Dreamkeepers Chapters 1 & 2

Although I have to admit that I am hesitant to categorize all African Americans under one style of teaching or one culture, I can’t stop thinking about the statistic mentioned in the book on p. 2 “African American students make up only 17 percent of the public school population but 41 percent of the special education population.” I go back and forth on the idea that African Americans should be taught in a special way, or that teachers should be prepared before teaching them. Part of me feels like it may not be based on race, but more on the environment in which some students grow up. I think instead of classifying the type of teaching Dreamkeepers is based on as teaching African Americans, instead it should be classified as urban students. But then I argue with myself and look at the previous statistic and believe that numbers can’t lie. From my three years of teaching I have to admit that all the African American students I have taught are different from the white students. However, the black students I taught in Massachusetts were being bused in from Boston so there is no fair comparison. The one African American student in my class who was not from the city, acted and achieved just as her white classmates did. My experiences cannot argue with facts, however, I am still hesitant to completely agree that all African Americans should be taught in a different way than other races.