Ebonics, Whining, Revisionism Alive And Well In Oakland School

broj ...@windswept.org (Bro-Jack)

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/4839227.htm Posted on Mon, Dec. 30, 2002 Oakland school takes lessons to street The School of Social Justice and Community Development helps put activism on kids' minds By Deborah Kong ***OCIATED PRESS OAKLAND - It's just another day at the School of Social Justice and Community Development.
In culture and resistance cl***, the ***ignment is to compose a rap about an important issue in the city of Oakland, a proposal to add 100 police to the city's force.
"I can't rap," says Antoine Henderson, surveying the lyrics on his paper: "Why they want to bring more police in the town / Just for them to attack the black and brown." But his teacher offers a bit of encouragement. "A lot of the rappers that are out now, they can't write anything like this," says Boots Riley, himself a rapper. "This sounds good." Antoine beams.
The scene is just one example of the unusual curriculum at Social Justice, a new public school in a tough section of Oakland that recruited about half its 124-member student body from group homes and juvenile halls, and by allowing dropouts from other public schools to re-enroll. (The rest of the students graduated from district middle schools.) With a student population some may have written off, administrators have a simple goal.
"The intent is to educate, and this is a method in which we believe, and have had some experience at -- reaching students who normally don't get reached," said Kali Akuno-Williams, the school's co-director.
"We're trying to engage them with education that's relevant to their direct lives, what they experience day to day." In the end, school officials want their students to be able to succeed in college.
That means cl***es and ***ignments that might raise eyebrows elsewhere. But this is a place and a student body facing challenges that aren't issues elsewhere, administrators say. About a fifth of the city's more than 100 homicides this year have occurred within a mile of the school.
The school may also have escaped notice because it is small and new, having opened in September, but "Oakland has never been a district to shy away from having controversial issues discussed," said ***istant superintendent Lewis Cohen.
On a recent school day, Sarah Fuchs' English and social studies cl*** talked about patriarchy and sexism, and discussed an essay ***ignment on how colonialism affected Africa.
It was part of a lesson plan covering "systems of oppression" including capitalism and white supremacy. Another section of the plan called for discussing "tools for liberation." Biology teacher Omar Hunter taught his cl*** about the periodic table, then gave them an ***ignment: Write a ransom letter to President Bush.
Students were to pretend they were holding an element for ransom, listing its physical and chemical properties and why it is crucial, along with their demands, he said.
Riley's course, where students composed the raps, is one of Antoine's favorites. "I've never seen a school with a rap cl***," the 17-year-old junior said. "That kind of caught my attention." When Riley's students finished their writing session, they attended a news conference held at the school opposing the proposal for 100 new police. A few students spoke as did former Black Panther Bobby Seale, and principal Wilson Riles Jr., a former mayoral candidate. After school, about 45 students and teachers protested alleged police brutality.
Students say they like the school's activist approach. "We get to experience the world," said Korin Merle, 16, as she marched alongside protesters. "This is what is in our society." Social Justice is a part of the Oakland Unified School District, but operates under the district's new autonomous schools policy. It is one of seven small schools that must meet district and state standards but which control their own budgets, instruction and curriculum.
What many Social Justice students say they like best is the school's size -- the average cl*** has about 20 students -- and the individualized attention teachers provide.
"The teachers here really care about you and your well-being," said 16-year-old Trinette Henry. At her old high school, teachers would "sit a book in front of you and start talking," she said. "Here, they explain it to you." Rasaun Jones, 17, said his teachers call to make sure he's doing his homework and update his mother on his progress. "I love it," he said.
Rasaun dropped out of the sixth and seventh grades, then went to jail several times for offenses including robbery and petty theft, he said.
Now, his goal is to attend college, take business courses and eventually run his own record label.
"If you aren't going to school, you aren't going to do anything in your life," he said.
Parents voluntarily send their children to the school and attend a mandatory orientation on its programs.
"I could see that it would teach my kids how to stand up for their rights, and how to advocate not just for themselves, but for others," said Priscilla Merle, Korin's mother.
Parents, teachers and students who founded the school say it was a reaction against overcrowded cl***rooms, indifferent teachers and high dropout rates. In the 1999-2000 school year, the most recent data available, almost 25 percent of students who entered Oakland high schools dropped out by the end of 12th grade.
Social Justice tries to tailor its curriculum to reflect its mostly black and Latino student body. The social activism is in the tradition of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a 1960s civil rights group, Akuno-Williams said.
Nationally, the move toward small schools has been under way since at least the 1980s, and many of them are organized around themes. But for the most part, they try to stay politically neutral, said Judith Warren Little, a professor who specializes in high school reform and policy at the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley.
Social Justice's approach of "building a whole school on that premise is uncommon," Little said. "The way this school stands out is actually promoting social activism on the part of the kids." So far, Social Justice is on target to reach its goal of 90 percent attendance, though it's still working on other details. It leases a temporary space at a church, and is searching for a new one that will allow it to enroll up to 400 students.
Students and parents hope it will be around for a long time. "They're giving us another chance to make our lives better," said 10th-grader Carmalita George. "I hope the teachers stick to what they're trying to do."

Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org

It sounds like you disapprove, Jack? What, aren't you for school choice? Or are things like charter schools and other alternatives only OK if they toe YOUR politically correct line?
Hypocrite.
lojbab

broj ...@windswept.org (brojack)

This scheme soulnds like a typical liberal politician's dream.
More blacks kept intentionally ignorant and unemployable for the liberal plantation. Can't read, can't write, can't compute, don't know history, but they can rap and talk trash. And, oh yeah, unfortunately they can vote.
BroJack

Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org

You don't answer my question. Is school choice a desirable solution when some would choose schools like the ones in this article? Or do you only approve of school choice when the schools toe YOUR politically correct line?
lojbab

BroJ ...@windswept.org (BroJack)

You call this a school, fool?
Bro

Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org

Whether I call it a school or not is irrelevant. Those operating the school called it a school, and the parents opted to have their kids attend that school and take the indicated cl***es. You are still avoiding the question. Bush's school choice program puts absolutely NO constraints on what is or is not a private school -
if the public school fails, the parents can choose Basketweaving University so far as Bush's law could care. States impose almost no constraints, especially on religious schools, that they teach any curriculum at all - at most they have to have subjects called by standards names.
So should parental choice be allowed, to the extent of including the possibility of choosing schools that are not so politically correct as to meet your criteria for being "called a school"?
Gonna evade the question again, Jack?
lojbab PS. Some of the charter schools in DC have had this sort of weirdness to their program, and some of those schools have been found to be fiscally improper too. Yet many right-wingers seem to think that the DC charter program is a "good thing" because it allows school choice.
lojbab

broj ...@windswept.org (brojack)

Are these the parents who say "Don't get caught stealing" instead of "Don't steal"?
Not sure what your question is. Contrary to what you say, this sounds like a politically-correct school. Anything that is liberal, immoral, not traditional, is politically-correct. I don't care where the kids go to school, but I wouldn't want any of these students one day working for my company, performing cardiac surgery, or developing our missile systems.
That's nice.
BroJack

Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org

There is "politically-correct" for the left and "politically-correct" for the right. Yes, this sounds like it is leftist .politically-correct. You instead want only schools that are politically-correct from YOUR point of view - teaching the values you hold dear rather than the ones that the parents (or the rest of society) care about.
Anything that is doctrinaire conservative, intolerant, bigoted, rigidly moralistic, and tradition-for-the-sake-of-tradition-so-long-as-it-is-MY-tradition, is also politically correct, but from the other side of the fence.
Neither seems to tolerate dissent.
Then why did you post the article, if you don't care?
Well if they are so poorly educated as you seem to think that they are becoming, they won't be doing the latter two, and you presumably have discretion on the former.
lojbab

AlleyCat al...@aohell.com

**** all that choice shit, dumb***... do you approve of the curricula?
If you do, then you are more racist than the people you CALL racist. Why in the world would you want to teach something to someone that guarantees that they DON'T get a job, DON'T fit in with the ruling cl***es and DON'T succeed in any way? I've read some of the thread, and have come to the logical conclusion, that you,sir, and any other pansy-
*** that agrees with that particular curriculum, or any other curriculum that DOESN'T teach blacks what they SHOULD be learning, are idiots. Well intentioned and comp***ionate, but idiots nonetheless. Black kids need to learn readin', writin' and 'rithmetic, not how many ways to rap about how to blame whites for their own failures. Every other ethnic group that has come to these shores, either by choice or force, has succeeded.
What happened to the blacks?
Steve

broj ...@windswept.org (brojack)

No. All PC is leftist today. I want schools where kids can develop skills, get an an education which will allow them to contribute to society.
No, see above. Al PC is leftist, today. We need people who can contibute to society and the advancement of civilization. To show another example of liberal stupidity.
No, one day, Koko the gorilla will be attempting cardiac surgery.
bro