"By Yvette Owo"
Methods of Discrimination
“…America's public education system also contains more superficial methods of
discriminating against African-American students, especially, again, African-American males. In February, Dr. LaVonne Neal, a professor at Southwestern University and special education teacher, gave a lecture entitled, "Something in the Way He Moves." She discussed teachers' perceptions of African-American males' behavior and school achievement based simply on the way the African-American male student "moves."
Dr. Neal noticed that teachers often made comments about a child's expected level of achievement as they watched the children walk through the halls between classes. Comments like "He'll never be in my [gifted and talented class]" were common. When Dr. Neal questioned her fellow teachers about how they could make such assumptions, many responded, "Look. Look at the way he's walking down the hallway (or how he's dressed, etc.)." Dr. Neal conducted an experiment to determine the effects of African-American males' movement styles on teachers' expectations and reactions.
The test showed that teachers not trained in cultural differences recognize social patterns as deficiencies, and minority children (especially African-American males) are often perceived as low in achievement, aggressive and in need of special education.
Dr. Neal suggests that to remedy such problems, teachers need to learn Culturally Responsive Teaching methods….”
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