11/12

        I have noticed that there has been a significant amount of discussion in our readings surrounding this idea of “identity formation” and how that impacts student performance. This idea is really starting to resonate and I think as a teacher I will definitely push my students to recognize their strengths and construct identities based on those strengths in hopes that those identities will give them a sense of power, belonging or individuality, that they could use to guide them through their experience as a student. Black talks about this positive relationship in her article on ELLs, and we get Mandys’s story in Fernsten’s article. However, I think this is something that could affect every student in a positive way. Every time we mention identity I think about the students I worked with in Miami. They had very low self-concepts and sadly but simply believed that they were incompetent.  I believe it was the work of the adults who tragically treated them more like inmates than learners.

The Jordan piece was very heavy and I made a huge mistake not reading it last because what came seemed so small in comparison.  I think that piece also has a lot to do with identity as it shows how some Black students see themselves, and how just being you can get you “kilt”. In the intro Jordan talks about a “we” “whose walk or talk will never sound right.” I think that statement exemplifies the entire message of the article. Blacks are demonized by the dominant culture just for that reason. I love how she parallels language with police brutality. On the one hand you have a culture whose means of communicating with one another is heavily looked down upon and the fact that the Black students in her class questioned Black English while speaking Black English spoke volumes. It goes to show how much Blacks have internalized the slew of negative ideas and images that stand out so strongly in our society. At times we are even embarrassed to be our true selves.  And on the other hand you have your appearance, something that is so much more difficult to control than language, and Blacks are demonized for that as well, and in a lot of cases killed. I think as teachers what this article teaches us is that when it comes to African-American children, there is an identity, one that we’ve learned is very important in how students see themselves as learners that is very sensitive. This identity is continuously being crushed and stepped on by society and it’s something we should always take into consideration.

There were also some very fun aspects to the article as I found myself laughing at all the translations. I tried writing this blog in Black English, but I realized that I haven’t quite mastered the art of writing Black English yet. It is also important to note that Black English varies because there were a lot of statements I didn’t understand and some rules that were quite confusing. But overall, I enjoyed this article and I think it showed the importance of identity construction and language in a powerful way.