Mark D. Naison is a professor at Fordham University, where he teaches African-American studies. He is principal investigator of the Bronx African American history project. He writes a blog, “With a Brooklyn Accent.” This is his latest:
Not Every Bronx Tale Has a Geoffrey Canada Ending
In his memoir, Fist, Knife Stick Gun, Geoffrey Canada describes growing up on Union Avenue in the Morrisania section of the Bronx as a harrowing experience- a place where bullies terrorized young people and where no institutions , certainly not the local public schools, offered refuge or protection. It was only when Canada’s family moved to the suburbs that he was able to find a modicum of safety and was able to find a school which could inspire him and where his talents could develop.
This Bronx experience, Canada claims, inspired his future work as an educator, including his pioneering efforts to develop a holistic model of child development through the Harlem Children’s Zone which insulated young people from the violent world ready to claim them and gave them a mixture of education and social services which would enable them surmount numerous hurdles, academic and personal, and emerge college ready upon graduation from high school.
As a coach, and community organizer as well as an historian, I find much to admire in Canada’s model. But unlike Canada, I am not as quick to write off our urban public school system as a failure, and the teachers in it as heartless, insensitive, and more concerned with protecting their jobs than helping the young people they work with.
And ironically, some of my reluctance to accept Canada’s analysis comes from having done extensive oral histories from people who grew up in the same neighborhood that Canada did, and sometimes on the same block.
To put the matter bluntly, I have interviewed at least 40 people who grew up within
5 blocks of where Canada did, who attended local public schools, and participated in after school programs in local schools, churches and community centers, who became successful professionals in a wide range of fields ranging from journalism and the arts to education and social work. Among those I interviewed who fit that category are Amsterdam News sportswriter Howie Evans, musicians Valerie Capers and Jimmy Owens, film maker Brent Owens, community center director Frank Bolden, insurance executive Joseph Orange, talent agent Bess Pruitt, and current and former school principals Harriet McFeeters, Henry Pruitt, and Paul Cannon ( current principal of PS 140)
All of these individuals, in their oral histories, describe encounters with very tough kids and neighborhood gangs, one of them, Evans, was actually in a gang; but each of them were able to find teachers in the local public schools who nurtured their talents and when necessary protected them from harm. Some were regular classroom teachers, others were coaches and music teachers, a few ran after school programs in public schools or local parks. One individual, Vincent Tibbs, the director of the night center at a local elementary school, PS 99, received mention in numerous oral histories for running a program which sponsored dances, talent shows, and sports leagues; Howie Evans actually credits Mr Tibbs with saving his life by refusing to let him leave the center to participate in a gang fight.
The positive experiences these individuals had in schools and community centers led a number of them to decide to become teachers, social workers, and school administrators when they grew up, many of them in neighborhoods similar to the ones they grew up in.
One of them, Paul Cannon, runs a remarkable public school about 6 Blocks from where Canada grew up which is open 7 days a week, has Sunday basketball for neighborhood parents, and where the entire school culture, including an innovative “Old School Museum” is organized to honor community history.
In short, not everyone who grew up in Morrisania felt so abandoned by the local public school system that they had to circumvent it entirely in order to nurture, inspire and protect young people living in low income communities. The Canada model is an intriguing one, but it is not the only vehicle we have to educate children in poor and working class families. Some public schools were effective when Canada was growing up and some are as effective, or more effective, right now than Canada’s Promise Academy, even without the extra funding.
It’s also fascinating to read Canada’s book and see how he can go into great detail about the day-to-day effects of poverty and racism, without once pondering their origins and beneficiaries.
That must have made it so much easier to accept all that money from the Billionaire Boys Club, and to blame teachers and their unions.
Also interesting is that our NYS Ed Commissioner is a product of public schools here in NYC. Unlike Mr. Canda, Mr. King credits public schools with “saving his life”, yet as an adult went on to open charter schools.
I suppose today we can’t save anybody’s life without turning a profit.
By the way, his two young daughters attend private school in a suburb of Albany.
From the NY Times:
Charter Founder Is Named Education Commissioner
“John B. King Jr., who credits teachers for helping him surmount an isolated childhood as an orphan in Brooklyn..”
“His drive, he said in an interview on Sunday, comes from a sense of urgency to create for other children the refuge he found as a fourth
grader at Public School 276 in Canarsie…”
Hi, I couldn’t find an e-mail link.
Hi I am a big fan but I will get right to it. The united way recently convened a blue ribbon panel here in Jacksonville to discuss and come up with suggestions to improve teaching. I think many of their suggestions are poor but what really got me was only 2 of the 45 members were actual classroom teachers.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-07-30/story/northeast-florida-coalition-offers-recommendations-increasing-teacher
http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2012/07/another-blue-ribbon-panel-excludes.html
I think this might be an interesting story for your readers to emphasize how teachers are just left out in the cold.
United Way’s capture by school privatizer’s appears to be national: it is waist deep in the effort to turn over the Philadelphia public schools to more “savvy businessmen.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/boston-consulting-group-
The silliness of this anecdotal post perfectly demonstrates the need to have statistical tools to inform education debate. How do you expect to get at any kind of informed truth by lining up a handfull of individuals on each side and saying “Here, I’m right, don’t you see?” What IS clear is that the education system (both charters and district schools alike) is failing far too many students. This is not to say there aren’t other systems that are also failing to adress poverty, but education system is undeniably coming up short of its goal of educating all students. The question should not be do we have good teachers in public schools? of course we do. The question should be: how can we improve the system to better serve the kids who are in it?
In the presence of statistical models that are themselves based on the wrong questions, and that produce flawed answers, and that divert our attention from what matters most, anecdotes and fiction are more information that a lot of the statistical junk thrown our way. Anecdotes have the smell of real life; statistics saw whatever you want them to say, based on the question you asked and the ones you didn’t. I can use statistics to prove or disprove anything al all.
Exactly Diane. Students are more than anecdotes. They are our constituents and their feedback counts most. Ask any good teacher who values their feedback and every good school that acknowledges that.
I have always appreciated your ability to critique statistical “junk.” You point out important flaws and manipulations that go into the modeling done by many in the choice-reform movement. But the language of statistics is superior to the above scents of humanity for exactly this reason, it is receptive to critique. It can be deconstructed by critical minds on both sides, and by that process the models can improve. Biases can be identified, and eventually removed or clarified. I find your critiques of those models which ignore variables such as poverty, or differentiated school funding, far more compelling than your assertion that a handfull of cheating scandals and the wisdom of “Campbell’s Law” justify the elimination of a national system of
accountability.
It’s probably beyond the power of any school system to make the streets and homes safe places for the children. However, it’s definitely within any school system’s power to make the schools safe places for the children.
The main reason that parents enroll their children in charter schools is to protect their children from the chaotic, disruptive, and sometimes unsafe environment that exists in many low-SES/inner-city schools.
Amazingly, the school reform debate has largely/completely ignored this issue. Instead of pushing high-stakes-testing, teacher evaluations, teacher discharge, tenure elimination, charters, and vouchers, public officials and school reformers who want to improve the low-SES/inner-city schools should focus on improving student behavior in the classroom/school building.
Most low-SES/inner-city schools are plagued by chronic absenteeism, chronic tardiness, and minor but endemic classroom misconduct. These behavior issues constantly disrupt instruction, make effective instruction much harder (sometimes impossible), and are the main cause of teacher burnout. Suburban (as well as high-SES inner-city) schools have occasional behavior issues, but on a much smaller scale and the behavior issues rarely disrupt instruction. If someone observed classes in a low-SES/inner-city school for a few days and then did the same in a suburban school (as I have done), the most striking difference would be the much more extensive/constant misbehavior disrupting instruction in the low-SES/inner-city school. Yet no one even mentions this issue when we talk about improving the low-SES/inner-city schools.
School reformers should poll veteran inner-city teachers and principals, asking for ideas to improve student behavior. They should then test the most reasonable ideas in pilot projects. And then implement the most effective ideas system wide.
The solutions need not include draconian discipline. The HCZ puts a teacher’s aide in the classroom to assist the teacher in maintaining appropriate behavior. Other easy-to-implement ideas include training teachers to use the TV “Supernanny” approach to reducing minor misconduct (post/announce/repeat rules frequently, 1-warning, timeout consequence, no arguing, pleading, yelling, or negotiating, criticize the behavior, not the student), requiring principals to support rather than undermine/reprimand teachers who impose discipline, create a strong presumption that the teacher is right regarding credibility disputes/minor discipline issues (that is, discourage students/parents from challenging teachers on minor discipline issues), provide a front-office adminstrator to handle moderate/severe discipline issues (minimizing the administrative burdens on the teacher), eliminate procedural prerequisites to imposing minor discipline (i.e., must personally contact parent before requiring after-school detention) that cause teachers to refrain from imposing discipline, and staff an in-school-suspension room.
These ideas are relatively inexpensive, are much less controversial than high-stakes-testing or vouchers, and have little, if any, negative downside.
It’s at least worth a try.
Great article Dr. Naison. It’s good to have you on our side!
I agree with you. Although I teach in a small city, we have 60% of our students in the low SES and many second language learners with little support from home. During a time when we as teachers had little support from our administration regarding discipline, and there was no formal discipline plan in place to deal with problems, learning in the school took a big hit. Our test scores plummeted and neither students nor teachers felt safe in the school.
As soon as we had a new administration that supported us, a plan deal with tardies and truancies was put in place, then we developed a discipline plan. I wish I had the stats here with me because they are amazing. Instead of 50 kids still standing in the hall unconcerned after the tardy bell rings, we now have stand back right before bell time because it’s like the running of the bulls: no one wants to be late. We have fewer failing students, test scores are increase every year (of course other things figure in to that also), and students feel safer and happier.
Thanks for adding an important issue to the discussion.
Mr. Canada has done good things. My problem with him and his schools are the following.
He is portrayed as a hero in education in helping poor children receive a fair education however, the focus is on the kids and families who want the help. Wouldn’t these be the kids that most likely to excel in public school. What about the kids not at the lottery? These are kids that may not have family support and really need the added support of a strong learning community. I know there are door to door campaigns to find these people but how successful is this truly. The public schools are left with the most disadvantaged students with the least family support which in turn makes the public schools look even worst when scores are released. When you are skimming off the top are you really showing your maximum potential as a school?
Mr. Canada’s focus is on the kids and families that want the help, except when some of those kids bring his tests scores down, in which case he expels them.
Reblogged this on teachingandlearningtoday and commented:
Wouldn’t these be the kids that most likely to excel in public school. What about the kids not at the lottery? These are kids that may not have family support and really need the added support of a strong learning community. I know there are door to door campaigns to find these people but how successful is this truly. The public schools are left with the most disadvantaged students with the least family support which in turn makes the public schools look even worst when scores are released. When you are skimming off the top are you really showing your maximum potential as a school?