10/3/17

Ta-Nehisi Coates packs a lot into one hundred and fifty pages. But there is one idea that he mentions early on in the novel and continually refers back to throughout that resonated with me. On page ten he states, "There is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or even in this moment. The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy." In this quote, he's referring to "destroyers" as the police officers that have wrongly taken, and continue to take, the lives of unarmed and innocent black citizens without consequence. 

This idea of the mistreatment of black people as essentially a national pastime, engrained into our identity as a nation, an identity that prevails and persistently devalues blacks lives regardless of narratives of civil justice and progressivism, is an idea that I believe existed for me abstractly, but was articulated in a concrete way by Coates. It is easy to think of slavery as an abomination that existed a long time ago, which now serves as a scar and reminder of America’s dark history. But Coates draws direct connections between the treatment of black people 250 years ago and the treatment of black people today. It is more than scar; it is a wound that never fully healed. This perspective flies in the face of the traditional American perception of slavery, but it makes a lot of sense, and it stuck with me.

Shifting gears.

The text from Dr. Johnson and Dr. Richer went into great detail illustrating the ways in which standardized testing marginalizes students and puts students who fall into specific categories into positions in which they cannot pass these tests. But as insightful and rich as the surveys and responses from teachers and students are, I am more curious if they were taken into consideration by those who have the power to reform and restructure the broken system and how it functions, because I don’t believe the problem is a lack of research proving the fallibility of standardized testing, nor do I think the problem is a lack of potential solutions. There are significant amounts of each. The problem is a severe lack of receptibility to changing the system.

My practicum partner and I were discussing potential lessons with our cooperating teacher, who teaches a collaborative English/History class with another teacher. They’re teaching the American Revolution, and we couldn’t help but notice how the curriculum was completely whitewashed and failed to acknowledge any marginalized voices whatsoever. My partner and I suggested that we do a couple lessons on some of these marginalized perspectives and the cooperating teachers were ecstatic because “they rarely get to teach that stuff.” When we asked why, they talked about the ways in which their school prides itself on being “progressive” and accepting/valuing of all perspectives…on paper. But in reality, what the students will be responsible for knowing (what the teachers are responsible for teaching) on these types of standardized tests will be exclusively about the portions of American history that are white, because it isn’t considered white history, it’s just history. If these tests are structured this way, then not focusing almost exclusively on white history is essentially doing your students a disservice. Because of this we have torn teachers who are pulled one way by a desire for their students to succeed and pulled the other way by a desire to give them the most valuable education possible. It seems like these philosophies should be one in the same, but in the American education system it is rarely the case.