University Courses Associated with Critical Race Theory

 

Many politicians are not educators. If they were they would be aware of conscientization: The action or process of making others aware of political and social conditions, especially as a precursor to challenging inequalities of treatment or opportunity; the fact of being aware of these conditions.

University courses that teach about conscientization are directly related to the idea of critical race theory and are vital for new teachers to understand at-risk students, students from lower socioeconomic classes of all races and English Language Learners. These students are often the focus of teacher-training university courses. 

 

Many courses that include conscientization and critical race theory reasoning are threatened to be canceled, along with any associated books that mention justice for all. In some states politicians promote fear that they will offend many parents because they present injustices throughout history toward oppressed and disadvantaged groups in society.

 

• Diversity and Change
• Methodology Cross-cultural Instruction
• Cognition, Language and Culture
• Language Development in Elementary Classroom
• Language Development in Secondary Classroom
• Meaningful Learning with Technology
• Multimedia and Interactive Technology
• Transformative Education Practices
• Comparative Education Systems
• Multidimensional Education
• Becoming a Teacher
• Identity, Inclusion and Equity
• Linguistics Academic Language
• Teaching Online
• Design and Process of Teaching
• Applied Critical Thinking
• Self as a Critical Thinker
  

Parents and teachers can read books to elementary and middle schoolers

 Parents and teachers can read books about math to elementary and middle schoolers.

 Here are two great lists of math-related stories that parents and teachers can read with students.

There's a an elementary grade literature book list for STEM subjects at https://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/teachers/5th-grade/literature-list/

Middle school math fiction books  are at  https://www.tarleton.edu/team/documents/Middle_School_Mathematics_Books.pdf

https://www.tarleton.edu/team/documents/Middle_School_Mathematics_Books.pdf

Critical Thinking and the Creation of New Ideas

Critical thinking is a vital part of the education process. Engaging students in the development of critical thinking skills can lead to analysis and synthesis, leading to the creation of new ideas for goods and services that ultimately will benefit the citizens of all countries.

Consider that critical thinking occurs when students' affective filters (anxiety levels) are low. They will be lower when they are talking with one another than talking in front of the class, responding to teacher questioning. 

Another point is to have students use critical thinking when researching by using higher thinking skills of analysis and synthesis, such as investigating a topic from multiple perspectives by using a variety of sources. When I wrote nonfiction books about photography, I would do just that. Here's how: When I read through an article, I would write questions I'd have about material in the article that weren't answered in it.  Then I'd research an additional article looking for the answer that I had questions about from the first article. This works out well. It would be a good idea for to model this for students before you do a research project.

Consider metacognition, which is thinking about your own thinking. Teachers can do this by modeling think-alouds. Think-alouds provide readers time to pause while reading, so that they can clarify their thoughts about the content of a reading selection.

When a teacher models engagement in this process, he/she will do it aloud to model verbalization of thoughts. They can begin by saying, "When I begin to read fiction, I read the first few paragraphs to figure out what the setting and plot are, along with what the characters are like (character traits) (Block & Israel, 2004). 

Block, & Israel, S. E. (2004). The ABCs of Performing Highly Effective Think-Alouds. The Reading Teacher, 58(2), 154–167. https://doi.org/10.1598/RT.58.2.4 

Critical Race Theory Information-- Paulo Freire and Power in Relationships

Paulo Freire coined the term banking information in order to express a lesson being taught by the teacher with students being passive recipients of knowledge. He advocated for collaborative learning, so that students interact with each other and the teacher.

If you research the differences between teaching by banking information where the teacher has most of the power and teaching using collaborative learning by student interaction, you'll discover that the latter is more democratic, which is the value Freire emphasized in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed ("Paulo Freire," n.d.).

Freire used concepts such as vertical teaching and horizontal teaching to define the relationships between two types of instruction, and he equates each to the power the relationship has.

Vertical Teaching

teacher
↓
student

Horizontal Teaching

teacher ↔ student

Power in relationships is an important concept in education. Critical Race Theory is concerned with people who are oppressed because they have less power in society than those who are not. 

Paulo Freire. (n,.d.). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/freire/#SH5a 

Culturally Responsive Teaching Study is Awarded Nearly $400,000

 There are organizations interested in supporting research by and for practitioners on processes, projects, initiatives or aspects of practice that they are involved in. 

One good one is The Institute of Educational Sciences offers grants for educators to initiate educational programs and studies such as producing curriculum for teacher professional development programs. 

There is an interesting amount of money to develop a professional development program focusing on culturally responsive teaching (CRT). See https://ies.ed.gov/funding/grantsearch/details.asp?ID=3254

The Institute of Educational Sciences offers grants for educators to initiate educational programs and studies such as producing curriculum for teacher professional development programs. 

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has established 14 programs of research (topics) under its Education Research Grants Program.

Assessment and Rubrics

Utah Education Network

Instructionally sound assessment requires more than implementing meaningful tasks and standards. Teachers must develop the capacity to analyze student work, as well as the leadership ability to train students to do this analysis. The Rubistar website with you where you can create your own rubrics.

An assessment is an appraisal of the learner developed by the teacher observing a student and his or her work. An effective lesson plan should contain several opportunities for assessment throughout the plan. It can consist of pretests for determining what students already know, questioning intermittently throughout a lesson and quizzes. An evaluation is static and represented by a grade, a rank, or a score, that a student earns. Assessment is more dynamic, with reflective observation, whereas evaluation is static.  

Formative assessments that monitor progress are given more frequently than summative assessments (or evaluation), which usually occur at the end of a "learning cycle" to measure. Finally, learning outcomes affect your assessment and vice versa.

Banning Critical Race Theory Undermines Educating Students Honestly

For the past several decades, talking honestly about equality is how many educators have responded to Critical Race Theory or CRT in the classroom and beyond. The future, however, with respect to the issue being taught honestly in public classrooms  is in doubt as Republicans in many states work to cancel any mention of  it, along with the associated  atrocities that have occurred throughout history.  Demonization of the ambiguous term will certainly make future news; however, in the meantime, it's vital for teachers to cover the topics associated with it.

As a professor perched into a position that advocates for concepts associated with CRT such as diversity, social justice and equality, I’ve come to introduce to graduate students in teacher education many aspects of  the misinterpreted term, which has become a hot topic also addressed by broadcasters of every persuasion and one that is being censored in schools by some state and local governments. CRT has evolved into a wedge issue that will prevent teachers from honestly guiding students  to comprehend the various points of view about the lessons the past has taught us, so that they can decide for themselves what they want for the future.

CRT, in part, has to do with the implied meanings of words. For years, new teachers have been indoctrinated to race theory by analyzing their own backgrounds and those of their students, including race/culture and all language associated with it. All teachers are required to examine how race/culture has affected them and their belief system, along with undergoing a rigorous study of sociolinguistics, which teaches how humans have used language, verbal and nonverbal, to communicate and influence each other throughout time. Using language effectively is required in teaching, both to get students’ attention and to think critically about the world.

 

The media has hammered the term "critical race theory" into the public psyche relentlessly without defining it clearly, so that they can manipulate the public. Teachers do not operate in the same way as several media outlets depict them. Unlike many broadcasters, teachers are cognizant that terms and concepts need to be clearly defined using a variety of methods for students to understand their meaning. Politicians know how to manipulate some media outlets by using loaded terms that antagonize public perceptions of race and culture. They use phrases and slogans filled with implicit racism without defining them, so that the terms can be molded into any shape and form that churns the public into a frenzy by advocating for laws that put restraints on teachers, never regarding their professional training.

 

The validity of CRT is being argued by broadcasters on right-leaning cable networks without proper scaffolding for their viewers to understand the issue. These arguments have failed to explain just what CRT is. Critical Race Theory has been taught for decades since the 1960s, the time Paulo Freire wrote the book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," which describes how the oppressors in society needed to recognize what they have done in the past and that those oppressed understood what has happened to their ancestors. Parts of the book would be considered a radical treatise about education. However, in the classroom when race issues come up, they often are associated with topics in the history curriculum that cover events such as the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. Teachers work together to carefully plan lessons and units that span across many subjects across the curriculum to provide an equitable education to all students by including multicultural integration, so that they can be taught to make the world a better place through research of historical and contemporary issues from a wide range of publications with varying views about past oppression.

 

The teachings of CRT include problem solving and critical thinking skills so that students can compare, contrast and seek solutions to social problems by reading reputable sources about local, state and national issues.  Common Core standards for speaking and writing can be met by having students discuss and write about them.

 

By studying current events and the history behind them, students can develop solutions to contemporary issues by evaluating their thoughts about how humanity has engaged in irrational thought and acts during different periods of history, along with how they solved the problems that confronted them.  Students can also determine actions of the dominant culture, along with discovering oppression and how people have organized to fight it. CRT topics include studies of race, power and privilege that have existed in both Eastern and Western civilizations throughout history. Make no mistake about it, open discussions of these issues are a vital part of all levels of education because no academic program can function honestly without them.

 

Matthew Bamberg is an adjunct professor of education at National University in San Diego.