The Mis-Education of Black Boys: A Conversation on Teaching and Learni

For the past semester, the African-American Studies Center and the School of Education are co-sponsoring a two-credit cost, of course, in the mis-educational black boys. As most of you in the room know, that there are certain demographic groups who just by the nature of the group into which they are born are significant risks for academic failure, more African-American males and prison than there are in college and the litany goes on and on. And so in general, there is this incredibly negative public image of what it means to teach in lowering-come schools, to work with lowering-come families, and specifically that those issues can still type in the life of black boys. So as rare in the educational establishment to find somebody who has such a clear vision of what is strong and powerful in the life of black boys and girls and other kids of color, and is willing to dedicate their life in this incredible combination of direct instruction and teaching being the classroom, running a school, influencing policy throughout the state of California, and also being willing to come out and share his perspective rest of the world. So I have had Dr. Holly come in and work with trainings with me in Wisconsin. And the one thing I would like to say is many of you know that as open as I am for discussion and dialogue, I'm hard to convince, particularly when I have a strong opinion, and he was able to lead me into understanding of the linguistic issues for African-American families in a way that I found it not only powerful in its intellectual quality, but convincing in terms of structuring my own approaches to pedagogy. So without much further ado, I want to introduce Dr. Holly to you and turn the mic over and hope you enjoy it and be ready and be willing to ask a lot of stimulating questions at the end. Good evening. Good evening. Come on, I'm from LA. Good evening. I want to thank Dean Coleman for the invitation. It's good to know people in high places as they say, and I appreciate him bringing me out to Boston University. It's my first time in Boston. I was here when I was a kid. I remember too much. So I was very open to the invitation, even though I was hoping for a little warmer weather, of course, but oh well. And as he said, we're sort of at the crossroads of doing this work and I kind of have three different vantage points. I think benefit overall and I'm just going to cover them a little bit and then I'm just going to jump right into what we do. The first vantage point is from the University perspective, I'm impressed by Cal State Deming and Sales, which is essentially a teacher training university. We Cal State Deming and Sales credentials the most teachers of color in California. And I work there and mainly in secondary education around reading language literacy issues. A lot of our students work in the LA sort of still typical urban schools, you know, Los Center's Unified, Compton, Long Beach, University of Georgia, I work a few years with Teach for America cohort. So I have specifically Teach for America students, which is a whole another story. I'm trying to convince them to stay longer than two years, which I think we're doing a okay job. That's one vantage point. So I have that sort of perspective of the university trying to deal with this. Then my second vantage point is as a co-director and founder of an independent charter school in Los Angeles called the Culture and Language Academy Success. And that's a kindergarten through eighth grade school. We have 350 students and we're known because we have all African-American students, 100% African-American and they only all African-American school in the state and certainly in the LA area. We have great literacy results, 60% of our students score 80, 60% in above and AYP, the annual yearly progress, which is the federal monitor. So we have people come from all over the country to see what we're doing around the linguistic affirmation that we do. And then my third hat is what I'm doing with you today. Well, let me go back. Certainly being at the school site keeps me grounded. Keeps it real if you know me. So because we're dealing with students, we're dealing with parents. We're dealing with all the issues that are at a school site and our goal was to create a school wide model using the approach I'm going to introduce to you today. So that's very important work for me because I don't get too distant from what the real issues are in terms of work with African-American children, particularly African-American males, where we have a reputation for having a lot of success. A lot of schools send us the students who they're having trouble with, per se, right? But when they come to our school, they don't have, I'll say as much trouble. We had a student, his name is, like I said, his name is Craig Jones. He went to the UCLA sort of laboratory school that's called Seeds Elementary. And he was in the office every single day. His parents are well to do his mom's lawyer. His dad is a professional. And he's an office every day and his mom brought him to us as he said, I know my kid's not bad. He's a good kid. But for whatever reason he stays in the office, I think in the three years that Craig was with us, he was only in office twice, well, with me and Lisa, right? And now he goes to Loyola High School in our life, which is a pretty high level of school, and we've had some success using their approach that we're going to introduce with those students. The last hat is what I'm doing with you today. And that's traveling around the country, teaching teachers about the approach. And in the context as Dean Coleman mentioned, of the failure, that's, I'm not there for my good look, you know what I'm saying? I'm there because, as you can see, I'm not a humble guy, right? I'm there because the school is in some type of program improvement status, there, under some type of mandate, some type of eating around their lack of success with namely African-Americans students, but we can broaden that. And they've been told, if you don't demonstrate or if you don't show that you're doing something to specifically address this, then, you know, we're going to come with some type of sanctuary or something like that. So many of the districts, I mean the teachers that I work with, they're under that pressure, and it's sort of been a good thing in a way that it's sort of open the door for this conversation, because prior, I've been doing this about 11 years now, prior to no child left behind, you really didn't have a lot of these school districts open to this type of conversation. So it's been, it's had an unintended effect, I think. And so we work primarily in Northern California, but we have situations in St. Louis, in New York, in different places. And when I mean by that, it means that we're working with the students and the teachers in the classroom, which is our overall call. So that's sort of where I'm coming from. So what you see here is sort of a mixture of all of that kind of put together. So just to kind of go along with the theme of the time, change my title to your call to response of stimulus package. And I'm looking at it, you know, we're, we're, in terms of what, how we can take some of the lessons that we're trying to learn from the economic situation and how can we apply it to the education situation. And the economic situation, it has been described as a crisis. And certainly those of us who've been in education, we can, we can make a similar description as a crisis. But we see every crisis as an opportunity, as has been said. And so this is an opportunity for us to really bring a layer that we think can benefit any type of attempt to try to bring improvement and change. And that is culturally a linguistic response of teaching. And I'm just going to define it for you real fast. Culturally, linguistically, responsive teaching is the validation and affirmation of the home language and culture for the purposes of transition or bridging for academic success and success in mainstream culture. And so what you're going to do is you're going to go to where the students are so that you can bring them where they need to be. Or, as we call it, be situationally appropriate. And situationally appropriate is really learning what culture, cultural and linguistic norm is appropriate for the situation that I can coach which to, but without losing who I am in that process. So I don't have to change what's internal to me, culturally and linguistically, in order to speak standard English or academic language, depending on my audience. I can still maintain that. And that's what we do at our school in terms of our entire teaching. And what we're simply saying is that the school system is really based on making that code switch, but at the expense of who you are. And secondly, not going to where the students are. The analogy that we use is simply trying to think about how you learn, if you think about how you learn how to swim. Now how you learn how to swim probably one or two ways. The first way is you were thrown into the pool and the teacher was on a side saying, that's it. Come on, do it, do it. As you were flailing and like, not, it wasn't happening. And we know that in education to be the what type of approach is called the sink or what swim approach. Then there's a second type where the teacher is actually in the pool with you, guiding you, holding you, instructing you, and then somehow slowly let's go and then you're doing it on your own. That's the approach that we're shooting for. The one where we meet the students in the pool and bring them along the way. So it has two components to it. The first component is culturally understanding where we are. And then the second component is linguistically understanding where we are. And it's based in instructional strategies. And that's why 90% of whom I talked to are classroom practicing classroom teachers. Because we're trying to get them to do their instruction in a different way. By first starting with their mindset and then starting with the practice. So what we're saying is we're not going to use, you know, guest speakers. We're not going to use posters. We're not going to use some type of ethnic cultural month. We're not going to use ethnic food day. We're not going to use ethnic dress day. That's not how we're going to get at this issue of diversity. That's not how we're going to get at this issue of culture. We're going to get at it by understanding more so where the students are culturally and linguistically and how we can accommodate or be responsive to them, do the instructional practice, how we teach. And as do that experience for the students that are bring about the change that we want to see with them academically, behaviorally and so on. So I want to begin just to change the energy in the room is to buy doing an activity with you. And then coming back to talk a little bit about racing and culture, then going to another activity and then coming back to talk about the language piece. So that's how we're going to sort of tag team this. Hopefully each of you has a strip. The packet that you have is sort of pieces of my full-day packet, which is a six-hour presentation. And I just didn't know it was hard to determine your audience. So I kind of put in a little bit of everything. And some of we'll get to some of who we won't. And I'll explain what each is as we go along. Then you have, which is really a promotional piece through Prinnis Hall. As I wanted to contributing artists for Prinnis Hall, we'll fix this in a minute. And what we're going to be doing is we work with Prinnis Hall in how they can infuse some of these strategies into their text. Then also have a DVD clip that I want to show towards the end because a lot of people want to see, like, what does it actually look like in the classroom? So I'm going to show you a clip from our charter school that shows you what it looks like in the classroom. And one of the advantages that we have in something that's a highly theoretical area culture responsive teaching is we have the practice part. So it's not just, it's not just theory. In fact, in our full sessions, it's very little theory. It's only the first part of the day. And then the rest of the day we focus on strategies. So you have these strips. And we're going to do an activity that's called a Tea Party, a Tea Party. And now this is a culturally-englusive response of strategy that comes out a second-long language learning. And what the big issue is you understand what makes it culturally responsive. And what makes it culturally responsive is that first of all is movement. There's movement involved. And movement in this case, means you're going to be getting out of your seats. All right? You're going to be standing up, okay? The second piece that makes it culturally responsive is that it's social centric. And what that means is that it involves talking as part of the instruction. As many times the students who are being unsuccessful, they are being who they are. But in the context of school it's seen as negative. It's seen as disruptive, defiant, deviant, whatever is on the referral slip, basically, right? And a lot of these kids end up in the office for reasons that we feel culturally based. And in the classroom, there's just a cultural misunderstanding. So what we try to get teachers to do is build in who they are into the instruction. So you have to build in talking. That doesn't mean that the students get to talk when they want higher than they want. But we're going to allow them that sort of momentary exchange prior to jumping into the content, okay? The other aspect of this is the greeting, how you greet somebody is culturally as well. We're going to build that in as well. So these are all what we call cultural orientations. So the rules for this tea party is number one, you have to stand up and walk around. That's number one, okay? Number two, prior to introducing your content, you have to culturally greet the person, right? And that means physically and verbally. And it has to be through a cultural orientation, which may be, I don't have anybody in the front row, so I can't do this, it's a some type of like a soul shake if that's your cultural orientation. And I would be demonstrating this. Or a cheek, cheek kiss, both sides, if that's a cultural orientation. High five, elbow, pound, bear hug, whatever, whatever, right? And we understand that now the hug has become the new handshake, you guys know that, right? There are people are hugging more now than handshaking. So whatever cultural orientation works for you, all right? And then as part of the verbal part, I just want you to tell the person, I'm my best today because, okay, because we have to give the students some frame, otherwise they will talk about whatever they, you know, the kind of goofy stuff that middle school or secondary students talk about, right? So you have to give them, you know, give a frame, so I want you to say, hi, my name is Sozo, and I'm my best today because, and then you sort of fill in that blank, then you're going to jump into your content. And in this case, the content is to read the strips to one another, verbatim, verbatim, all right? Don't cheat, I want you to read it, just like it is on the table, on the slip. And then you kind of go like, wow, that's interesting or I'm not sure what you just said, but whatever, whatever you want to do there, okay? And then you go to a different person, I want you to do this with three different people in the room, three different people in the room, and then after that third person, you return to your seats. Now, the last rule is you can't talk to anybody in your row. So these four ladies right here, they can't talk to one another, okay? These two gentlemen here, they can't talk to one another. So you can't talk to anyone in your immediate row, and that's to encourage, that's kind of walking around, mix them up with one another. All right? So, yes. That's good, because you're both going to exchange based on your own orientation. So if yours is a high five, and then hers is a bear hug, then that's how you do it like that, right? Now, we don't want to put somebody on comfortable, because you can say, well mine is the fridge kiss, and they go like, I don't think so, right? Okay, so we have limits, we have boundaries, all right? Okay, are we ready? No, we're not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the cultural orientation has nothing to do with the strip. You do your cultural orientation, the strip is just separate from that, okay? All right, go. Again, this is not as how the energy in the room changes when we do something like this, and the cultural pieces are built in. Now from a sort of pedagogical standpoint, this is simply an into reading activity. So we're about to read some texts, and I want to get the students familiar with the language number one, and then also some of the characterizations, just so they can get a general sense of the story. So it's an into read, it's an into activity. When I was in a classroom, I used to put shakes, lines from Shakespeare on those strips, prior to reading, Romeo and Juliet, or you could put math problems on the strips, or you can put science, whatever, and then how the students in exchange, like this, and then come back and read and then, and then, and then, the greater parts of the state in the reading. So also, in terms of second language issues or learning, it's meant to generate language in the room. And that's so important for the social centric aspect, because a lot of issues for students learning standard English is needing to sort of be able to speak it and hear it, because usually at school for many of these students, it's one of the few places they're going to get access in this type of way. So we want to have those opportunities for them to engage one another in different types of ways. That simple activity like that enables me to accomplish all of that, and at the same time, I'm building in that culture and language piece. So that's just a sample of what we do in terms of a whole sort of body of work with teachers to get them to focus on what they need to focus on. The first thing that we have to do though is talk about what is culture, and why do we have this focus? And so I want to just give you a little bit of that. So you'll understand the basis of this. What we have to do is really quickly or just really to the point, we don't have to spend a lot of time. We don't really need a lot of statistics. I have a standard sort of bet across the country with anybody who could find me positive statistics that are not related to the Chemicap. We don't even call it a Chemicap anymore, because it doesn't accurately define the weight or the crisis of the problem. You see a gap seems small. This is a, I don't even know what you want to call it. This is an ocean. This is a huge. When you really look at it. So we already know, I used to show a whole bunch of data slides, but it's no point. I mean, everyone knows the sort of depth of the issue. So we have to just cut to the chase and say, well, who are we talking about? And we sort of broaden it to say underserved students first so that we understand that the schools, in terms of talking about their failure, have not been successful with many populations, many populations. So we talk about underserved being any student who's in the school system that has not been responded to in a way that here she can be successful. That's how we define underserved. For a moment, it takes it off race culture and language so that I could be in a district and Kansas that's 90% white yet still talking about this topic, right? Because we're addressing it under this broader notion of who's underserved in the school district. But then we asked the question if we were to bring the underserved students to the auditorium, what would they look like, right? Isn't that broad definition any student who's not being responded to in a way that here she can be successful? Think about who those students are. Now let's bring them to the auditorium. Who do they look like? And match with the research they look like these students here. Now enters race culture and language because those are the students that are being identified as underserved. And the point that we have to make is that that's not where we started though. We started with a broader, with a broader definition. But the research says that these are the ones who are most likely to be underserved. And in terms of a cultural way of looking at it, there's particular four groups. And the broader area is voluntary immigrants versus involuntary immigrants. And we're pulling from the work of John Agbu early late 70's sort of work, where he basically said that there are two types of students in American education system, voluntary immigrants involuntary immigrants. And he said that they have different paths. One is a path to success. The other one is not successful. And under the involuntary immigrants, we looked at these four populations in particular because we noticed that they had a socio-political and socio- linguistic commonality. The socio-political commonality was they were colonized, cockered or enslaved as their introduction into America. Meaning that the process of assimilation came through this process here being colonized, cockered or enslaved. And they were the Hawaiian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans and African Americans. And you know, in the full day, we would talk about a little bit about that history. And what we realized is that they were essentially locked out of the system that makes them quote unquote Americans, if you will. And therefore, never really had that access or opportunity. It's different for each one. So in the context of Africans in America, we're looking at a 300-year history of being locked out. Then we have a socio-language-to-comanality, meaning that in these first two generations, they spoke the transition from their indigenous languages to what the language called non-standard languages, what we call hybrid languages. So today, there is no one as Hawaiian-pigeon English, Native American dialects, Chicano English, from Mexican Americans, and Black English or African American African-American English. And that these are intact linguistic entities that are based on that history of being locked out of formal-second-language instruction if you came about the one in these ways. So again, using the Africans as an example, when the Africans came to any of the Americas, these were the rules. If you speak your African tongue, it'll be cut out. If you congregate with two or three or more, you'll be beaten. It's against a law for you to learn the language of the land. You can't go to school. No rose at a stone, right? OK? And so the language began to ask, well, then how could they acquire the language? And so some linguists have a theory that is based on a re-lexified language, which means you have the vocabulary of the dominating culture, but you still have the grammatical base of the indigenous language in place. And so culturally and linguistically, that's what we have going on with these two, with these four populations in particular, as we define them as being underserved. We are another way that we look at it is we call them standard English learners. And a standard English learners is defined that they speak a home language that differs, and this is important in all the dimensions of language. So it differs in terms of the phonology, the morphocentax, the syntax which is the grammar, the semantics, vocabulary, and even the rhetorical aspect, which is the discourse, how you tell the story. And these students didn't come into a situation school where, if you go through each category, they do it differently. And so what we have to do then is recognize them as standard English learners, and then begin to use instruction that would be responsive to them being in the situation. And that's what I'm going to feel like is going to get them to the success we want them to have, for standard English and academic language. The problem is though that many folks do not see the legitimacy in terms of these four groups, culture and language. And so that's where the validation and affirmation comes in. So validate for us is to make legitimate what mainstream has made illegitimate, and the institution has made illegitimate, culturally and linguistically. And a firm is to make positive what the institution and mainstream media has made negative for culture and language for these groups. So when we think of Hawaiian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, African Americans, we don't think of legitimacy in terms of culture and language. So when you say, well, what is African American language or what is Chicano English, people would give it a deficit sort of definition, ghetto, gibberish, broken English, so on and so forth, no legitimacy. If you say, well, what is black culture? What do you mean by black culture? Are you talking about hip hop, no legitimacy? Are you talking about, you know, food, dress, dance, music, no legitimacy? So what we have to do is take a little time to talk about if we're going to be culturally responsive, then we have to legitimize what has been made illegitimate by the institution in very explicit terms. So we do this through an activity that we're just going to do a little bit of, that we delve into what is culture, what is the bondings, and then how is it plan to to failure the system? And we do this by focus, by it's a diversity activity that's called, why are we confused? But I've changed it to is Obama our first black president, all right? And what I mean by that is this right here. I'm going to give you a statement. If you understand this statement, then you are not confused. If you don't understand the statement, then I'm sorry to tell you you're confused, okay? You can be African-American, but, and not black. You can be African-American and not black, all right? Now, if you understand what I'm saying, you're not confused. But if some of you looking like what the heck is he talking about right now, then you are confused. And I want to talk about that confusion a little bit, because this is what confounds the issue in terms of culture-sponsored teaching in particular, but I also think in terms of how we're dealing with the achievement gap, because we have misidentified our labels, if you will, right? And the Barack Obama reference is, initially he had issues around legitimizing himself to the black community as being a candidate of a black culture, if you will. Versus just being an African-American, okay? And it took him a while to sort of gain that type of support, I mean, there are different variables, but it took him a while to gain that type of support. And I think part of it is because when you look at someone racially, it's different when you're looking at them ethnically. But when it comes to the four groups, I just described, there's not that ethnic identification, all right? So we can't go through all these identities today, but I want to give you the how we're all layered in these ways, and we recognize those. We're all sort of created by all these different identities, and we have to peel the onion to understand them each and their place in a sort of analytical way. Then it makes them when we put them back together, it makes it stronger, which I call the true definition of diversity, is looking at us in all these different ways. What I want to do is I want to start off with the race one, and then see if we can jump down to culture, since that's the main focus. So what I want you to do, you're going to do it just in an area where you are right now. I want you to give me your DNA lineage, what is your DNA lineage, what is your race? All right? I'm talking about your blood lineage, how would you identify yourself racially? Okay? And it's really just a one word answer, and then I want you to try to give two identifyingers that make you that race, if you will. Two things that you can say, I think this is what I'm associated with racially. Okay? Now, being from Boston is not a race. Okay? I just want to save a little time. All right? So we don't have that. We don't have that issue. Okay? Being Irish is not a race. Okay? So I want to save some time on that in as well. We're really looking at DNA. Like if they found your bones 80 years from now somewhere, what would they come up with? And you're going to do this by whipping around what we call a whip around. That means you share in groups of three or four, and you just go around and you say, this is my race, this is what identifies me, and then you bring it back. It should take no longer than two minutes per group, because you're talking for 30 seconds or less. So I'm going to call us back in about two minutes. Okay? So with your group right now, identify your race. What we do is, first, we try to debunk some myths, basically, if you will, or different ways of looking at it. Number one is typically, you know, and I, you know, we do this with all sizes, all different groups. Somebody in the group will say, I'm of the human race. Right? We got any humans out there? All right? I saw some love for the humans. And we try to point out that, you know, being human only separates us from the other animals in the kingdom, basically. It just let's us know that, you know, you're not a Billy Goat. Your presence here right now. Unless you want to demonstrate something for us at six o'clock or when they're in this, right? And that there are races within the human race. So we're just talking about the animal kingdom. The second thing that we have to sort of debunk or address is this notion of mixed racial heritage, right? Because we're in this age where everybody's a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of this. And, you know, it's kind of like, what am I? Well, we understand our social history. Our social history tells us very clearly. If you had any drop of non-European blood, then that's what race you were. And if that blood was African, it trumped everything. That's what our social history says. It's only to recently, very recently, that we began to acknowledge this notion of vibrational or multiracial in terms of designation, okay? Because today you can actually buy your DNA breakdown at our cheap rate, relatively cheap rate. But I think a lot of people won't do it, because they don't want to find out the truth. They don't want to find out where that kitchen came from. Now, only people know what a kitchen is going to get that job. If you don't know what a kitchen is, you're not going to get that job, right? So people will be able to get to sleep tonight and not wonder what a kitchen is. The kitchen is the backside of your hair that napped up, and it's called the kitchen. And typically people of African descent have kitchens, right? So if you want to know if you have some African blood and you won't wait to check, you see if you got a kitchen, right? And it's a joke, but that's speaking to how the DNA ties in. Now I know some of you when you leave, you're going to walk down how and you're going to go. Right? Okay. The third thing, and I want to acknowledge the scientists, the people who you know, go with the racial is socially constructed, argument. I mean, you know, and that is that we're 99.9% alike genetically, okay, which is a scientific fact. But we're think it's irrelevant to what's been happening in terms of the racial strife turmoil that's happened in our history. It's really a really just a scientific fact. It has had no relevance in terms of who we of what we've had to deal with based on that my new difference. So we go back and we just study how does this racial classification come from? And it comes from partly due to the work of JF Lumenbach, who did the first scientifically received racial classification. And Blumenbach went all over the world and he was looking for the most beautiful race of men. And he said that the people who lived in Russia near Mount Kakakis were the most beautiful race of men on earth. And he named them Kakajans, Kakajans. And that's where the term Kakajans comes from, based on the arbitrary decision of JF Lumenbach. Okay. So we have to understand that. And so then Blumenbach kind of into the gentleman's question, then classify races based on geography, based on geography. And he had an initial five groups, Kakajans, Mongolian, Ethiopian, what he called natives or Americans, and then Malaysians. So if we were to follow the Blumenbach's classification, all of us would fall under one of these five. Okay. Blumenbach really though had a major contribution in terms of what we would identify as racially acceptable in terms of image. That still stands with that today, let alone the term Kakajans. Still stands with us today, based on Blumenbach. But it's what he put forth what was representative of beauty that has stood and permeated in how we navigate, especially in the context of the school, but also in the macrocosm. Now a lot of people, they don't believe what I'm saying for whatever reason. So we go to the original source of JF Lumenbach. This is what he said. On the Kakajan variety, I've taken the name of this variety from Mount Kakakis, both because it's neighborhood and especially the southern slope produces the most beautiful race of men. I mean the Georgian. And because all the physiological reasons converge to this, besides it is white and color, which we may fairly soon be the primitive color of mankind, since it is very easy to degenerate into brown, but very much more difficult for dark to become white. And so he said forth with those words, a mindset that would be representative of beauty that everything would be compared to. Based on an image and remember image is connected to mindset. We have the you know, a resource about commercials and symbols and all of that image could contribute to mindset. And the mindset is that this image here would be representative of beauty. Now do you just think about it in the macrocosm? Think about our heroes, think about our heroes, and how they match the image. Think about our images of Jesus Christ and how they match the image. Think about Barbie dolls. You know, the 50th anniversary of Barbie doll was celebrating. And the image has remained the same over that time. And those dolls when they want a quote unquote change the race, they're not racially changed. They're just dipped in a different color. But racially it remains the same based on here right here. By the way, Dora is now a selling Barbie. Just what is this? This is a sight note. You want to know that, right? Warwide, Dora the Explorer ourselves Barbie now, right? Okay. So maybe there's a change coming there a little bit, right? Okay. So think of the school system and the images. Think of the textbooks, the literature books, the things that students have to look through. You know, Carl Grand who studies textbooks says that African-American students have a 7% chance of seeing an image that's truly reflective of who they are in the American textbook. Just a 7% chance. And then it gets the last as you go through the different groups. So all this ties into culture responsive teaching in that in order to be culturally responsive, we have to work around where we're starting from in terms of that validation and affirmation. So when you come to our school, the students are inadated with images that are representative of who they are, of who they are. The images are, when they look in the books, they see themselves. Now I'm not saying solely, but I'm saying as a starting place, because remember we're going to transition them to what's going to be representative in the mainstream and in academia. So we're not trying to stay there, we're just trying to start there. Rather than starting at what society says, what your not. So in order for a student to fill empowered, affirmed, validated, feel confident, you have to start where there are. And we know that a lot of the issues around African-Americans, particularly African-American males, is that they're not being approached or addressed based on who they are. They're being approached, they're being addressed based on what we want them to be. And we have to start where they are to move them in that direction. I want to give it to you from a student's perspective. So let me show you this clip from, it's actually, was sent to me by one of the teachers that we trained in Oakland. He's the video teacher at a high school. This was a video that was done by high school students. And it was done around the issues of race. And it lets you know that when we allow the students to really grapple with this, they have the wherewithal to come up and approach it from where we're coming from. It was a spoken word contest that the particular gentleman won and then they took the spoken word contest and showed it and turned it into this video. The answer is because the essence of a beauty is well, the essence of beauty. And in the presence of the higher being, the weakness of masculinity kicks in, causing me to be a solidify man who want to be a big brother, shot call, a god gifted to the female species, the scientists who've been rapping rap, and like, I'm a second story, I can't get a little much of someone's desire. I did get style, though. Now this girl was no fool. She gives me a dirty little bit of acquaintance like boy you must be stupid, so I'm looking myself like boy you must be stupid. But looking upon her, I am kind of pruned her style. So I try again, but instead of just saying a properly, I blow it out one of my fake ass playlists and lines like girl, you must be a traffic ticket, because you got fine reading all over you. Now see you trying to leave and I'm trying to keep it here. And so when I find out, tell my daughter girl, what is your ethnic makeup? See, at this point her glare was scorching to me and somehow she manages to make her round high and was on the other side of the corner round bar, so even with this all snap her head moving, no palm the face click up, tell me nothing you're all about, a girl power chant, she gets clear on me with these burning eyes, no gaze, glad you were the storm she says, ethnic makeup. First of all, makeup just neccessize, colonize, commodify utility, the my sister's and I'm broke up to consume, forcing them to come broke her after staying over the amidate, when nothing she's always like, no, not to take, because you keep telling her that the others in Chicago say is more beautiful than the first in her estate. At the same time, the others in Theresa is leaving in her natural state, because she's trying to imitate yet another sister, so naturality, then after staying at the first show, trying to imitate, wouldn't even have told the first place, no, I'm thinking damn this girl's kicking knowledge, but me while she keeps spinning on it like fine, I tell you about my ethnic makeup, our foundation, not that powdery stuff, our foundation lay by my indigenous people, it's that foundation that makes it sort of past being globalized, like still vocalized with confidence I know where my roots are, our weather's foundation on it, on my face, but within my soul, and I take this from my ancestors, because I'll be damned of it, but ever that a European or American corporation tell me what my foundation should look like. And now a man lives too, from my lips, stick to the ears of men to begin experience and surround sound, my spings of agony with each last of rulers, measuring tape and scales, as if my waistline and weight are inversely proportional to a value as a human being, see my lips, they stick, but not together, rather they flail open with flames to burn down this culture, the ones get them shut, now mess with eye shadow, my eyes shadow over this time, that when you're gonna end to keep me blind, but you can't cover my eyes, look into them, my eyes foreshadow change, my eyes foreshadow light, and I end to here dying, but I'm here dying because there's some pressure, there's only get out of my hair, they throw these highlights on my past atrocities, they tangled around my mind, they're suppressing it, my naffest is stressing me so that even though I don't cover my hair and a couple of years it'll look like I died it gray, so what's my ethnic makeup? I don't have any because ethnicity isn't something you can just make up, and as far as that shit that much is just pointed faces, that's not make up, it's make believe. I can't see the look up, I'm sure there's such actions on points, I hope because there are expressions so that she knows that my mind isn't a trance, as opposed to defame my ego with left and crutches and rejection never sounded so sweet. All right, so that's from a student perspective there and you see they have a good grasp of where we're going with this, which is really saying that our racial identity only serves one purpose and that is to identify our DNA lineage, it has nothing to do with who we are in terms of these other identities. I'm African, right, that is my racial DNA, pigmentation of skin, texture of hair, prone to certain diseases. That's what it says. I love the, I don't love it, but the Sally Phil, I love it for this work. The Sally Phil commercial, you guys ever see the Sally, I forgot what it's for, I think it's for our morosis, but at the bottom you see what it says, there's anybody know, see that with those commercials, we got a little, what does it say? Is anybody know? Say again? The disclaimer, what does it say? Is anybody know what it says? Something about white, white and Asians in terms of being prone to this. That's speaking to racial identity there. So what we're saying is now that we know this, you cannot identify me by my race other than to say that I am African descent. That's all it tells you. It does not tell you how smart I am. It does not tell you what music I like. It does not tell you what language I use. It does not tell you anything about my background. In anything that you come with that, you're making an assumption, you're making an approach as you're making a bias. So if we have that understanding, then we could take race and put it off the table. And know that this approach is not racially responsive education. It's cultural response of education. And part of the confusion is we have too much focus on race, not in the focus on culture. I don't think it's about racism. I think it's about culturalism. And the students who are not being successful in our schools, it has less to do with the fact that they are of African descent and more to do with the fact that they are being black. And that's why we have to understand that there's a difference between the two. I can meet somebody who's African-American, but immediately know if they are black or not. And not make a judgment about them. And so our students who are being themselves in terms of their blackness, if we were really to disaggregate the data like that, then we would see this culturalism, we would see this culturalism versus this racism. Now we talk about nationality, what's the punchline on that? That is that we were all something before we became Americans, basically, unless you are of wasp culture, wasp is white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, which is the culture that all the other cultures in essence assimilated into. This comes from a body of work known as how the Irish became white, how the Jewish became white, how the Germans became white. If you read those texts, it talks about that cultural assimilation from being Irish, German, Jewish, into being wasp. And that wasp becomes synonymous with American. So to be American, some would say is really to be wasp, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. We can add in the religious factor as well, okay, but what I really want to get to is culture. And what I want you to do now is I want you to identify what ethnic identity do you subscribe to? What ethnic identity resonates with your soul culturally? What moves you? What makes you think of home, community, and heritage? From an ethnic standpoint. And once again, see if you can name two things that you can link to that identification. Two things that make you ex. In terms of interest, likes, in terms of heritage, in terms of experience. Now remember, we've already released you, we've freed you, we've liberated you. If you are African, American, you can say, I subscribe to Wasp culture. It's okay. If you are Caucasian, American, you can say I subscribe to Korean culture, because that's the beauty of culture. You're not locked in. See, I'm locked in racially. Now we got some of us, we try to change our race, right? We know we got some of those in the celebrity world, right? Okay, but it is this successful attempts. You know what I'm saying? But I'm not locked in culturally. I'm not locked in culturally. I can't move about culturally where I can't racially. What happens though? Some people feel bad about having to say, well, I'm a this race, but I subscribe to this culture, because what's a society puts on is because society says, you look this way, so that means that you should act this way. Okay, so in your group, once again, I'm just going to give you two minutes. I'll give you three, because this is a tougher topic, define your ethnic identity, and you cannot say American. All right, you can say Wasp, but you cannot say American. Go. Now, just to let you know, you know, we're we're truncating this is this ends up being about a 90 minute conversation in the full day, because a lot comes out of that in terms of people talking about their identification. I do want to well, I can't go back, but all just again, what notice the last identity is age, because there is a culture that comes with your age that we talk about. And what that means is that you do certain things culturally, just simply based on how old you are. You know, and sometimes, though, we confuse that with the other identities. Remember, it's confusion. So we're saying, we're trying to get you to carve out very specifically what is my ethnic makeup, if you will, that I can take out of a generational identity or take out of a geographic identity, meaning that if you subscribe to black culture, there is a commonality among people who subscribe to black culture across the country, regardless of you from LA, New York, Boston, or Alabama, right? There's a commonality, different from an age identity that comes with people who may be in their 30s, right? And they grew up in the age of high top fates, whatever, right? Whatever it is, you know, there's some link there, but that link might not be related to the ethnic identity, more so than it is, to the age dining. And sometimes they cross, they cross. And it's just knowing how these things apply, that strengthens us, but I think also not knowing leads to confusion. So your cultural identity is very complicated because we have to really understand what culture is. We always start off with metaphors and analogies. For me, PhD means how many metaphors can you come up with? Right? It make a work, okay? Because I try them out and then my family goes, that is not a good metaphor right there, it does not work. So I'm like, okay, how about this one? Right? But Wade Noble said it very well. He said, culture is to humans as water is to fish. And it is the lens that we see the world, it's through that cultural lens. And similar to how fish need their own water to survive, right? We all have our aquarium stories of, you know, kind of killing awesome fish, part of the reason why it's because we took them out of their water. I know I know I did all admit it, okay? The first time, I took the fish out of the water to clean the tank, right? Put them back in the next day, they were what? Dead. And then I call then I said, you saw me some really bad fish. What happened? And he started laughing once I explained, right? So he's supposed to leave the fish in the water, clean the tank, or keep them in their water. And that's the same thing here. The full analogy of full metaphor that he uses is this. We're trying to put salt water fish in plain water tanks in terms of our school system. And these students, a lot of students of color, are be putting those plain water tanks and then I have a success. So what must we do add some salt to the tank? Right? That's the analogy of Wade Noble's uses. We use this working definition about Viegus and Lucas that is comprises for me the sort of totality of culture, identifiable community or group that uses a certain language, a certain way of interaction one another, how you take turns to talk, how you relate to time and space, and how you approach learning, all involve the round patterns for us to find what we mean in terms of this culture, okay? And in terms of this identity, if you will, when we say culture, when it comes to African Americans and these groups that we talked about, though, remember I said there's not a validation and a legitimacy. So these are all the precepts, if you will, or categories of culture, put forth by Wade Noble's. In the context of black culture, and the question that we ask is when you think of black culture, honestly, do you think of all of this right here? Do you think of, do you think of its complexity or do you think of hip hop and pelvic gyrations? Do you think of certain types of foods? Do you think of movies? You know, it bothers me when we talk about black culture and we just name black actresses and that's all right, that's the length of our culture. Are we talk about music or are we talk about certain foods? When the complexity of any culture is here, all cultures have this and it's all relative to the culture. How does this play out in terms of stereotypes and generalizations? Well, if you understand black culture, you understand that it is a culture of hard work, working hard, having a strong work ethic. It's in our history, it's in our families, it's in who we are to work hard. If you listen to the mainstream and to the institution, in terms of our boys, what do we hear about them as being what? Lazy. That's a stereotype. That's a stereotype. Because culturally speaking, we are a hard working culture period. And this notion of laziness does not apply. And how do I know? Well, take me to where they are motivated, take me to where they have an interest, take me to where they are being responsive, and you're not going to see laziness. You're going to see hard work. But if I come to the classroom, if I come to the system believing that these kids are lazy culturally, then we have what's known as that self-fulfilling prophecy. Or we begin to act out that belief. You're not going to be nothing. You can't write. You can't read. You're not going to do this. And then all of a sudden, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Versus, you can write. You can do this. I'm not going to take, you know, I was in this classroom last week and this is a very simple example, but it speaks to high expectations. There was home room. It was guidance. The students are coming in. They're wearing uniforms. This teacher, African-American teacher, she made every one of them young boys tuck their shirts in. Every single one of them. She didn't let down. And she told them, you are a scholar. You are a student. You have to look like a scholar. You have to look like a student. Tuck your shirt in. And every single one of those boys tuck their shirts in. That's the high expectations that we need. In terms of belief system. She's telling them, you are important. You are a student. You are a scholar. Look that look. Now, some people say, well, that's a little thing, but that could go a long way in the long run. What about respect? You know, if we listen to mainstream media, if we listen to what we get from the institution, then you would think in black culture, we don't respect black women. That's what you would think. Because we're going on hip hop, which the mainstream media has replaced for black culture. And there was black culture. In fact, there was music before hip hop. Some people are disappointed to know that, but it was. Because of the nature of hip hop, some of it is a disrespect, misogynistic lyrics, and such on, we have extrapolated to be represented. But if you know anything about black culture, what do you know about respecting the black female? Let's put it like this. If I even form my lips, even just begin to articulate the sound of disrespecting a black female, I would not be with you here today, period. Because a shoe or brick or something would come upside my head immediately. You don't disrespect, you open it door. You go help with the groceries. You help with the luggage. That's in the culture. So when these students are walking around calling females out of the name, you have to look them dead in the eye of the say, that's not who you are. That's not who you are. You're not 50 cent. You're not whomever. You're not whomever. You are somebody's grandson. You are somebody's son. And I don't think if your mom or your sister came up here, you want them to be called like that. And I've never had a student say, I don't care. You can come on my way, whatever you want to call it. Never heard that. You can come on sister. No, never heard that. But it's how we're going at them. See how you all talk. That's how you all do it in our community. Huh? That's how you all talk to one. But we don't talk like that here. That's the belief system. How are you going to say, we don't talk like that here. But that's how we, that's not true. Anyway, that's not how we talk in our community. So this is what we mean by the complexity. And if we're going to change in terms of the achievement gap, we got to change how we're believing of the students. And if that changes to come about, we got to see things more in the cultural lines versus the racial lines. Then there is what I call the depth of it in terms of what we call culture determinations. And these are things that are culturally connected through the through anthropological study. It's not just related to black culture. It's a study of all cultures how they greet one another is culturally based. So that's so shake. It's not something that I got off of good times. It was something that was done in my family by my uncles, my granddad, so on and so forth. That was taught to me. But at the same time, I was taught the mainstream handshake. And my uncle would say, when you talk it to the man, this is how you shake his hand. And he demonstrated the mainstream handshake. Right? But when you're at home when you're in the community, it's the soul shake or the black man's hug. I don't go to grandma's house and give her the mainstream handshake. Because she's going to say, boy, what are you doing? Right? You reach that end up. It's not going to work. Eye contact is culturally based. It's culturally based. Right? The anthropological study is this. Every culture is all relative. Has a certain length of time that it's appropriate to look at someone's eyes. Okay? And it varies. In some cultures, for example, a lot of European cultures, it's appropriate to gaze and look long deep into somebody's eyes. And it sends a message of respect or disrespect. Respect, interest, entry. That's the message. In other cultures, sometimes you look at someone and you look away. Is that respect or disrespect? Respect. In the culture, and so take it in the school. You have some age or student or some Latinos students. They look at the teacher, they don't look away. And it's a sign of respect. But in a culture of school, it's a sign of what? Disrespect. And the teacher will say, look at me when I'm talking to you. But the student is saying, in my culture, we don't look at you. We look away. Right? That's a cultural, that's what we call cultural misunderstanding. It's a cultural misunderstanding. In black culture, you look long, you look wrong. Because it sends a message of what? Disrespect. Disrespect. Right? It sends a message of confrontation. And so what I'm trying to get you understand is this is not from hip hop. This is not from TV. This is culturally based, passed down from generation to generation. I can get off any plane, anywhere in the country. And I know if this is young brother on a jet wear whatever, I can't stare him down. Why? Because culturally, I'm sending a message of disrespect. And if he describes the black culture, he's going to say, what's up? What you looking at? Why are you looking at me that way? Right? That's cultural. We put it in the context of school, though. We teach the look as a means of classroom management. Right? That's mom is look. Me, you cut and you say, you better stop what you're doing right now. But what teachers need to understand that if you look too long, then you look wrong. And the student is going to respond culturally. The student is going to say to the teacher, what? What you're looking at? Why are you looking at me? She always got her eyes on me. The teacher is going to say, get out. Why? Disrespectful. Defiant. Devient. Because the teacher is saying in the context of school, the cultural appropriate thing is I can look at you. But the student is saying, but in my culture, you stare me down. We got a cultural misunderstanding. And this is what leads to the disappointment of the detentions, referrals, suspensions. This is why, because of these cultural misunderstandings. A lot of these students end up in the office. And when you ask them, why are you here? They say, I don't know. I was just, I just said, what you're looking at? She sent me out. They don't have an understanding. So what we have to develop is this cultural sensitivity around the teacher understanding that I got a time on look. I have to use proximity. But in the guess what? I can't get too close. Because space is at the cultural norm as well. In some cultures, you can get up in somebody's face. In other cultures, it's inappropriate. It's rude. So the students are going to say, what? Get out of my face. Why are you in my face? What does the teacher going to say? Get out. Because in school, this is my space. And I can get in my, get in your face. Did you hear me, Mr. Right? And the students are like, get out of my face. Get out. Okay. So we have to, we have to come to an understanding and recognize these behaviors for what they are. And we think that that will lead to not sending them out of the room, but teaching situation or proponents. What does that mean? That means that the student recognizes, oh, I'm in school. That means that she's going to be looking at me. And I got a coach which, I have to coach which, right? And once they learn that lesson, they're going to be on the road to success. Because all of us to make it through the education system had to learn how to coach which, on one level or another. Right? And the students who are not having success are not coach which, and this is what Lisa Delpit talks about when she says explicit instruction. That's the explicit instruction she's talking about. Some of those students, they don't get that transaction here. They don't get that, that, that, that, that, that, that how we relate to one another. Always use the example of interacting with policemen, right? And in my experience, I have never looked at the policemen when they're talking to me as a form of disrespect in a way, right? But some police, they will say, sir, I need you to look at me. And at that particular moment, I got to make us decision. I got to make a decision. I got to make a decision if I'm going to coach which, or am I going to continue to be in essence in terms of the mainstream culture, quote, unquote defiant. Right? So I go. Right? Or something like that. Okay? All right? That's how this works. And but it has to be automatic and it has to be done in a way where you don't have to give up who you are. Another thing that's cultural, a lot of people don't know is how we hold conversation and that period of, oh, what the language is called, overlap. Overlap is the space or time when I stop talking and it's appropriate for the other person to start talking, right? And it's very by culture. In some cultures, there's a big space. I stop talking with 1,000, 1,000, 2,000, 3. Now you can start talking. I'll make my point with 1,000, 1. Right? Then it go, right? It fluctuates, okay? So in black culture, look, it's no space. It's called, oh, it's called jumping in that you have to have the ability to jump in. If you don't have the ability to jump in, then you won't get into the conversation. Okay? Right? Now students come to school with this intact culturally, right? And what happens is they're penalized in school because they began jumping in and school jumping in is considered what? Rued in a rutting. Now what I wanted to do is I want to give an example of how we take that cultural norm, go to where the students are, but put it into an instructional strategy. In your packets there, we're just going to read just because of time. We're just going to read two pages. We're not going to read the whole thing. And we have some extras here. You can help you out there. But I want to read from page 13, there are eyes of watching God. This is where the strips came from. And if you don't have a packet, just kind of look on with someone, there I was watching God. This is Zorne Hirsten's, you know, Premier Peace. And she writes in African American language, if you will, right? And that was what, this is where the strips came from. But I want to do a reading activity with you that's called Jump in Reading. Right? That builds on what we just talked about, culturally. And jump in reading here are the rules. No rule number one on the Master Jumper Enter. That means I can jump in at any time. All right? Rule number two, you're not going to be prompted to read. You can just jump in, but you must jump in at a period stop. You have to jump in at a period stop. You can't jump in at another punctuation line break. And it has to be a period. If you jump in, I need you to read at least three sentences. All right? Now two or more people may jump in at the same time. And if that case will, will defer to the one who jumped in first. And I'll make the call if necessary. All right? We're just going to read from the first two pages. We're not going to do the whole thing. I'll start reading. And at some point I'll stop. Or I want somebody to jump in. Okay? And then read loud so everyone can hear you. Ships out a distance have every man's wish on board. Now they do. Now we have the first measure. We have you say terrible work because of your elected k What is done with all of that? That is the only someone from the other side. There is no way. But if you don't say that in the past, if you actually were in the office for example the boy, you can use it. And let's come out that open and it gives you a little bit more. There's a few questions in the office. If one is in the office, you can't get it. The point is that you can't get it. You may have noticed that there are quite a few and I didn't talk to you. The way you go for a flight there is maybe to a flight that's not even there in my front. Then I'll find you as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. You are in the office. I'm in the office. I'm going to check that. You're in the office. I'm at the office. I'm at the office. I'm in the office. I'm in the office. So you're in the office. You're not here. You're not here. You're not here. Thank you. I'm at the office. I'm at the office. You're not here. You're not here. You're not here. You want to be sure what you feel is going to be there. Well, somebody don't know if they're in the office. You're not. You're not just in the office. Maybe I don't know if they're in the office. But we're all not even waiting there. And that's not to show if you're not in the office. They're not in the office. They're not like you. But you can't be the office. They can't be the office. They can't be the office. They can't be the office. They can't be the office. They can't be the office. They can't be the office. TK gave a good no boy for some time. He ran 30 as own stuff. She act like we did this. Something to her. Pearl stalking playing. She the one been doing wrong. You mean you mad because she didn't stop and tell us all our business. Anyhow. What you ever know her to do so bad as y'all make out. The worst thing I ever know her to do was take in a few years off her age. And that ain't ever harmed nobody. Y'all makes me tired. The way y'all talk and you think the folks in this town didn't do nothing in the best of praise the Lord. You have to excuse me because I'm bound to go take her some supper. Phoebe stood up sharply. Don't mind us. Moose Ma. Just go right ahead. Us, remind your house for you to you get back. My supper's done. You better go see how she feels. You can let the rest of us know. Lord, Pearl agreed. I didn't squash up that low meat and bread too long to talk about. I can stay away from my home long as I please. My husband ain't fussing. Are we gonna stop there? And the reading activity was jump in reading. And what we're saying is you got students in the class who can jump in. Now we have a strategy that validates who they are. And they can say something that I do at home is now a plus at school versus being a minus. And it's incorporated into instruction. But we're not gonna stay there. There are other reading strategies that we're going to introduce to transition them to more of what can be expected in academic and academic. In academia. Okay. And that's important. We're not going to stay there. We're just going to start there. Also now you got to read. You got to see what it feels like to read a non-standard language. And that feeling that you got reading that is the same feeling of someone trying to read standard English or academic language. And that is you have a certain oral proficiency. You are proficient in terms of your reading. But put a language in front of you that you are unfamiliar with. And then your reading level is rendered lower or slower. And that's the phenomenon that you experience reading the African American language is the same phenomenon that students who are trying to learn standard English and academic language experience. Linguistically. All right. And that's going to transition us to talk about language here. And I'm going to start off with this video, I think. That gets you at why we think negatively about ebonics or why we think negatively about African American language. I think. I'm going to show this. In 1986 the Open School Board trying to get ebonics or talk in school. And there was something open school thing where it pretty delay was so cold and black. You were going to explore ebonics. I was just like, you know, you want to hear ebonics. Let me break that down to ebonics, meaning like, ebonics. And sound speech. Then you might be gone coming from the word ebonics. So basically it's like black speech in a 70-day-culting chie. This is called a revolution. If onxton made was the John Nasty idea effort. Maybe we should give people an example of ebonics here. And as far as the pronunciation goes, look at some examples. Hand becomes hand good becomes good and with becomes whip. You'll example I remember is the man who's talking about what it's like. If I wanted to say, do you have any maple syrup, human beatbox? I would say, hey, do you have maple syrup beatbox? You see, because I dropped some of the particles. Hello, was away a saying, can you sit on your man? What? You're talking about will it? What's up? Why you're only my sh**? Was away a saying, the season-disrest. The man's been out on keep your m***** ass. You know what I'm talking about, right? You only can ride my bike. Why isn't there any counter-resue or whity-bodies? For, to say, eye-bodies, eye-reonings. You're a demon, I think I've got to squirt. That doesn't mean hey, man. I'm going to use my squirt on its prey. With me to hey, man. I just ate some Taco Bell and I have diarrhea. Jesus, bokeh, rosy. Yes. John, I'll try to 13 version 19. You said, be he? That's not right. I don't know. I need you to sit. All right. So we see how the mainstream media fools us into thinking deficit or ignorant through the misinformation, right? And if we just go on that, then that's where we get our notions of ebonics or the non-standard languages. So the first thing we have to go to is the linguistic research, which is what we do. And the linguists are very clear that any characterisation of ebonics or slain muting lazy, defective, ungrimatic, or broken English is incorrect and demeaning. That it is seen as a linguistic system that is fundamentally regular beyond vocabulary. That's key. It has to do with phonics, morphocentax, grammar, rhetoric, or even pragmatics. You have to understand that language has six dimensions. One of the dimensions is known as the pragmatic dimensions, or what is commonly known as the non-verbal cues, right? There are non-verbal cues that are tied linguistically, meaning how you may roll your eyes, move your neck, stand a Kimbo, whatever comes with your language. And this is important to understand the depth and complexity of it is not just vocabulary. It's not just vocabulary. There are three linguistic absolutes, and they are very simple, easy to remember. All languages good. There is no such thing as a bad language, linguistically speaking. There is no such thing as bad French. There is no such thing as street Spanish. There is no such thing as proper English. It's all good, linguistically. When with society comes and places a judgment on it, that's where we get the value. But in its purest form, it's good. All linguistic forms are rule governed and patterned. They're not made up, they're not hotspots, they're not random, they were not created by hip-hop. There was African-American language prior to hip-hop, all right? And we acquired the language that's spoken in home by the primary caregiver. And whatever language that is, that's the language that's child is going to come to school speaking at pre-school of four years old and three years old or five, or a kindergarten at five. That's the language that comes speaking based on the primary caregivers language. All right? Here's the technical definition of ebonics. It wasn't coined in 1997 by Oakland. It was coined in 1973 in St. Louis by some black language who got together because they retired of the deficit names that the white language had given to the language of Africans in America. So it is no, it's a three paragraph definition. It's just a first sentence. Ebonics is the linguistic and per- linguistic features which are on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African Caribbean and the United States that they've descendants of African origin. Problem with linguists is they write in ways that put everybody to sleep, right? So we have to break it down. Ebonics, and I want to give it to you this way. I want to inform you so that you can inform others. And there are really just three quick points that you can make with others. Point number one, ebonics is a language family. It is not a singular language. It is a language family. It is an umbrella term that refers to all the languages that are spoken in the African diaspora. That's what it is. So it's really ignorant or a misinformed to say, do you speak ebonics? Because you wouldn't say, do you speak romance? Or do you speak Indo-European? Why? Because those are families of languages. What are those languages? Well, that's the second point you can make. Those languages are connected to wherever the enslaved Africans were taken throughout the enslavement. Because when they got to that particular place in the world, they were given those constraints. I told you about earlier. No African tongue, no working in groups. Can't speak the language here. So the language said they simply took the words that they were hearing. They were hearing laid them on top of the grammar that they were speaking and formed in essence this hybrid language. That's known in Jamaica as a patois. Spanish and the West African base. That's known in a rubah as Dutch pigeon. That's known in Haiti as French Creole. That's known in South America as Black Portuguese. That's known in Peru as Huerta. That's known in North America in Georgia as Guichi. That's known throughout the Western United States as African American language or Black English. And that's known in South Carolina as Gala. All right. What is the commonality? The commonality is the same grammatical base. We go from country to country. It's the same rules. All right. Now the third thing that you can point out is that why are you calling it a language? Because some people they be tripping on that. They were calling it a language. Well, the reason why we're calling it a language because the language tell us that, well, you know, if you wanted to find a language, you can define it as simply saying that if you have a big army, you speak a language. If you have a small army, you speak a dialect. Because our world history of languages tell us that there are some countries that when they were dominated, they spoke dialects. But when they gained independence, they spoke languages. So it's political. The second thing we know is that there is a regional variation to a language that becomes a dialect. So I can be speaking African American language with a Southern draw, y'all, right? Or I can do my New York in accent. Or I can bring it to Chicago. Or I can do this when we talk in LA, like this all the time. Right? But we're still speaking the same rules of the language. That means we're still using multiple negation. We're still using habitual B. Although we're in different parts of the country. And the last part of this is very simple that part of oppression is taking away somebody's language. It's telling them you don't have a language. You don't have a culture. Your skin doesn't match ours. Your hair doesn't match ours. And getting us to think negatively about who we are, that's the process of oppression. And you don't even have to be there to oppress because once the oppressed belief in what has been given, then the oppression will be carried out by themselves. And the oppressor can remove and it will continue. And to a larger extent, it has happened. This is why you have some people who say, I don't speak no ebonics while they're using multiple negation contract, you know, sentence there. So I don't have time to go over the rules with you, but I want to give you one example when we invite the rules. But if you look in your packet starting on page 20 and 21, you will see a, what we call a contrast of analysis chart, which are the black English rules and this is what's published in the Prinnis Hall series, because in California teachers have to address non-standard language issues in their teaching. It's in our education framework. So all of our textbook publishers have these elements in the textbooks for teachers who have students who speak non-standard languages. So it's part of the, the educational policy there, okay? So if you take, for example, habitual B, habitual B is the one that's made fun of, like she said at the end of the clip, I B, he, right? If you go to West Africa and you study the B form, you recognize that the B form has was known as an habituality use. It refers to things in an ongoing sense as over time, in terms of it's, it's an existence. So if you really analyze I B, he from the scriptural standpoint, the quote is I B, he, but it's really saying, if you look at from West Africa language, I am in essence everywhere. I am always in this existence. That's hard works. So in the language, you could say, she'd be late to work, okay? So when you translate that to standard English, you must have an is or are verb, plus the use of an ad verb or ad verbial phrase. That is the correct translation. So if I say she be late to work, someone translate based on what I just explained. That girl is always late to work. What am I listening for? There is and always because that is the linguistic equivalent to the use of the B form. If you translate it to she late, if I'm messing with her, as you translate it to, she is late to work. That is an incorrect translation because the correct translation I just gave it to you is what? She late to work. So if I want to say present tense, like she late right now, I would say she late to work, right? But if I want to say just sit down, just take half some coffee because it's going to be a while because she is always late to work, then I would say she be late to work. That's the accurate translation. If you understand this, it gives you a connection with the students, a rapport, and also empowers them. So when the students used to come, when I was working as like a dean, the students would come to the office and they would say, that teacher, she be tripping, right? Now understand the language, so understand that they're saying what? She is always being a bother to me. Right? So I know that it's ongoing, it's something I need to investigate, it's something I need to look into, it's something I need to call the teacher about. But if the students come down and say, man, that teacher, she tripping, then I know. It's right at that moment. They're saying right now, she is a bother to me. And I can handle it differently. Or they'll be all in the yard and you're saying, man, you cheating. They're saying what? You cheating right now. Or they're like walk away from the game, say, I'm not proud to you because you be cheating. You always cheat. That's how we have to understand the language. Okay? Now that's just one rule. There, we do about 30 rules. And explain it the way we explain right now. Let me show you how it looks in the classroom. And then we can end with questions in our remaining moments. There's about a six minute clip. This comes from PBS, do you speak America? And they came to LA to see how we were doing, how we were doing this teaching around the linguistic piece. And this is a fifth grade classroom. I think. Maybe not. So sometimes it takes a while to catch up to where I am. So we'll see. Let me see how we try like this. Maybe not. I have a backup though. It's just a longer clip. The one that I want to show you actually, which is what the universe might be saying to me, is a longer clip that I didn't that. So what I'm going to do is. I really wanted to show you this clip. So that was the universe way of telling me you need to show this clip, right? Because this is really our school and how our school looks in this entirety. It's just that it's a longer clip, right? And we were down to the last 15 minutes. So I'm going to show it to us on point and then we'll just stop. And then we can have time for question to answer. So we'll watch six minutes of this. Okay? It's like nine minutes long. But we'll watch six minutes of it. We're going to answer our sound. Well, oh technology, huh? Is that something I'm doing? Oh wait, no? Various nation builders. People have helped make this country what it is today. One of those things that we've already stepped in. I'd be well-barned. So we've already read through the book once. I'd be well-barned. I've always against violent. What we're going to do today is pair reading. So you're going to deal with your partner and you're going to re-read an according chapter four, which is called the struggle against violence. Now I'm going to review quickly. Again, with the effective you during paired reading. We started with culture's sponsor literature. I'd be well-barned because we've been sitting in the nation building unit. And so after I had already read the lab to you then, we went back for a second reread. And so we used a typical teaching with the paired reading. Where they used questioning, clarifying, summarizing, et cetera. In order to check a comprehension. You know that they checked in all, yet in their good, back with the writers. No, now I know what you want. Now I know what you want. I'll know what you want. I'll do it 27 seconds. Why don't you think I'd have stopped working? Maybe because we were going to have a good time. And not me and your colleagues. If I go up to start working, then I can have a challenge. But since the baby was born, her work was better. Okay, one good thing that a good reader does is identify what a character's life, but the things that they do or the things that they say. One of our great standards is to be able to look what a character's says or does. And determine their characteristics and personality traits. So what we did was using the information from I'd be well since we bought you read it once. And when we read you read a part of it, we went back to find adjectives that describe them. So what we are going to do is we are going to think of some adjectives that help describe ought to be well-burned. Adjectives. Where do you think they're shared? What is an adjective? Think? When you have it in your mind, go ahead and put your hand on your hand to show that you're ready. Okay, turn your partners. Here up. And we have to give them some people. And to live. Table four, person three. Abby Joshua. What is an adjective? An adjective is like a word that's describe something about an noun. Okay, so we are going to think of adjectives that describe ought to be well-burned. And we're going to add them to our bubble map. Because our bubble map is used to do what can you shout out. That's right. That's right. We're using a bubble map. So in this case, we're describing it as being well-burned. Let's go ahead and write our subject in the center. What you're going to do at this time is you're going to discuss in your group some different adjectives that may describe it as well. And we're thinking about the things that she did in chapter four or things that she may have said in chapter four, but they're even the rest of the book. Words that you will use to describe for whole personality, not just how she's feeling at any particular moment. So we're going to use numbered heads together. So when I say go, you're going to do bottom-up and you're going to decide on one adjective for the group. Go. That's right. And you go. Number one to stand up please. So for table number one, oh my. What can you guys come up with an adjective to describe. I do. You're really good by star word. We're going to go ahead and write that in our bubble map. Oh my. What word did you guys come up with? The canons with an adjective. Unstopping or unstopping. Very good. Really good. Good. You did your table with some of what? Just. Just. Excellent. You've got some words. We came up with like nine. Okay. What are these words? Doesn't quite fit as nicely as most of them. You've got some excellent words from your personal, the source, the five star word. There's one word here that we ended with a five synonyms four. And that would be the word nice one way we can use the person for source. It's to expand the students own vocabulary. So we started with the word nice and then other students added to that word. How do I answer for it? So we need other words that we add to it. So I want you to think of another word. I mean the same thing as nice. And in order to do this, you're going to use give one, get one. Where you're going to get up and give, you're a word, you're synonym to somebody. And you're going to get one from them as well. So you should sit back down with at least two synonyms for the word nice. So. Can we come hard? Can't have it. What is that? My word. That means the same thing as I'm coming. Nice. It's generous. My son and my name is Ben. We're going to learn that nice and high. The mask is in the middle of the car. The night is amicable. Actually, the guy. The knife is currently in the car. Now we can offer two new things to give one and get one. We're going to share out some answers here. I'm going to start with roller. Table one person with all my time. Kind or high, no, okay, good. Table two person three. My synonym for nice is currently. Say they five star word or high five from afar. Table five person two. Dirty. My synonym for nice. Well, um, big hard. It's hard. Excellent. Very. We can't have lots of excellent synonyms for the word nice. So we're going to have this first person of the sword. Before we do that, we need to decide what page it is that we're going to turn to when our first of the sword. Me, I'm going to turn to end for nice because that's my easy word. Why would you turn to cane your personal first source, Taylor? Because kind is what I use as schools and my friends and what my family members. So that when you go and do your writing and you want to find a synonym for kind, you can look that under cane. Find all these other five star words. Excellent. So once we combine everybody's synonyms for the word nice, then we added that to the person of the source. Now the reason it's a person of the source is because the students put it under their own word. According to research, okay, they've won the primary reasons for students success or failure. We want to make sure that they have the repertoire vocabulary for company teaching purposes for writing and for speaking. From there, we want to talk about the situational appropriateness of language. Since we do a lot of post-switching and a lot of contrasts of analysis, one form of that is the situational appropriateness so that not only can they coach switch but then know when and where to do it. In chapter 4, one very important part is when I did get to go talk to President McKinley that was going on in her country. And so some of you have in a role play about situational appropriateness and a language that she's going to be using. So we're going to start with our introductory teacher, Zilika Jefferson. Let's get into the dialogue. This is about either be well. Going to President McKinley and talking about talking to him about glitching going on to her country. It is nice to meet you President McKinley. My name is Ayurveda, my name is Ayurveda, my name is Ayurveda and I can be talk to you. So Ayurveda talked to you about something horrible and happening on country. I don't miss you, world-run-it. What is it that you want to talk about? Do you know that 10 down black men and women have been linked to the silver woman? I'm shocked. I'm shocked too, President McKinley. My people have not been treated this way. And I want you to do something to stop this injustice. I want everything I can to stop this injustice right away. Thank you for your help with this natter-friendly McKinley. Me and my people really need your support. This part of the skit is about iragonical and talking to her husband for an end about what happened. When she went to go talk to President McKinley. So what happened, I don't know. Well, I got a friend that McKinley about the link. I turned out to make a put up with the number. I'm sure about her, you're out of you, do what you're hoping. Well, I just don't want no black person to walk me down the street and be a link just for being blank. That in one friend, and I got these things about her. I hope President McKinley do something about her too. I made two friends in McKinley. All right, I'm going to stop it there. What remains is they're going to talk about which language is appropriate and why. And why do we make the choices that we make? That's what it remains through some more activities there. But we're almost out of time. We have five, six minutes for questions, comments. I'm not in. Q&A? Yes. What do you do when you look at the client? What do you do when the class is not on the same reading level that you have some kids who can use the word amicable? And others who use kind. I mean, not that some kids with language difficulties because they speak another language for instance. Well, when it comes to reading what mandated by the state, which is what they were reading in terms of our school, then we have to read great level material. And then we have another part of the day where they read at their reading level. So by offering them both, we think we can get out those issues and then the utilization of the strategy. So with the person to SARS, if nice is my word, that's still validating in a firm. But I'm hearing all that other vocabulary being used in the room, and I'm writing them in my, um, the SARS that have become the synonyms. So we work on synonym development, but never negating where they're coming from with the use of nicer kind. Yeah. Someone else? Why in the back there? Hi. I just had a quick question in terms of the strategies you don't be employed. For example, the jump in, it was, sort of how I'll jump in reading more. It's cultural, I guess my next question really goes to culture. It's culture, something that's really blanket light. Can you really assume that the jumping in is something that that occurs in every African American? Yeah. And then furthermore, that was one half the question. The other half would be, what do you do in a multi-cultural setting to, I guess, to make sure that you're, I guess, being sensitive to each cultural background, and what you employ these same kind of strategies in a multi-cultural setting? Right. Now, remember, you can be African American and not be black. So we can't make that assumption. We don't make that assumption. There may be some African-American students who are uncomfortable jumping in. We realize that. In a multicultural setting, we really give a sort of spectrum of strategies. So jump in is just one. I have another one that's just the opposite of jump in that may be more culturally sensitive to other cultures. The point with the teacher is that you have to do them all, so that you can reach all the students. And then if I'm doing something that is uncomfortable for your culture, I'm going to ask you to come out of your comfort zone. And to us, that defines what we mean by cross-cultural connections. And then becomes a true definition of multiculturalism. All right. Thanks, yeah. And you have one up here. Right. A point you talked about earlier in your speech going with the swit almost switching codes with talking. And not only with talking, but the cultural connections of looking away and being able to, in a sense, how we've all assimilated to the the wasps way of doing those things. Can you think of any one reason why African-American, especially African-American men are having more difficulty than the men in other cultures? Or is there some one point that's causing that you think it's a combination of points? Well, I think most would say there's a combination of points, but there are two I think that sort of stand out. One is opportunity. And what we know is that assimilation is based around economics. And most people assimilate, they do it because there's an economic viability to it. So when you look at it in terms of African-American males, you have to look at the opportunity to do that. And how that balance is out over time. So then the argument becomes is that the court, the court before the horse or the horse before the court, meaning is it a situation where African-American males are not being given opportunity or taken opportunity. And to me that's where it gets all into the debate. But we know that assimilation is connected to opportunity and that's connected to making money. And we use the research of Irish, Germans, Jewish because what we find is they wanted to be white because it was connected to prosperity. It was a connected to being patriotic, it was a connected to wasp culture. The second piece then really gets into the heart notion of racism basically. And how the black male is really, you know, as he indicated, beginning with all the statistics and such. So at the bottom of the totem pole in that and therefore it is a larger climb on two levels, meaning that for black male to assimilate, you almost get a harder treatment for a quote unquote selling out. You know what I'm saying? So you have to deal with that. And then it tends to be a harder climb, period just in terms of navigating the system and that's where someone say the institution racism becomes a factor. There was right. So in the early 2000s, I did some training with teachers around culture teaching and learning. And the way that I approached it really was to help teachers learn about themselves as cultural beings. And so I'm just wondering where does that piece fit into the training of these teachers for the children? It's the first, it's an important piece and it's the first, the identity exercise that we did. That's where that comes out. It's a big piece and that's where we start in the first two hour block. And we tell the teachers that in order to be culturally responsive, the first thing you have to just be attuned to where you are. In terms of your identity and how you feel about other cultures. And we don't spend a lot of time on that, but we do talk about it as an important aspect to become culturally responsive because as we know that could be a hindrance. If you're not in tune with your own, because what we're finding is if I could get a teacher to admit, let's just say in extreme sense, I'm racist. Believe it or not, that actually opens the door to them using some of these strategies. And what they realize is that I can still get more engagement in my room, but I don't necessarily have to believe in all the things that you're saying around the culture and language piece. Like, I don't necessarily believe in the deep-bondic stuff, but if you're telling me, if I can get them to some culture which exercises, and they're going to learn, you know, better quote unquote English, then I'll do it. And so in that context, we take it, but I tell them in exchange, I need you to open up and talk about who you really are and how do you feel about these students. And I've had teachers stand up when we do like we've spent like two or three days with them, by the third day admitting I'm afraid of my black male students, you know, and having that type of open conversation, that's going to open the door to where we're trying to get with the strategies. My school? Our school is about 60% African-American and the rest are white, Asian, Latino, so we're not all black teachers. Believe it or not, people say, well, who's the prime candidate to do this type of teaching? And what we found is it's a young white female teacher, because those teachers tend to have a worldview that allows them to open up and to the approach in terms of use of the strategies. And sometimes with older black female teachers, it's a heart of cell, because they're coming from like bootstrapped mentality and like, you know, I didn't need to do this when I was going to school, so they don't need to do it. So you have to navigate through that, and it becomes a heart or cell, it's not saying that they don't do it, but it's just a heart or cell, whereas the young white female teacher is the easier it's easier or cell. Any other questions? All right, one, thank you for your time, your energy. Hope you got some out of it. As always, you ask questions make me uncomfortable and I learned something every time. You know, I know why Dr. Holly doesn't like me, because I always say, I need to come for a couple hours just to talk to people once, I don't like to do this three or four days, so I'm hoping now that you've found your way to Boston, that will try to continue this in a longer time period. But tomorrow at night of clock in the student lounge, Dr. Holly will be available to continue the conversation dialogue with any faculty or staff, and then at 1030 for students for about 75 minutes, so it'll be available. We want to break it up because I think that there's different issues in those different groups, so he'll be available in the student lounge in the school of education, which is on fourth, two and a half. If you've been in the school of education, you know that that's a weird place, so it's like the kitchen. All right, well thank you very much for your time, and thank you again Dr. Holly.