Reflections on Urban School Teaching: Black Is Beautiful

by JILL GUERRA

When I was growing up in the 1970’s, people who had a similar cultural background to mine were nonexistent in the media.  The closest I got to a media representation of someone from my cultural background was Puerto Rican “Maria” on the children’s program, Sesame Street, because she spoke Spanish like people in my family. As I grew up, without any particular event to tie my reasoning to, I felt invisible in this society.  I had internalized the lack of importance my people were given anywhere in public space.

I was a college student before I started to learn about the history of people of color and their struggles to resist domination by those in power.  Their land, resources, labor, culture, and very being had been stolen during colonization and continued to be threatened in current struggles throughout the world.  I realized how powerful my people are, how rich our cultures are, and how that had been kept from me throughout my formative years.

I contemplated how youth of color in this society are taught through the mainstream media that their people are not worth representing, as I had learned.  Worse yet, when reflections of our people are given, we are taught through the perpetuation of adverse images that we are not valuable, that we are to be feared, even despised.

The majority of the students I work with are African American children from various parts of Oakland, California.  During my first year of teaching in this community, my third grade class was studying the poem, My People, by Langston Hughes. The poem expresses the poet’s love for his people, African Americans, and validates Black people as beautiful.  I started the lesson by asking the students what the media (news, TV, movies) tells us about Black people.  One girl immediately responded, “That we’re bad.”  Other students chimed in, “We’re poor.” “We’re criminals.” “We belong in jail.”  These were eight and nine-year-olds and they were already aware of mainstream society’s perception of them.  I thought about how precarious that could be for self-esteem and identity and about the host of related manifestations that could result when one’s fundamental being is perceived as contemptible.

This experience eventually led to a study of the media with my students and my master’s thesis.  Among many relevant findings, I confirmed that students must acquire the tools of critical analysis.  Because our society’s values, and therefore culture, are dictated, overwhelmingly, by a singular perspective educators must find ways to assist students in developing the tools needed to address systems of domination. The students in my study demonstrated a desire to understand the world around them, specifically, the injustices that affect them as a cultural group, including an understanding of how the media machine works.

I also learned that we, as a society, need a much more complex understanding of what racism is and how it functions.  Today, systems of oppression are sophisticated and they are ingrained into the everyday foundation of our lives.  These systems must be analyzed to assess for inequity and injustice because they have become so commonplace.  Not only do our students need that education, but teachers and other adults do as well.  While we are quick to blame communities for their circumstances, we must gain a deeper understanding of how these structures work to support the current system of inequities in resources and quality of life.  This should be a requirement of civic participation for all of us, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.

Furthermore, Enid Lee, an international consultant on equity issues of language, culture, and race and their roles in education and organizational development, once stated in a workshop I attended, that “the problem is that society doesn’t know enough about or value Black culture.”  It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned about the African Diaspora and how rich and influential it has been throughout the world.  I learned, and am still learning, about the connections in places I never knew there were any (a considerable African influence in Mexico and Guatemala, where my family is from).  There is so much to know and we are only shown a very limited perspective of history if we rely on mainstream sources.  I have come to feel it is my obligation, as an educator, to share what I know with my students and to invite investigations, including those that encourage family contributions.

So what else does this mean for a classroom teacher?  For me, most simply put, it means that I have a responsibility to participate in the process of interrupting the system of oppression and the effect it has on our youth– socially and personally.  I must participate in the process of “decolonizing” the mind, as bell hooks calls it, my students’ and well as my own. Because all of our minds/perspectives/world views have been influenced by the larger society, there must be a conscious and concentrated effort to disrupt the effects of this system.

In practical terms, here are some things I do in my classroom.  I would love to hear some of your practices and ideas…

Because I teach elementary school, I make sure to have picture books about regular everyday brown children, African American, and others.  While books on Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and slavery are easy to come by, there is so much more to Black history in this country and Black experience as it is today.  There are now beautifully illustrated picture books available that present African American children as the main character that have nothing to do with “escaping or surviving slavery”.  Don’t misunderstand; that history is important.  But equally important is for all children to know that African American and other children of color have normal lives and they have human experiences just like everybody else.  They also have other experiences that are unique that should be honored and celebrated as well. I make sure that we read the few good chapter books available whose protagonists are African American and other children of color because there are certainly not enough of them out there.

I make certain that the study of other cultural groups: Mexican, indigenous, Chinese is embedded in our study of California history (a 4^th grade standard). I do it from a social justice perspective so that my students can learn about other cultural groups that have experienced and resisted oppression, including enslavement.  Often times, people associate the word “slave” with Black people, when in fact, there have been a variety of cultural groups that have been enslaved.

Oh, and that reminds me… “slaves” didn’t come from Africa.  Enslaved human beings were forcibly removed from the continent of Africa.  I try to be conscious of the message that is being given in the language and semantics that I use.  This is not easy being that the “language” is customary so it is something that I am constantly checking myself on.

I try to embed our learning within a multicultural framework.  For example, we learn about assonance, alliteration, and metaphoric language through a study of the poems of Langston Hughes.

We spend a lot of time writing about our lives and ourselves.  This allows the children to celebrate and honor their families and community.  This year in their introduction poems, students found beautiful joyful things in the world to compare their skin color to: the color of bark on a tree, sand on the beach, a panther’s fur, a Hershey’s Kiss, a chocolate cupcake, etc. -things that bring happiness and celebrate their beautiful skin tone.

We also study Black people, from all over the world, who have contributed to social justice, and so that the students learn about their own power, we relate it all to their own lives and issues in their communities.

As a non-Black teacher of mostly Black children, I must educate myself, not just by reading books, but by talking to youth and getting to know the community so that I, an educator and member of society, can know what the issues are, what questions to ask, and how I play a role personally and as part of a global community.

And finally, I place a sign by the classroom sink, right below the mirror that reads, “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!” – to remind each student, each day.

Jill Guerra teaches 3^rd and 4^th grade in Oakland, California.  Parts of this essay were excerpted from her master’s thesis, Rethinking Ghetto: A Study of African American Youth and the Media That Defines Them.