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Upon Brown Decision
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Kimberly Min is a third grade teacher at 99th Street Elementary School. For more detailed information about student work please email her at dearkim@excite.com.
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Education is viewed by many as an equalizing agent in our society. However, children of color, children of poor working families, and children of immigrants, are still marginalized and victims of an unequal society that privileges rich, white, middle and upper class values. 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, inequity, injustice, and compensatory education continue to be the experiences of our children in inner city schools. Although the Brown v. Board marked a turning point in history, the struggle for equality in education continues. As an elementary school teacher in South Los Angeles, I encourage my students to disrupt hegemonic cycles of oppression and inequity by empowering and engaging them through curriculum that requires my students to read text (literature, media, art, expression) with a critical eye; in this case examining schooling since the 1950s. In honor of the 50 year anniversary of the landmark Brown decision, my students engaged in a series of projects that examined and utilized oral histories to better understand the schooling experiences of people then and their own experiences now. My students interviewed adults who were bussed or who attended schools that were in the midst of desegregation. This examination culminated in a student presentation at UCLA where my students gave a power point presentation and performed a play they created about a little Black girl who was bussed to a segregated school set in the 1960s. As a critical pedagogue, I strive for my students to be interested and invest in what they are learning and provide a space for my students to have opportunities to create knowledge (which manifests itself in many forms, in this case a class play). The lessons I have developed encompass California state standards, and fulfill my goal to actively engage my students in rigorous knowledge-making around the implications and the outcomes of the Brown case. The guiding questions that revolved around these investigations were: What was schooling like then? How is schooling now? Has anything changed? Literature circles developed around books such as, The Story of Ruby Bridges and Freedom School Yes. Students made connections with their own prior knowledge about the importance of the work of civil rights activists and engaged in comparing and contrasting what schools were like in the past to their own experiences now. My students were excited to develop their own criteria for a school and critiqued our own school in many areas using the School Accountability Report Card. The students were empowered to speak about their own experiences about schooling, which resulted in a letter writing campaign to the school leadership that included a Student Accountability Report Card that expressed the view of all the third grade students (my students interviewed their peers about the school conditions). Students discussed how history has affected their current educational reality and although only eight years in age, they can recognize and express their discontent with their educational experiences. The students also shared their discontent with the type of curriculum, lack of school supplies, and diversity on campus. So its been 50 years. Now what? Educators must continue to teach students about their history, have discussions about inequity, race, and privilege, and create a space in which students can express what they are thinking, feeling, and learning, as well as share their opinions and perspectives about the text they are encountering. |
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