‘Why there will never be a white Shaft’
By Meliqueica Meadows
Of the St. Louis American
With continuing bad news about achievement levels in St. Louis Public Schools, educators are looking for fresh insights about ways to reach underachieving students. The St. Louis Teacher Enhancement Partnership (STEP) teaches future SLPS teachers to utilize culturally responsive classroom methods.
“It is absolutely imperative for teachers to be culturally competent,” STEP project director Amana Hanks said.
“We have to be responsive to what our children have been blaring at us from the hilltops – ‘I would do better only if my teacher liked me, understood me and would relate to me.’”
On Monday, STEP sponsored a culturally responsive teaching symposium with Sharroky Hollie, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning.
In his presentation, “Why There Will Never Be a White Shaft,” Hollie identified four ethnic groups, Hawaiian Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans and African Americans, that consistently underperform in the American school system. He said limited proficiency in standard American English has held large portions of these ethnic groups from success.
“These four groups share three things: their introduction to America came through colonization, conquering or enslavement which affected their ability to be ‘Americanized,’” Hollie said.
He said all four groups went through a process of systematic denial of their indigenous culture.
“If we use the African in America as an example, there were certain things put into place, such as the Slave Codes, to weed out the black African’s indigenous culture and language. The relevance of that is two generations later there is no memory of your heritage,” Hollie said.
“What’s interesting are the languages that were developed due to the lack of access to school during those first two or three generations. They developed these hybrid languages. For the Hawaiian Americans it is Hawaiian Pidgin English, Native Americans had Native American dialects, Mexican Americans developed Chicano English and for African Americans it was Black English.”
Hollie said educators need a proper understanding of those hybrid languages in order to help underachieving students become more proficient in standard English.
“Some people still leave with the notion that we’re trying to teach Ebonics. This is not true. We are saying very boldly that you must be at least proficient in standard English in order to be successful in the American school or the business world,” Hollie said.
“There are only two circumstances where you do not need to be proficient. One is if you can sing and dance, and the other is if you can jump high and run fast.”
Hollie said the American educational experience should affirm students, and they should not fear losing their culture in order to succeed.
“You can get what you need out of academia and out of the mainstream, but you don’t have to lose who you are,” he said.
“We all know that in order to be in this room we had to walk the walk, talk the talk and do what the mainstream expects of us. Those of us who are not in this room didn’t learn that lesson.”
Hollie said educators will have to overcome several misconceptions in order to help students achieve.
“You have some teachers saying, ‘If we had better students, we would have better schools,’” he said. “That’s tantamount to a doctor saying, ‘If I didn’t have any sick patients, I would be a better doctor.’”
In the end, Hollie said his program is geared to improving teachers – and then retaining them.
“A lot of our professional development opportunities are really looking at being culturally responsive, but at the same time classroom management is an issue as well,” he said.
“We look at a host of things that we hope will yield some culturally competent teachers who want to stay in the district. Recruitment is one thing, but we want them to stay.”
STEP is a collaborative effort between the College of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, 18 St. Louis public schools and St. Louis Charter Schools. It is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and sponsored by the College of Education at UM-St. Louis.
For more information about STEP, call (314) 516-4889 or visit www.steptolearn.org. Educational professionals and organizations that wish to learn more about the Culturally Responsive Teaching model, Sharroky Hollie and the Culture and Language Academy of Success can call (310) 680-7100 or visit www.cultureandlanguage.org.
