Thinking and Teaching With Purpose

In the article “‘I Was Born Here, but My Home, It’s Not here’: Educating for Democratic Citizenship in an Era of Transnational Migration and Global Conflict”, Thea Renda Abu El-Haj discusses the experiences of several Palestinian American students. She describes the dichotomy between being American and being Palestinian, and how this sense of nationalism is complicated by their citizenship. The article is set in the context of Palestinian youth after the events of September 11,  2001. El-Haj begins by setting up her argument, and defining the imagined community: “ This idea of an imagined community references the ways that nations are ideologically constructed and reconstructed through discourse (e.g., media, public debates) and political practices (e.g., state policies, civil rights movements) as the boundaries of belonging are negotiated over time in relation to different groups of people” (288).  Oppressed groups are seen as less than ideal and do not have solid relation

In our two articles this week, we consider how the educational system is designed to keep Black students marginalized, even as other minority students exist and yet are ignored.  It is eye-opening to look at the efforts put into rationalizing discrimination against Black people while putting other minorities on a pedestal (or at least not putting in the effort to keep them down). Michael Dumas, author of “Against the Dark: Antiblackness in Education Policy and Discourse”, begins by discussing an issue of  National Geographic  that imagines a future where whites are no longer the majority. The magazine’s article, “ The Changing Face of America ” by Lise Funderburg, depicts people of mixed race, and suggests that in the future it will be difficult to discern a person’s racial and ethnic heritage just by looking at them. Dumas quotes Funderburg, who writes, “‘perhaps we’ll be forced to reconsider existing definitions of race and identity, presumptions about who is us and who is

In this week’s articles, our authors explored different facets of being White, and the responsibilities of dealing with Whiteness in regards to privilege and intelligence.    In her article “My Class Didn’t Trump My Race: Using Oppression to Face Privilege”, Robin DiAngelo describes her experience growing up poor and white, and how this impacted her worldview as she moved into academia. She explored some of the “patterns of internalized dominance” (54) that Whites often share, which she discovered while reflecting on her past experiences. One that struck me was the idea that Whites often pretend that race is not important. White people tend to conflate the noticing of race with racism itself, and conversely think that if we don’t see race, racism doesn’t exist. DiAngelo argues that “If we don’t notice racism, we can’t understand or interrupt it in ourselves or others” (56).  This brings about the point that colorblindness, as it is often called, is actually harmful. 

Since the early 20 th  century, schooling in the United States has been compulsory, yet in public education, money has always been an issue. Just consider the modern day, when   Trump wants dramatic cuts to children's programs.   These cuts would take funds away from those underprivileged students who need it the most. The early days of education also saw a serious inequality in funding between black and white schools, which President Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to remedy through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  In “The Only Valid Passport From Poverty”, Dana Goldstein writes about how the “ESEA was all about ‘compensatory education’ for the 19 percent of low-income public school students falling behind in poor, largely black and Hispanic schools” (114).  This policy was helpful in integrating schools, and led to student improvement where it was successfully implemented. However, with the closing of schools, black teachers were disproportionately laid off. This r