Vicki Cobb, writer of children’s books, writes here about the appearance of Professor David Omotoso Stovall of the University of Illinois at the New York State Reading Association conference in upstate New York.
He “gave an electrifying keynote address to an audience of mostly white, mostly female and mostly middle-aged reading teachers. The gist of his statement was that literacy, the ability to read, was a political act that was the first step in empowering children to be thoughtful citizens. It could also disrupt the famous Chicago inner-city Public Schools’ reputation of being a pipeline to prison. Adorable black and brown five-year-olds enter buildings with metal detectors, gray walls, and barred windows. Stovall questions what message that sends to these beginning learners. How many of these young human beings discover the joy of learning in this environment? Dr. Stovall is a literacy activist for all children. He was hoping to enlist some of these New York teachers in understanding that literacy is the underlying responsibility of a free government. That they are, indeed, on the front lines.
We live in a free society where public policies are supposed to evolve from public discourse that is predicated on an informed electorate. David Stovall’s work rethinks how schools are currently managed so that the love of reading is not present even if children can decode words on a page. I decided to interview him about his thoughts on how to change the system to bring inner-city children into university spaces.”
What follows is her interview. You will enjoy reading it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Government policies no longer flow from an informed electorate. Our policies today flow from billionaires and corporations that want to forward their own agendas based on some version of free market capitalism. Education policy today is a top down data driven monster that has no legitimate basis in fact. The worst of these market based endeavors have been inflicted on poor minority students without public consent or a vote as part of the process.
Literacy is of prime importance to all students. I taught high school ESL for five years before moving to the elementary ESL classroom. One of the reasons I moved was because I felt frustrated in the high school. While I enjoyed the students, the ELLs had little time to develop their skills before they were out the door. In the elementary school there was more time and flexibility to help students learn English and help them become independent readers. I felt I could have a bigger impact working with younger students. Most of my students, mostly Haitian and Hispanic, could not read in their first language. One of the greatest joys of my career was watching the “lightbulb” moment when students moved into making sense of print in English. It was one of the most empowering moments for many students, and this moment was often the beginning of a successful academic career. Unfortunately, too many young people that get into difficulties with law enforcement are struggling readers.
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Can someone translate this response into plain English? I got the implication of the bracketed text, which I understand to be saying: Hire more Black and Latino teachers and fewer non-Black and non-Latino teachers. But damned if I can make out what other “strategies” he’s proposing here.
Are there effective strategies for using literacy to dismantle systems of oppression?
One effective strategy is to center content and pedagogical practices in the lives of our students. Many strategies that are utilized currently are antiquated and still centered in the perceived values of White, male, western European descended, cis-gendered, protestant Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied people. Most of the students in city schools who are primarily students of color (mostly African-American and Latino) come from the myriad of cultural, religious, ethnic, and national origins are excluded in this frame. [Children want to see themselves reflected in their instruction and teachers.]
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Read books and other works by people of color, LGBT people, women, etc. Look at scientific and other achievements of women and people of color, etc. Look at history with an inclusive perspective, not just the framework of European/American power – what effect has that power had on non-whites? Etc.
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Thank you!
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Yes, Dienne, I think that is correct.
As a free-lance for-lang ‘special’ to PreK’s, I don’t get the broad exposure to multiple cultures that an ESL like “retired teacher” does. But I’ll never forget one ‘lightbulb’ moment long ago, introducing a ladino Chanukah song to an expensive, white-bread Montessori PreK where all holidays were celebrated. I said only that Chanukah was celebrated by Jewish people of many nationalities– here was a song from Spanish-speaking countries. A 5y.o. raised her head, wide-eyed: “Oh– I’M Jewish!”
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For Bethree – I had an experience a few years ago when I got an Aboriginal speaker to come and give talks to the children about her life and the Stolen Generations (too long to explain what that is, here, but look it up if you have the stomach for it). And one of my students, for the first time, told me delightedly that she was also Aboriginal.
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Thank you for sharing that, David!
As teachers, we need to reach for literary content our students can relate to on a personal level– it helps them become avid readers; they learn that there are books out there they can search for & enjoy. Some curricula go to the extreme PC-version, shunning great works of Western lit because they are “too white,” that’s a mistake, too. Dickens e.g. speaks to the poor & downtrodden by bureaucratic govt, whatever ethnic. The Greek classics & Shakespeare speak to all humans.
But meanwhile back in PreK-land, my students enjoy [the Spanish version of] “A Snowy Day” every winter– not just because protagonists are black (which many of my students are), but also because it’s about how urban kids– like my central-NJ students– enjoy the winter.
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By this logic, white students will thrill to European history and physics (all those white scientists!).
Cobb and Stovall rehash a very stale idea here. Contrary to what they suggest, there’s a ton of minority writers and minority history in the curriculum of most public schools these days. What do I see? The weak students, regardless of color, still flounder. On more than one occasion I’ve felt dismay at witnessing a minority student tune out a lesson on his own culture’s history. The strong students find literature and history interesting regardless of the color of its authors and subjects. The boost that color-coordinating curriculum gives to weak students exists –I have witnessed some students perk up when “their” people are mentioned –but it’s small. And even if it were large, would we really want to confine kids to works by and about “their” identity group? Is that education?
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I am curious of folks might think that the ability to code might also come to be seen as a political act that will be an important step in empowering children.
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I am all for coding-related curriculum, starting young. My bias: I was a math-poor student (esp alg) who excelled in geom, then in 20’s took a work-related (80’s) into to programming course, & proceeded to at-home hobby work like writing BASIC programs to help w/complex tax returns. What I realized as an adult was that I am good in logic, which is math-related, & probably could have been better in marh had it been taught a bit differently.
I don’t see coding as political empowerment, just as a needed, neglected component of K12 math. It touches every kid’s life, wired-in as they are now, & gives a needed foundation in the binary roots of all those user-friendly apps they take in daily.
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All on point about Chicago. Another factor not mentioned in the ways in which children are disenfranchised is lack of access to books in a school library staffed by a trained school librarian – CPS has gone from 454 librarians to 157 since 2013. More than 3/4 of CPS schools have no functioning school library.
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eliminating libraries and librarians is tantamount to saying Literacy Is No Longer Our Goal.
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This is a huge subject, & I for one would like to see a lot more about it on this blog.
What, exactly, do libraries do for us today? All I understand from my own experience is, a lot less than they did for me 40-60 yrs ago. I spent huge amounts of my time in libraries from age 8 to age 28 [’50’s-’70’s] & that has declined eversince [zero since ’90’s].
I know part of that is just attaining an income where I could afford to buy instead of borrrow books– & that was aided by qtrly-subscription / book reviews >>mail-order-catalog-shopping [the precursor to online shopping] — but during those transition yrs, I still depended on libraries for a quick & thorough look at what was available– as well as reliable research sources [that was replaced by internet]. That was also aided by the ’80’s publishing revolution– an accounting change jacked up the price of books, but that soon gave way to a boon in cheap remaindered/ used books, & led to therise of big-box book stores.
So what, today, do librairies do for us? I think I will find out, as a soon-to-be income-restricted retiree, hoping to once again borrow instead of buy the books I want to read… but will my local library still be there for me, undermined as it is– having had its research function replaced by the internet, & its borrowing function undermined by Amazon & Kindle?
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If Cobb and Stovall are serious about helping close the achievement gap, they should heed Dan Willingham’s advice (from today’s New York Times): https://nyti.ms/2k0fPuk
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