First Grade Was Harder Than I Thought: Parenting While Black in the Public School

• In Event: Struggles of Race, Identity, and Racism as We Advocate for Our Children in Public Schools

Abstract

Purpose
To provide an evocative autoethnography (Ellingson and Ellis, 2008) that starts a conversation about strategies for effective advocacy by African American parents for their African American children in predominantly white school settings.

Perspective
Tillman (2003) discusses four research-based assumptions that undergird African American parental involvement in their children’s education in public schools. These assumptions provide the perspective for the present paper: 1) parental involvement is a fundamental ingredient in the social, emotional, and academic success of urban school children, 2) parents are and should be considered legitimate partners in their children’s education, 3) parents want a ‘voice’ in their children’s education and desire to actively participate in the decisions that may affect their opportunities for a quality education, and 4) parents cannot be separated from their children in the educational process (p. 298).

Methodology
Bochner and Ellis (2006) describe an autoethnographer as, “first and foremost a communicator and a storyteller” (p. 111), and autoethnoraphy as a methodology that “depicts people struggling to overcome adversity,” and “people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles” (p. 111). I have chosen autoethnography as the mode of inquiry for this paper because I found myself struggling to understand why there was fierce opposition to me as I tried to advocate for my six year-old daughter at her school. Tillman (2003) describes my wife and me accurately as she writes, “Like parents of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, African American parents want their children to have educational experiences that significantly increase their life chances for professional and personal growth and development” (p. 299).

Data
With concern that I not fall into the trap articulated by Chang (2008) of focusing on the self to the exclusion of others, I will use letters from school officials, e-mail messages between school officials and myself, and California state law as data sources. My memories of the experiences I encountered at the school and with school officials in person and on the telephone will augment the printed data sources.

Warrants for arguments/point of view
It is well established that African American children receive a very different (inferior) education than other racial and ethnic groups in the United States (Delpit, 1995). It is now becoming evident that African American parents experience a very different reception than parents of other racial groups receive when they try to advocate for their children. Their stories must be told in order to prepare parents for what might be their experience, and in order to educate the teachers who will receive them.

Scientific significance of the work
As autoethnography is a storytelling process in which the researcher seeks to make meaning of a disorienting experience, as an African American parent, researcher and teacher educator, I have chosen to make meaning of this experience by telling my story for myself and for other researchers, parents and teachers in our society that prides itself on being both democratic and culturally diverse.

Author

• Andre J. Branch, San Diego State University