Читать книгу Still Invisible? - Elvin J. Dowling - Страница 14

The iconic songwriter and heralded Black history-maker, Dr. James Weldon Johnson, writer of "Lift Ev'ry Voice And Sing", a soon-forgotten song he penned early on in his teaching career that would ultimately become known as the Negro National Anthem, once poignantly declared: "You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, 'There's a world waiting for you. Yours is the quest that's just begun.” As an individual who spent his entire professional career reminding both himself and the children he served as an educator in the Denver Public School System that they were capable of achieving the things that others could only imagine, Dr. Gregory Diggs has stood in the gap for vulnerable populations, namely Black children, his entire professional career.

"I'm originally from Silver Spring, Maryland and was born the son of Dr. John W. Diggs and Claudette Barnes," Diggs says as he describes his middle-class upbringing in the suburban Washington, DC area. "I grew up in a pretty upper-middle-class African-American community that was sort of nestled in a larger white community. I was fortunate in that most of my role models were members of my family. My father, for example, was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, and was part of quite a storied chapter of members that was founded in Silver Spring back in the 1970's, and also birthed the idea of a national memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the fraternity's most revered members."

The first Black Greek Letter Organization for college educated men, the fraternity boasts an illustrious membership of luminaries, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, former Vice President of the United States, Hubert H. Humphrey, and former United Nations Ambassador and mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, Andrew Young, among many others. "We had successful Black families in my neighborhood," Diggs remembers. "In the 1980's, when the Cosby Show was on television and showcased a successful Black family, The Huxtables, many of my white colleagues thought it was a fantasy that such a family could exist, but in my day, those are the kind of families I grew up with," he recalled. "Both of my parents were working professionals and they taught their children the importance of education and doing your best, at all times, to move forward in this life." But even for Black children who grew up just as Dr. Diggs did, the obstacles many face in the American education system leaves them left further and further behind, trailing their counterparts and not being pushed to their peak potential due to what former U.S. President George W. Bush often called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Even having grown up in what many Blacks would consider a "charmed existence," Diggs believed that the persistent devaluing of the Black family is a continuation of a pattern of discrimination visited upon minority communities. "Society is built on this notion that white middle-class norms and values and people are what the 'normal' American experience is, and everyone else is pretty much considered to be either 'less than' or 'less desirable', as compared to their 'normal'", he emphasized. "So, when you've got people that don't grow up around diversity, there's a fear, misconception, and ignorance about what the 'other' is. It doesn't matter what we do as 'others', our accomplishments and virtues remain invisible," Diggs continued. "We have long been victims of violence fueled by ignorance and it clearly didn't end with the Civil Rights Movement."

As an educator that wore a variety of hats, Diggs was both a university professor and a manager of a program that promotes social and emotional learning for the more than 90,000 students throughout Denver Public Schools. "My experience in education centers around research and evaluation methods, as well as the social foundations of education, which means I also so conduct student testing and help to implement cultural equity initiatives throughout our schools." Yet, the uphill battles Diggs faced in getting his colleagues and, indeed, the entire education community to treat all children equitably remains one that lies at the heart of the foundational issues Black males encounter in a system not designed to benefit them in the most important areas of American life. "Most of the students and families that I serve in my role, are either Latino or African-American, and most of the teachers who teach our students are Caucasian", Diggs noted. "What we've been trying to do is introduce the principles of culturally relevant education to the teachers, while simultaneously exposing them to the 'whole child' perspective while, at the same time, continuing to recruit and hire more educators of color."

According to authors Michelle Knight-Manuel and Joanne E. Marciano in their book, "Classroom Culture: Equitable Schooling for Racially Diverse Youth", implementing various learning strategies that leverage the individual learner's background and culture are critically important in meeting students where they are academically. "Culturally relevant education is an exceptional framework that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural backgrounds, interests and lived experiences in all aspects of teaching and learning within the classroom and across the school" (Knight-Manuel and Marciano, 2018). "Culturally relevant education," they continued, "is viewed as critical to improving student engagement and achievement, and college readiness and success for all youth, particularly youth of color." (Knight-Manuel and Marciano, 2018). With this realization in hand, however, leveling the playing field in early academic settings designed to serve as a pipeline for college and career, as opposed to dead-end jobs and prison, continues to remain a challenge.

In her article, "Why Talented Black and Latino Students Go Unnoticed," New York Times author Susan Dynarski illustrates the difficulties faced by students of color when they are generally not considered for higher level courses, placing them on track for better post-secondary scholarship opportunities. "Black third graders are half as likely as whites to be included in programs for the gifted, and the deficit is nearly as large for Hispanics", Dynarski observed. Buttressing this claim, in describing a widening academic achievement gap that exists in American schools, Diggs laid bare the challenges that educators, students and parents face daily. "What I'm about to describe," he begins, "is not just anecdotal but is actually fact-based and objective. What we are experiencing in Denver Public Schools is the same thing we are seeing across the nation, where our Latino and African American students are performing significantly below their white and Asian counterparts. Another thing that we are working on is the fact that we have disproportionality in discipline," he continued. "Our Latino and African American students are three to five times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white or Asian counterparts, for the same behavior infractions," Diggs bemoaned, determined to help stem the tide of unfair and disparate treatment for any of his students.

What many African-American parents are increasingly beginning to realize, however, is the fact that the struggle to ensure that their young sons are being treated as fairly as other children starts much earlier than elementary school, but rather begins at birth and is exacerbated during their preschool years. In her plea to right-minded educators and frustrated parents hoping to create better disciplinary outcomes for their oft-misunderstood children, Tunette Powell, in her Washington Post essay entitled, "My Son Has Been Suspended Five Times, He's Three", expressed her frustration with "trigger-happy" school administrators opting to "suspend or expel first, and ask questions last", especially for young Black boys. In describing her preschooler's travails, Powell reflected on the following experience: "I received a call from my sons’ school in March telling me that my oldest needed to be picked up early," Powell wrote. "He had been given a one-day suspension because he had thrown a chair. He did not hit anyone, but he could have, the school officials told me," Powell recalled. "For weeks, it seemed as if JJ was on the chopping block. He was suspended two more times, once for throwing another chair and then for spitting on a student who was bothering him at breakfast. Again, these are behaviors I found inappropriate, but I did not agree with suspension." (Powell).

Having had her own run-ins with school administrators as a young student, Powell initially faulted herself for the challenges her son was having. "I blamed myself, my past. And I would have continued to blame myself had I not taken the boys to a birthday party for one of JJ’s [Powell's son] classmates." It was at this private get-together that Powell soon discovered that JJ's actions, although unacceptable, were part and parcel of how many of the other preschoolers in his classroom often behaved, none of whom had ever been suspended for their misdeeds. “My son threw something at a kid on purpose and the kid had to be rushed to the hospital,” another parent said. “All I got was a phone call” (Powell). According to the United States Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, in their "Data Snapshot: School Discipline" report, African American students are over represented in adverse disciplinary actions throughout the American school system, even at the preschool level. "Black children represent 18% of preschool enrollment, but 48% of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension; in comparison, white students represent 43% of preschool enrollment but 26% of preschool children receiving more than one out of school suspension. Boys represent 79% of preschool children suspended once and 82% of preschool children suspended multiple times, although boys represent 54% of preschool enrollment (Powell)."

According to Gregory Diggs, when a cultural gap exists in which the majority of the student population is Caucasian, and the majority of the educators are Caucasian, one can expect that there will be an achievement gap to follow for minority students. "If you can think about this, we [the United States of America] have an agrarian/industrial school curriculum, in terms of how we setup the classrooms and how we assess our students, which is based on 18th century and 19th century models of education, and this system doesn't fit with the kind of students that we are serving today," he noted. "As a result, there are some cultural mismatches and intractable issues that play into how education and discipline are communicated and delivered to a diverse student population. And yes, some teachers are actually afraid of the emotional expressions and behaviors of students of color, even when they are similar to the same behaviors of Caucasian students. I believe that part of the reason behind this response is a lack of exposure to diverse populations with some teachers, and part of it is attributable to the cultural climate in which we currently find ourselves, particularly with regard to the racial myths and fears that we have in America," Diggs noted. "And until educators at the administrator level,' he continued, "to include principals, superintendents and school boards across the country, take matters into their own hands to reverse the trend of treating children of color as students rather than suspects, very little will change."