Constructing Visibility

Tatum concludes Ch. 5 by saying that effective strategies help students to "construct their visibility". This assumes two things:

1. They have been made to feel visible by someone already, so they know what that feels like.

2. They have the tools to construct their own visibility when no one makes them feel that way.

What tools do you provide your students with to move them to the place where they can construct this visibility for themselves in a positive way?

I have seen students who construct their own visibility in negative ways that are very effective in making them visible. What does the retraining of this process look like? Can you describe it in a concrete way?

Functional or Empowering

One of Tatum's subtitles in Ch. 5 is: Should curriculum be functional or empowering? I would venture to say that we would all answer, BOTH. Discuss this from the perspective of the subject that you teach and how you can make it both functional and empowering for the students you work with.

Startling Statistics

On pg. 32, Tatum quotes a statistic: African American males make up nearly 50% of the prison population but only 13% of the total population in our country.

In addition, the recent CNN documentary: Black in America, quoted a Princeton research study which showed that African American men with only a high school education have the same statistical chance of getting a job as white men who have been incarcerated.

Respond to these startling statistics from both a personal and educational perspective.

Critical Mistakes

After reading and thinking through Ch. 3 & 4 for the third time, it occurs to me that as teachers we often make two critical mistakes:

1. We teach the way we were taught.
2. We teach the way we learn best.

How do we avoid these critical mistakes in our own classrooms?

Personal Investment in Students

On page 34, Tatum says: "As long as the focus is on increasing test scores--something that is irrelevant to many of these young men--to the exclusion of the more significant factors described. . . black males will continue to struggle."

On page 35, Tatum says: "Teachers must become personally invested in their black male students in a way that moves beyond the existing curriculum".

Tension is created because of our perceived "lack of time". In addition, a personal investment in students is expensive: physically, mentally, and emotionally.

This tension will never be alleviated, so how do we reconcile it?

What is she doing right?

Interesting scenario from Tatum on pg. 25 (middle of the 2nd paragraph) about one of his own experiences:

". . .my teacher asked me why I changed my hair. Somehow, I knew this teacher believed I was misguided in my decision. I said nothing. She told me that she expected a response later, after I read a book that she promised to bring me the next day (and subsequently brought)."

I see that this teacher is doing many things right that we should examine more closely. What things do you see that she is doing right?

Perception

Much of what Tatum discusses in Chap. 1 & 2 has to do with perceptions. Perceptions the student has of himself, perceptions the teacher has of the student, and perceptions the wider culture has of this particular group of students.

Someone once told me, "Perception is reality." Respond to this idea in light of what Tatum discusses.