truly engaging children on their own terms. Still, there's so much to learn here, and it saddens me that there really are schools (probably a majority of urban schools, I would not be surprised) where the situation is as bad as described by Emdin.
The other aspect of this work that saddens me is that, read away from the academic world, it might even sound radical, when all it is is a reiteration of basic commonly accepted paradigms in the education-research world. Reminds me of my eternal struggle in grad school: the disconnect between academia and "the real world" (ever notice there are no people with education masters or PhDs making education policy decisions? Next time you wonder why there is an "education crisis" in the US, start here).
Basically, the premise is the obvious fact that we have mostly white teachers imposing pedagogical methods and employing experiences born in privilege, teaching black and hispanic urban children. (Sigh, already I am imagining the hate-filled comments on a Hill or Politico forum if I were to post even just that sentence. Thank goodness this is GoodReads). The problem is even broader, because the entire system is constructed on a structure that privileges some over others (just take a look at American jails as an example). What this means in education is that it's not just white teachers who adopt these pedagogies of subjugation, but really, most teachers, because most have been taught to teach in ways that value obedience, physical rigidity, etc.
Emdin employs the term neoindigenous to draw parallels between colonized indigenous groups and urban students in public schools, and frames urban pedagogy as an extension of Freirean critical pedagogy. Like Freire, who drew from a rich tradition of liberation theology, Emdin uses the black church as a model for implementing the "Seven Cs" of urban reality pedagogy: cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, cosmopolitanism, context, content, competition, and curation. After introducing the framework (25%), the remainder of the book is an exploration of the 7-Cs in practice, with some beautifully illustrated examples.
I have one major complaint, but it's not detracting from my rating: Emdin should have done more to contextualize his research and to broaden its appeal. Sadly, much of the U.S. (judged by The Hill and Politico forums, which I sadly visit too frequently) isn't ready for this, as it stands. I was thinking the whole time, if I was some of the commentators I've seen on said forums, I would be denouncing this book as radical trash. But that just couldn't be farther from the truth: Emdin's research is really no great revolution, I mean, of course it's important, but it's in no way radical based on other prior research. It's just that that research never makes it public, so this may seem to come out of nowhere. I would have appreciated a chapter placing this work in a broader context, explaining it as a logical and natural extension of everything that has come before. That probably wouldn't convince those who believe academia is the spawn of the devil, but still, it'd do something.
*I received a free copy through the GR giveaways program. For which I am eternally grateful, because I needed to read this book, and I should have bought it regardless of whether I won.
"The time will always come when teachers must ask themselves if they will follow the mold or blaze a new trail. There are serious risks that come with this decision. It essentially boils down to whether one chooses to do damage to the system or to the student."
There was a lot of great information in this book. Like most books about urban education, it was very focused on middle school and high school classrooms, which I think is unfortunate because starting to use "reality pedagogy" in elementary school would help students feel valued and seen in schools from the beginning. While reading I tried to think of how his suggestions could be implemented in elementary school classrooms. With lots of modification they probably could be. I loved the ideas of classroom facebook, twitter and instagram offered in the last chapter. I also really appreciated the author's honest assessment of his own failures as a teacher and how he has grown past them. There's so much pressure for teachers to be perfect right away, but it's a learning process.
There was a lot of great information in this book. Like most books about urban education, it was very focused on middle school and high school classrooms, which I think is unfortunate because starting to use "reality pedagogy" in elementary school would help students feel valued and seen in schools from the beginning. While reading I tried to think of how his suggestions could be implemented in elementary school classrooms. With lots of modification they probably could be. I loved the ideas of classroom facebook, twitter and instagram offered in the last chapter. I also really appreciated the author's honest assessment of his own failures as a teacher and how he has grown past them. There's so much pressure for teachers to be perfect right away, but it's a learning process.
On a high level, the opening chapters and conclusion should be required reading for white folk who teach in the hood. I wish more time had been spent on the underlying shifts in mindsets and values and developing an understanding of the role privilege and whiteness plays on our country's traditional education systems.
As an elementary school counselor, even I can see things that I can implement while teaching my classroom lessons and ideas that I can provide for teachers when I consult with them. I don't think everything in this book was "new" to me, but it can definitely be useful.