High school senior Darius Miller has felt singled out all week.
A lunchroom monitor called him out for being rowdy but ignored his white teammates. He was asked to comment on civil rights in a history class in which he鈥檚 the only black student. Finally, after being shushed in last period for talking out of turn, he erupts. He stomps out, muttering, 鈥淲hy are you always picking on me?鈥�
Now he鈥檚 sitting across a table from the teacher who scolded him.
In the real world, what she says in the next five minutes can mean the difference between a relationship salvaged and one that deteriorates. Fortunately, this is actually a sophisticated simulation, not life, and 鈥淒arius鈥� is Hasan Clayton, a Vanderbilt University graduate student who moonlights as an actor. The 鈥渢eachers鈥� he interacts with in this scenario are education students in Nashville, Tenn.
Clayton鈥檚 performance aligns to a set of carefully crafted protocols. Often, he explains, candidates playing the 鈥渢eacher鈥� role will deny the issue of race as a factor in their decision to quiet him; others will apologize. Both will lead Clayton-as-Darius to shut down, stop making eye contact, and start saying 鈥測es, ma鈥檃m.鈥�
鈥淭hose are turnoffs for Darius,鈥� Clayton said. 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 want her to be sorry. He wants his feelings to be acknowledged.鈥�
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The 鈥淭alking While Black鈥� scenario is one of several that Ph.D. candidate Elizabeth Self has designed at Vanderbilt to give teachers-in-training the ability to recognize how bias can manifest itself in schools.
鈥淭his is Darius鈥� reality, and denying that it exists is not going to do anything for you,鈥� Self said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to reinforce the notion that you can鈥檛 possibly see this from his point of view.鈥�
At a time when teacher preparation programs are already wrestling with competing demands, why spend special time practicing such scenarios?
In essence, it comes down to this: The K-12 student population has never been more diverse. The first, and arguably predominant, interaction with public institutions that people of color face is at school. But the teaching force continues to be dominated by white women. And through their interactions with students鈥攚hether explicit or subtle, well-meaning or ignorant鈥攖eachers can compound the biases that many experience.
From Theory to Practice
Long cognizant of that fact, the nation鈥檚 teaching programs have, in theory at least, embraced diversity training. But as some leading experts in the field note, aspiring teachers need more than just book learning on the topic coupled with passive observations in the back of classrooms: They need explicit opportunities to practice it.
鈥淔or us, it鈥檚 about early and often: Early exposure from the onset of when a student wants to be a teacher,鈥� said Robert Lee, the executive director of the Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline, a project at Illinois State University that has spearheaded the school鈥檚 efforts to improve urban teacher preparation since the mid 2000s. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 when we want them coming to our schools and communities of practice.鈥�
On the plus side, the theory of action is clear. Over the past 25 years, education researchers, notably Gloria Ladson-Billings, Carol D. Lee, and Geneva Gay, have produced much well regarded scholarship on effective teaching for diverse student groups via what鈥檚 now generally called 鈥渃ulturally relevant鈥� or 鈥渃ulturally responsive鈥� pedagogy.
Although precise terms and interpretations vary, the basic tenets are that such teaching is academically rigorous; it respects and engages with students鈥� cultures and backgrounds; and finally鈥攊n what has put it squarely in the political cross hairs of the culture wars鈥攊t contains a sociopolitical aspect that helps students to understand, critique, and begin challenging inequities in their lives.
That said, like K-12 educators as a whole, education faculty tend not to be as diverse as the school-age population and have not necessarily taught in diverse school settings. And it鈥檚 difficult to know how successfully the nation鈥檚 2,200 teacher-preparation providers have integrated cultural competency into their training because no national inventory spells out what individual programs or even states require.
Potentially an even greater problem, teacher educators assert, is that of overall program coherence: Merely emphasizing the tenets of culturally responsive pedagogy in coursework does not guarantee that aspiring teachers will be able to enact them in a classroom.
That鈥檚 where Self鈥檚 project comes in. She has been adapting the work of other education researchers, notably Benjamin Dotger of Syracuse University, who built on the live-action simulations used in medical schools to devise trainings for teachers and principals facing difficult schooling interactions.
Many of those scenarios, though, didn鈥檛 explicitly engage with matters of race. So, with the support of her advisor and other administrators at Vanderbilt, Self set out to craft her own simulations and work them into the preparation classes she teaches. The Darius scenario is one of them; others engage with cultural barriers鈥攆or example, how a teacher can engage productively with a Kurdish parent whose son might need special education services, rather than immediately barrage her with jargon.
The simulations are taped so that the aspiring teachers, faculty, and peers can watch them and use them as the basis of discussion. 鈥淲e can talk about Darius and W.E.B. Du Bois and double consciousness, and it starts to mean something,鈥� Self said.
It also allows teacher-candidates the space to fail and make mistakes without actually hurting any real, live students.
But how much can simulations reflect the real situations teachers face in their schools? Ask Ellie Poole, who experienced several of the simulations in Self鈥檚 classes and is now completing her student-teaching assignment for a master鈥檚 degree in east Nashville.
鈥淵ou know it鈥檚 not real, but the second you step through that door, it feels so weighty,鈥� she said of the scenarios. What鈥檚 more, she recalled a recent meeting at her school in which a parent summoned to school was given vague, conflicting information about her son鈥檚 behavior.
For Poole, the situation had immediate parallels to the simulation about the Kurdish parent. 鈥淚 had this vision of the [actor] I had done the parent simulation with. And I had this moment where I realized, 鈥楾his parent also does not understand why she鈥檚 here.鈥� 鈥�
Learning About Students
Since the fundamental idea behind culturally responsive teaching is knowing one鈥檚 students and their histories intimately, some teacher-preparation programs are tackling the challenge by increasing how much time teacher-candidates spend with the students they will one day end up teaching.
鈥淭here is no sense in using the 鈥榖est鈥� school in the district for the clinical experience if that鈥檚 not where the jobs are, and not where the need is,鈥� said Lee of Illinois State University.
And as teachers begin using culturally responsive teaching methods, deeper immersion is necessary so that they avoid essentialism, or the tendency for a well-meaning teacher to fall into stereotyping鈥攂y assuming, for example, that all black students will respond to lessons oriented around rap lyrics.
鈥淵ou cannot do this and not be a member of the communities in which your kids live,鈥� noted Adrienne D. Dixson, who is currently leading Teach For America鈥檚 efforts to improve diversity training. 鈥淐ulture is ethnic, but it鈥檚 also regional, and it requires that the teacher is an active participant in learning about their students, so they don鈥檛 do these kind of trite 鈥楾aco Tuesday鈥� things.鈥�
Contact time is a key part of Illinois State鈥檚 multiyear effort to prepare teachers for urban schools. Lee鈥檚 center runs an intensive four-week internship, STEP-UP, for a select group of its education students. The voluntary program places the students in specific Chicago neighborhoods, where they teach summer school and work with a local community organization on a service project. Evenings are reserved for specialized coursework and debriefings with colleagues.
Though Amanda Martin, a senior at ISU and a participant in STEP-UP last summer, grew up in a predominately African-American neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, she found the culture of the city鈥檚 South Side 鈥渃ompletely different.鈥� Compared to where she鈥檇 been raised, the rhythm of the South Side neighborhood was louder, bustling with buses and traffic. There were fewer stores and just one Wal-Mart.
But, crucially, the experience of working at a summer camp there made her realize that some commonly held assumptions about her students were just, well, wrong.
鈥淵ou could still see their thirst to be out in the world. They aren鈥檛 as closed off as people think they are,鈥� she said.
Like all STEP-UP participants, Martin lived with a host family in the neighborhood where she was placed during her internship.
鈥淪he looked out for me like I was blood,鈥� she said of her host mother. 鈥淚 remember coming into my host mom鈥檚 house, and she made a little 鈥榟oo-hoo!鈥� noise. And my grandmother used to do the same thing.鈥�
Change Is Hard
As often happens in higher education, the work of pioneers takes a while to spread. A handful of Self鈥檚 peers at Vanderbilt have embraced the simulations and are creating new ones in other content areas and disciplines. And since 2004, ISU faculty have had help in rewriting their courses from Lee鈥檚 team and from community partners in the now five city neighborhoods where the university places teachers.
Among other elements, each of the redesigned classes now includes a relevant clinical component in Chicago. Aspiring Spanish teachers, for example, often come to city schools on report card pick-up day and work as translators for parents and teachers who can鈥檛 speak one another鈥檚 language.
Not all faculty have been receptive, but more have come on board as they鈥檝e seen teacher candidates become more engaged in their work, according to Lee. There鈥檚 enough of a critical mass that his center is now moving to redesign entire course sequences, such as special education.
Broadly speaking, scholars hail the innovations.
鈥淭hat attention to fine detail and classroom interactions, I think, is really important for this work, and it hasn鈥檛 been done extensively,鈥� said Thomas Philip, an associate professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies teachers and ideological change.
He warns, though, that as culturally responsive teaching enters the mainstream, so to speak, it risks losing its sociopolitical edge. 鈥淚f you de-politicize it, culturally responsive pedagogy is no different than tapping into students鈥� prior knowledge,鈥� he said.
For practitioners, the work remains challenging. Self recalled one teacher in the Darius scenario who asked probing questions, but then talked for four minutes straight trying to convince him that race wasn鈥檛 a factor in the encounter.
On the other hand, Clayton, the actor who plays Darius, says he鈥檚 been giving more of the aspiring educators the benefit of the doubt鈥攅specially when, after the scenario, he sees the light dawning for them.
鈥淪ome of them come up to me and tell me later: 鈥楾hank you. I did not realize I was doing that.鈥� 鈥�
