Embracing Risk In Urban Education

At a time when American urban public education is under broad attack, and in which America is perceived as a nationat risk that is losing the race to the Top, educators and politicians from across the spectrum are promoting increased emphasis on standardized testing, business models of school reform, zero tolerance, no excuses, promoting cultural assimilation, and building a standardized curriculum. Ginsberg argues that in the effort to reduce the achievement gap and mitigate the pejorative label of ‘at-risk,’ we are in danger of eliminating risk from education entirely. This is especially the case in urban schools with large numbers of poor and minority students. Ginsberg explores alternative approaches to student achievement at four dynamic Philadelphia public schools. This book provides a grounded, close look at alternative and innovative pedagogies which embrace risk through an emphasis on critical inquiry, cultural diversity, global awareness, project-based learning, collaboration, community partnerships, and student activism. The result? Schools which can nurture a new generation of students who are not only smart and literate but can think help preserve American Democracy while furthering the quest for peace, unity, equity, and social justice.

Drawing from studies with pre- and in-service teachers in Quebec, Smallest Circles First looks at how teacher agency engages with the educational calls to action from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Using drama education and theatre, Smallest Circles First explores how the classroom can be used as a liminal educational site to participate in reconciliatory praxis. Smallest Circles First presents several arts-based educational research examples that illustrate how the arts provide a space for students, teachers, and communities to explore and learn about reconciliation praxis and responsibilities. By implementing arts-based counter-narratives set against settler Canadian history and geography, Smallest Circles First considers the implications of systemic racism, colonization, and political, social, and economic ramifications of governmental policies. Tangible examples from the book showcase how teachers and students can use the arts to learn specifically about their responsibilities in engaging with Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in addition to how this work can still meet curricular learning outcomes.

This book examines how the use of the “at-risk” category and label creates problems for students and teachers. Drawing from research across various education sites, the author illustrates how educators recognize the label’s potential to redress issues of equity, but warns that it can also stigmatize the students so labeled. Brown explores how the labeling and subsequent practices by teachers and schools actually affect students, such as classifying many individuals as deficient. The text provides a historical overview, discusses the role of federal education policy and teaching, and includes tools to help readers acquire more complex, critical understandings of risk in educational practice. After the “At-Risk” Label not only challenges the education community to reorient itself to a more equitable discourse, it provides a framework for changing the structural conditions of schooling to better serve all students. Book Features: Offers a critical appraisal of how schools, policy, and teachers may be complicit in exacerbating conditions that lead to risk. Shows how race and class biases might be manifested in the “at-risk” identification process.Outlines a framework for making sense of, and acting in response to, risk that attends to both the individual and the institution. Provides a set of key questions, terms, and a list of extended activities in each chapter. “In this book, Keffrelyn Brown takes the common notion of ‘at-risk’ and turns it on its head. It is imperative that people who deal with children and teens grapple with the centrality of her notions. This is a must read!” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin–Madison “In this important and timely book, Keffrelyn Brown provides a much-needed basis for radically rethinking whether risk can be part of a critical social justice project in education.” —David Gillborn, University of Birmingham, UK “This book represents an audaciously genuine call to know more about, to see more in, and do more for students who have somehow amassed the label ‘at-risk!’” —H. Richard Milner IV, University of Pittsburgh

This book is a series of original strategies that teacher educators, teacher candidates and practicing teachers can use to think critically about issues of equity, diversity, opportunity, and social justice in urban education. As the demographic of students in America is quickly becoming a “majority minority” we need teachers more than ever who can teach to diverse student populations, can utilize culturally relevant pedagogy, and have critically reflected on their own biases and stereotypes. We also need to empower teachers who are committed to social justice to navigate through school systems that are rife with structural inequities. This book will help ensure that teacher candidates are getting this preparation and able to continue to reflect on these issues in their practice. The book is designed as a “textbook” or more accurately “workbook” with original strategies and critical reflection and discussion questions included in each chapter. The strategies can be done sequentially or in any order. In addition, they will be able to read counternarratives from their peers, which should encourage them to persist in the profession even when things get rough

Connecting with Students: Strategies for Building Rapport with Urban Learners focuses on how educators can efficiently establish ongoing rapport with each student through three simple steps: Seeing beyond barriers, sharing their intentions, and showing their "face". Chapter details are narrated through anecdotal experiences, confirmed by research, and seconded by actual urban learners. Educators are prompted to consistently reflect on their classroom practices and implement new strategies and techniques. This text will provide immediate strategies and techniques to build relational capacity in the urban classroom, so that frustration levels are lowered, classroom management is enhanced and academic deficiencies can be addressed. The content of the text is delivered in a multi-genre format. Within the narration there are several true anecdotes, analogies, extended metaphors, dialogue, and genuine student reflections on teaching.

There remains a significant achievement gap for students of color across the K-12 spectrum. One area that needs increased and immediate attention is how we recruit, prepare, and retain teachers of color. This book asks: Why do teachers of color choose teaching? What are their expectations for the students they will teach? How do their past experiences shape their vision of teachers as role models, mentors, and advocates for children of all races and cultures? The authors detail how Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs)--nearly 800 colleges and universities across the nation that educate nearly 45% of all students of color--are preparing culturally proficient teachers using new methods centered on integrating culturally relevant pedagogy, creating a culture of belonging through faculty engagement and cohort models, enriching student teaching and clinical practice through residencies and school-university partnerships, and working closely with families and communities. Addressing timely and critical issues of educational equity, For the Love of Teaching is a call to action for all colleges and university to improve their teacher education programs. Book Features: Provides case studies of MSIs that are intentionally preparing culturally proficient teachers who are skilled and experienced with diverse groups of students. Offers lessons and approaches from four minority-serving colleges with programs that attract and serve non-White teacher candidates. Includes a broad overview of innovative practices in all aspects of learning to teach, making it relevant to almost any teacher education course. Focuses on serving the needs and maintaining the commitment of candidates of color, while also developing their academic skills and subject-specific content knowledge.

Parents and Families of Students With Special Needs: Collaborating Across the Age Span teaches students the skills they need to effectively collaborate with parents and families to ensure a child's success in the classroom. Authors Vicki A. McGinley and Melina Alexander’s text takes a lifespan approach with a special emphasis on the critical transition points in a child’s life. Information is provided on what can be seen at each stage of an individual with disabilities’ development, and addresses concerns and needs that families may have during these unique phases of growth. Chapters written by professors and professionals who are also parents of students with special needs bring a diverse range of voices into the narrative. The authors provide an in-depth discussion of how parents and families are affected by particular disabilities, family system theory, the laws that affect individuals with disabilities, and assessments for individuals with disabilities.

Breaking the Cycle tells the inspiring story of young people whom many would write off as a lost cause but who, thanks to a remarkable school, are headed for success. We learn about their world from teens like Shawna, the daughter of a crack-addicted mother. Or Andre, the only one in his family not on drugs. Or Daron, kicked out of his home by an abusive father. Challenged by the pernicious factors of their environment—drugs, violence, fatherless homes, and poor educational backgrounds—students at the Dayton Early College Academy are nevertheless beating the odds. All are headed for college, from which the vast majority will graduate. The book reveals how this school is succeeding when so many fail. It conveys the hopeful message that others can replicate much of what “DECA” does and save a generation mired in despair. America’s failure to educate its urban children is evidenced by our woeful statistics. If it is possible to turn around this bleak picture—and it is—this is a story well worth telling. And this is what Breaking the Cycle aims to do. For more information on the book, including interviews with the author please check out www.nancybdiggs.com.