Hale, Jane E. (2001). Learning While Black: Creating educational excellence for African American children . Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
xxiv + 211 pages
$16.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-8018-6776-2
Reviewed by Zaline M. Roy-Campbell
Syracuse, New York
June 12, 2003
The concept of “driving while black “(dwb) appears ludicrous at the most base level, yet it describes a form of racial profiling that has victimized African Americans across class barriers. Janice Hale parallels this racial profiling of law enforcement with current educational assumptions that put African American children at a decided disadvantage in many schools where they face educators' low expectations and indifference, in her book Learning While Black. She provides a vivid description of mis-education of Black children that could be viewed as a form of ‘educational malpractice’.
There are countless studies and articles pointing to the academic achievement gap between African American and White students. Explanations for the wide disparity in achievement have ranged from the effects of poverty to the access to resources. One prevailing view, popularized by the Coleman Report (1966) is that children of poverty have a decreased capacity for learning. This Report found that not only do Black children score significantly lower than White children on academic tests, the differences increased from first to twelfth grade. Another perspective, posited by Arthur Jensen (1969) and rationalized by Herrnstein and Murray (1994) under the cloak of the Bell Curve, contends that there are inherited, genetic differences among individuals, and that these are strongly correlated to race. Janice Hale’s book, Learning While Black: Creating Educational Excellence for African American Children seeks to shatter these myths, which are presented as facts in many Schools of Education, as she offers a decidedly different explanation.
When one examines the academic achievement differential from a historical perspective, the objective reality is that the segregated education provided for many African American children was inferior to that provided for White children. As part of the selecting and sorting mechanism of the time, it was designed to keep African Americans in the lower social and economic rungs of society. With the Brown vs Board of Education decision in 1954, the legal basis for denying African American children educational equity was circumscribed. Schools could no longer deny children access on the basis of race.
One assumption underlying desegregation of education was that if African American children attended schools alongside White children, their education would be more equitable. However, countless studies have shown that in schools with mixed student populations, a tracking system assigns disproportionate numbers of African American students to the lower skilled and special education classes, and White students to higher skilled and gifted programs. Hale further reveals the fallacy of that assumption as she describes the types of conflict she encountered with respect to her son in a predominantly white private school.
One consequence of the Brown decision was that public schools across the nation were gradually desegregated. In some cases, this desegregation came forcibly, through busing, where African American children had to endure racist taunts and threats as they were escorted into previously all white schools.
However, today, nearly fifty years since the Brown decision, there is a move towards re-segregation. This emanates from two quarters: those Whites who had never seen the wisdom of forced desegregation, and welcome the opportunity to return to all White schools, and some African Americans who feel that in some ways desegregation has been detrimental to the psyche of many African American children, and support independent Black schools. Hawley et al. (1983) point to a belief in some quarters that desegregation is disruptive to schools and lowers the educational quality.
Frankenberg, Lee, and Orfield (2003), in the Harvard University Civil Rights Project, point out that in some cases the re-segregation is de facto, due to the racial composition of the communities from which pupils are drawn. They found that many white families are either sending their children to private schools, or moving to school districts where the racial composition of the community is more amenable to them. Their report A Multiracial Society with Segregated Schools: Are We Losing the Dream? noted that schools with high populations of African American and or Latino children almost without exception are also high-poverty schools, which correlates with less-qualified teachers, fewer classroom resources and higher absenteeism among teachers and students.
The “achievement gap” in education is a well-known and accepted reality within the United States. The current backlash against Affirmative Action is partially attributed to a view that less qualified African Americans are taking places in universities and jobs at the expense of higher qualified White applicants. There are currently more African Americans going from high school to prison than to college. As Hale points out “Academic failure, incarceration and unemployment are outcomes of the public schooling for African American boys”. (p. 41)
In Learning While Black, Janice Hale describes conditions that have contributed to high levels of academic failure among low-income children in predominantly Black schools. Likewise, she demonstrates how racialized treatment of African Americans helps to account for low levels of academic achievement of African American children from middle and upper-income families in integrated schools.
One premise underlying this book is that the majority of African American children attend public schools, and they will not be able to attend charter schools, private schools, or magnet schools. Consequently, the answer to improving the academic achievement for the majority of African Americans cannot be found in bypassing public schools. Hale characterizes Learning While Black: Creating Educational Excellence for African American Children as a voice for African American children: in particular those whose parents do not know how to access school choice, who lack the resources to supplement school vouchers, who do not know how to negotiate parent conferences with teachers and other professionals. She affirms that the harshest educational treatment is borne by those at the bottom of the educational hierarchy.
The book has eight chapters, divided into 2 parts. Part 1 – Breaking the Silence – looks at the failure of African American children from the inside out, while Part 2 – Creating the Village – offers recommendations for all segments of society to assist in creating a supportive community for the support of the children. Each of the chapter titles in Part 1 is descriptive of experiences many African American children encounter in their school experiences: Mastery and the bell curve, Playing by the rules, African American goals and closed doors, and Down the up escalator.
Janice Hale describes learning while black offenses as instances where teachers and psychologists take African American children off the pathway to success. She points to the ease at which African American children, especially males, can fall through the cracks as she unveils practices that create differences in the quality of schooling these children receive, even when they are educated in the same classrooms alongside white children. Schools work best for those children whose parents know how to negotiate the schools, “they know how to work the system or work outside the system to produce outcomes for their children in spite of what the schools are doing.” (p. 8)
She emphasizes the importance of connecting African American children to achievement. As she notes, “Many drop out intellectually by the time they are in the fifth grade and make it legal at the age of 16”. (p. 43) Hale critiques both the issues of racism with respect to some White teachers and classism with respect to some African American teachers in dealing with African American children. She contends that schools for African American children will not be effective until educators “create an instructional accountability infrastructure, independent of the parents, that delivers the same quality of instruction found in the suburbs and in the private schools.“ (p. 88)
Cutting through the rhetoric of ‘parental involvement,’ Hale explains why the underlying assumptions ensure that it does not work for many African American parents. She maintains that “the assumptions that underlie the philosophical relationship between the schools and families must change if schooling is going to meet the needs of children and families today.” (p. 5). Elaborating further she points out that those educational reform efforts that focus on parental involvement are doomed to failure when so many parents of children attending public schools lack the education, time, energy, and resources to effectively monitor the school and advocate on behalf of their children. Hale maintains that educational expectations for Black boys and girls are generally lower across all social and economic backgrounds. Examining the issue from her position as a single mother and well respected educator, she describes the formidable difficulty she encountered in navigating the system for her child, despite her own advanced degrees in education and psychology. She chronicles her efforts, in nine episodes, to cut through the “educational psychobabble” that the school inflicted upon her as she attempted to advocate for her child in an elite private school.
Though personal, these instances provide some insight into concrete examples of learning while Black: tracking; suggestions that the child has an attention-deficit disorder; being told that it was ok if the child did not read until he was 10 years old. Being an educator herself, Hale was able work with the school to ensure that her child was not left behind. Many parents, particularly African American parents, faced with the same situations would not have the requisite tools to ensure that the child was not placed on Ritalin, relegated to a lower track and reading below grade level.
Hale does more than criticize the consequences of ‘Learning While Black’, as the subtitle of the book – ‘Creating educational excellence for African American children,’ suggests. In the second part of the book Hale moves beyond her critique of the educational system that provides disparate experiences for African American and White children, to offer a model of school reform that features a coordinated effort on the part of teachers, parents, churches, and community volunteers. It focuses on learning styles and teacher strategies for children from preschool through elementary school and places the school at the center of the effort to achieve upward mobility for African American children. In emphasizing the importance of the school’s role she points out “The school is the appropriate focal point because everyone is required to attend school. Everyone does not have a functional family, nor does everyone attend church…” (p. 112)
Contending that many of the solutions that have been presented to close the achievement gap between White and African American children have been misguided, Hale maintains the necessity of eliminating the bell curve mentality of evaluation for all children, and emphasizing mastery. Closing the achievement gap for African American children, she writes, does not involve better teacher training or more parental involvement. The solution lies in the classroom, in the nature of the interaction between the teacher and the child. And the key, she argues, is the instructional vision and leadership provided by principals.
She proposes a model for culturally appropriate pedagogy that has three components: classroom instruction, cultural enrichment and instructional accountability infrastructure. Her model both draws on her previous scholarship in devising educational strategies that complement African American culture and embraces the work of Alfie Kohn in considering ways of developing intrinsic motivation in the learners. Calling for a different model of parental involvement, she maintains that all children should be taught by teachers in ways that their fortunes are not totally determined by the skills of their parents. What happens to teachers before they enter the classroom is not the problem, she notes, what happens to them when they are in the classroom can make the critical difference.
The model that Hale proposes is multifaceted, encompassing teaching strategies, curriculum development, reading, math and science programs, infusion of African American culture into the curriculum, mentoring, enrichment activities and leadership, among other aspects. She presents this model as an alternative to traditional practices that create repositories for failure, such as: summer school, extended school day, retention, exit exams, and social promotion.
As part of her recommendations, Hale proposes the African American church as the key institution in the crafting of the Village, stating that it would be a “wonderful development for every school to be adopted by a church.” (p. 153) Hale discusses in some depth the role the church could play in supporting the school. This proposal, which may emanate from her background in religious studies, is one area of her discussion that is open to serious debate. Although one may acknowledge a role that the African American church can play, it should be only one of the community organizations or institutions involved with the schools. Advocating a central role for the church could marginalize those children from families who may not have an affiliation with the church.
Her final chapter, “Where Do We Go From Here?” offers recommendations for in-service training of teachers, for Civil Rights Groups, African American Controlled School Boards and Advocacy Organizations as well as educating parents on cutting edge practices.
Learning While Black is an innovative and important book for parents and educators concerned about the education of African American children, in particular. It breaks the hidden silence on the racism that permeates the school system, both public and private. Written by an ‘insider’ who is also an ‘outsider’ this book provides important insights into some the rhetoric disguised as theory and Best Practices in the educational system. Breathing life into Marian Wright Edelman’s call to “Leave No Child Behind” she cuts through the doublespeak of the current federal government policy that co-opt this call into legislation which ensures that many children are left behind.
While the focus is on African American children, as a disenfranchised section of society, the book has relevance for the education of other disenfranchised groups and students in general. Her call for cultural sensitivity demands that all educators who are dealing with children have an understanding of cultures other than the mainstream middle class culture.
It offers both a challenge and an opportunity for all educators to review their current practice by considering how they would respond to issues raised in this book. It is important reading for beginning teachers as it provides them with a window into the domain they will be entering. Current teachers and administrators will also benefit from this book as it challenges them to reflect upon their own practices and provides a framework for them to construct a different perspective that can assist them in closing the achievement gap by creating academic excellence for African American children.
References
Coleman, James, et al., (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Frankenberg, Erica; Lee, Chungmei; and Orfield, Gary. (2003, January). A Multiracial Society with Segregated Schools: Are We Losing the Dream? The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University.
Hawley, W., et al. (1983). Strategies for Effective School Desegregation. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Herrnstein, R.J., & Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and class structure in american life. New York: The Free Press.
Jensen, Arthur (1969) How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?, Harvard Educational Review, 39(1).
About the Reviewer
Zaline M. Roy-Campbell
Email: zmrc@twcny.rr.com
Zaline Roy-Campbell has a Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught at Indiana University-Bloomington, Columbia Teacher's College and University of Albany. She is currently an independent researcher based in Syracuse New York.
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