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Title: Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African American Students
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Manufacturer: Beacon Press
List Price: $16.00
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| Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African American Students by Beacon Press A must read | This book has useful information for individuals working to improve educational systems at all levels. The first chapter makes explicit a part of the context of the African American educational experience in the US--the long, resilient tradition of the quest for literacy. This history is well-known among African American educators, but is useful to white allies who can use the reminder and the specifics, and critical to others who may slide too easily into negative group stereotypes.
I love Claude Steele's work on stereotype threat and value his comprehensive summary chapter here. It adds concrete strategies to the body of experimental research he has contributed to the scholarly literature. Hilliard's chapter has an even greater number of useful strategies and makes the important point that educators should aim for excellence in the academic performance of their African American students, not just performance that equals the performance of whites. His presentation of numerous examples of classrooms that produce enthusiastic, knowledgeable, skilled learners is a must-read among educators who find themselves blaming students and families for low performance. Good instructors are in short supply and will continue to be a problem in the foreseeable future, but there are many strategies and thought patterns in this book that schools can immediately put into place to support the success of African American learners. In fact, when instructors understand the major themes of this book, they will naturally be better teachers of all children. I'm passing this book on to state educational administrators. | | Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African American Students by Beacon Press Helpful, though stronger on philosophies than strategies | I'm currently researching strategies for successful SAT work with low scoring students. Having read the academically oriented "Black White Test Score Gap", I decided to pick this up to find some additional strategies for working with low scoring students.
This book is divided into three essays and they have three distinct focuses. Theresa Perry's essay is very philosophical. She argues that there is a literacy tradition in black America that is often overlooked as we seek solutions to educational problems. "Freedom for literacy and literacy for freedom" is a tradition that shows how in slavery times and the segregated 20th century we have seen literacy as a key for full citizenship. Perry looks at narratives to find common themes in stories that argue for literacy as a black value.
I found this essay helpful because I can recall my own awakenings reading "Roots" and "Autobiography of Malcolm X" where I felt more empowered and assertive as I realized that my struggles and frustrations were common to the black experience. I felt that the theory and philosophy of this essay was stronger than the solutions, however. I would also like to have seen how mathematical and technological literacy could have been incorporated into this theory.
Claude Steele's "Stereotype Threat" essay is an update on some things he's written in magazines and is a more accessible version of an essay that he authored in "Black-White Test Score Gap". I found this essay to be far more helpful than the more technical description of his work in "Black White Test Score Gap". Here he argues that we have to address self-imposed pressures of high scoring students to help them succeed in testing environments and help them work more efficiently. This articulation of his theory seemed to be aimed more for the educators applying his ideas than the psychologists assessing them. As a teacher, I felt included in the discussion.
Asa Hilliard's presence in this volume was peculiar for me. He's an Afrocentrist and uses the term "Africans" to describe black Americans. Personally, I don't like that term because I value the unique jazz and cultural contributions of black Americans over an afrocentric past. He details success stories at the elementary level and is highly critical of the educational literature. This essay bothered me because it did not offer much that I could use as a high school teacher. Also, this seemed to argue for "superteachers" without speaking to the supply and demand of the highly qualified and highly trained labor he seeks. Yes, it's good to detail how wonderful a school is that you consulted for and how these successes should be researched. This essay basically said "we need better teachers", but did not do enough to show me how we would get them or how he has unique training and empowerment models. I felt this was the weakest of the three essays although I'll probably look up some of the model schools and teachers he mentions at some point.
All in all, this is a good book for educators to read. I'd focus on Steele's essay and the first half of Perry's essay first and skim the second half of Perry and all of Hilliard second. Those who are more Afrocentrist and elementary educators will find Hilliard's essay more helpful than I did.
Decent book, I recommend it with qualifications.
3.5 stars. | | Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African American Students by Beacon Press Product Description | Young, Gifted, and Black is a unique joint effort by three leading African-American scholars to radically reframe the debates swirling around the achievement of African-American students in school.
In three separate but allied essays, Theresa Perry, Claude Steele, and Asa Hilliard place students' social identity as African-Americans at the very center of the discussion. They all argue that the unique social and cultural position Black students occupy, in a society which often devalues and stereotypes African American identity, fundamentally shapes students' experience of school and sets up unique obstacles. And they all argue that a proper understanding of the forces at work can lead to practical, powerful methods for promoting high achievement at all levels.
Theresa Perry argues that African-American students face dilemmas, founded in the experience of race and ethnicity in America, that make the task of achievement distinctive and difficult. (For instance: "How do I commit myself to achieve, to work hard over time in school, if I cannot predict when or under what circumstances this hard work will be acknowledged and recognized?") She uncovers a rich and powerful African- American philosophy of education, historically forged against such obstacles and capable of addressing them, by reading African-American narratives from Frederick Douglass to Maya Angelou. She carefully critiques the most popular theoretical explanations for group differences in achievement. And she lays out how educators today—in a postcivil rights era—can draw on theory and on the historical power of the African—American philosophy and tradition of education to reorganize the school experience of African—American students.
Claude Steele reports stunningly clear empirical psychological evidence that when Black students believe they are being judged as members of a stereotyped group rather than as individuals, they do worse on tests. He finds the mechanism, which he calls "stereotype threat," to be a quite general one, affecting women's performance in mathematics, for instance, where stereotypes about gender operate. He analyzes the subtle psychology of stereotype threat and reflects on the broad implications of his research for education, suggesting techniques—based again on evidence from controlled psychological experiments—that teachers and mentors and schools can use to counter stereotype threat's powerful effect.
Asa Hilliard's ends essay, against a variety of false theories and misguided views of African American achievement, and focuses on actual schools and programs and teachers around the country that allow African-American students achieve at high levels, describing what they are like and what makes them work.
Young, Gifted, and Black will change the way we think and talk about African American student achievement and will be necessary reading on this topic for years to come. |
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