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A review by aquamantis
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Christopher Emdin
2.0
Emdin's main idea is solid: White teachers need to understand and value their students' culture. What is not solid is the practical conclusions for instructional practice that he draws based on this idea. Emdin's suggestions fall into 3 groups: (1) intriguing but WAY too complicated to implement in real life, (2) insultingly simple, and (3) good ideas but nothing new that research hasn't been saying for YEARS.
The thing that most distressed me about the book was Emdin's oversimplification of the process of connecting with your students and their culture. For example: Emdin actually claims that buying and wearing "cool" sneakers like the ones your students are into will create connections with them. Setting aside the problematic assumption that there is a single kind of sneakers (or music, or food, or language, or religion) that all urban students are into, Emdin's recommendation is just insulting. Kids are smart. If a teacher (of any race, but especially a white teacher) suddenly flip-flops on style and starts dressing like them (or pairing Jordans with their work slacks instead of Oxfords), kids will see through the artificiality of the gesture. Does Emdin really think that urban kids are so simple-minded that putting on a pair of Jordans will win their affection and bridge all cultural divides? If so, then he has a greater deficit view of black kids than the teachers he's addressing the book to.
The thing that most distressed me about the book was Emdin's oversimplification of the process of connecting with your students and their culture. For example: Emdin actually claims that buying and wearing "cool" sneakers like the ones your students are into will create connections with them. Setting aside the problematic assumption that there is a single kind of sneakers (or music, or food, or language, or religion) that all urban students are into, Emdin's recommendation is just insulting. Kids are smart. If a teacher (of any race, but especially a white teacher) suddenly flip-flops on style and starts dressing like them (or pairing Jordans with their work slacks instead of Oxfords), kids will see through the artificiality of the gesture. Does Emdin really think that urban kids are so simple-minded that putting on a pair of Jordans will win their affection and bridge all cultural divides? If so, then he has a greater deficit view of black kids than the teachers he's addressing the book to.