White Teacher Talks About Race » (1st Edition)

Veteran teacher Julie Landsman leads the reader through a day of teaching and reflection about her work with high school students who are from a variety of cultures. She speaks honestly about issues of race, poverty, institutional responsibility, and white privilege by engaging the reader in the experiences of a day in the classroom with some of her remarkable students.

Publishers Weekly

In this account of her years teaching in a multi-ethnic Midwestern high school, Landsman (Basic Needs) discusses the life lessons she learned from her street-smart, determined students: people of color often have to struggle with being the only representative of their race at a social gathering or in class; white people can never understand how it feels to be shadowed by suspicious store managers or prejudiced cops; simply showing up to class can be a monumental task when one is struggling to feed the baby or find a place to sleep at night. Given her self-confessed privileged background, Landsman's intellectual and personal rapport with her students is impressive; they seem wonderfully comfortable telling her about their relationships, aspirations, fears and failings. The reader craves more nuanced revelations from Landsman herself, however. While she gamely tells us that white teachers "cannot reach certain students the way someone of their own skin color or culture can reach them," readers may want to know if she ever catches herself feeling ambivalent about her students, doubting their abilities for a moment or questioning her own capacity for unbiased teaching. Readers drawn to this title may be disappointed that Landsman's observations about racism in education generally reiterate arguments already established by other writers, such as Beverly Tatum in Why Do All the Black Kids Sit Together in the Cafeteria? Still, this balanced, quietly impassioned account affords insight into race relations in the classroom and will appeal to parents and educators who are struggling with these issues. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Introduction: Our Changing World: A Cause for Celebration vii

1 Before School: What I Bring 1

2 Waiting for First Hour 9

3 First Hour: Recognizing Oneself 19

4 Second Hour: History and Literature 31

5 Third Hour: Student Voices as the Center of the Class 47

6 Lunch Hour: Students' Lives 59

7 Fourth Hour: Connections 69

8 Interlude: Twenty-Four Seven 81

9 Fifth Hour: Representing 83

10 My White Power World 93

11 Sixth Hour: Expectations 105

12 After School: Training Teachers 123

13 At Night: Community 133

14 Living in Different Worlds 141

15 Celebrations at School 149

16 Celebrations at Home 153

17 Resistance: The Power of White Activism 163

Epilogue 169

A Final Note to My Readers 173

References 177

Acknowledgments 179

Appendix A Strategies for Meeting the Needs of Economically Struggling Students 183

Appendix B Classroom and Building Assessment: High Expectations 187

About the Author 189