SAN FRANCISCO ― Zaretta Hammond grew up in a low-income, non-White neighborhood in San Francisco, born to a teen mother who was raising three children by age 22.
Before Hammond began her formal education, her mother visited the school where neighbors typically enrolled their children. She searched for an alternative, fearing the nearby school’s scant resources and low quality of instruction.
Hammond’s mother used a relative’s address on forms so the children would qualify to enroll in a school that she believed would provide a better education. Because the young mother had to commute to her job to support the family, she put her three elementary-age children on public transit five mornings a week, where they rode the bus about two hours one way to reach school.
To this day, Hammond remains grateful for her mother’s long-ago determination to provide for her children, but she simultaneously insisted, “No family should have to go through all that” in order to access high-quality, public education.
Now an education lecturer at Saint Mary’s College of California, Hammond shared her family narrative last week during a conference of Learning and the Brain, which connects neuroscientists and researchers with K-16 educators. Learning and the Brain presents new research on the brain and learning, along with implications for education.
During a session titled, “Cultivating the Diverse Students’ Mindset,” Hammond, who’s African-American, used her anecdote to explain why she is passionate about helping educators across all racial groups better relate to families of color. Her personal story segued into how and why a disproportionate number of Black and Latino students struggle to learn.
“Culturally and linguistically diverse students experience intellectual apartheid,” Hammond said. “A disproportionate number are dependent learners. They don’t see teachers trying to get to know them as learners and help them [to] build the necessary skills to be successful. Instead, teachers lower their expectations, dumb down the curriculum and slow down instruction [which] leads to boredom and disengagement.”
