module 4 critic corner

• 18 •

"YES, BUT HOW DO WE DO IT?": PRACTICING CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY

Gloria Ladson-Billings

In her groundbreaking book The Dreamkeepers and in numerous scholarly publications, University of Wisconsin professor Gloria Ladson-Billings has por­

trayed and analyzed the practice of successful teachers of African American

students-teachers who embody what Ladson-Billings calls "culturally relevant

teaching." Her work is used widely in teacher-preparation programs and has in­

fluenced a generation of educators. In the following essay, Ladson-Billings ex­

plains the elements of culturally relevant pedagogy, while arguing that improving the education of poor students of color is as much a matter of how we

think as of "what to do."

In 1989, when I began documenting the practice of teachers who

achieved success with African American students, I had no idea that it

would create a kind of cottage industry of exemplary teachers. I began the project with the assumption that there were indeed teachers who

could and did teach poor students of color to achieve high levels of ac­

ademic success (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Other scholars (Foster, 1997;

Mathews, 1988) verified this aspect of my work. Unfortunately, much

of the work that addresses successful teaching of poor students of color

is linked to the notion of the teacher as heroic isolate. Thus, stories

such as those of Marva Collins (Collins & Tamarkin, 1990), Jaime Es­ calante (Mathews, 1988), Vivian Paley (2000), and Louanne Johnson

(1992) inadvertently transmit a message of the teacher as savior and

charismatic maverick without exploring the complexities of teaching

and nuanced intellectual work that undergirds pedagogical practices.

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'"YES, BUT HOW DO WE DO JT?"' 163

'j'nt:h.is chapter, I discuss the components of culturally relevant teach­

;':q,adson-Billings, 1995) and provide practical exaniples of how teach­

_<might implement these components in their classrooms. I choose to

yide practice-based examples to remove some of the mystery and

ology tied to theory that keep teachers from doing the work de­

ed to support high levels of achievement for poor students of color.

BUT HOW DO WE DO IT?

ost every teacher-educator devoted to issues of diversity and social

'stice finds himself or herself confronted by prospective and in-service ;;e~chers who quickly reject teaching for social justice by insisting that

'.:there are no practical exemplars that make such teaching possible. Ase­

:tr,ester or staff development session typically ends with teachers unsure

);>fwhat they can or should do and eventually defaulting to regular rou­

''tines and practices. Nothing changes in the classroom and poor stu­

,,Aents of color are no closer to experiencing the kind of education to ,, 'which they are entitled.

I argue that the first problem teachers confront is believing that sues

': cessful teaching for poor students of color is primarily about "what to

;;,,do." Instead, I suggest that the problem is rooted in how we think­

about the social contexts, about the students, about the curriculum, and,

about instruction. Instead of the specific lessons and activities that we

• seJect to fill the day, we must begin to understand the ways our theories , and philosophies are made to manifest in the pedagogical practices and

rationales we exhibit in the classroom. The following sections briefly

describe the salient elements of teacher thinking that contribute to

what I have termed "culturally relevant teaching."

Social Contexts

Teaching takes place not only in classrooms. It takes place in schools and communities. It takes place in local, state, national, and global con­

texts that impact students regardless of whether teachers acknowledge

them or not. How teachers think about those contexts creates an envi­

ronment for thinking about teaching. Teachers who believe that society

164 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

is fair and just believe that their students are participating on a

playing field and simply have to learn to be better competitors

other students. They also believe in a kind of social Darwinism th supports the survival of the fittest. Teachers with this outlook acc.(

that some students will necessarily fall by the wayside and experien,

academic failure.

Teachers who I term "culturally relevant" assume that an asyrnm,f

rical (even antagonistic) relationship exists between poor students';;

color and society. Thus, their vision of their work is one of prepag7'

students to combat inequity by being highly competent and criti~ ·

conscious. While the teachers are concerned with the students whii"

in their classrooms each day, they see them in relation to a continu.'·

of struggle-past, present, and future. Thus, the AIDS crisis in bl?,

and brown communities, immigration laws, and affordable health { ·

are not merely "adult" issues, but also are a part of the social conte•' :

which teachers attempt to do their work. .. ,, .. ,

Being aware of the social context is not an excuse for neglecting1''

classroom tasks associated with helping students to learn literacy,

meracy, scientific, and social skills. Rather, it reminds teachers of ·

larger social purposes of their work.

The Students

Of course, teachers think about their students. But how they thinkal:,'

theirstudents is a central concern of successful teaching. In my wqr

a teacher educator, I regularly see prospective teachers who apprf'

teaching with romantic notions about students. They believe thaf

goodwill and energy they bring to the classroom will be reward<, ~•·.

enthusiastic, appreciative students, who will comply with their req~?s,

and return the love they purport to give their students. Unforturiail;f

real life rarely matches that ideal. Poor students of color, like all ,f dren, live complex lives that challenge teachers' best intent£~,

Whether teachers think of their students as needy and deficient.or;.

pable and resilient can spell the difference between pedagogy groili):~·

in compensator/perspectives and those grounded in critical andlil:{ ·

toryones.

'"YES, BUT HOW DO WE 00 IT?"' 165

My best exa~ples of the first perspective come from years of ob­

serving prospective teachers enter classrooms where students fail to comply with their wishes aod directives. Quickly the students are con­

structed as problems-"at risk," behavior problems, savages-and those

constructions become self-fulfilling prophecies (Rist, 1970). Before

long, the classroom is no longer a place where students are taught and

expected to learn. Rather, it becomes a place where bodies are managed

aod maintaining order becomes the primary task. Unfortunately, many

urban schools reinforce aod reward this type of pedagogical response (Haberman, 1991).

Culturally relevant teachers envision their students as being filled

with po_ssibilities. They imagine that somewhere in the classroom is the

next Nobel laureate (a Toni Morrison), the next neurosurgeon (a Ben­ ,:jamin Carson), or the next pioneer for social justice (a Fannie Lou

Hamer). 1 This perspective moves the teachers from a position of sym­

. <-pathy ("you poor dear")' to one of informed empathy. This informed ·:felllpathy requires the teacher to feel with the students rather than feel

'Jor them. Feeling with the students builds a sense of solidarity berween \')he teacher and the students but does not excuse students frolll working

:µard in pursuit of excellence. ·,,;,,.Culturally relevant teachers recognize that their students are "school

endent."3 I use this term to suggest that some students are success­

' in spite of their schooling, as a result of material resources and cul-

: tahcapital. If they have incompetent or uncaring teachers, their

),tents aod families have the resources ro supplement and enhaoce the

· oling experience. However, most poor students of color look to

ools as the vehicle for social advancement and equity. They are to­ . dependent on the school to help them achieve a variety of goals.

, h1 the s.cbool fails to provide for those needs, these students are

,ed out of social aod cultural benefits. For example, a number of

r·students of color find themselves in classrooms with teachers who

,unqualified or underqualified to teach (Ladson-Billings, 2005).

}¢ striking is that some of these children find themselves in class­ ··1)1s where there is no regularly assigned teacher. Instead, the stu­

spend entire school years with a series of substitute teachers who

oresponsibility for supporting their academic success.

166 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

The Curriculum

Typically, teachers are expected to follow a prescribed curriculum that

state and local administrators have approved. In many large school dis­

tricts, that approved curriculum may merely be a textbook. In several

poorly performing districts, that curriculum may be a script that teachers

are required to recite and follow. I argue that teachers engaged in cultur­

ally relevant pedagogy must be able to deconstruct, construct, and recon­ struct (Shujaa, 1994) the curriculum. "Deconstruction" refers to the

ability to take apart the "official knowledge" (Apple, 2000) to expose its wealmesses, myths, distortions, and omissions. "Construction" refers to the ability to build curriculum. Similar to the work that John Dewey

(1997) advocated, construction relies on the experiences and knowledge

that teachers and their students bring to the classroom. "Reconstruction"

requires the work of rebuilding the curriculum that was previously taken

apart and examined. It is never enough to tear down. Teachers must be

prepared to build up and fill in the holes that emerge when students begin

to use critical analysis as they attempt to make sense of the curriculum.

The perspective of culturally relevant teachers is that the curricu­

lum is a cultural artifact and as such is not an ideologically neutral doc­

ument. Whereas the highly ideological nature of the curriculum is evident in high-profile communities where there are fights over evolu­

tion versus creation or sex education curricula that advocate safe sex

versus abstinence, it is more subtle and pernicious in other curriculum

documents. For example, the history curriculum reflects ethnocentric

and sometimes xenophobic attitudes and regularly minimizes the faults of the United States and some European nations. Even an area such as

mathematics is susceptible to ideology that leaves poor children of

color receiving mathematics curricula that focus on rote memorization

and algorithms whereas middle-class students have early access to alge­

braic thinking and more conceptually grounded approaches.

Instruction

No curriculum can teach itself. It does not matter if teachers have ac­

cess to exceptional curriculum if they do not have the instructional

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'"YES, BUT HOW DO WE DO IT?'" 167

· skills to teach all students. College and university professors have the

means to provide students with intellectually challenging and critical

knowledge, but few professors are able to teach the wide variety of

students who show up in K-12 classrooms. Precollegiate teachers must

have a wide repertoire of teaching strategies and techniques to ensure that all students can access the curriculum. Unlike postsecondary

tea_chers, K-12 teachers teach students who may or may not wish to be

students. That means that their teaching must engage, cajole, convict,

and perhaps even fool students into participation. Culturally relevant teachers understand that some of the pedagogical strategies that make

teaching easier or more convenient for them may be exactly the kind

of instruction they should avoid. For example, placing students in abil­

ity groups or tracks may serve to alienate struggling students further. Lecturing, no matter how efficient, may do nothing more than create

greater gaps between successful students and those who are not. Even

those strategies that progressive educators see as more democratic may

fail to create the equal access teachers desire. In this instance, I refer to

the almost unanimous belief that cooperative learning is a preferred

teaching strategy. Many teacher preparation programs emphasize co­

operative and other group strategies as preferable to more traditional classroom arrangements. However, when poorly managed, coopera­

tive learning creates unequal workloads and instances in which stu­

dents exclude other students from the process. High achievers

sometimes resent being placed with struggling students and struggling

students can be embarrassed by their inability to be full participants in

the group setting. Thus, if teachers must consider the ways that the social contexts of

schooling impact their work md that their context may not be support­

ive, what, if anything, can they do? I argue that teachers must engage in a culturally relevant pedagogy that is designed to attend to the context

while simultmeously prepa_ring students for the traditional societal de­

mmds (i.e., high school completion, postsecondary education, work­

place requirements, active md participatory citizenship). I next address

the elements of culturally relevant pedagogy that teachers must attend

to in order to achieve success with students who have been underserved

by our schools.

168 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

When I wrote the words "academic achievement" almost ten years ago,

I never dreamed that I would regret using this term. What I had in

mind has nothing to do with the oppressive atmosphere of standard­

ized tests; the wholesale retention of groups of students; scripted cur­

ricula; and the intimidation of students, teachers, and parents. Rather,

what I envisioned is more accurately described as "student learning"­

what it is that students actually know and are able to do as a result of

pedagogical interactions with skilled teachers. However, because I started with the term "academic achievement," I will stay with it for

consistency's sake.

The teachers who focus on academic achievement (i.e., student

learning) understand that this is their primary function. They are not

attempting to get students to "feel good about themselves" or learn how

to exercise self-control. Rather, they are most interested in the cultiva­

tion of students' minds and supporting their intellectual lives. They un­

derstand that through engaged learning students will develop

self-esteem and self-control. They recognize that the outbursts and off-task behaviors are symptoms, not causes, and as teachers the one

thing they have at their disposal are pedagogical tools to draw students

into the learning in meaningful ways. Culturally relevant teachers think deeply about what they teach and

ask themselves why students should learn particular aspects of the cur­

riculum. In these classrooms, teachers are vetting everything in the cur­ riculum and often supplement the curriculum. For example, in a

culturally relevant high school English class the teacher may under­

stand that he or she has to teach Romeo and Juliet but would couch that

book in the context of students' own struggles with parents over dating. There may even be a detailed discussion of suicide and the level of des­

peration that adolescents may experience when they cannot communi- .

cate with adults. Finally, the teacher may include some films, popular

music, or other stories that take up the theme of young, forbidden love.

The point here is that a culturally relevant teacher does not take the

book as a given. Rather, the teacher asks himself or herself specific

questions about what reading this book is supposed to accomplish. This

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same teacher might be quite explicit about the place of the text in the

literary canon and the cachet and clout students acquire when they can

speak intelligently about such texts. One of the major academic activi­

ties in the classroom of culturally relevant teachers is engaging in cri­ tique of texts and activities. Over and over students ask and are asked,

. "Why are we doing this?" "Why is this important?" and "How does this

enrich my life and/or the life of others?"

For tasks that seem mundane, teacliers may use a very pragmatic

skill (e.g., changing a tire) to help students understand how simple com­ ponent parts of a task (e.g., blocking and braking the car), are necessary

prerequisites to the larger task. The chemistry teacher may spend time

helping students learn the precise way to light and use a Bunsen burner, not because lighting a Bunsen burner is a marketable skill, but because

having a lit Bunsen burner will be important for many of the subse­

quent labs.

Repeatedly, culturally relevant teachers speak in terms of long-term

academic goals for students. They rarely focus on "What should I do on

Monday?" and spend a considerable amount of their planning trying to

figure out what the semester or yearlong goals are. They share those goals with students and provide them with insights into their teaching

so that students know why they are doing what they are doing. These

teachers use many real-life and familiar examples that help the class­

room come alive. They may use metaphors to paint word pictures. One

teacher refers to the classroom experience as a trip and uses many travel

metaphors. "We're still in San J?se and you know we've got to get to

L.A." is what she might say when the class is falling behind where she

thinks it should be. Or, she can be heard to say, "Hey, Lamar, why are

you in Petaluma?" when referring to a student who is off task and doing

the exact opposite of what she wishes to accomplish.

Interestingly, Foster (1989) describes a community college teaclier

who strnctured her classroom as an economy. Even with adult learners,

this teaclier understood that the metaphorical language helped her stu­

dents visualize their objectives. The students who were "on welfare"

wanted to get jobs in "the bank." The symbolism and iniagery res­

onated with the students and the teacher used it as a way to get the very

best out of her students.

170 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

CULTURAL COMPETENCE

Of the three terms ("academic achievement," "cultural competence,"

"sociopolitical consciousness") that I use to describe the components of

culturally relevant pedagogy, I find the notion of cultural competence the

most difficult to convey to teachers who wish to develop their own prac­

tice in this way. One of the problems is that like academic achievement,

the term "cultural competence" has another set of meanings. Currently,

many of the helping professions-----.such as medicine, nursing, counseling,

social work-refer to something called "cultural competence." However,

in these professions the notion of cultural competence refers to helping

dominant group members become 1;1ore skillful in reading the cultural

messages of their clients. As a consequence, novice practitioners in these

fields practice aspects of their work in ways that represent culturally sen­

sitive behaviors-not pointing; speaking in direct, declarative sentences;

directing questions and statements to an elder. Unfortunately, these prac­

tices reflect a static and essentialized view of culture and tend to reinforce

stereotypes, rather than dispel them.

My sense of cultural competence refers to helping students to rec­

ognize and honor their own cultural beliefs and practices while acquir­

ing access to the wider culture, where they are likely to have a chance of

improving their socioeconomic status and making informed decisions

about the lives they wish to lead. The point of my work is to maintain

teachers' focus on what improves the lives of the students, families, and

communities they serve-not to make teachers feel better about them­

selves. I presume that teachers who do learn more about their students'

backgrounds, cultures, and experiences feel more capable and effica­

cious in their work as teachers, but the teachers are not my primary ob­

jective. In the most instrumental way, I think of the teachers as a vehicle

for improving students' lives.

Teachers who foster cultural competence understand that they must

work back and forth between the lives of their students and the life of

school. Teachers have an obligation to expose their students to the very

culture that oppresses them. That may seem paradoxical, but without

the skills and knowledge of the dominant culture, students are unlikely

to be able to engage that culture to effect meaningful change.

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I visited two middle school teachers who created an etiquette unit in

'. which they introduced students to information about manners. How­ ever, it was not a unit merely focused on what to do; it included histor­

ical, cultural, and sociological information about why these practices

are as they are. At the end of the unit, the teachers took the students in ·· small groups out to dinner at a quality restaurant. For many of the stu­

dents, this was the first time they had attended a restaurant with linen

napkins and multicourse dinners. The idea of this activity was not to at­

tempt to make the students middle class but, rather, to have the students

experience and critique middle-class ways. A surprising response to the dining experience was that of one female student, who said, "Now that

I know what this is like I'm not going to let a guy take me to McDon­

ald's and call that taking me out to dinner." In one of the most powerful and striking instances of cultural com­

petence, MacArthur Award winner,4 teacher, and forensics coach Tom­

mie Lindsey of James Logan High School in Union City, California,

uses culturally specific speeches and dialogues to help his largely black and brown forensics team win local, state, and national competitions.

The students use pieces from African American and Latina/Latino

writers in the midst of a venue that can only be described as upper mid­

dle class and mainstream. Lindsey has successfully merged the students'

cultural strengths with the forensics form. The students have exposure

to a wider world without compromising aspects of their own culture.

SOCIOPOLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

I can typically convince teachers (both preservice and in-service) that it

is important to focus on student learning as well as make use of stu­

dents' culture. However, the idea that developing sociopolitical con­

sciousness is important is a much harder sell. One of the reasons that

this aspect of the theory is difficult is that most of the teachers I en­

counter have not developed a sociopolitical consciousness of their own.

True, most hold strong opinions about the sociopolitical issues they

know about, but many do not know much about sociopolitical issues.

When I talk to teachers about economic disparities, they rarely link

these disparities with issues of race, class, and gender. Thus, the first

172 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

thing teachers must do is educate themselves _about both the local sociopolitical issues of their school community (e.g., school board pol­ icy, community events) and the larger sociopolitical issues (e.g., unem­ ployment, health care, housing) that impinge upon their students' lives.

The second thing teachers need to do is incorporate those issues into their ongoing teaching. I am not talking about teachers pushing their own agendas to the detriment of student learning. Rather, the task here is to help students use the various skills they learn to better under­ stand and critique their social position and context. For example, in my original study of cultural competence and sociopolitical awareness, a student complained about the deterioration of the community and ex­ pressed strong emotions about how unhappy he was living in a place that had lots of crime, drugs, and little in the way of commerce and_ -,.

recreational facilities. The teacher used the student's emotion to de­ velop a community study. Although it is typical for students to study . .;; their community, this study involved a detailed examination of the real­ ity of the community, not a superficial look at "community helpers/'<., The teacher retrieved information from the historical society's archives i so that the students could compare the community's present condition'} with that of the past and raise questions about how the decline had oc;", curred. Ultimately, the students developed a land-use plan that thei6 presented to the city council.

THE CULPABILITY OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Most discussions of what teachers fail to do give teacher education)\' pass. We presume that teachers are doing something separate aJJ_­

apart from their preparation. However, I argue that teacher preparilt tion plays a large role in maintaining the status quo. Teacher edt, cators are overwhelmingly white, middle-aged, and monolingu English speakers. Although more women are entering the academy,}/'

teacher educators, the cultural makeup of the teacher-education pr\¼ fession is embarrassingly homogeneous. This cultural homogenei the teacher-education profession makes it difficult to persuade

vincingly preservi~e teachers that they should know and do an different in their classrooms.

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.,,YES, BUT HOW DO WE DO IT?"' 173

In addition to the overwhelming cultural homogeneity of the

teacher-education profession, we organize our profession in ways that

suggest that issues of diversity and social justice are tangential to the

enterprise. Most preservice teachers enter a program that ghettoizes is­

sues of diversity. Somewhere in a separate course or workshop, students

are given "multicultural information," It is here that students often are confused, angry, and frustrated because they do not know what to do

with this information. Regularly preservice teachers report feelings of

guilt and outrage because they receive information about inequity,

racism, and social injustice in ways that destabilize their sense of them­

selves and make them feel responsible for the condition of poor chil­ dren of color in our schools.

In some instances, preservice teachers participate in a teacher­

education program that requires them to have at least one field experi­

ence in a diverse classroom and/ or community setting. When such field experiences are poorly done, this requirement becomes just another

hoop through which students jump to earn a credential. Students in

these circumstances regularly speak of "getting over" their diversity re­

quirement. Rarely do such students want to do their most significant field experience-student teaching-in diverse classrooms. When these

field experiences are well conceived, they allow preservice teachers to

be placed in classrooms with skillful teachers and be supervised by care­

ful teacher educators who can help them make sense of what they are

experiencing and create useful applications for the multicultural knowl­

edge they are learning.

Although the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Ed­

ucation includes a diversity standard in its accreditation process, most

programs struggle to equip novice teachers fully to work with children

who are poor, linguistically diverse, and/or from racial or ethnic minority

groups. Teacher candidates may resist the lessons of diversity and social

justice, but that resistance may be intimately tied to the lack of credibility

their professors and teacher-education instructors possess. Why should

preservice students believe that teacher educators who spend much of

their lives in the comforts of the academy can understand the challenges

today's classrooms present? Why should tenuous 1960s civil rights cre­ dentials be made proxies for twenty-first-century problems? I am not

174 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

suggesting that participation in the civil rights struggle is an unimpof tant part of one's biography-it is a part of my own biography. Rath~{ I am suggesting that in this new time and space, that aspect of one's :h' · ography may not prove adequate for helping smdents navigate the m1Jl" tiple ways that race, class, gender, and language identities complicat~

the pedagogical project. Teacher education has much to answer for cori~

cerning its role in preparing teachers who fail to serve classrooms co ·

poor children of color well.

WHAT IS A TEACHER TO DO?

As I noted earlier, many well-meaning teachers lament the fact that th~ do not know what to do, when it comes to meeting the educational need

of all smdents. Indeed, a group of soon-to-be teachers recently said\(·

me, "Everybody keeps telling us about multiculmral education, but no/

body is telling us how to do it!" I responded, "Even if we could tellyJiiJ

how to do it, I would not want us to tell you how to do it." Theylooki;iij:1 at me with very confused expressions on their faces. I went on to sa :,

"The reason I would not tell you what to do is that you would probabl

do it!" Now, the confused expressions became more pronounced. " :·

other words," I continued, "you would probably do exactly what I td(: you to do without any deep thought or critical analysis. You would dd what I said regardless of the smdents in the classroom, their ages, theitf abilities, and their need for whatever it is I proposed." I concluded by.(

asking the smdents who had taught them to "do democracy." They aq,', knowledged that no one had taught them to do democracy, and I re,y,

joined that doing democracy is one of their responsibilities. Slowly, the/

conversation moved to a discussion of how democracy is a goal fo{;.;_ which we are all striving and although there are a few cases such as vote_'.:"

ing and public debate during which we participate in democracy, for th_e• most part democracy is unevenly and episodically attended to. As teach,:_-•·

ers they have the responsibility to work toward educating citizens so\i that they are capable of participating in a democracy and nobody (anq." no teacher-education program) is going to tell them how to do it. They"·

are going to have to commit to democracy as a central principle of their}

pedagogy.

"'YES, BUT HOW DO WE DO IT?"' 175

Eventually, the preservice teachers began to see multicultural educa­

•tion and teaching for social justice as less a thiug and 'lnore an ethical

:t position they need to take in order to ensure that students are getting

:the. education to which they are entitled. As a teacher educator, I have

worked hard to motivate preservice teachers to become reflective prac­ '':. 'titioners who care about the educational futures of their students. Of­

(; ;ten we are naive enough to thiuk that all teachers care about the

CO-edticational futures of their students. The truth is that most teachers ,·dire about what happens to their students only while they have respon­

iliility for them. To that end, they take on a tutorial role for some stu­ }<ients, making sure they learn and advance. They take on a custodial

fi;i;>leJor some students, taking care of them in whatever state they are.in

1::\iint not advancing them educationally. They take on a referral agent ""qlf for others, shipping them off to someone else (e.g., a special educa­

i', a parent volunteer, a student teacher) and expecting others to take

. :sponsibility for them educationally. But, how many teachers look at

."e. students in their classrooms and envision them three, five, ten years

§wnthe road? Our responsibility to students is not merely for the nine

:),nths from September to June. It is a long-term commitment, not ·ho the students but also to society. Although we may have only a

· ' Jong interaction with students, we ultimately have a lifelong impact

.}\:rho they become and the kind of society in which we all wili ulti­ tely live.

;lµl analogy I will use to illustrate this point is my experience with ~-. /

'11:hcare professionals. I do this with full knowledge that many people ·.· ·. not benefited from· our current healthcare arrangements. Thus,

analogy uses an N of 1. Currently, I see four different physicians­ ternist, an allergist, a gynecologist, and an oncologist. My internist

.. · e my "homeroom" teacher. He tracks my schedule and makes sure

it to my other classes (i.e., the other physicians) on a regular basis. l;ofmy physicians take responsibility not just for the aspect of my

):h in which he or she is expert but also for my total health. They all

} my weight to be within a certain range. They all monitor my

·,'d:.pressure. They all look at the various medications I am taking so

· }hey can. make intelligent decisions about what they should or

. d not prescribe. I am not so naive to believe that the physicians are

176 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

merely invested in me. I am arguing that my physicians are invested in

the health of the community as well as my personal health. It does not

benefit the community to have me be unhealthy within it. Similarly, it

does not benefit our democracy to have uneducated and undereducated people within it. Our responsibility to the students who sit before us ex­ tends well into the future, both theirs and ours.

CONCLUSION

This chapter asks the question Yes, but how do we do it? I have laid out

an argument for why "doing" is less important than "being." I have ar­

gued that practicing culturally relevant pedagogy is one of the ways of "being" that will inform ways of "doing." I have suggested that our re­

sponsibility extends beyond the classroom and beyond the time stu­

dents are assigned to us. It extends throughout their education because

we contribute to (or detract from) that education. In a very real sense,

the question is not how we do it but, rather, How can we not do it?

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1. I purposely chose examples that represent people who came from working-class and poor backgrounds.

borrowed this term from Professor Pat Campbell, University of Maryland.

I first used this term in a school-funding equity case against the State of South

The MacArthur Award is also referred to as a "genius" award.