Fluent Essays

Assigned Readings from Rethinking Schools: Playing with Gender: Lessons from and Early Childhood Center, from p. 36;  What Do We Say When we Hear ‘Faggot’, starting from p. 95; What Can Teachers Do about Sexual Harassment, starting from p. 118; Flirting vs. Sexual Harassment: Teaching the Difference, starting from p. 121 AND It’s Elementary--Watch Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uMU9BCVO5w (only need to see part 2, but it will move on to part 3, part 4...).  You will report on each one of these by (1) citing the title, (2) brief summary of article - one sentence, (3) three major points, supported by evidence for p. 36, 95, 118, 121, and then the Its Elementary link. Include your impressions as well. Thank you!  i attached the book below. I need it done in 5 hours Rethinking OuR ClassROOms teaching for equity and Justice Volume 1 • New Edition Since the first edition was published in 1994, Rethinking Our Classrooms has sold over 175,000 copies and offered inspiration to countless new and veteran teachers. This revised and expanded edition includes creative teaching ideas, compelling classroom narratives, and hands-on examples of ways teachers can promote the values of community, justice, and equality while building academic skills. Nowhere is the connection between critical teaching and effective classroom practice clearer or more accessible. “ Terrific! A dynamite collection packed with moral energy, but also very, very useful. Even more powerful, with even richer material, than the original edition. Buy hundreds of copies for your students, fellow teachers, and principals. Give some to your school board members. This is political pedagogy of the gutsy kind we almost never see these days.” Jonathan kozol, author of Savage Inequalities and The Shame of the Nation “ Once again Rethinking Schools brings us an example of the best social justice curriculum and pedagogy available today. In this second edition of Rethinking Our Classrooms we experience the best of theory and practice, science and art, academic excellence and equity. It is a feast for both teachers and learners.” Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison “ A treasure trove of insights, creative activities, and valuable resources for the critical classroom, Rethinking Our Classrooms will help teachers wrestle with many of the issues we face in this new millennium from racism and gender identity to immigration phobia, global warming and the testing craze. Inspired stories of real-life classrooms make this second edition of Rethinking Our Classrooms better than ever! ” Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst inCludes: • Building Community from Chaos • Race and Respect Among Young Children • Why Students Should Study History: An Interview with Howard Zinn • Taking Multicultural, Anti-Racist Education Seriously • Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us: Critiquing Cartoons and Society • Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard? • Teaching About Global Warming in Truck Country • Math, SATs, and Racial Profiling • Students Mobilize for Immigrant Rights • Equity Claims for NCLB Don’t Pass the Test • Why We Need to Go Beyond the Classroom Plus many more essays, poems, student handouts, and more! a Rethinking sChOOls PubliCatiOn teaching for equity and Justice VOlume 1 Rethinking OuR ClassROOms R E TH IN K IN G O U R C LA S S R O O M S • VO LU M E 1 • N ew E dition R e th in k in g s C h O O ls $18.95 New Edition – Revised and Expanded Rethinking OuR ClassROOms, VOlume 1 Rethinking OuR ClassROOms, VOlume 1 teaching for equity and Justice new edition A Rethinking sChOOls PubliCatiOn S u S a n L in a R u g g Le S Editors of Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1, New Edition: Wayne Au, Bill Bigelow, Stan Karp Editors of Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1, First Edition: Bill Bigelow, Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Barbara Miner, Bob Peterson Business Manager: Mike Trokan Design: Joanna Dupuis Production Editor: Jacqueline Lalley The editors of Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1, New Edition, would like to give special thanks to Rethinking Schools editors Terry Burant, Kelley Dawson Salas, David Levine, Larry Miller, Kathy Williams, Rita Tenorio, and Stephanie Walters and former Rethinking Schools editors Catherine Capellaro, Beverly Cross, Cynthia Ellwood, Brenda Harvey, and Robert Lowe. The editors would also like to thank Janet Mays, Susan Bates, Becky Leichtling and Jennifer Morales for editorial, administrative, and production assistance. Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1, New Edition, is published by Rethinking Schools, Ltd., a nonprofit publisher advocating the reform of public schools. We stress a commitment to social justice, with a particular focus on issues of race and urban schools. We seek to promote a grassroots, activist perspective that combines theory and practice and links classroom issues to broader social concerns. Rethinking Schools, Ltd., consists of our flagship publication, Rethinking Schools, a quarterly magazine that provides classroom articles and policy analyses; Rethinking Schools Press, a publisher of classroom material and policy books; and Rethinking Schools Online at www.rethinkingschools.org. Print subscription rates for Rethinking Schools magazine are $19.95 a year or $29.95 for two years. Digital subscription rates for Rethinking Schools magazine are $14.95 a year or $24.95 for two years. Ordering information for Rethinking Our Classrooms, New Edition, is included at the end of this book. For more information: Rethinking Schools 1001 E. Keefe Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53212 414-964-9646, fax 414-964-7220 Email editorial: [email protected] Email business: [email protected] To order: Call toll-free: 800-669-4192 Order online: www.rethinkingschools.org To contact the editors: Bill Bigelow: [email protected] Stan Karp: [email protected] Wayne Au: [email protected] The cover graphic is “Aim High,” a portrait of Anthony Fishoe Lacy. It was painted by FISHOE, an artist in Montgomery, Alabama. © 2007 Rethinking Schools, Ltd. Second edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rethinking our classrooms : teaching for equity and justice / editors Wayne Au ... [et al.]. -- 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-942961-35-5 (v. 1) 1. Critical pedagogy--United States. 2. Multicultural education--United States. 3. Social justice--Study and teaching--United States. I. Au, Wayne, 1972- LC196.5.U6R48 2007 370.11’5--dc22 2006101223 http://www.rethinkingschools.org mailto:bbpdx\%40aol.com?subject= mailto:office\%40rethinkingschools.org?subject= http://www.rethinkingschools.org mailto:bbpdx\%40aol.com?subject= mailto:stan.karp\%40gmail.com?subject= mailto:wayne.wk.au\%40gmail.com?subject= v Preface Publishing the first edition of Rethinking Our Classrooms in 1994 was a landmark accom- plishment for Rethinking Schools. Until then, the organization had published only a quarterly journal and occasional pamphlets. This first book marked the beginning of Rethinking Schools’ growth from a Milwaukee-based quar- terly to a publisher that provides social justice resources for teachers and pro- spective teachers around the country. It set the tone, style, and standard for many more books to come, including a second volume of Rethinking Our Classrooms in 2001. Thirteen years and 160,000 copies later, profound changes in the social, political, and educational landscape have intensified the need to work for social justice in public education. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has fueled the trend toward increased testing and standardization. We suffer from top-down and outside-in education reform that does not respect teachers, students, or their communities. More and more, elementary teachers must teach scripted reading curricula, and teachers in all grade levels are increas- ingly pressured to teach to tests. The marginalizing of multicultural, anti- racist education is making it more dif- ficult for the histories and voices of our children’s communities to enter the classroom. Beyond our schools, war and militarism, environmental degra- dation, and heightened class and racial inequality threaten all of us, but espe- cially children. This new edition of Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1, has been expanded to speak to these challenges. We’ve added essays on science and environmental education, immigration and language, military recruitment, teaching about the world through mathematics, and gay and lesbian issues. Updated essays on NCLB, stan- dards, and testing address the intensi- fied assaults on public education. This revised edition, enriched by new writers addressing new topics, continues to uphold the values and aspirations of Rethinking Schools. We still see the classroom as a primary site for school reform, celebrate the work and perspectives of teachers, and maintain that anti-racist, social justice education must be at the fore of any analysis of public schooling and at the center of classroom practice. Over the past 13 years, we have heard from K–12 teachers, university educa- tors, and others across the country that Rethinking Our Classrooms has helped them in their efforts to ensure a quality education for every child. We hope this new edition proves even more useful than its predecessor. —the editors Introduction: Creating Classrooms for Equity and Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x Part One: Points of Departure “Lions”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 By Langston Hughes Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us: Critiquing Cartoons and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 By Linda Christensen Rethinking ‘The Three Little Pigs’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 By Ellen Wolpert 10 Quick Ways to Analyze Children’s Books for Racism and Sexism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 By the Council on Interracial Books for Children Celebrating the Joy in Daily Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 By Linda Christensen “Ode to My Socks • Oda a los calcetines” . . . . . . . . . . . 13 By Pablo Neruda Taking Multicultural, Anti-Racist Education Seriously . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 An interview with Enid Lee “My Hair Is Long” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 By Loyen Redhawk Gali Part two: Rethinking my Classroom Race and Respect Among Young Children. . . . . . . . . . 20 By Rita Tenorio Holding Nyla: Lessons from an Inclusion Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 By Katie Kissinger Teaching for Social Justice: One Teacher’s Journey . . . 28 By Bob Peterson Songs That Promote Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 By Bob Peterson “Forgiving My Father” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 By Justin Morris Playing with Gender: Lessons from an Early Childhood Center. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 By Ann Pelo The Challenge of Classroom Discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 By Bob Peterson Helping Students Deal with Anger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 By Kelley Dawson Salas Building Community from Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 By Linda Christensen Discipline: No Quick Fix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 By Linda Christensen “Honeybees” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 By Paul Fleischman Teaching About Global Warming in Truck Country. . 57 By Jana Dean Students Use Math to Confront Overcrowding . . . . . . 63 By Erin E. Turner and Beatriz T. Font Strawhun Getting Off the Track: Stories from an Untracked Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 By Bill Bigelow “what the mirror said” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 By Lucille Clifton Part three: teaching ideas Using Pictures to Combat Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 By Ellen Wolpert My Mom’s Job Is Important . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 By Matt Witt Father Was a Musician . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 By Dyan Watson Contents Rethinking Our Classrooms: teaching for equity and Justice Volume 1, new edition vii There’s More to Heroes Than He-Man . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 By Marcie Osinsky The Military Recruitment Minefield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 By Bill Bigelow Coping with TV: Some Lesson Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 By Bob Peterson What Do We Say When We Hear ‘Faggot’?. . . . . . . . . . 95 By Leonore Gordon Learning from Worms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 By Rachel Cloues The Organic Goodie Simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond World Poverty and World Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 By Susan Hersh and Bob Peterson Math, SATs, and Racial Profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 By Eric Gutstein The Day Sondra Took Over: Helping Students Become Self-Directed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 By Cynthia M. Ellwood Little Things Are Big . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 By Jesús Colón Haiku and Hiroshima: Teaching About the Atomic Bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 By Wayne Au Students as Textbook Detectives: An Exercise in Uncovering Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 By Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson What Can Teachers Do About Sexual Harassment? . . 118 By Ellen Bravo and Larry Miller Flirting vs. Sexual Harassment: Teaching the Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 By Nan Stein and Lisa Sjostrom Celebrating the Student’s Voice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 By Linda Christensen “Rayford’s Song”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 By Lawson Inada Promoting Social ImaginationThrough Interior Monologues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen “Two Women”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Anonymous Role Plays: Show, Don’t Tell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 By Bill Bigelow Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line: A Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High School . . . . . . . 133 By Bill Bigelow ‘Salt of the Earth’ Grounds Students in Hope . . . . . . 141 By S. J. Childs “The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.” . . . . . . . . . . 144 By Nikki Giovanni Part Four: Rethinking Our assumptions My Dirty Little Secret: Why I Don’t Grade Papers . . 146 By Linda Christensen Expectations and ‘At-Risk’ Children: One Teacher’s Perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 By L. C. Clark Teachers and Cultural Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 By Asa G. Hilliard III Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard? . . . . . . 154 by Linda Christensen Seeing Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 By Lisa Delpit When Small Is Beautiful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 An interview with Héctor Calderón I Won’t Learn from You! Confronting Student Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 By Herbert Kohl Rethinking OuR ClassROOms, VOlume 1, new eDitiOnviii Food Is Not for Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 By Jean Hannon The Politics of Children’s Literature: What’s Wrong with the Rosa Parks Myth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 By Herbert Kohl “In Memory of Crossing the Columbia” . . . . . . . . . . 172 By Elizabeth Woody Heather’s Moms Got Married: Creating a Gay- and Lesbian-Friendly Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 By Mary Cowhey Thoughts on Teaching Native American Literature . . 175 By Joseph Bruchac Why Students Should Study History . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 An interview with Howard Zinn History Book Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 By Howard Zinn “To the Young Who Want to Die” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 By Gwendolyn Brooks Part Five: beyond the Classroom Why We Need to Go Beyond the Classroom . . . . . . . 188 By Stan Karp “Rebellion Against the North Side” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 By Naomi Shihab Nye Teachers Teaching Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 By Linda Christensen Equity Claims for NCLB Don’t Pass the Test . . . . . . . 200 By Stan Karp Why Standardized Tests Are Bad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 By Terry Meier “Lineage” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 By Margaret Walker Students Mobilize for Immigrant Rights . . . . . . . . . . 206 By Ryan Knudson and Al Levie Part six: Resources Poetry Teaching Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 By Linda Christensen Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen Video Teaching Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen Books for Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Curricula and Teaching Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Periodicals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Poetry Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 COntents ix Rethinking OuR ClassROOms, VOlume 1, new editiOnx introduction: Creating Classrooms for equity and social Justice Rethinking Our Classrooms begins from the premise that schools and classrooms should be laboratories for a more just society than the one we now live in. Unfortu- nately, too many schools are training grounds for boredom, alienation, and pessimism. Too many schools fail to confront the racial, class, and gender inequities woven into our social fab- ric. Teachers are often simultaneously perpetrators and victims, with little control over planning time, class size, or broader school policies—and much less over the unemployment, hopeless- ness, and other “savage inequalities” that help shape our children’s lives. But Rethinking Our Classrooms is not about what we cannot do; it’s about what we can do. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire writes that teachers should attempt to “live part of their dreams within their educational space.” Class- rooms can be places of hope, where students and teachers gain glimpses of the kind of society we could live in and where students learn the academic and critical skills needed to make it a reality. We intend the articles in Rethinking Our Classrooms to be both visionary and practical; visionary because we need to be inspired by each other’s vision of schooling; practical because for too long teachers have been preached at by theoreticians, well removed from class- rooms, who are long on jargon and short on specific examples. We’ve drawn the articles, stories, poems, and lessons in Rethinking Our Classrooms from different academic dis- ciplines and grade levels. Despite varia- tions in emphasis, a common social and pedagogical vision unites this col- lection. This vision is characterized by several interlocking components that together comprise what we call a social justice classroom. In Rethinking Our Classrooms we argue that curriculum and classroom practice must be: n Grounded in the lives of our stu- dents. All good teaching begins with a respect for children, their innate curi- osity and their capacity to learn. Cur- riculum should be rooted in children’s needs and experiences. Whether we’re teaching science, mathematics, English, or social studies, ultimately the class has to be about our students’ lives as well as about a particular subject. Stu- dents should probe the ways their lives connect to the broader society, and are often limited by that society. n Critical. The curriculum should equip students to “talk back” to the world. Students must learn to pose essential critical questions: Who makes decisions and who is left out? Who benefits and who suffers? Why is a given practice fair or unfair? What are its origins? What alternatives can we imagine? What is required to create change? Through critiques of adver- tising, cartoons, literature, legislative decisions, military interventions, job structures, newspapers, movies, agri- cultural practices, or school life, stu- dents should have opportunities to question social reality. Finally, student work must move outside the classroom walls, so that scholastic learning is linked to real world problems. n Multicultural, anti-racist, pro- justice. In our earlier publication Rethinking Columbus, we used the Dis- covery myth to demonstrate how chil- dren’s literature and textbooks tend to value the lives of Great White Men over all others. Traditional materials invite children into Columbus’s thoughts and dreams; he gets to speak, claim land, and rename the ancient homelands of Native Americans, who appear to have no rights. Implicit in many traditional accounts of history is the notion that children should disregard the lives of women, working people, and especially people of color—they’re led to view history and current events from the standpoint of the dominant groups. By contrast, a social justice curricu- lum must strive to include the lives of all those in our society, especially the marginalized and dominated. As anti- racist educator Enid Lee points out (see interview, p. 15), a rigorous multi- culturalism should engage children in a critique of the roots of inequality in curriculum, school structure, and the larger society—always asking: How are we involved? What can we do? n Participatory, experiential. Tra- ditional classrooms often leave little room for student involvement and ini- tiative. In a “rethought” classroom, con- cepts need to be experienced firsthand, not just read about or heard about. Whether through projects, role plays, simulations, mock trials, or experi- ments, students need to be mentally, and often physically, active. Our class- rooms also must provoke students to develop their democratic capacities: to question, to challenge, to make real deci- sions, to collectively solve problems. n Hopeful, joyful, kind, vision- ary. The ways we organize classroom life should seek to make children feel significant and cared about—by the teacher and by each other. Unless stu- dents feel emotionally and physically safe, they won’t share real thoughts and feelings. Discussions will be tinny and dishonest. We need to design activities where students learn to trust and care for each other. Classroom life should, to the greatest extent possible, prefigure the kind of democratic and just soci- ety we envision and thus contribute to building that society. Together students and teachers can create a “community of conscience,” as educators Asa Hill- iard and Gerald Pine call it. n Activist. We want students to come to see themselves as truth-tellers and change-makers. If we ask children to critique the world but then fail to encourage them to act, our classrooms can degenerate into factories for cyni- cism. While it’s not a teacher’s role to direct students to particular organiza- tions, it is a teacher’s role to suggest that ideas should be acted upon and to offer students opportunities to do just that. Children can also draw inspiration from historical and contemporary efforts of people who struggled for justice. A critical curriculum should be a rainbow of resistance, reflecting the diversity of people from all cultures who acted to make a difference, many of whom did so at great sacrifice. Students should be allowed to learn about and feel con- nected to this legacy of defiance. n Academically rigorous. A social justice classroom equips children not only to change the world but also to maneuver in the one that exists. Far from devaluing the vital academic skills young people need, a critical and activist curriculum speaks directly to the deeply rooted alienation that cur- rently discourages millions of students from acquiring those skills. A social justice classroom offers more to students than do traditional classrooms and expects more from stu- dents. Critical teaching aims to inspire levels of academic performance far greater than those motivated or mea- sured by grades and test scores. When But as vital as it is to reimagine and reorganize classroom practice, ulti- mately it’s insufficient. Teachers who want to construct more equitable, more meaningful, and more lively educational experiences for children must also concern themselves with issues beyond the classroom walls. For example, if a school uses so-called ability grouping to sort students, then no matter how successful we are in our efforts to remake classroom life, many students will still absorb nega- tive messages about their capacity to achieve. We need to confront tracking and standardized testing, the funding inequalities within and between school districts, and the frequent reluctance of teacher unions to address issues of quality education. Rethinking our classrooms requires inventing strate- gies so that teachers can make alliances with parents and community organi- zations who have an interest in equity. Toward this end we’ve offered a chap- ter, “Beyond the Classroom.” As we go to press with Rethinking Our Classrooms, there are many reasons to be discouraged about the future: Districts across the country continue to slash budgets; violence continues to plague schools; attempts to priva- tize the schools have not slowed; and the country’s productive resources are still used to make more technologi- cal goodies, fancier athletic shoes, and more sophisticated weaponry, rather than used in less profitable arenas like education and affordable housing. There is a Zulu expression: “If the future doesn’t come toward you, you have to go fetch it.” We hope Rethink- ing Our Classrooms will be a useful tool in the movement to go fetch a better future: in our classrooms, in our schools, and in the larger society. There are lots of us out there. Critical and activist teachers work all across the country. Let’s make our voices heard.n —the editors children write for real audiences, read books and articles about issues that really matter, and discuss big ideas with compassion and intensity, “academics” starts to breathe. Yes, we must help stu- dents “pass the tests,” (even as we help them analyze and critique the harmful impact of test-driven education). But only by systematically reconstructing classroom life do we have any hope of cracking the cynicism that lies so close to the heart of massive school failure, and of raising academic expectations and performance for all our children. n Culturally sensitive. Critical teaching requires that we admit we don’t know it all. Each class presents new challenges to learn from our stu- dents and demands that we be good researchers, and good listeners. These days, the demographic reality of school- ing makes it likely that white teachers will enter classrooms filled with children of color. As African-American educator Lisa Delpit writes in her review of the book White Teacher (see p. 158), “When teachers are teaching children who are different from themselves, they must call upon parents in a collaborative fashion if they are to learn who their students really are.” They must also call upon culturally diverse colleagues and com- munity resources for insights into the communities they seek to serve. What can be said about racial and cultural dif- ferences between teachers and students also holds true for class differences. * * * We’re skeptical of the “inspirational speakers” administrators bring to fac- ulty meetings, who exhort us to become super-teachers and classroom magi- cians. Critical teaching requires vision, support, and resources, not magic. We hope the stories, critiques, and lesson ideas here will offer useful examples which can be adapted in classrooms of all levels and disciplines and in diverse social milieus. Our goal is to provide a clear framework to guide classroom transformation. intRODuCtiOn xi P O i n t s O F D e Pa R t u R e Although the one-room schoolhouse is a relic of the past, certain patterns within American education have proven stubbornly durable: the dominance of the teacher’s voice, reluctance to accept cultural diversity, and uncritical acceptance of the social and political order. The articles in this …