Customer Reviews

Black Teachers on Teaching

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Black Teachers on Teaching reminded me of the same inequality in the public school system that I grew in.I am a college student majoring in education and read this book for a class.I understand completely the concerns of the black teachers about desegregation. I was bused from an all black school in the seventies to a predominately white school.Sure I experienced nicer buildings and better resouces to work with, but I was constantly reminded of how lucky I was supposed to be. I was told that by my white teachers and the white students. My mother was so proud because I was chosen ,along with about 20 other black students with high grade point averages, from my old school to attend. Just as written in the book, I felt I gained a lot of book knowledge but I began to doubt myself as a black person. All the great inventors and explorers that we learned about didn't look like me or come from my neighborhood. For awhile I really believed that people that looked like me were not capable of achieving.The black teachers interviewed made very valid points about the importance of instilling self esteem in all students.Black teachers were just as concerned about white teachers teaching their kids as whites were about black teachers teaching white kids. How can you teach a student about confident and pride when you really do not want them there. I know the feeling all to well.

This book was very informative for me. I never knew about all the obstacles that black teachers, as well as black children, had to deal with in the past. I enjoyed reading their experiences and was extremely pleased to know that these teachers made a change in the lives of other black teachers and the schools that they taught in. There were a couple of teachers that really impressed me, as well as their philosophy's of education. Everett Dawson's philosophy was never give up on a child and Ruby Middleton Forsythe's philosophy of getting the children to realize that they need to be somebody and go somewhere with their lives is a very important goal. As teachers we must never feel that a child is not worth fighting for and we must always try to keep our students focused on learning because that is indeed the key to success.

I think that black teachers' on teaching has really shown me a lot of the real life experiences that black teachers have gone through to get where they are today. It also taught me a lot about the history of black teachers' that I didn't know. This book has motivated me to want to know and read more not only about black teachers' and their success but also about other black professionals and their great accomplishments. This book was about twenty black teachers and their real life experiences dealing with segregation and prejudice. Five of the twenty teachers that were interviewed in this book were males. This represented the amount of male teachers that taught back in the time of the book. My favorite narrator in this book was Ethel. She went into a school that the system had no hope for and turned it around. She stopped the system from sending old material to this school, she retaught some of the teachers, she got grant money to start new projects which included special classes for the children which needed it and she trained eighteen students preparing them to get accepted to a private prep school. Of the eighteen, sixteen were accepted and I thought by proving she could do this she became a great role model.

I am a college student majoring in middle grades and education and I chose to read this book and present it to my class from a list of several other books. I have to admit the reason I first wanted to read the book was because of the title. I thought it was something that surely only black furture teachers would benefit from. After reading and studying the pages of this book I think anyone interested in the basic needs of students' welfare should read this book. Not just the welfare of African American students because the book addresses so many issues that many teachers strive for, for their students everyday. It just so happens that this book looks at those concerns from the prospective of blacks about blacks. That is why I said don't turn away because of the title. In this book there are some sharp ideas on the topic of teacher role models, ethics, learning environments,etc. I highly recommend this book.

If there are any questions in your mind on whether or not you should become a teacher, then this is the book for you. I was very encouraged when I read of how my race really aided the cause of Education by making so many significant contributions to the cause. I would encourage everyone to read this book so that one could obtain more facts about the history of Education, visualize the knowledge or Mother Wit that was displayed by so many learned Black professionals, and to feel the struggles that they went through in order that we may enter into a classroom one day.

Each interview confirmed my belief that even though the schools were inadequate, books were prehistoric, and the pay "sucked", at least black students were taught and cared for. It's important for everyone to be able to identify with others, and in this identification, be able to help one another cope with adversaties. Each teacher appeared to feel the loss of interpersonal, relations between themselves and their students. The ability of an adult to empathize with a child, based on his personal experience, and to give insight on the "roadblocks" that the child could be faced with, was and still is important. Experience is the greatest teacher, and being able to identify with another person and express in great detail, methods to use in overcoming obsticles, was a great loss due to intergration. The problems suffered by the teachers in the 60's and 70's, persist today in the 90's. Inequality, in education, based on economics, and race are still a deciding factor of whether or not children will be productive,and a contribution to society. I feel saddened by the obvious lack of "progress" that integration was supposed to bring about. Teachers, specificly black teachers still feel restricted about the extent they can go to in achieving their goal to educate black children, in the hopes of allowing them more access to a better future. One more point of contention is that today fewer blacks are into education because of the "tests" that are designed to keep them out of that field, as well as the interferrence of others outside of the education arena telling them how to "run" their class. "Big brother knows best!" This is really sad. I propose that we haven't progressed, so much as stagnated, and we aren't really a democracy, so much as a dictatorship. Four hundred years and still enslaved. (Even if it is majorily mentally.)

i think this reviewers comments are somewhat off the mark. first, if one is going to criticize a text they could at least get the gender of the writer correct (a clue to how well read). second, the reviewer describes foster as biased. i am a teacher educator who focuses on social and cultural issues in education. foster's text attempts to shed light on a particular perspective and historical experience of a group that has been historically marginalized in education. that is not bias, rather it is focus. third, the reviewer says they want something for the advancement of all students. i believe when arguments like that are made, there is an underlying assumption that since the focus is directly on black students (or other non-European students) then the lessons do not apply to white students. a close read of foster's text shows us the issues that DISTRICTS must face in developing productive environments. this text provides stories which all teachers must face: dealing with students, families, and bureacracy. also, in the advice on how to teach black children she reflects a great deal of literature about how to teach a MULTICULTURAL classroom (i.e. taking into account the culture and values of the students before you, as a group and individuals). foster's text is a great window into the history and general perspectives of a group that has been largely overlooked in the popular literature. surf around amazon.com and i doubt you will find another text like it.

I am a college student majoring in Education. I selected this book to read for a class. I found the book to be very interesting. This book told the history of segregation and desegregation through the eyes of teachers who taught during that time period. The book also look at the concerns African American teachers had for African American children. The teachers were role models and told personal stories of their teaching experiences. This was a very powerful book and I really enjoyed reading it. I only wish that Foster could have interviewed more novice teachers. I would highly recommend this book to all teachers and anyone interested in the history of segregation and desegregation.

I am a student majoring in middle grades education. I read this book for an assignment. I enjoyed the author's writing style and Lisa Delpit's foreword. The book has plenty of helpful and educational information to consider when teaching black students. It also gives explainations for why some black students are doing so poorly in integrated schools. This book is great for any teacher who is interested in multicultural education.

I am a college student studing Education and I read this book for my class. I would highly recommend it for anyone who maybe interested in becoming an educator. I truly enjoyed reading the personal stories of each teacher interviewed. However, the the most impressing part of the book for me was the whole new prespective on intergated schools that I gained. Being fairly young, I have only attended integrated schools before and I have also only been told positive things about this change. Realizing what actully happend to black students and teachers from personal stories has really given me a new outlook on this topic. If I could find anything that I didn't like about this book, it was the introduction. It was very long and almost all of it was repeated agin in the text of the book.