In 20 years, high schools may be as innovative as colleges in offering courses in
African-American or women’s studies. But for now, teachers still gravitate to the lesson plans outlining the five-paragraph essay [how many five-paragraph essays have you seen in the real world?] and grammar worksheets.
Scores for black students are the Achilles’ heel of an otherwise high-achieving Fairfax County school system, according to the front page of Friday’s Washington Post. Superintendent Jack Dale was right when he spoke of peeling back layers of an onion to uncover problems that generate these low scores.
In the 21 years I have been teaching in our high schools, I have failed to find answers to the questions raised by this issue. Are our black students less motivated? Less prepared? Given fewer opportunities? More isolated?
Schools have tried to involve parents in determining how to best serve the needs of their children, but rarely ask students to weigh in. Several years ago, Oakton High School hosted two lunches, inviting black students (and, later, Hispanic students) to speak to teachers and administrators about their concerns.
The dialogue ranged from the curriculum (“I would like to read about people like me”) to issues ofpeer acceptance (“Why aren’t the prom king and queen ever black?”). Although few permanent changes were instituted as a result of this forum, everyone became more sensitive to one another’s perceptions.
Since that time, the student body has changed, and so has the administration and most of the faculty. Schools are transient places, and teachers with “institutional memories” are perceived as dinosaurs.
In the fall of 2004, I reintroduced a minority literature elective course that had previously been turned down twice by school and county officials. Then-Superintendent Dan Domenech backed the course after reading a column in which I suggested that minority achievement might be increased through exciting elective courses instead of grill-and-drill remediation.
With support from the top, a minority literature elective became a pilot course, but as far as I know, not one school has made it available to its students. (At Oakton, it was the only elective of seven turned down by the committee that has oversight on curricular matters.)
But just like that onion, the reasons for its defeat are complex. Some questioned the wisdom of targeting particular ethnicities in a school curriculum designed to bring students together, not give them reasons to self-segregate. Others voted against the course because it was paired with film studies, which was perceived as “fluff.”
Additionally, change in public schools is convoluted and drawn-out. In 20 years, high schools may be as innovative as colleges in offering courses in African-American or women’s studies. But for now, teachers still gravitate to the lesson plans outlining the five-paragraph essay (how many five-paragraph essays have you seen in the real world?) and grammar worksheets.
Does our archaic curriculum affect scores? Again, the answer is not simple. Most students do well on standardized tests, where five paragraphs work well on an essay section. But we clearly are not reaching some who might respond to new options. We should give exciting new courses a chance to reach our students.
In my experience, students of all ethnicities rise to the challenge when their interest is piqued. But how soon will schools respond?
For the present, grill-and-drill will continue to be our schools’ answer to the achievement gap between black and white. I have no magic solutions, but for starters, we should talk to the students. Again.
Erica Jacobs teaches at Oakton High School and George Mason University. She can be reached at [email protected].
