Thompson, Gail L. Through Ebony Eyes. San Francisco, California.
Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint. 2004. Print.
Through Ebony
Eyes is an in depth analysis of the many factors that play a role in
African Americans and Latino’s education. Gail Thompson explains how the
traditional ways of both the government and school system has created an
environment that makes it difficult for African Americans to succeed in school.
He also discusses the ways that educators and interest groups have attempted to
close the gap between students of color and their white counterparts. Thompson
includes in input on where he believes schools and the government went wrong in
addressing students of color in a country that it designed to address the
majority. Through Ebony Eyes is his way to inform educators and anyone who
hopes to become an educator on ways to become more effective when teaching the
minority here in America.
Thompson’s
argument is broken up into different chapters throughout the book. In each
chapter he addresses a different reason for why African Americans struggle
academically. It almost seems as if he is attempting to argue his opinion on all
of the factors that he has come across in his studies. The author does a great job of connecting all
of different aspects he discusses back to the student, while including how it
impacts them academically. In the introduction he claims to discuss the issues
that affect minorities academically where in actuality he focuses on African
Americans and only include other minorities if they happen to fall into the
same boat as African Americans. The book is structured similar to that of a
textbook, which shows how the author hopes to truly educate the reader in ways
to teach minorities more effectively. He breaks down the different factors into
“theories” and backs them up with personal examples as well as hypotheticals.
From reading the
introduction and first chapter I can already tell that this book will be the
driving force behind my research because of how well it has been structured. The
main thing about this book is that it may connect to other things that I pick
up later on in my research. Seeing as the author includes his opinion of a
variety of different topics I may be able to find different authors or
researchers that may disagree with what he states in this book.
·
“In other words, these students infer that they
have to reject their home culture to succeed academically” (pg. 17)- The Acting
White Theory
·
“During previous eras black youth were more likely
to derive values and identity from family, church, and school…. Today, the
influence of these traditional purveyors of Black culture [has] largely
diminished. Now media and entertainment are among the major forces transmitting
culture to this generation of Black America”. (pg. 20)
·
“This preoccupation with getting rich quickly
stems from at least two sources. The first being is the high unemployment rate
in urban communities. In many cases, the education system has failed to prepare
young blacks for the workforce or for college” (pg.21)
Hale,
Janice E. Learning While Black. Baltimore, Maryland. The Johns Hopkins
University Press. 2001 Print.
Learning While Black is a book about
the impact that the community and life outside of school has on African American
students that live in an urban environment. Janice Hale explains how
politicians and news reporters, who discuss education and its impacts on
African Americans, lack experience which makes them less fit for discussing the
solution to the problem. She then includes her solutions to the issues that
most educators see in African American communities. Hale mentions that if the
school is not the center of the program or institution that hopes to reach out
to African American students than they will not be able to reach those students
who struggle academically. She also talks about the relationship between school
and family is essential because students don’t stop learning when they leave
school so everyone involved must be on the same page for the student’s sake.
Throughout the book the author uses
personal examples as well as things she has learned throughout her research to
strengthen her point. From reading the first chapter the reader can tell that
some of the issues she has addressed may seem obvious but when she goes in
depth about the importance of each issue, the reader will see an entirely
different way at looking at the same issues. That allows the author to include
more solutions and explain why educators are the best sources for truly understanding
what issues African American students face within an academic environment.
This reading is not ultra-useful
because Janice Hale uses this book to solve the issues that affect African
American students. My research is purely to find and analyze the issues that
African American students face. However the author explains how her solution
will fix the academic struggles that African American students face, which
means that she will mention and explain the issues she has come across.
•“The
overwhelming majority of African American children come from single-parent
households. African Americans work longer hours often for less money than
whites earn (Toppo 2000); often they are minimally educated and have
substantial constraints on their time.” (pg. 8)
•“Parents
whisper among themselves, expressing their frustration with this situation, but
is never brought into the dialogue on school reform” (pg. 9)
•“At
this writing the state of Michigan spends $35,000 a year to incarcerate one
African American male. For maximum-security incarceration, the cost to state is
about 65,000 a year, and to the federal state about $75,000. Compare those
costs with $8,000 it cost to enroll an African American male child in a
two-year Head Start program.” (pg. 38)
Irvine,
Jacqueline Jordan. Black Students and School Failures.New York. Greenwood
Press. 1990.
Black Students and School Failures is
a book about the different connection between African American students
performance in school, and their personal lives. The Author Jacqueline Irvine
connects every aspect of an African American, who grew up in an urban
environment to how well they do on a national scale. She also discusses how the
mindset of these students change throughout their school experience and all of
the driving factors that lead them to a horrible conclusion. This book also
includes a lot of stats that relate African Americans to whites in different
categories such as: standardize testing, graduation rates, poverty, and teen
pregnancy.
Irvine does a great job of explaining
what schools in poor communities lack and how a failed school system creates
poorly educated students. She then connects that with the added impression that
students get from their environment. This book breaks down the aspects of
educating a student both from the academic point as well as the cultural point
of view. The level of analysis that the author shows throughout her book prove
that she has not only looked at this issue from a numbers stance but a
psychological stance as well. It is as if she has stepped in to the shoes of
the student, teacher, and researcher.
I can use this book in multiple ways. For one I
can use this information to strengthen things that I have learned in other
parts of my research. Also my main topic may be altered because I am learning
about the issues that cause African Americans to struggle in school; however
this book may lead me to focus on a more specific area. The author provides
detailed examples of how each issue can cause a snowball effect of failure or
misfortune in a student’s life. That will allow me to use the book in multiple
ways depending on where I go with my research.
·
“There is a strong relationship between black
student achievement, teen parenthood, and poverty. Poor black students usually
score lower on standardize measure of achievement and are overrepresented in
the ranks of dropouts and pregnant girls.” (pg. xiv)
·
“The hidden curriculum is the unstated but
influential knowledge, attitude, norms, rules, rituals, values, and beliefs
that are transmitted to students through structure policies, processes, formal
content, and social relationships of school”. (pg. 5)
·
“One factor related to the nonachievement of
black students is the disproportionate use of severe disciplinary practices,
which leads to black students exclusion from classes, their perception of
mistreatment, and feelings of alienated and rejection, which result ultimately
in their misbehaving more and/or leaving school”. (pg. 16)
Almond,
Monica R. "The Black Charter School Effect: Black Students In American
Charter Schools." Journal Of Negro Education 81.4 (2012): 354-365.
Education Research Complete. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.
This source focuses on the
Black-White achievement gap and the different factors that affect both blacks
and whites academically. The reading explains how over the last decade or so
the gap between blacks and white has been linked to poorly trained teachers,
low curriculum standards, and a lack of appreciation for Black culture. There
are more factors mentioned in the reading al based around the ways that the
school fails to adjust to the requirements of black students. The article also
discusses how many people are unsure on how to go about some of these issues
related to black student’s struggle in school and how this issue causes a rift
between people who are looking to address this issue.
This article does a great job in
giving a background on the Black-White achievement gap. By going into detail
about the history of this issue and where the country stands on it now allows
the reader to get a full understanding of what researchers have learned about
blacks in school. However the pages that are used to discuss the change in
black students in charter schools are a waste because they do not connect back
to how this is affecting black students academically or the difference between
black students in charter schools and traditional schools. In fact it takes a
while for the article to even come back to the question of “Why African
Americans perform lower than whites academically”.
I can use this source in order to
connect the factors about the black-white achievement gap to other things I
have learned in my reading. This source also explains the way that schools in
poor communities fail to educate black students and mentions the reasons for
why these schools are ineffective.
•“Roxbury
Preparatory Charter School in Boston, Massachusetts boast achievement scores
that are higher than their peers in Boston Public Schools, and higher than the
average of their peers in the state of Massachusetts overall. With a student
population that is 61% African American, Roxbury Prep's mission is
unapologetically college-driven (Merseth, 2009).” (pg. 7)
•“All
ñve schools examined in the Merseth (2009) study were identified as having high
expectations for their students. Researchers found that the students were
expected to perform at high levels, manage their behavior, and be full
participants in the classroom.” (pg. 7)
•“But is racial segregation problematic for Black students? Today,
a majority of Black students already attend defacto segregated schools, as a
result of White-flight and other policy related issues.” (pg. 9)
Caton,
Marcia Theresa. "Black Male Perspectives On Their Educational Experiences
In High School." Urban Education 47.6 (2012): 1055-1085. ERIC. Web. 31
Mar. 2013.
This source discuss the perception of
black males in high school and some of the punishments that are based around
that perception. Marcia Caton states that black males are the majority of
students that are expelled or suspended from school. She also believes that
public schools in black communities are a micro version of the penal system
because of how their ways of punishment are used to isolate the misbehaved from
the rest of the academic community. The author argues that the school’s
disciplinary standards make it more likely for a black male to be prosecuted
rather than given an “in-house” punishment.
The black male perception in high school is also linked back to their
mindset and explains how they are more likely to conform to the negative
opinion they have been labeled with because that is the type of culture they
have been exposed to.
This article is well structured and
does a great job in introducing how the black male perception in high school is
derived from the vast majority of black males that receive disciplinary punishment.
Also it ties that notion back to the idea that black students who go to urban
public schools are more likely to conform to the way others view them because
of the way that those public schools are disciplining their students. The
author structures her argument well, however she doesn’t seem to have a strong
argument because of her lack of evidence and poor job of connecting her thesis
to those pieces of information.
I am planning on using this
information as an appetizer so it can open my eyes to how the perception of
black students could have an effect on their performance in school. In my
research I hope to use this to explain the social aspect of why blacks struggle
in school; however that depends on where I decide to go in my paper. All of this
information makes it difficult to narrow my research towards one aspect of
blacks struggling in school.
• “A study of 19 middle schools in the
Midwest, found that Black males were sent to the principal office more than
their counterparts for more subjective reasons such as “disrespect” and
“perceived threat” (Wallace, Goodkind, Wallace, & Bachman, 2008).” (pg. 4)
• “Black males have been marginalized
from mainstream society because of historical, economic, and political forces
and therefore do not benefit from the resources of this country” (pg. 24)
• “However, the ways in which schools
balance discipline with a nurturing and caring environment are reflected in the
ways that schools treat their students. Urban school administrators should
invest more in providing teachers with professional development on classroom
management.” (pg. 25)
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