subtext

Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap, while a useful book, brings up the question I had when I read Ladson-Billings’ The Dream Keeper. How is this just not good pedagogy? (Yes, I am aware of Ladson-Billings’ article that counters this question). Is it simply an awareness of the cultural differences in your classroom that makes the difference in the pedagogy? But shouldn’t a teacher be aware of where their students are coming from, the abilities they bring with them, as well as the culture (ways with words, ways of knowing) that determine how they react to the culture of the school? I know that too often the one method for all the students does little to serve any of the students. Also too often teachers who claim they teach all students the same, mean they teach all the students as if they are middle-class and white. Tatum drives home his point through the constant repetition of respecting the student, allowing them to learn to make meaning of a text, as opposed to telling the student what the text means; teaching them how to make meaning, as opposed to decontextualized “skills;” as well as finding ways to make what occurs in the classroom culturally relevant. I agree with all of these, yet I still have a hard time seeing how these are not just things teachers should do with all of the students. Yes, the crisis that exists with African-American males makes it imperative that teacher’s focus on them. I wonder however if we could have a larger effect if we could reconceptualize the way literacy is taught across the board. If we would stop the decontextualization of reading skills, and the constant testing of irrelevant disconnected texts, and focus on how to make meaning out of language/sign systems then we will be a lot closer to helping all of our students be literate in ways that will help them do more than survive in our world.