What is it like to teach black students?

[dragonfly]

I taught in a school located in the middle of the projects that was integrated by federal mandate until 2007. The population was about 50/50 but the behaviors and attitudes were those of the lowest common denominator. White students don't raise blacks up ... black students drag whites down. Teachers must teach to the lowest ability in the class, or risk censure for not doing so. Public indoctrination is so broken that there is no fixing it. It needs to be dismantled and rebuilt as small, neighborhood schools without any federal control.

Thank you for this post, particularly the sentence I bolded. I always thought integrating the schools would lead to more and bigger problems than what they were trying to fix. Yes, I'm old enough to remember when it started. We're seeing the results today and it's not pretty.

[Shea Grey]

I live in a suburb full of military retirees and active duty personnel. It is part of the most conservative big city metro area in the country. We have oil, natural gas, and lots of farm land. If something were to go wrong, I'm in as good a place as it gets, at least to my thinking.

then may God bless and protect you, your kin and friends, thats my prayer, in Jesus' Name, amen....S.

[Josie]

I worked in a very well-to-do suburban high school in Columbus, Ohio. The race to the bottom is there, too. When did the unruliness and violence in the school start? When section 8 housing was forced into the area. Sorry. These cultures are too different to educate together. People can keep on pretending that we just have to find the "right" way to teach these students, a way that "works" for them but that is hogwash. Our country's buy-in to the pc crap has sent us screaming to the lowest among us. Sad.

JMHO but I truely believe it started with Johnson and his Great Society experiment. Before that, parents and kids knew they had to find a job and work for food and shelter. Therefore, pressure was on the kids from the parents, teachers and society to go to school, learn the skills and contribute to society as a whole. Now days, parental units and the kids they spew out with amazing regularity know the system will provide all that is needed and more to live. Why do any more than necessary? And if I am required to be here in school, why not make it fun for myself? Create all the mayham you can and enhance your street cred.

[blueridge]

Have heard of teachers with slashed tires and threats to their lives...especially for those that wouldn't 'pass' the trouble-makers
to the next grade level.

'Course none of O's kids would ever do anything like that...

[Gercarson]

Have heard of teachers with slashed tires and threats to their lives...especially for those that wouldn't 'pass' the trouble-makers
to the next grade level.

'Course none of O's kids would ever do anything like that...

We are supposed to teach "black" children in a manner that they can comprehend, unlike "white" children who are taught to become educated. By that I mean we are being tacitly told that "black" children do not have the capacity to learn - sort of like actually showing them that the square peg will not fit into the round hole. Teachers are being "held back" in their teaching because the government has made a conscious decision that "blacks" are just too stupid to learn and must be catered to.
Read between the lines folks - it's pretty clear.

[TimeTraveler]

JMHO but I truely believe it started with Johnson and his Great Society experiment. Before that, parents and kids knew they had to find a job and work for food and shelter. Therefore, pressure was on the kids from the parents, teachers and society to go to school, learn the skills and contribute to society as a whole. Now days, parental units and the kids they spew out with amazing regularity know the system will provide all that is needed and more to live. Why do any more than necessary? And if I am required to be here in school, why not make it fun for myself? Create all the mayham you can and enhance your street cred.

Yes, you are correct. The father of the modern welfare society was Lyndon B. Johnson and his idea of a "great society". Before that, the charities and the churches took care of the poor and nobody starved to death. Those who wanted to eat found whatever work they could find and were grateful to have it. The welfare today lets the recipients sleep all day and run the streets all night looking for trouble. And I'm talking about all those on welfare, not just blacks.

[Switchback]

They removed God, allegiance to flag & country and student discipline out of the classroom. They removed discipline from the home and replaced it with New Age garbage. They created a vacuum that sucked in the foul wickedness of broken families and out of wedlock kids.

[joannita]

I am not qualified to speak to inner city High Schools, but am eminently qualified to speak to the most inner city, probably the largest (1200 students) 99.9 % minority elementary school of one of NYS's largest cities. Comparing working with my inner city students with white rural students is like comparing dining on hot out of the oven European whole wheat or rye bread with eating "day old" white bread. The first is an experience to be savored, the second is, to be blunt, rather boring and forgettable. Parents supported the school and the teachers, working in the school was a joy.

[Yarnball]

I am not qualified to speak to inner city High Schools, but am eminently qualified to speak to the most inner city, probably the largest (1200 students) 99.9 % minority elementary school of one of NYS's largest cities. Comparing working with my inner city students with white rural students is like comparing dining on hot out of the oven European whole wheat or rye bread with eating "day old" white bread. The first is an experience to be savored, the second is, to be blunt, rather boring and forgettable. Parents supported the school and the teachers, working in the school was a joy.

Your comment is unique. To what do you attribute your different experience of these groups of students?

[Rabbit]

Rabbit, you are correct, and that's exactly the way I taught in my inner-city Milwaukee Jr. Hi. school for five and one half years. Yes, it was a challenge, and even moreso because it was at the time when bussing was started. My school went from being 20% black to 80% black and was the focus of all kinds of protests. I remember walking students thru lines of police holding back skinheads shouting obscenities just to get in the door. Not a particularly good educational environment, but we made it.

I began teaching there as a one day substitute for the music class. The kids had already been through 6 weeks worth of subs, many of whom had books and other things thrown at them. I was hired for one day because they didn't think I'd last either. Chorus was down to 12 rowdy kids by this time. Kids were "jiving" all over the classroom and totally ignoring me when I walked in. I grabbed my guitar, plopped myself down on the desk and started singing "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm goin' out an' eat worms." and everything stopped. Once I had their attention I explained the facts of life to them...I knew something they didn't and it was up to THEM to learn it.

When I left 5.5 years later, there were 1500 kids in the music program and the dept had 3 full time teachers, two para-professionals, and 2 clerical aides. We all worked with the regular classroom teachers to tailor our curriculum to reinforce what they were doing in their classes and it made a difference there, too.

Did I have problems? Sure. I vividly remember standing between two students with knives drawn who wanted me to move cause he was "gonna kill him". I faced down the kid I knew (expecting a knife in my back) and he shook his head and said "I can't do it, I respect you too much." Phew!

The worst was the girls because once they got going they wouldn't back down. I remember my 6'2" paraprofessional trying to break up a girls fight and he had his hands full. I waded into the fray, caught one of the girls around the neck and jammed my fingers up her nose and dragged her to the office by the nose. He finally picked up the other girl and carried her.

My classroom seated 66 students and extra chairs were set up for general music class. For the most part, I didn't have much in the way of discipline problems because I was tough, but fair and the kids knew it. I taught the fun classes and they didn't want to miss it.

I required high standards in my classroom and the talent I saw grow was awesome.

Bab, My hat is off to you. You are what a teacher is supposed to be. My sister was a high school teacher back in those days, and she was in your rank. She taught Art and also English Lit. She was five foot nothing, but she commanded so much respect from her students she could have been 6'2''.

I was sitting in my office one day with the radio on and the news was reporting a big race riot in progress at her school. There she is down there and her family is up here one state away and we couldn't get through to the school on the phone.

We were all worried sick so we called the Highway Patrol and they actually got a message to her to call home.

She said there was a big fight going on but some of her biggest male students, black and white, came to her room as soon as it started to make sure she was protected.

It seems to be meaner now than ever and that's because we have allowed it. What's the word now Gibmedat.

[joannita]

We expected the students to behave, we respected them, we made it clear that we cared about them, we visited parents in their homes regularly, we weren't afraid to break with tradition and do things differently, I could go on and on. I still run into former students occasionally and they are thrilled to see me and have many happy memories. We were castigated for doing things differently, things that now are considered the latest and greatest. Oh well; I knew what happened to the point men in Nam and so wasn't surprised.. We were the only staff that wasn't segregated socially during our off time... as I said, I could go on and on

[Maryh]

My son taught calculus in an inner city high school in Columbus, Ohio for 15 years. In all those years, he could probably count on his two hand, the students who really were there to learn something. I sat in on one of his classes-Algebra- and couldn't believe how rude the kids were to him. The majority of them were bounced around from school to juvie and back to school. He wanted out so badly and thank God, this year he was just hired in the suburban district in which he lives with his family. He is taking a $15,000 pay and benefit cut and going back to the 10 yr pay scale. He said the quality of life is worth it!!!! What does that tell you???? The Columbus City School System is losing a very good teacher.

[33dInd]

Ok,regarding the op......both wife and daughter are elementary teachers and in a majority black grade. School (section 8 rental). Well most of the op rings true from what I have heard them say, and this is in ok city not new York city.
So that leads me to conclude it is not regional but across country

[Coulter]

How the world looks to Blacks
One point on which most Blacks agree
is that everything is “racis’.” This is
one message of liberalism they have
absorbed completely. Did you do your
homework? “Na, homework racis’.”
Why did you get an F on the test? “Test
racis’.”

"How the world looks to Blacks
One point on which most Blacks agree
is that everything is “racis’.” This is
one message of liberalism they have
absorbed completely. Did you do your
homework? “Na, homework racis’.”
Why did you get an F on the test? “Test
racis’.”


Very interesting article.

[Floratrek]

I taught in Cleveland's east side during Cleveland's major riots. The students and teachers were totally afraid,and appauled ! When I returned to PA, I found that the best teacher there was a black history teacher who could be PA "teacher of the year"; I nominated him and he won. You can't just classify people! This was in the 80's.

[TXKajun]

As bad as things are in the classroom from what we're reading here, can anyone imagine what it's like in the 'hood where these kids live?? Nobody there to even try to tell them to sit down, shut up, behave, act like a civilized human being, etc. Anarchy must reign supreme there.

We used to live in Galveston, TX and every summer, there was a black fraternity that spent a week in Galveston. It was literally a week of terror for the residents. What must it be like where these folks live every day???

Just thinkin' out loud.

Kajun

[dstraito]

Ok,regarding the op......both wife and daughter are elementary teachers and in a majority black grade. School (section 8 rental). Well most of the op rings true from what I have heard them say, and this is in ok city not new York city.
So that leads me to conclude it is not regional but across country

It very well may be country wide but I'll testify that it is NOT the color that is the problem. It is the culture and the lack of family.

I was a military brat and truly, I did not know there was a difference between a white kid and a black kid while we were overseas. It was only after coming back to this country the attitude and culture hit me like a ton of bricks. Before coming back, they looked the same, sounded the same and acted the same as anyone else.

This is pretty much an indication of environment as a root cause over heredity.

[dstraito]

if there's a coming race war, what the hail are any of you doing living in a county that aint 99% white?

no amount of forum posting, is going to get you any farther away from this reality, so why not just focus ALL your attention and labors upon achieving this end? the whole world is going 'tribal' anyway, thats just a reality.

i can understand the underlying anger, but anger unfocused, just leads to what?...dying in place? if where you live, is going to the dogs, GET OUT!!

you all really think all this urban nightmare predators gangs leave TPTB sleepless?...think about it. all this madness is tied up, in highly concentrated urban areas...tell me if i'm wrong. That said, any military commander, worth his salt, and having the manpower and force, can seal off these area's, right?....so who do you think these alphabet camps are REALLY for?

white folks?

come on. last time we did this, back in 42, we put japs behind wire, did we put german americans behind wire?.....no. we put the japs there. okay, so now we got a low level insurrection in urban areas with black gang's, and we got a lot of muzzies, ALSO in urban areas, building mosques, not assimilating...if something large and ugly happens, where you think they're going?

if you're white, and get nervous where you're at....get out, head to an area, where your county and every surrounding county is 99% white.

i did, and i dont hate anybody. its 2012, and if you like cities, you're just going to have take what the city "gives", and what it appears to be giving is a for real shite storm. Get to where the winters are harsh, the woods hard, and the water pure, its the only answer. You cant change a darn thing, EXCEPT, your own lifestyle...so do it.

this forum has a LOT of 'cred' among preppers, but if you let it degenirate into the 'we hate negroes" forum, you're gonna lose that 'cred', and you might even get a lot of outside focus from the PC, tree hugging crowd, you dont want.

i got about one foot out the door, not coz i'm some panty waist limp wristed commie queer, coz i dont like some harsh undeserved spotlight shining on me, who needs the heat?....dont let them paint tb2k as the 'we hate negroes' haunt. so now if you want to hate on me for saying that, go for it....gimme that push. i always liked the forum, because you could get heads up links on unfolding info and news, as far this other stuff, tell me something i dont know.

The only problem with the "if you don't like it leave" mentality is that it does not fix anything. It makes matters worse. That being said, I'm not going to stick around a blighted area and put myself in harms way to try and fix something that probably can't be fixed. I lived in a very nice respectable area. As things turned to $hit, people move to other areas that were still respectable. The deterioration continue an an ever increasing pace. The people responsible for the crime and bad behaviors moved in as the saying goes, "nature abhors a vacuum".

One of the problems is that liberals in their rose-colored world look at the down-trodden and say if only they had role models and a better chance in life, let's put HUD housing in the middle of this respectable neighborhood. That doesn't work. It doesn't bring those people up, it brings the respectable neighborhood down.

My old high school is in danger of closing. School districts are one of the main selling points in real estate today. People move to a district where they can obtain the best possible circumstances for their children. When Busing started happening, that was probably one of the primary reasons suburbs grew at the rate they did. People wanted their kids somewhere they could succeed, not somewhere they were going to lower the bar.

What happens to those areas that people moved away from? It gets taken over by people that don't have the same cultural and family values. The negative element start messing in their own nest. It becomes urban blight. Rust never sleeps.

[Countrymouse]

I am a former public school teacher.

I have friends still in the profession.

I live near Atlanta (chocolate city, just like NO)

What he writes is absolute, unvarnished TRUTH.

I salute his courage and truthfulness in writing it----

but as soon as it is known in whatever school district he now teaches in that he wrote this, HE WILL BE FIRED.

I hope he's already retired and has his pension---otherwise the wrath of the system for his exposing the skeltons and the dirty laundry will be terrible upon him....he will lose his job, his pension, all he has built up.....

I know, because it's happened to friends of mine.

You DO NOT BUCK the system---if you do not agree with it, or go along with it, or just harden yourself to live with it and look the other way for 25 years until you can retire---you GET OUT and get a different line of work.

I feel for him---he will be crucified for this.

[Countrymouse]

I taught in Cleveland's east side during Cleveland's major riots. The students and teachers were totally afraid,and appauled ! When I returned to PA, I found that the best teacher there was a black history teacher who could be PA "teacher of the year"; I nominated him and he won. You can't just classify people! This was in the 80's.

Different WORLD now, Floratrek...

[BassMan]

if there's a coming race war, what the hail are any of you doing living in a county that aint 99% white?

no amount of forum posting, is going to get you any farther away from this reality, so why not just focus ALL your attention and labors upon achieving this end? the whole world is going 'tribal' anyway, thats just a reality.

i can understand the underlying anger, but anger unfocused, just leads to what?...dying in place? if where you live, is going to the dogs, GET OUT!!

you all really think all this urban nightmare predators gangs leave TPTB sleepless?...think about it. all this madness is tied up, in highly concentrated urban areas...tell me if i'm wrong. That said, any military commander, worth his salt, and having the manpower and force, can seal off these area's, right?....so who do you think these alphabet camps are REALLY for?

white folks?

come on. last time we did this, back in 42, we put japs behind wire, did we put german americans behind wire?.....no. we put the japs there. okay, so now we got a low level insurrection in urban areas with black gang's, and we got a lot of muzzies, ALSO in urban areas, building mosques, not assimilating...if something large and ugly happens, where you think they're going?

if you're white, and get nervous where you're at....get out, head to an area, where your county and every surrounding county is 99% white.

i did, and i dont hate anybody. its 2012, and if you like cities, you're just going to have take what the city "gives", and what it appears to be giving is a for real shite storm. Get to where the winters are harsh, the woods hard, and the water pure, its the only answer. You cant change a darn thing, EXCEPT, your own lifestyle...so do it.

this forum has a LOT of 'cred' among preppers, but if you let it degenirate into the 'we hate negroes" forum, you're gonna lose that 'cred', and you might even get a lot of outside focus from the PC, tree hugging crowd, you dont want.

i got about one foot out the door, not coz i'm some panty waist limp wristed commie queer, coz i dont like some harsh undeserved spotlight shining on me, who needs the heat?....dont let them paint tb2k as the 'we hate negroes' haunt. so now if you want to hate on me for saying that, go for it....gimme that push. i always liked the forum, because you could get heads up links on unfolding info and news, as far this other stuff, tell me something i dont know.

I agree it is better to "vote with your feet", rather than "bitch"; this has always been my approach. Still, I suspect a lot of folks here are struggling internally with their world-view. The mass-media tells us diversity is "wonderful", and most of the people here are presumably good honest people, that can't really accept that they are being constantly lied to. It may be that a lot of people are struggling to reconcile real-world observation with the mass-media "fairy-tales".

Note: I agree with this comment: "...and you might even get a lot of outside focus from the PC, tree hugging crowd, you dont want." It would be good to retain a "civil tongue" here. It is possible to still be quite explicit, without triggering "alarm bells".

[Publius]

I am a former public school teacher.

I have friends still in the profession.

I live near Atlanta (chocolate city, just like NO)

What he writes is absolute, unvarnished TRUTH.

I salute his courage and truthfulness in writing it----

but as soon as it is known in whatever school district he now teaches in that he wrote this, HE WILL BE FIRED.

I hope he's already retired and has his pension---otherwise the wrath of the system for his exposing the skeltons and the dirty laundry will be terrible upon him....he will lose his job, his pension, all he has built up.....

I know, because it's happened to friends of mine.

You DO NOT BUCK the system---if you do not agree with it, or go along with it, or just harden yourself to live with it and look the other way for 25 years until you can retire---you GET OUT and get a different line of work.

I feel for him---he will be crucified for this.

Get the right person to do a TV show about this and do a followup two weeks later, they would be afraid to fire them because of the back lash from doing so after it has been brought to national attention.

[TerryK]

From the author of the original OP.

Christopher Jackson, the author of 'What's it Like to Teach Black Students' put it elegantly:

'Of course, there are a few loutish whites who will never think past their next meal and a few sensitive blacks for whom anything is possible, but no society takes on the characteristics of its exceptions.'

Another teachers experience

The poor teacher evidently started off with the same naive beliefs in human equality as many here are trying to uphold, but was driven to think again.

'How did my experiences make me feel about blacks? Ultimately, I lost sympathy for them. In so many ways they seem to make their own beds. There they were in an integrationist’s fantasy—in the same classroom with white students, eating the same lunch, using the same bathrooms, listening to the same teachers—and yet the blacks fail while the whites pass'.

Watson, meanwhile, has admitted to being similarly gloomy about Africa's prospects, because 'all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really'

I wonder how Inigo and co. would respond if it did indeed transpire that black scholarly underachievement and violent crime, and the lack of development in Africa, arose from an innate biological difference; and that blaming 'disenfranchisement' is putting the cart before the horse. What then? Say that theory was proven by whatever evidence would convince you, against your inclinations... I don't pretend it's an easy issue...

There are exceptions in any race, ethnicity or culture, BUT there are also norms and averages that can not be denied.

[jed turtle]

if there's a coming race war, what the hail are any of you doing living in a county that aint 99% white?

If? i've never seen a more clear indication of the near future than the on-going rush towards exactly that end.
the blacks and illegal aliens are being used as cannon fodder towards the end of the nation.

send all manufacturing off-shore

eliminate any restrictions in immigration - legal and illegal - to massively increase DISSIMILAR cultures, languages, religions, and races as fast as possible.

promote contempt of the christian religion

promote sexual deviancy, "social justice" (socialism),

attack the Second Amendment.

i heartily agree with you Shea:

get out, head to an area, where your county and every surrounding county is 99% white.

i did, and i dont hate anybody. its 2012, and if you like cities, you're just going to have take what the city "gives", and what it appears to be giving is a for real shite storm. Get to where the winters are harsh, the woods hard, and the water pure, its the only answer. You cant change a darn thing, EXCEPT, your own lifestyle...so do it.

but it amazes me how insane people can be, just doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. when the invaders keep advancing and brutally attacking your homeland, and your government refuses to do anything to change the status quo, it is time to find a new country and then a new way to deal with the advancing invaders before they reach your new home...

[Brutus]

More and more everyday I'm convinced that the system cannot be fixed -- it must collapse so we can start over from scratch.

Public education is a perfect example of that. As years have gone by, all that's been done is to throw more money at it and what has that accomplished?

Like someone else said, integration didn't bring black people up, it brought white people down.

[Countrymouse]

bttt----look at what happened in Jacksonville,

consider this,


and figure out what is coming.

[Coulter]

Bump

[wab54]

Sorry to say, but it's not just the "big inner city areas". We live in a small (less than 25000) county in south GA. The public school system is 80+ percent black. This sounds exactly like what goes on at our high school, too.

We have the same here.

WAB

[ShyGirl]

One of the reasons I originally posted this article was that I was just blown away by the hatred that the blacks have for whites. Until Obummer came to power and I heard about Jeremiah Wright and his gd America comment I really didn't think that kind of hatred among so many people existed in America. When I looked at Black Liberation Theology I could not conceive of that as a true religion especially in a Church of Christ. How can that much hate be a Christian religion? When I read the article I posted about teaching black students I felt very hopeless about race relations in America. These kids have been totally brainwashed to blame and hate whites and will never integrate into our society. They will be used by their controllers to break this country down and then they will be discarded.