What Is Wrong with Me? Learning to Ask the Right Questions
What is wrong with you?
Why aren’t you trying?
Why don’t you care?
Step into a classroom. Scattered throughout is an array of students, some eager to learn, some bored; but especially notice the six African-American young men huddled in the back who don’t really seem to care that “learning” is in process. Also, there is the teacher who tries to hide her exasperation. She longs to reach out to those six boys, but they just don’t care about school. They are never going to pass her class and will probably just end up becoming another sad statistic.
In his book A Search Past Silence, David Kirkland (2013) relays his interactions with these six Black students. For several years, he cultivated relationships in order to show that these young men are, indeed, literate. The apparent apathy that they have toward school is not insurmountable. Kirkland proposes that teaching literacy to Black males involves two things:
First, it will involve channeling Black male literate potential in classrooms and beyond. It will also involve understanding Black males deeply to acknowledge within the pedagogical discourse the meaningful sociologies of Black male literacy practices (p. xv).
In other words, truly knowing your students is the key. Not simply knowing their names, their level of academic success, or recognizing them with a quick “sup” in the hallway. Derrick, one of the boys in the Kirkland’s study, noticed that “although teachers saw young Black men every day at his high school…they barely knew them” (p. 19). When his teacher saw him in the group at the back of her classroom, her instinctive thought was most likely, “What is wrong with them? Why aren’t they trying?” In contrast, the questions we, as educators, should be asking are, “What is wrong with me? What connections am I missing? Do I know these students?”
Kirkland explains:
To understand not just the ‘whats,’ but also the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of [the literacies of Derrick and his friends], I made the decision during the second year of this study to meet with the young men more frequently (four or five times a week)…. We hung out in their neighborhoods, ate at local restaurants, played games, and had lots of deep and interesting conversations. But I most enjoyed and most looked forward to hearing the young men rap (p. 151).
Jackpot! Kirkland engaged in their literacy of creating rap. We need to find our students where they are instead of constantly expecting them to arrive at a prescribed academic literacy set up by the standardization of the modern school system.
In episode 7 “Carlos Doesn’t Remember” from Revisionist History (Gladwell, 2016) in the link above, Malcolm Gladwell discusses cultural capitalism. “This is what civilized societies are supposed to do: to provide opportunities for people to make the most of their abilities so that if you’re born poor, you can move up. If you work hard, you can improve your life.” However, for the young man in the podcast in order “for the system to work, for the smart kid to make it up the ladder, he needs an advocate, and not just an ordinary advocate, a high-powered guy with lots of connections who can get you in and watch over you.”
This should not be the case. We should be the advocates for our students. They should not have to move to a wealthy, white neighborhood’s private school in order to find opportunity. Obviously, we don’t have the luxury of choosing six students with whom to hang out for hours in their homes and neighborhoods. However, this point still has practical application for us.
It is easy to place yourself in the mindset that as a teacher our only job is to teach a lesson and make sure that students understand it. But it is so much more than that. We are not responsible to solely train robots to retain and reproduce information. That is not practical for real life. We are entrusted to help students develop skills that will propel them to prosperity and make them helpful to society. This is a huge responsibility! Teaching is not about meeting the expectations of a principal, school board, and other executives in order to bring home a paycheck. We have been entrusted with the care and development of these students by their parents, our communities, and all the people with whom these students will interact throughout their lives. Realizing this, we can begin to make the connection between a case study such as David Kirkland’s and our role in the classroom.
So what does this look like? We must develop methods that allow us to see into our students’ lives. It is easy to want to ask a struggling student the blame-shifting question “What is wrong with you?” Instead, look at yourself. Ask, “What is wrong with the way I am teaching? How am I striving to know more about this student? What does he enjoy doing outside of school? What motivates her to learn?”
Nick Sousanis (2015) preaches the message of breaking out of a land of flatness where we never see beyond boundaries set up by those who came before us. We must boldly step outside of those boundaries.
From the outset, create a culture of learning. This may sound obvious, but realize that this learning should not be one-directional. We must emphasize to our students that we want to learn from them. Be transparent about your ignorance; allow them to teach you about their culture, hobbies, families, or academia of which they may have a better understanding. Invite them to correct your mistakes. Don’t be afraid to veer away from what much of society views as traditional education.
Plan time to have student-teacher conferences. Our schools will ensure that we have time to schedule conferences with parents, so why not do the same with our students? You don’t have to carve extra time into your hectic schedule. Plan ten to fifteen minutes of lesson time two or three days a week to meet one on one with your students. Let them decide what you talk about. Ask them questions about their hobbies and leisure activities outside of the classroom. Get to understand the “whys” and “hows” of their literacies and incorporate your discoveries into your teaching.
It is time to stop asking the wrong questions. We welcome the diversity that our students bring into our classrooms, and we must welcome and utilize the diversity of literacies that each one brings as well. Start asking yourself the correct questions, and the daunting task of teaching will become a life-changing accomplishment, for you and for your students.
References:
Gladwell, M. (Panoply). (2016, July 6). Revisionist History: Carlos Doesn’t Remember. [Audio Podcast]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/revisionist-history/id1119389968?mt=2
Kirkland, D.E. (2013). A Search Past Silence: The Literacy of Young Black Men. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
[Questions]. (2016, January 29). Retrieved from http://www.workinsports.com/blog/how-to-ask-questions-that-will-always-inspire-thoughtful-answers/.
Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[Teacher and Student]. (2015, January 6). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/06/black-white-discipline-gap_n_6425096.html.
