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Professor Foster is the author of Ribbin', Jivin', and Playin' the Dozens: The Persistent Dilemma in Our Schools (2nd ed.)

Editorial aired on WBFO, Tuesday February 4, 1997, 7:35 and 9:35 AM

The Oakland School District in California is the object of the latest media attention related to Black English. Although, many experts have been quoted in the media, the primary question that should be asked about the Oakland schools is why are 71% of the special education students black when blacks make up only 53 percent of the district? A second question is do most of the teachers and administrators in the district believe their black students are intelligent enough to learn standard English?

I was a teacher and administrator in the New York City Public Schools for 17 years. After a rocky start, where on my first day of teaching I hid under my desk in fear, I realized that I had to change my behavior first to get my students to change their behavior, and learn.

When black students are assigned to special education out of proportion to their numbers in the district, I see a basic problem related to race and class. The problem happens when a teacher gets into an uncomfortable situation with a black student -- a black male student in particular. The teacher's, perhaps unconscious, negative racial stereotypical feelings are so reflexive they come to the forefront and direct the teacher's interpretation of the student's language and behavior. This misinterpretation of black student language and behavior is the first step in the referral process toward special education and school problems.

The fall 1995 issue of the Journal of African American Men published my four-year study where I asked 3,130 respondents to please list the stereotypical beliefs, feelings, expectations, and fantasies that the average person has about black males. A very taboo subject. Of the 1,627 educators in the study, 27.7% specified that black males were "dumb," "ignorant," and "less intelligent" than others. Furthermore, 17.4 % responded that black males were "uneducated". And, 10 % reported black males as "unmotivated and apathetic."

Other than, perhaps, the armed forces, our institutions have not come to grips with how our feelings about race and class direct our behavior toward one another. Teachers, sadly, receive very little assistance, if any, from their college or in-service courses, to help them understand how any negative, even unconscious, feelings about student race or class may affect their teaching an increasingly pluralistic student population.

Student learning depends in good part upon teacher expectation. Therefore, if teachers are expected to teach standard English, it is important that the teachers involved believe that their students can learn.

All children, if they do not know how, should be taught how to speak, behave, and dress appropriately for the social situation. This should be accomplished without derogating these students' ethnic, cultural, racial, class, or religious backgrounds. These children should be allowed to retain the ability to chill on the corner with the brothers and sisters, if they so desire, while learning how to speak, dress, and behave for business or professional success.

Though our schools have worked fairly well for middle-class students, with few exceptions, our schools have failed at educating non-white and non-middle class students. To overcome this negative educational reality, if more teachers want to be considered professionals, more teachers have to first change their teaching behavior in order to encourage more of their students to change their learning behavior. Without a question, this means making behavioral and academic demands, too. (back to top)