Fools, Foes, or Freedom: Which One Will We Feed?

• In Event: Addressing Social Trauma in and Through Schools: Humanizing, Restorative Justice, and Critical Hope Approaches

Abstract

The persistent failure of schools to serve poor and nonwhite children has been well documented for the last several decades. Jonathon Kozol has dubbed this condition the “shame of the nation”. Such schools do not provide youth with opportunities to experience a sense of hope, defined by a young person’s perceived capability to: 1) identify pathways toward a desired goal, and 2) motivate oneself to begin and sustain goal-directed behavior. Recent breakthroughs in public health and epidemiology have scholars in those fields arguing that hope contributes to the healthy social development of youth by providing them with a sense of control over the stressors in their lives (Syme, 2004; Wilson et al., 2008). In short, hopeful people feel empowered to respond positively to challenges in their lives (i.e. illness, violence, failure), reducing the negative health outcomes related to feelings of helplessness when confronted with social stressors. Identifying ways to build and sustain hope is particularly important for people working with youth facing conditions such as poverty, unemployment, and violence, which often impede healthy development and are serious barriers to well-being (Bronfenbrenner 1979; Garbarino 1995; Chalk and Phillips 1996; Brooks-Gunn, Duncan et al. 1997; Williams and Jackson, 2005).

As the hope and academic achievement for youth of color remains intolerably low, it is necessary to highlight, examine and understand the practices and strategies that actually work for youth of color. Still, there is very little research and writing done by urban educators to document effective practices in urban schools. However, this author has taught and researched effective teaching practices in schools around the world for over 20 years and through this presentation will provide insights into effective program building and educational practices. This presentation will equip educational researchers to leverage research-based critiques of up-by-your-bootstraps theories of individualized success being pedaled in schools. In their place, it offers concrete, time-honored, research based strategies that foreground relationships, relevance, and responsibility (the three R’s) as essential ingredients to fundamentally altering the business-as-usual approach that continues to fail, and harm, so many of our young people. Through the voices of young people and educators, this presentation reissues license for community responsive practices that relieve undeserved suffering in schools and communities and increase the hope of youth of color. Drawing from observations of school leadership, classroom practice and student voice of the Roses in Concrete Community School, the three R’s of effective community responsive pedagogy will be defined and connected to successful teaching and critical hope (Author, 2009).

Author

• Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, San Francisco State University