Who knows how long schools will be closed, but every day counts when it comes to addressing academic achievement gaps. Every day, I am so very concerned about Black students falling further behind their White counterparts. This angst increases during the summer when achievement disparities increase drastically. While those with the fiscal means and educational clout are pushing their children forward, far too often, Black children are falling backwards or behind. The reality is that gaps can be and are gulfs, sucking in our Black children.
During the regular school year, miseducation is all too common, as Dr. Carter G. Woodson wrote about in the early 1900s. Some 80-85% of educators are White. Too few educators – teachers, administrators, and policy makers – have been challenged and required to be accountable, anti-racist and culturally competent. Further, there are not enough Black teachers and other education professionals, such as counselors and psychologists, to serve as cultural brokers and advocates to undo the damage associated with miseducation.
So, this is the time – urgent time – for Black families to aggressively and with conviction take charge of academics at home. Families are, indeed, the first and forever teachers. This pandemic is an unwelcome, awful, and alarming reminder of how academic lives matter too.
On this note, I share two resources with a brief overview to help promote critical thinking and cultural relevance at home. An education degree is not required to implement what I am sharing here to support and advocate for Black families.
Here is one overview of Bloom’s Taxonomy: The six levels are divided into two categories of thinking – low and high. View the lower three levels as the basics and a place to start; but not the destiny. To help close achievement gaps/gulfs, as Black families, we must know how to teach to the highest three levels – analyze, evaluate, and create.
The following is a very short list of suggestions to promote rigor—critical and creativity thinking.
The classic model for infusing multicultural content into lesson plans is by Dr. James A. Banks, whom I herald as the father of multicultural curriculum. Banks’ model is about relevance and countering miseducation. The four levels or approaches, from lowest to highest, are contributions, additive, transformation, and social action.
