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A review by mothwing
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'All Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Christopher Emdin
4.0
The answer to the question to what you're supposed to do if you find yourself as a middle class well-meaning white person teaching in non-middle class POC groups: approach the situation like an anthropologist, not a missionary. This means some degree of respectful observation and immersion while still imparting your knowledge on the subject matter, but not trying to convert people to the cultural norm of your race and class.
This book reminds us strongly that if you disrespect someone's culture, creating a good teaching relationship is impossible. This is especially important if the power relationship between teacher and student is scewed so that the teacher represents a force that is oppressing the students's culture outside the classroom, as is the case with disprivileged households from non-middle class backgrounds and the white, usually middle class teachers who seek to improve their lives, i.e., making them assimilate white middle class norms.
Nothing groundbreaking, but the points he raises on neo indigenous and parallels he draws between urban youths of colour and indigenous tribes suffering under colonialism was enlightening. I am not sure I instantly knew how to do this in a class room with multiple cultures and not one monolithic youth culture that expresses itself through e.g. graffitti and sneakers, but obviously got the overall message of treating people with respect, on eye level, and engaging with the entire student holistically without dismissing their culture.
His focus on formal standard dialect register vs youth sociolect was interesting, too, but is not easily transferable to my very multicultural backgrounds in which the language my students are speaking is not the one they speak in the classroom or with each other because that is an entirely different language. But encouraging multilingual approaches still works and has always enriched classes.
So. Respect your students and show a genuine interest in and love for them. Look at what from their culture and communication practices can be roped into your classroom to help your cause.
Always allow them to be their whole selves at least some of the time and engage in meaningful dialogue with them.
This book reminds us strongly that if you disrespect someone's culture, creating a good teaching relationship is impossible. This is especially important if the power relationship between teacher and student is scewed so that the teacher represents a force that is oppressing the students's culture outside the classroom, as is the case with disprivileged households from non-middle class backgrounds and the white, usually middle class teachers who seek to improve their lives, i.e., making them assimilate white middle class norms.
Nothing groundbreaking, but the points he raises on neo indigenous and parallels he draws between urban youths of colour and indigenous tribes suffering under colonialism was enlightening. I am not sure I instantly knew how to do this in a class room with multiple cultures and not one monolithic youth culture that expresses itself through e.g. graffitti and sneakers, but obviously got the overall message of treating people with respect, on eye level, and engaging with the entire student holistically without dismissing their culture.
His focus on formal standard dialect register vs youth sociolect was interesting, too, but is not easily transferable to my very multicultural backgrounds in which the language my students are speaking is not the one they speak in the classroom or with each other because that is an entirely different language. But encouraging multilingual approaches still works and has always enriched classes.
So. Respect your students and show a genuine interest in and love for them. Look at what from their culture and communication practices can be roped into your classroom to help your cause.
Always allow them to be their whole selves at least some of the time and engage in meaningful dialogue with them.