As a semester of Sophomore American Literature drew to a close a couple of years ago, I spent my usual harried weekend reading Exams, grading papers, and calculating final semester grades. Here were the results of two sophomore classes that I taught at the time.

A: 4,   A-: 6,   B+: 7,   B: 7,   B-: 2,   C+: 1

These results were fairly typical for Nobles in these days of highly motivated kids, parental expectation, and grade inflation. Likewise, the A and A- level grades broke down in a typical gender pattern for Nobles: 8 girls and 2 boys, of the 8 girls 3 were Asian American, 1 of the boys was Hispanic.                                    

However, another pattern also emerged that was also familiar as an issue faced by Nobles and other Independent Schools over the past forty years (my time in these schools as a student and as a teacher). The three recipients of the lowest grades, the two B- grades and the C+, were African American males.

It is important not to mitigate the significance of these results in relation to the other students by claiming that there must be specific individual circumstances for each young man. Of course there were. In fact, I do not want to dismiss the individuality of these young men; instead I wish to draw immediate attention to their racial identity as a part of their individuality.

The discussion that usually ensues regarding an individual student, who happens to be an African American male, is usually intended to distract from the fact that Black male students are not achieving their potential in schools like Nobles while others – White, Hispanic, and Asian American students, and African American girls, reach or exceed their potential. I also come to the uncomfortable conclusion that the Nobles school environment actually contributes to a sense of separation from peers, teachers, and coaches for these young men, and that as a white teacher, I may be inadvertently contributing to this culture that creates a vibe that is still very much white, wealthy, and “Private.”

What to do? Curriculum Matters. Sophomore English is a truncated American Lit. survey course; the majority of the selections are plucked from the traditional American Canon and represent an enormity of Whiteness in the literature that the students read, memorize, analyze, and write about. All of the usual suspects are there: Hawthorne and his Puritans, Twain’s Huck, Thoreau in the woods, O’Neill’s crazy family, and Fitzgerald and Hemingway, united in their homage of white male martyrs. What becomes of an African American male student in the face of a semester of English as we read continuously from the American Canon and its insistent focus on the courage and conundrums, victories and tragedies of white characters? Such a course is no doubt off putting, and perhaps severely disturbing, since in much of the American Literature presented, African American characters are so often absent, stereotyped, or victimized.

Additionally, it is essential to remember that an English class does not exist in a vacuum. At Nobles, a Sophomore who self-identifies as Black or African American will also be taking a European or Asian language, a U.S. History course with its inevitable attention on white men and their actions and decisions, as well as Algebra 2 and Chemistry, which are too often deemed “raceless” but which actually reinforce the discoveries, theories, and inventions of white men.

Back to sophomore English… In Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison points out that American Literature assumes Whiteness as automatic, inevitable, and normal, and she proves this in part by discussing a character from a Hemingway novel: “Eddy is ‘white’ and we know he is because nobody says so.” Similarly, at a conference on Speculative Fiction at Howard University, Octavia Butler commented that she began writing Speculative Fiction because she loved reading “Sci-Fi” novels, but there were no characters who looked like her in those novels, and so she set about to change that paradigm.            

Morrison and Butler state the truth so simply because it is indisputable; American writers, and teachers, assume what Audre Lorde denotes as the “Mythic Norm” of white and male as starting points for character creation and analysis. In our sophomore English curriculum, students could easily arrive at a similar assumption regarding American authors and characters.

Morrison’s dismantling of this “Mythic Norm” in her own novels has helped to provide her essential place in American Literature. And next year in Sophomore English at Nobles, her novel, A Mercy, will accompany The Scarlet Letter in depicting the late 17^th Century in New England. Morrison’s characters will join James Baldwin’s Sonny, August Wilson’s Troy and Rose Maxson, and of course Frederick Douglass whose Narrative precedes and contradicts Twain’s Jim. Not to worry… Gatsby is back… but relegated to summer reading; Fitzgerald’s “fresh green breast of a new world” will become a hypothesis to be explored rather than a myth to be worshipped. Also, the Pilgrims will be examined as the “immigrants” they actually were and will be compared to more modern Immigrant narratives. What if the Wampanoags, Narragansetts, Pequots, and others had been able to enforce a Travel Ban! But I digress.

There must be a balance of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion etc. in an English curriculum, and it must be tended to with thoughtful selection and invested teaching. This adjustment is not a concession to political correctness, as those who advocate a “Great Books lite” curriculum might contend; instead it is a necessary recognition for fair representation of the evolving voices and experiences necessary to tell a complete and true American Story. And while a more balanced or multicultural curriculum can be quickly imposed in an elective course, it is even more important for non-white, non-Canonical American authors and characters to be included in our “core” curricula for the obvious reason that more students are then exposed to the works of Morrison and Wilson and others. Many of those students will be kids of color.

So what can I, or should I do? Clearly a responsibility to increase comfort and potential success for these African American male students lies with me as the teacher. My first decision must be to accept personal responsibility and to resist the temptation to assign blame regarding a lack of investment in the literature, or in Nobles, by a young man of color as the fault of the school that sent him, his previous teachers, his parents, or the Nobles Admissions office. If I absolve myself of responsibility, or if I am unwilling to acknowledge my white identity as a potential barrier, I leave a Black young man stuck alone in the middle of an academic experience that is not working for him. He may also be cognizant of the school’s unintended but powerful institutional racism that is unlikely to be immediately ameliorated in my class because it is unrecognized by me. Like many Independent schools, Nobles reflects an educational system that offers unfair advantages for me; would I recognize it as such, let alone work to change it?

I must also recognize an approach in many of us who are white teachers when we work with young Black men; it is a curious and injurious pattern of investment followed by rejection if success is not achieved. It usually goes like this: A black male student is noted for the discrepancy between potential and performance, and a white teacher/administrator moves in to help the young man, hoping that by dint of personality, attention, and a blend of encouragement and admonishment the young man will realize that he should be working more diligently and once this sinks in… Voila! The young man begins to succeed academically. The conclusion then reached is that any positive change in his academic success is a reflection of my impact upon him.

Unfortunately, the reality is that nothing may have really changed for the young black man who is still going to a school that is overwhelming white in its percentages of peers and faculty, and in its curricula that affirms white History, Literature, Science, and tradition. And since I, as a white teacher, have difficulty seeing the school from the same perspective as the student, I cannot recognize the enormity of the institution’s racist forces, subtle and overt, that make attending the school difficult for the young man, never mind loving my course filled to the brim with white male authors.

Also, if institutional racist pedagogy and curricula are not openly acknowledged and discussed in the class, then the message to the student is actually a reinforcement of what he already feels as a young black man at Nobles, and, worse, I am now complicit in the message that he is “different” from the traditional or “Mythic” Nobles student, somehow not as prepared, as smart, as willing, or as invested as his white peers.

And, if improvement and success does not begin to occur, if change in the young man’s attitude and approach is not immediately recognizable to me, or to other white teachers and administrators, and most importantly, if the student does not seem willing to adapt to the school’s white culture, curricula, and definitions of success, after investing time and effort in this young man, I might throw up my hands and offer the time honored frustration: “I really tried to reach this kid, but…”

Somehow this doesn’t sound fair to the student. Some faculty, white, even folks of color, might object to my scenario as oversimplification, but I stand by it because I have seen this scenario occur at every Independent School at which I have taught and heard a similar story from many Black alumni – usually after they have graduated from a school about which they understandably feel ambivalent.

I also know that I have wandered this path during my own career and had difficulty resisting the temptation to claim success when there was success or to assign blame upon a young man of color if there was failure or stasis… an uncomfortable admission to be sure.

Luckily, once again, studying literature provides exploration and explanation. When I read about Twain’s journey for Huck and Jim, or Conrad’s description of the Congo and its inhabitants, an essential discussion of the author’s racism is inevitable… and should be undertaken. Many white readers (including teachers) may resist proclaiming white authors guilty of Racism because there might be an admirable intent and, for their times, a progressive purpose. Simultaneously, a justification of racist language and stereotypical depiction of Blacks or Africans is linked to the observation that the authors are men of their times and so are influenced by racist cultural thinking even when they may be challenging certain racist practices. However, it needs to be acknowledged and discussed in the classroom that Twain and Conrad are racist.

Why shouldn’t I apply this same explanation to Independent Schools, white teachers… and myself? I am no doubt influenced by the culture of my Independent Schools, which harbor racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamist, homophobic, and elitist traditions, curricula, and expectations. Despite my best intent to reach out and assist African American male students, isn’t it possible that I carry innate prejudices regarding these students whom I teach, advise, and coach? Instead of trying to influence students of color to accept some degree of racism in order to succeed academically, I need to recognize the inherent and inherited racist traditions and curricula of Nobles and then work with diligence and focus to change them.

As a white teacher, I must decide that I am going to work with my Black male students as individuals to find avenues of trust as well as academic strategies that will work for each of them, and I must do so with more humility and less pride. I must also acknowledge some truths about the schools where I learned and where I teach, and confront my own prejudices regarding student expectations, as well as my allegiance to the novels, poems, and plays that I expect students to read, to analyze, and to appreciate.

 

So what can I or should I do? How about this as a start: confound expectations. Prove to a young Black man, or a Latina from Lawrence, MA, or a Bi-racial boy, or a girl whose folks came here from Vietnam that I am more than an English teacher who loves teaching The Scarlet Letter and who coaches hockey. I am also a teacher who has read most of the plays of August Wilson, who wants to do a better job when teaching Junot Diaz, and who acknowledges that Nobles works better for me than it might for him or her.

It is also crucial for me to push myself, even when and if I don’t have to. For me to think that I can simply teach the same way that I did in 1981 when I started teaching is both irresponsible and unfair to all students… but especially so to kids of color, who every year make up a greater percentage of my students. I would not be able to get away with such indifference regarding the use of technology, or trying new texts, or acknowledging advances in classroom management. If there is not a specific and demanding school incentive or requirement for me to examine and to improve the way that I approach teaching kids of color, both in curricula and in interaction, then I must do so myself by seeking out the advice and guidance available through conferences, in books and articles, and, most importantly, from likeminded colleagues.

Clearly, there are factors in the Nobles experience that create an inequitable educational experience that can affect student performance as well as a relationship with Nobles. This inequity is real at Nobles and must be addressed with vigorous awareness and a willingness on my part to change curricula, to challenge assumptions based on race, and to question my role as a white teacher. To achieve a truly equitable learning experience at Nobles, the greatest responsibility should fall upon those who benefit most from the hierarchy, culture, and tradition of an Independent School, therefore I had better start with myself.