“I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as

if they were great and noble.” Helen Keller

In order to be an advocate for social justice, one must first recognize that there is social injustice.

In the politically correct world of the classroom one often hears a teacher say, “I treat all my

students the same;” “I don’t see color when I look at a student;” or “All students have a right to

an equal education.” Behind closed doors, when teachers think because their words are only

being heard by a select few that the sting from those words is not as strong, I have heard teachers

say, “Well, if they weren’t so lazy they would get their work done;’ “If their parents cared they

would have showed up for the PEP (personal education plan) meeting; they didn’t even

reschedule, no wonder he’s doing so poorly;” “It’s a cultural thing, they don’t care about

education.” Like green slime oozing out beneath a closed door in a children’s cartoon, the words

said in the comfort of people who look just like me ooze out and perpetually permeate the room.

It makes people uncomfortable when their attention is drawn to these inconsistencies. How can

you still feel good about yourself if you acknowledge the inequalities, but do nothing? Perhaps

this is why the Eugenics movement that created an outcry around the world because of its belief

in a superior race and its agenda to fulfill this destiny and is thought to be the roots for Hitler’s

Nazi movement is not taught in the United States public school system. It is not possible that the

United States, founded on the great ideals of justice for all, could have been part of such an

indecent chapter in history, so lets not teach our children about the Eugenics movement. In

Artifact 1, a paper I wrote for the course Racial and Cultural Identities, there is an in depth

examination of the Eugenics movement and how it gave birth to the current system of
educational testing. The Eugenics movement used testing to label and divide people and in doing

so to propagate the superior race, nearly a century later testing occurs in our public school

system that labels our students much like the testing that new immigrants endured when they

first arrived on the shores of this great country at Ellis Island. A century ago emigrants were

labeled imbecile or idiot based on the results of the testing, today’s tests can open or close doors

for the youths in this country. MCAS, MTEL, SAT, GRE, these tests disproportionately penalize

those not of the privileged class. (See Artifact 1 for explicit details of these findings.) There

are great mumblings and attention given to these inequalities associated with race, social class,

gender, and language but where is the outrage? Where are the mass protests that our students

will not undergo this testing? Why have we bought into this social injustice?

When I first began the Race, Culture and Identity course through Wheelock I was angry at the

insinuation that I had anything to with the current state of inequalities in the United States.

Slowly my anger dissipated as I recognized the privilege that I am given because of my

birthright: white, middle class, citizen of the U.S.A., English speaking. As I have begun my

work tutoring students in math, I have made a conscious effort to be aware of a student’s

background and create math lessons that reflect a respect for where they are and where they have

come from.

One of my students came to the United States when she was 7 years old from Liberia. Her

psycho educational assessment says that she suffered from malaria twice, had high levels of lead

and repeated the first grade. Her scores on the WIAT III indicated below average performances

in most composites and she is described as having, “learning challenges.” Specifically for math
it states, “ In Math, Marie may benefit from learning how to use Cuisenaire Rods to increase

number sense and eliminate the need for her to painstakingly draw dots and count them up when

calculating. Allow use of connecting cubes, base ten blocks and other manipulatives when

solving pencil and paper math problems.”

I am looking upon Marie, like the emigrants arriving at Ellis Island and being forced to take IQ

tests, as a student who is being labeled. Brian Butterworth writes of the developmental process

of understanding mathematics. If we put Marie on this developmental line, and compensate for

the 7 years she lived in Liberia, did not hold a pencil and did not know what numbers were, she

is doing remarkable on the mathematical development line. My approach to Marie is to give her

the fundamentals that students born of privilege in the USA are given by birthright. I let her

draw and count. I do not call it “painstaking” or try to dissuade her from doing it. Count, draw,

use your fingers, do whatever a math student at your point in development will be doing. In six

short weeks Marie has gone from a student who had to count up when adding from the number

one, to one who can create a word problem, illustrate it, and figure out a method to solve it.

Artifact 2 shows the work that Marie is doing in math. I strongly believe she needs a strong

foundation to move forward in her mathematical understanding and thus I do not force her to

spend time filling it worksheets on fractions that she is not developmentally equipped to

understand.

Employing anti bias educational practices is an oxymoron. There is bias incorporated in all

textbooks. It is only if you don’t agree with the eyes through which the bias has been written

that you are able to see it. During my student teaching practicum I was told to teach a unit on
slavery. My instructions were to follow the guidelines provided by the textbook company. Use

the worksheets and overhead slides provided. “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” The introduction the

students were to receive on slavery in the USA gave an empathetic stance to those who had to

capture the slaves, trade the slaves and own and manage the slaves. Dilemma was the key word

and embedded in the lessons were activities where the students would physically mimic the

conditions of the slaves and have a discussion of what they would do given the same

circumstance. In one activity the students had to lie on the floor side by side, touching, and

imagine what the Middle Passage was like. These students laughed and squirmed. It was fun.

They walked away from the lesson thinking that the Middle Passage was fun and that it was a

terrible dilemma for people at that time whether to partake in slavery. This was incredibly

biased. Having taken the RCI class through Wheelock, I had a difficult time partaking in this

odd conspiracy of silence regarding the injustices that occurred and being labeled “dilemma’s”

by this textbook. I created by own lesson, which involved a reading from the journal of Oloudah

Equiano, a former slave. In the excerpt Oloudah discusses a strange contraption that he had seen

a slave wear while working in a kitchen. The students then viewed on the overhead a portrait of

a slave wearing an iron muzzle, similar to the one written about by Equiano. (Artifact 3) There

was an audible gasp when they saw the picture. “What the heck is that?” The lesson wasn’t fun

but it was extremely powerful.

All students have the right to an equal and just education. Ultimately it is the teacher’s

responsibility that this happens. It is not an easy task, requiring diligence and energy and the

right path is not necessarily going to be the popular one. However, once one’s eyes have been

open to the injustices, it is far more difficult to put blinders back on.