America's Broken Education System & Historically Responsive Literacy

 

I had a recurring flat tire over the summer. I found that no matter how many times I filled this particular tire with air, it was flat again within a few days. After about 2 months, (and way too many visits to the air pump at Shell), I decided to let a mechanic check it out. Turns out that my tire had been damaged beyond repair, and I just needed a completely new one. The moral is, no matter how many times you try to fix something, if it’s broken beyond repair, you just need a new one. 

  So...what about our country’s broken education system? 

In an interview with Jennifer Gonzales, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad critiques the education system, asserting that the problem with it is that it is rooted in racism and white supremacy. She maintains that “putting fresh coats of paint on the old structures,” will not solve anything. Because the current education system in place “was never designed” for students of color to succeed, it needs to be completely dismantled and rebuilt. Dr. Muhammad advocates for equitable educational outcomes for all students, and believes this can be achieved through her teaching and learning model, historically responsive literacy. Historically responsive literacy consists of four layers and is centered around equity.

“When students learn about the lives of other people, they are less prone to hate, to treat them in harmful or hurtful ways.” -Dr. Muhammad

The first layer of historically responsive literacy is identity. The identity layer encourages educators to create lessons that help students learn more about themselves, as well as others. Because identity is so complex and multifaceted in nature, it is imperative that educators deliver instruction that is responsive to a variety of different identities. Identity, Dr. Muhammad explains, is also important because marginalized identities are often underrepresented, inaccurately represented, or completely left out of literature and history. She believes that all teachers should foster classrooms in which students can “celebrate and validate who they are.'' This reminds me of the very first unit I created, “Exploring Identity Through Literature” for SED 406. For the lesson in my unit centered around the novel, The Hate U Give, one of my learning objectives was to have students analyze how race, religion, family, and other facets of one’s identity can affect their journey in life. using the novel. Learning about identity is a great way to build tolerance, which was my overall goal when I created my unit. 

“We know that life is not skills only.” -Dr. Muhammad

The second layer of Dr. Muhammad's framework is Skills. Skills are what create proficient readers and writers, and while they are important, education should be skills driven. With this layer, Dr. Muhammad focuses primarily on why it’s “problematic to just focus on skills.” This makes me think of the book, More Than A Score by Jesse Hagopian and Wayne Au. More Than A Score is a collection of essays and poems that explores the detrimental nature of standardized testing and its effect on students. Putting too much emphasis on skills will undoubtedly create more negative outcomes for students than positive.

“I’m pushing this idea of intellectualism of treating young people as if they are scholars and intellectuals and thinkers.” -Dr. Muhammad 

The third layer is intellect. Essentially, intellect is teaching students what we want them to know more about, and how students apply that knowledge. As educators, we should strive to create a “community of learners,” which can be done through the posters we hang on the walls, the lessons we plan, and how receptive we are to criticism from our students. When I had a placement at North Providence High School last semester, one side of the classroom was filled with Black Lives Matter posters made by students. I thought that this was a great way for this teacher to exemplify to her students what is important. 

“We need criticality because we have sexism. We have ageism. We have ableism. We have religious discrimination.” -Dr. Muhammad

The fourth and final layer is Criticality. Criticality is teaching students not to be “passive consumers of knowledge.” We shouldn’t want our students to be overly docile. We should encourage them to actively challenge oppressive structures and speak up on issues involving human rights. We can do so by exposing them to marginalized perspectives and helping them understand power, inequality, equity, oppression through literature. This makes me think of a protest I went to in Providence this past June. There were so many young people there, which made me proud. Do we want our students to be silent on the sidelines, or advocates for change?

me :)

As ELA teachers, we can use Dr. Muhammad’s framework by incorporating diverse and inclusive novels into our curriculum that explore topics such as race, sexuality identity, religion, mental health, disabilities, etc. We should then use these novels to initiate purposeful class discussions about the topics. Doing so will not only build tolerance within our students but will also teach them to embrace others that are different from them. Some novels I think would be great to use in secondary classrooms to expose our students to marginalized perspectives are The Hate U Give, The House on Mango Street, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, A Very Large Expanse of Sea, and Mississippi Trial. To foster intellectualism, we could do a Socratic seminar on a novel like The Outsiders, which can spark important discussions about social class, stereotypes, etc. In regards to skills, as ELA teachers can have students analyze a culturally relevant text like Martin Luther King's, “Letter to a Birmingham Jail” and have them identify modes of persuading like logos, ethos, and pathos. There are so many ways to use Dr. Muhammad's framework in our classrooms, and in doing so, we are doing our part in ensuring educational equity for all.