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“In one scenario, during a professional-development session where a large number of teachers from an urban school district gathered on a cold November afternoon, two images of an African American young man from a classroom in one of their schools were portrayed onto a screen. In one image, he is staring emptily into space, and in the other, his head is resting on his desk. Responses from the group were immediate, and all described the young man in the photos as some variation of “disinterested” or “unmotivated.” I then hit the button on my laptop that plated the video of the moments before and after the two images were taken. In the video, the young man tries repeatedly to answer a question that the teacher had posed. He raises his hand, stares at the teacher to get his attention, and even yells out the answer after he is initially ignored. After multiple futile attempts to be recognized by the teacher, he puts his head down on the desk.

When I interviewed this student after I had seen the video, he revealed a deep desire to learn and an undeniable frustration with the fact that the structure in place in the classroom, like his seat was at the back of the class, the pace of the lesson being too slow, and the students not having the space to discuss the content with each other, wouldn’t allow this desire to be met. He mentioned that he put his head on the desk in an attempt to control the anger and frustration that came from not being validated and not being taught well. He knew that if he responded angrily, he would be perceived as “mad for no reason” and probably “kicked out of the class or suspended like the y usually do when you say something. “In this scenario, the different ways that teacher experienced the student’s reaction to the classroom highlights the need for understanding the authentic realities of young people. A conversation with the teacher about this video revealed that, according to the teacher, the student had to learn to control his excitement and had not shown that he was ready to learn. In this scenario both the teacher and the student are experiencing the same classroom in very different ways.” (p 29)

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“To be an educator in America today means that your students’ test scores, GPAs, and graduation rates are the primary measures of your effectiveness. Standardized exams drive everything from curriculum to teaching. As a result, many teachers believe that anything aside from teaching to the test will be detrimental to the students and teachers alike. This makes it easy for some educators to ascribe to the “Don’t smile till November” mantra. Teachers become adept at creating high-pressure classrooms focused more on testing than teaching. Teachers are reduced to test-prep machines.” (p 37)

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“For many teachers, the school day has developed into nothing more than a series of routines. If students are stated and quiet during most of the lesson, and teachers only have to yell enough times to get a sore throat once or twice a month, they view themselves as successful. They may not be reaching the students, or inspiring them to value education, but they rest comfortable knowing that they are doing their job as defined by the school. The lessons are scripted and the students are quiet...the pattern continues across classrooms throughout the day, and as long as there isn’t an emergency, everything is perceived to be okay.” (p 41)

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“However, the key to getting students to be academically successful (even if the teacher decides that success means passing an exam), is not to teach directly to the assessment or to the curriculum, but to teach directly to the students”

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“Without teachers recognizing the biases they hold and how these biases impact the ways they see and teach students, there is no starting point to changing the dismal statistics related to the academic underperformance of urban youth.” (p 43)

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In our classrooms, the positions falsely thought to solely exist are normally teacher, the ones teaching, and students, the ones learning. Teachers can learn from students, just like students learn from teachers. Sometimes, teachers have a sense of power in the classroom, and they believe that they are always right, with their sole point of view. When students have a perspective, like this one, and teachers have theirs, the authority of the teacher may sometimes put the student at a disposition of conflict.
This student didn't know what to do, except put his head down in frustration, rather than lashing out. The teacher does not consider other options than the student not wanting to learn.
As teachers, we need to make sure to not judge students based on our biases, but that we absolve those biases altogether, and come into our classrooms open to students, ready to learn and understand them.

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As teachers, we all have goals and standards to teach to our students, doing our best to make sure they do well on their tests. However, this should not be our only concern at all. When we constantly drill our students with standardized procedures, not only will they be stressed, but the classroom will be a place they no longer want to enter, with their minds unready and unwilling to learn.

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As teachers, I believe we shouldn't be content with doing what is required of us. We should strive to inspire and change the view of teaching. Our lessons plans and daily tasks shouldn't fall into the category of routine. What the school requires of the teachers, to teach their standards the required material to be able to pass standards and tests to go on to the next grade level, shouldn't be enough for us. In fact, that should be the bare minimum.

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As we have learned by studying theorists, I can agree with Gardener when he speaks of Multiple Intelligences. Not every student learns the same, which means that the teacher shouldn't teach in one way. This applies when teaching assessments. As teachers, we should not teach to the assessment, but teach to the students. In order for students to sincerely understand materials taught in class, we need to alter our materials to the students, and how they learn.

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If we come into our classrooms holding certain biases, it will be seen by students by the way we treat them. Whether its putting them in certain areas of the classroom like the back, not calling on them when they raise their hands, or using them as examples, this can change the student's view on many things. The student can hate the subject being taught, or they can hate going to school entirely. As teachers, we have the power to either inspire our students to be the best they can be, or we can simply stick to the basics, changing nothing in the process, or possibly damaging the next Steve Jobs. Let's be the next generation of teachers who strive to be the difference.