University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that taught students who were not doing well in
science and mathematics how to think about science and mathematics in different ways. At
that point I had my master’s degree, and I decided to work toward my doctorate. I never re-
ally made a planned decision to go into teacher education, but opportunity, and my belief
that everyone can learn science, led me in that direction.
As a high school teacher, I was determined to make science available to Black students
like myself. However, as a teacher educator, I find that I generally work with White pre-
service teachers. Too many Black and Latino youngsters still do not make it into college, and
amongst those who do, few currently see themselves becoming secondary school science
teachers. That means if I am going to change science education for Black and Latino kids, I
am going to have to prepare teachers to work with students whose cultures they do not
share, in a society where working with these students is not valued.
Most of the White undergraduate and graduate preservice teachers who enter our teach-
er education program start out with a “deficit model” that they use to explain inadequate
student performance, especially among minority youth. They look at what children do not
know and what they cannot do, and they blame students, their families, their cultures and
their communities for these perceived deficits. They talk about “why Johnny can’t read,” in-
stead of the cultural richness, network of social relationships, and intelligence, nurtured in
homes, communities, and churches, that children bring with them to school. I try to help
preservice teachers see these strengths and figure out how to make them the basis for effec-
tive teaching and successful learning.
In my teacher education methods classes we examine case studies and discuss how dif-
ferent teachers handle situations in their classrooms and possible alternatives. We try to un-
derstand the same events through the eyes of both a teacher and of students. There is al-
ways some diversity in a classroom, and we spend a lot of time exploring each other’s
culture and heritage and how they shape who we are and the way we see the world. The
more diverse a class is, the better. That way, when someone issues a pronouncement, “This
is how it is!” someone else can respond, “That’s not how it was for me.” Sometimes people
grow up in such a narrow segregated world that they never realize that other people do not
have the same opportunities and experiences that they have. In a lot of ways, the class be-
comes an epiphany for them. I try to remind students that they are the success stories of the
school system, but that everybody did not share their success.
I am a strong believer in the idea that teachers are professionals and must be educational
leaders. To me, that means that teachers must find ways to relate to all children, not just the
students who are quite capable of learning by themselves. And classroom teachers should
not pretend they are sheep, followers who just do their jobs. Being a professional teacher re-
quires a commitment to constantly learning new methods about presenting material, new
ideas in your subject areas, and about your students. It means challenging things and people
that do not make sense. Sometimes I hear teachers say, “Well, these kids today, they don’t
study like they used to. They never take the books home.” That may be true. But all it means
is that a different student population requires different teaching strategies. We can all sit at
the bar and cry in our beer about how terrible it is, but if we are professional educators, we
have to be willing to change what we do and change our schools to ensure that our students
learn. Sometimes it means that teachers must surrender some of their control over the class-
room and the curriculum in order to validate the life experiences of students. I like the slo-
gan, “Think of yourself as the guide on the side, rather than as the sage on the stage.”
One of the things I do in both my general methods classes and in my science curriculum
classes is require preservice teachers to interview other people. They need to learn how to
talk with people, how to ask them questions, and how to listen to their answers. I think one
RELATIONSHIPS 119