Dr. Pedro Noguera, Speaker at CLMS 2009 Annual Conference

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Comment by Jamie Myrick on March 29, 2009 at 1:04am

I love how he points out that school districts spend a great deal of time talking about bridging the achievement gap instead of working to follow through with actions that have proven to work. The more I think about the issue of equity I find myself returning to issues related to classroom management. Yes, it helps when lessons tap into topics and themes that are culturally significant, but that is not necessary for students to learn. Yes, it is great when we have more people of color at school sites that are diverse, but again it is not necessary for overall learning. Yes, it is important to for teachers to have high expectations and to push every student academically, but again not totally necessary. I grew up at a time when integration was brand new in my home town. I got off the bus and step on a campus where the teachers openly told me they did not want me in their classes, so they never tried to make a lesson culturally significant. They assumed I would bring down their overall test scores, and had very low expectations for my opportunity for academic success. They taught the white majority students and because I was not thrown out of class, I learned and was prepared for college. The weakest link for success in our schools for students of color can be addressed when teachers become more aware of kind classroom management decision. This is not so much of a racial issue than it is a learning style issue. Boys- v - Girl or educators teaching more to the needs of visual students over the kin/aud student who moves too much and talks too often. The bottom line is, African American and Latino children, especially boys start to fail by 3rd grade because too often they find themselves sitting outside the principal's office instead of the classroom where learning is taking place.
That's why in addition to making sure I have a strong grasp of my content area, I spend a great deal of time focusing on proactive discipline like the Time to Teach tools, and I also use Storytelling in my direct instruction to give a shot in the arm to character education and by its very nature wrapping my lectures into stories I constantly can address culture and equity throughout the school year, while keeping my key focus on subject matter content.