Tag Archives: Julie Landsman

As School Begins: What James Baldwin Has to Tell Us

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August 21, 2016

Guest post! Minneapolis teacher and writer, Julie Landsman, reflects on the upcoming school year, and what it means for teachers and students–especially those ready to confront racial injustice.

In words to his fifteen-year old nephew, James Baldwin wrote:

And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be drive from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from a sturdy peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity.-

-“My Dungeon Shook,” 1962

It has been fifty-four years since James Baldwin wrote these words. What is all too remarkable and depressing to many of us who teach and write from a social justice perspective is that his words are entirely relevant today. After a summer of killings of African-Americans by police officers, and in reaction the killing of five officers in Dallas, along with the recent unrest in Milwaukee, students will come to us in the fall and throughout the year wanting to know: what led up to this? 

What is our history that underlies much of Baldwin’s references? Of all the years of my teaching and working with teachers, this year feels to be one of great urgency. It is an urgency to recognize the initial genocides our country was built on; how important it is to have truthful, unflinching discussions about the difference between the perceptions of, and the reality of, our past.

If we are good at what we do,  we educators will present students with what Baldwin cites in his 1963 “Talk to Teachers”:

The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. 

If we are able, we will provide the space for students to ask questions and we will be ready to let them find the answers, let them disagree and argue. Teaching is a messy experience if it is done right. It may be that high school students will want to take part in direct action, conferences, letters to the editor, self-directed research projects, after what they have observed, absorbed, even participated in over the summer. Some of their work may have to do with what they observe about education itself, how classes for Advanced Placement are filled with White students and special education classes for behavior are filled with African-American males. Their questioning may lead a White student to ask why his Black friend was suspended for doing the same thing he did, and nothing was done to him for the same violation of the rules, the same walk down the hall without a pass.

More than ever, we must build time into our classrooms to listen, to allow discussion and to let these questions, fears, thoughts, interrupt our careful sequence of lesson plans; to let students work these things out together. If we are truly educating as Baldwin predicted in 1962, our goal has to be to provide the chance to examine the society in which our students are being educated. We do this without giving up a challenging curriculum that grows from these questions. At the same time as activists, we must examine the very texts and requirements we have been mandated to teach. We must become aware of whose perspective this curriculum is written from–who is chosen, who is included.

Again, from Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers”:

I would try to make him [my nephew] know that just as American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it, so is the world larger, more daring, more beautiful and more terrible, but principally larger—and that it belongs to him. I would teach him that he doesn’t have to be bound by the expediencies of a given administration, any given policy, any given morality; that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything. 

What this requires of us is a rethinking about what we do with our students each day: the amount of time we allow students to talk, to lead and to even devise lesson plans . It requires that we think deeply about what is absent from our books, our videos, our YouTube clips– what is not there, what part of our American history that is “larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anyone has ever said about it” is not included in the pages of our texts, the literary anthologies we hand out in September.

We can start with something like Langston Hughes’ 1959 poem, “Theme for English B”:

“The Instructor said,/Go home and write/A page tonight./And let that page come out of you—/Then it will be true.”

Later in the poem, Hughes writes:

“So will my page be colored that I write?/Being me, it will not be white./But it will be/A part of you, instructor./You are white—/Yet a part of me, as I am a part of you./That’s American.”

To open our classrooms with this command, to write a page that will come out of our students–be they seven or seventeen–as a way of understanding who will be sitting before us for the nine months we have them, will be one version of listening.

There is no list of ways to create an educational system that is truly equitable. Yet, the voices of students are the closest thing I know to a beginning for this work.

Julie Landsman (www.jlandsman.com) is the author of three books on education: Basic Needs: A Year with Street Kids in a City School (Milkweed Editions, 1993) A White Teacher Talks About Race (Rowman and Littlefield 2001) and Growing Up White; a Veteran Teacher Reflects on Racism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). She is also the editor of many collections of essays stories and poems, the most recent being Voices for Diversity and Social Justice, A Literary Education Reader, with Paul Gorski and Rosanna Salcedo, (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) She is a retired teacher from the Minneapolis public schools, and consults and teaches seminars on education, writing, race and culture.

Julie Landsman: Fearlessness, Persistence, Support Needed in Education

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February 15, 2016

Over the weekend, a heart-shattering video from a “no-excuses” New York City charter school–part of the plutocrat-adored Success Academies network–provided a shocking inside look at an abusive first grade classroom. It is hard to watch, but important to look at. Is this what it takes to be considered a “high performing” school for poor kids of color? 

Julie Landsman

Coincidentally, local teacher and writer Julie Landsman sent a guest blog post my way. I will post it here below because it asks us to think more about what teachers teach, how teachers teach, and how relationships–not harsh discipline–inspire learning that matters.

Julie Landsman: Can We Talk About What Kids Are Learning?

Teachers today are told to respond to an array of time-consuming mandates, from redoing an attendance procedure to implementing a program for graphing student response information. But what I have found, as I talk to educators from around the country, is a desire for concrete materials and curriculum that will capture students’ hearts and minds. Instead of a quick –fix reading system, they want to know what actual books, starting from the youngest to the oldest kids, will motivate their students to become engaged in their lessons. Teachers are trying to find a way to reach students who are not graduating, or not doing well on tests and in some cases, not attending school at all.  An overly regimented program, combined with a lack of real connection to students from multiple cultures, often turns away many of those children teachers struggle to reach. And teachers are aware of this.

However, an emphasis on what is being taught can change attendance patterns, graduation rates, and progress in basic skills. There are personal reasons we get into teaching; for me it was love of the kids themselves, and love of my subject area, literature. It was not systems or standards. It was not scripted lessons that needed no input from me. I got into teaching because I wanted students to learn to live in this world, to make their way to college or law school or culinary school: to entertain their wildest dreams.

On the best days, classrooms are vibrant, surprising and even humorous places. On the best days a teachable moment comes, when the structure you have created as a teacher, provides a safe place to explore; and a quiet student says something that galvanizes everyone else to think in a new way. And on this day your lesson is shelved and you create a new assignment on the spot to help students develop the standard, the skill, the focused learning you have been told to teach that day. Your class engages in a dialogue that moves into territory you had dreamed of for them. And you are reminded that this is why you stay in education. 

Such days come as the result of listening to students. They come as a result of creating concrete experiences, using what we have learned about their lives, that will get them reading, or inventing or debating, or researching or writing.  If it means creating a class for African-American Males, or adding African-American History, we do this. If it is developing a rigorous science course around climate change, we do that. Others may record oral histories of elders from their neighborhood. But teachers need training, time and encouragement to create such places, such schools.

There is no abstract system that will solve our educational problems, no canned instructional recipe.  Rather what our students need from us is fearlessness, persistence, and support for change for the long haul.  The language itself needs to go from abstract to concrete; from academic plans to plans and methods that come from concern, from talking, from laughing with the kids and their parents, their community leaders.

Teachers are rarely asked what we think or feel about our work, our students, our families. This must change, as messy as it may be. Teachable moments happen all the time, almost in spite of the prescriptive formulas, the canned curriculum.  Let’s talk in real language about how to make those happen more often. 

Julie Landsman (www.jlandsman.com) is the author of three books on education: Basic Needs: A Year with Street Kids in a City School (Milkweed Editions, 1993) A White Teacher Talks About Race (Rowman and Littlefield 2001) and Growing Up White; a Veteran Teacher Reflects on Racism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). She is also the editor of many collections of essays stories and poems, the most recent being Voices for Diversity and Social Justice, A Literary Education Reader, with Paul Gorski and Rosanna Salcedo, (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) She is a retired teacher from the Minneapolis public schools, and consults and teaches seminars on education, writing, race and culture.

Julie Landsman: “We Can Create Radical Change”

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December 6, 2015

Julie Landsman

Guest post! Minneapolis writer and teacher Julie Landsman has found reason–two reasons, to be exact–to feel hopeful about the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Over the past five years I have written blogs and editorials critical of Minneapolis Public Schools. I have worried that we are operating in a state of testing mania. Even more concerning is that Minneapolis has built a regimented instructional strategy around these tests. As a consequence, we have alienated many of our students. These concerns remain, along with my despair about how our kids are doing without art or music or poetry or theater in many schools. Observing my six –year- old grandson I have often wondered about the lack of recess time and the insistence on the unnatural stillness required of young children for much of the day in our schools. The job of a young girl or boy is to move, to learn about the world through motion, play and activity. We sacrifice their natural physical impulse in order to spend more time to prepare for meaningless tests.

However, in contrast to these continuing frustrations, is the great hope and relief I feel about progress made by two separate things. First: the Office of Equity and Diversity has implemented, in all our high schools, a course in African-American History. This course counts as Social Studies credit. Licensed teachers who received summer coursework and optional, ongoing professional development training throughout the year teach these classes.  African-American and African Studies professor Dr. Keith Mayes, of the University of Minnesota, has been instrumental in helping the Minneapolis schools develop the course. This is a start, and an important one. Curriculum is dear to my heart. I believe that what we teach, combined with high expectations and a caring relationship, can reach our students and support our teachers.

There is also a plan to include a Native American History course as well as Latin American and Asian American courses over the coming years. Schools in districts in California and Arizona are working to provide this kind of history for many of their students. It has taken too long for this to happen in our schools here in Minneapolis, but we can celebrate when change happens, no matter how late.

Who had input to what would be taught, or even in the planning of African-American studies? Not sure. From what I gather from teachers, not enough teacher input went into this, but some did.  There has also been discussion about whether this should be counted as a US History credit. It will not. Some teachers have expressed concern that it furthers institutional racism to “other” African American History in this way; that somehow it is not the “real” history but is one you can choose to know or not know. I agree. The ideal required United States history course would be utterly revamped if I had my way, so that a large amount of time would be given to all perspectives. It could even be taught over a two-year period. Then we might not need African-American history as a separate entity.

But we do not live in ideal times. This new course is a clear step toward including the unique story of African-Americans in our curriculum. Students, both black and white, tell me that they want these classes. They know they live in a multicultural and diverse environment; they know the history of people of color is often given short shrift in their classes. Perhaps students will someday be required to take courses in Ethnic studies. 

Second: The other development out of Michael Walker’s Office of Black Male Student Achievement is the elective classes he has worked to set up in four high schools and four middle schools called Building Lives, Acquiring Cultural Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K.). Teachers, community members, parents and most importantly students  were at the table to help create the course. It is not a course to “fix” Black males but rather it is a course to empower students right now with what they need in order to be heard, to succeed and to navigate the educational and urban world in which they live. Students will learn about culture, arts and literature of African-Americans over time.

Because Black males will be teaching these classes, students will see before them on a daily basis, models for achievement. Tutoring will be part of the week’s schedule, as will be strategies for studying and writing. Each week there will also be an ”open mic” day when classmates will be able to bring up issues they want to talk about and reason through with the help of a caring adult. And it is this adult who is the key to the classes’ success: he is a teacher who is concerned for the welfare of each and every young man in his charge and who has built a relationship with students grounded in trust and persistence.

Michael Walker believes that it is this relationship, as much as the curriculum that will create the environment for members of the class to excel. Such a connection can be the bridge we need to truly welcome Black male students into our schools. Black students have been marginalized, not only by institutional racism but by our unconscious biases as well. Black males bring a wealth of assets, yet we have not provided an inclusive space for their brilliance and creativity to flourish.

Because there are so few black male teacher in the district, Community Experts will be in charge of these courses along with guidance from the University of Minnesota.  These Community Experts are observed and are provided with a teacher mentor. They are teachers in the system and are held to the same responsibilities as a trained teacher. I hope the Davis Center is giving him the budget that allows them to succeed.

As someone who has conversations with students about race and inclusion, I know there is a hunger for just such a class, not only here but all over the country. Already this fall the Building Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge classes are in demand. White students also want to have conversations around the topic of race and culture. Perhaps one day a month these classes could include white students in a frank and open discussion of issues in our community. Right now, I believe the emphasis has to be on reaching Black males. As we have seen in the recent shooting of Jamal Clark, supporting Black youth is imperative. At the same time, we can hope that teachers in all their classes will have the important and uncomfortable conversations with their students around race, as well as celebrations of culture. All students need to have time to participate in truthful, factual explorations of the history of racism and its connection to our present moment in time.

The tough thing will be to acknowledge how long true progress takes.  I am always amazed to hear teachers in schools where I consult say, “We can’t change our (History, Literature, Science) course to explore Black perspectives, issues or literature: our content is already determined for us by AP or IB restrictions.” Many teachers are challenging such restrictions; many are questioning the very definition of who gets to be designated “gifted” and how we determine who gets a chance to enter programs defined as such. We have work to do. It is starting. With its caring teachers, its hard-working staff, and these new courses, Minneapolis is beginning to explore ways to turn an old corner and demolish a fortress of institutional racism.

The fear I have, is that the pressure to produce the “data” will happen too soon, so that the demand will come before these courses have had a chance to test the waters, regroup, reorganize and go back and try again. Education in the US does not allow for the time it takes to create lasting change. Perhaps Minneapolis will allow these new courses to flourish without insisting on instant success.  There is no quick fix or sudden cure for the depth of racial biases in our educational system. From the preschool child’s experience to that of the high school senior we can create radical change.

I just hope that these steps taken by the Office or Equity and by the Office of Black Male Student Achievement along with their staff and teachers will be the beginning of real transformation for Minneapolis Schools.

Julie Landsman (www.jlandsman.com)
Julie is the author of three books on education: Basic Needs: A Year with Street Kids in a City School (Milkweed Editions, 1993) A White Teacher Talks About Race (Rowman and Littlefield 2001) and Growing Up White; a Veteran Teacher Reflects on Racism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). She is also the editor of many collections of essays stories and poems, the most recent being Voices for Diversity and Social Justice, A Literary Education Reader, with Paul Gorski and Rosanna Salcedo, (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) She is a retired teacher from the Minneapolis public schools, and consults and teaches seminars on education, writing, race and culture.