200+ Educational Strategies to Teach Children of Color

CHAPTER 1: FRAMEWORK

My mentor, the late Dr. Barbara Sizemore, used to tell me that as an educational consultant, my job was to observe students, teachers, and staff in action, objectively listen to their concerns, and then (and only then) assess the situation and offer insights and strategies to help our children. While I am pleased that my book 100+ Educational Strategies to Teach Children of Color became a national bestseller, it might be argued that I compromised my mentor’s wise approach by offering strategies before gathering all the evidence.

In my own defense, I’ll say that for the past 35 years I have worked with schools and school districts from coast to coast. I have observed and interviewed thousands of students, teachers, staff, administrators, and parents. I have conducted independent literature reviews of research by leading Africentric and mainstream thinkers. And I have documented both my primary and secondary findings in more than 20 books. Rest assured that the strategies presented in 100+ and now 200+ Educational Strategies to Teach Children of Color are based on real schools, real problems, and effective strategies that are working, particularly with underserved African American and Latino students, especially boys and right brain learners, the most neglected student groups in public education.

The most urgent issue in education today is the academic achievement gap between African American and White students. African American and Latino children, especially male children, have a dropout rate in most urban areas that hovers near 50 percent. Our Black and Latino children scored 300 points below White and Asian children on the SAT. There’s a three stanine difference between Black and Latino children and White and Asian children on elementary school exams. Our Black and Latino children are about 30 percent of the children in public schools, but they are almost 80 percent of the children placed in special education and less than 15 percent of the gifted and talented children.

I have devoted my entire career to raising awareness of this issue and its many causes, dispelling myths and stereotypes, and offering strategies for success. Yet many educators continue to believe in the inevitability of the gap, and they blame poverty, single parent families, lack of parent involvement, lack of parent educational attainment, how schools are funded, and even genetics.

Clearly we have a problem. We are facing an educational crisis of epic proportions, but those who are charged with improving student performance don’t believe the gap can be closed. They have no faith in our children’s ability to learn and their own ability to teach. So if a teacher facing a classroom of 30 students doesn’t believe she can teach them, her expectations are already at rock bottom, and she will not give them her best. Our children are more than capable of learning and excelling; our teachers need to reacquaint themselves with the population they serve, and they must be open to new strategies and techniques that have proven effective with African American and Latino students. We cannot afford to lose any more children to systemic neglect. We must close the academic achievement gap.

In my book, An African Centered Response to Ruby Payne’s Poverty Theory, I make the case that while family income does have an impact on academic achievement, it is not as important as the expectations of teachers. Those educators who agree with Dr. Payne’s theory will not only have low expectations of low-income students, they will tend to resist any and all positive approaches. For example, if I tell a teacher that increasing time on task improves grades and test scores, she may not believe it if she has bought into the poverty theory. If I offer our multicultural, Africentric SETCLAE curriculum to educators who believe that low parent involvement is the main cause of the achievement gap, they probably will not be open to giving it a chance. If I suggest that more right brain lesson plans will make the learning experience more inclusive, educators who cite low parent educational attainment as the cause of the achievement gap will not be open to change.

For these reasons and more, I simply cannot wait any longer for teachers to quit looking at the income of the home, the number of parents in the home, parent involvement, parent educational attainment, or school funding. So at the risk of making another compromise, I am offering an additional 100+ educational strategies in this book to help children of color.

The 5 Types of Educators

Unfortunately, the strategies presented in this book will barely register with many educators. As I’ve mentioned in my previous books, there are five types of educators: Custodians, Referral Agents, Instructors, Teachers, and Coaches.

Custodians are basically the babysitters of the group. As long as students don’t cause too much trouble,