In the City

Recent events have caused me to think a lot about urban education.

Recents facts such as the fact that my sister, Ms. Swamp the Younger, is basically teaching in your stereotypical urban education hell. Combined with the book I am reading: Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, by Paul Tough.

My sister's job, in Brooklyn, consists of a first-grade class of students she loves. They are woefully unprepared, academically, and perhaps a fifth (or fourth?) of them exhibit seriously disturbed behaviors. Another good percentage of them display very challenging behaviors, and then of course you have the "normal" behaviors that go along with teaching. A lot of them live in the homeless shelter near the school, and there is therefore a good bit of turnover in her classroom.

So this would be enough, as a first-year teacher, to really challenge you and make you wonder how to get through the year. But, it is not over.

Her school is administered by an ineffectual and incompetent principal. To say the least. There is no support for teachers. There is no help with the challenging behaviors: no one to say, "Let me help you come up with a behavior plan for that child, and at the same time, let's get him some counseling."

Worse than the lack of such support is the antithesis of support. A meaningless obsession with "clutter" in classrooms, and the content of the bulletin boards. Constant insistence that teachers "show the kids who's boss" and handle all behaviors themselves, inside the classroom, regardless. Petty, mean-spirited retaliation against teachers who do anything without consulting the administration, or anything that the administration does not like.

As you can imagine, it is terrible for my sister to live through this, especially because she loves the students she teaches, wants the best for them, and is working very, very hard to meet their needs against truly impossible odds. It is also pretty hard to live through your sister living through it, I must say.

Whatever It Takes is the story of Geoffrey Canada's work in Harlem to design an educational program, from birth to grade 12, that leaves urban youth (of color) on equal footing with their suburban (white) peers. (Usually when we say "urban" we mean "black," and when we say "suburban" we mean "white." Right?)

It is such an important book, and a page-turner. I can't put it down. It is a combination of the history of Canada's Harlem Children's Zone and a survey of the research on what works (and doesn't work) for children who grow up without many advantages, and with many disadvantages. It details the enormous gap, along racial lines, between the haves and the have-nots in the US (what Jonathan Kozol calls "apartheid schooling"). It brings up all of the important questions in urban education: Do we focus our efforts on test prep? How do we avoid alienating strong black students from their neighborhoods and communities? How do we raise up all of the poor students, not just a few chosen ones? Where does discipline come in? How do we involve families? At what age is it too late to make a difference?

The research out there is clear. The earlier you try to level the playing field, the better. And early is early.

"Significant skill gaps exist -- by race, class, and maternal education -- and they open up very early. At age one there is not a great difference between the cognitive abilities of the child of a college graduate and the child of a high school dropout, but by age two there is a sizable gap, and at three it's even wider" (191).

Not only cognitive skills are important; the development of non-cognitive skills (such as perseverence, patience, and the ability to delay gratification) is essential as well. And, "if you intervene in a child's life early, later interventions will have more to build upon, which means that they will pay off more as well. But if you don't start early, the reverse happens: each year it gets harder and harder to have an effect on a child's development" (193).

I want to highlight the connection between this last fact and my sister's job (and my job). She teaches first grade; I teach second now. These are young children. But they are already facing odds which often seem unbeatable. In an environment like that of my school, where teachers are supported and curriculum is high-quality, they sometimes seem unbeatable. In an environment like that of my sister's school? It is not an optimistic thing to say, but I think they are unbeatable.

We'll save for another day the topic of whose fault it is that her school's environment is like this. But watch out, because once I get going, we all might be implicated.

So as not to end on that note, and to encourage you to read this book, I will share one more quotation, based on research done by James Heckman:

"The best and simplest way to prepare children for a successful life is for their parents to give them everything they need at home, in their earliest years. But if that doesn't happen, if they're not born lucky, all is not lost: with the right inputs, at the right time, you can compensate for any kind of childhood" (194).

Read the book. You won't regret it.

The Boys Group

I recently started a group for 4 boys from my class. On Thursdays, we play games together for half of recess (Jenga or Twister, so far), then eat lunch together. Ostensibly, the group is for having fun. Really, I started the group to help my on-the-spectrum student gain better social skills and friends. But actually, the group is serving the purpose of teaching all of them social skills, including how to win and lose and take turns and encourage each other, and how to not all talk at the same time while eating lunch. (Really, it is amazing the way they seem to think there is nothing wrong with speaking at the same time that everyone else is talking.)

Last week we had the group on Wednesday because I was out of town Thursday and Friday. This week, every day one of them asks me when we're having the group: Wednesday or Thursday?

Today Ms. Annie poked her head in my classroom at lunchtime to ask if I was free for a meeting tomorrow at lunch. My kids were eating quietly and listening to hippie folkie acoustic music I was playing for them.

"Sure," I said. "I can meet at lunch, I don't have anything going on."

She nodded and left. Tyshaun looked up.

"When are we having our lunch group?" he asked off-handedly. He looked so casual, but I could see immediately what he was thinking.

I told him we'd have it on Thursday, not tomorrow. He was right, I had almost forgotten about it. Sometimes it amazes me the things kids can keep in the forefront of their minds (while so many other things seem to disappear...). And I like it that he likes the boys group so much. They are so different in that small group. Careful of each other, thoughtful, calmer. If only I could always have them in little groups!

PS. If you haven't listened yet, you need to check out the podcast of This American Life from Sept. 26th. You can stream it here, or buy it through the website also. It's about Geoffrey Canada and his work in Harlem, and what he is doing is spot on. Highly recommended.