Racial Identity Development

        I had struggles with actually sitting down, reading, and blogging this week.  I don’t know if it’s the time of year or if I’ve simply just been bombarded with work lately.  Either way, while I was reading, the one thing that kept me going was all the connections I kept making to my favorite punk bands. Strangely enough, I found connections between the reading and some of their songs.  I’m always drawn to the more intellectual, progressive side of music, and I thought it was cool that some of the ideas I was reading about were echoed in their songs. I included some of those tunes here on this post.  Music has played a major part when I've tried reflecting on my identity.  Perhaps this is where all the connections have come from?

At first, I was a little apprehensive about how this chapter would pertain to my teaching.  I teach at a white, middle class, suburban high school.  There are not many minority students.  Yet, after reading the chapter, I now understand with more nuance about how much minority students must struggle with their identity in this type of environment.

         The chapter didn’t pertain to the student I plan on doing my case study on.  But I did find some recent classroom examples that tied directly to the reading.   

        In my effective writing class, we are working on college applications and college essays.  One student was filling out a common application, and she asked “if my mom is from one country and my dad is from another, which box do I select?  Other?”  The student who asked this question is the only African American student I have in school this year.  Almost all of her classmates are white.  It pained me to tell her to select “other,” since the listing did not have the specific place her ancestors were from.  Can you imagine selecting “other” when your identity is asked for, especially while at such a formative age?  Nakkula writes that “regardless of our own racial identifications or those of the kids we serve, our work with adolescence occurs within a social context laden with racial meaning” (121).  This was obviously true in this situation. 

I wonder what effects this idea plays in this student’s identity, since she has made it clear her race is something she thinks about frequently.  Her college essay is about how her great-grandfather was her hero because of his leadership roles in the civil rights movement.  He was even friends with Malcolm X.  Her essay was both candid and sincere.  She was especially proud of her great-grandfather because of the way he had to helped change how society looked at African Americans.  She wrote she wishes she could speak to him now about how to change the problems with race in this country, which are still there, yet less apparent.  I thought this was especially insightful, this idea that “racism still alive, they just be concealing it.”  Kanye West has written about this in some of his music:

(from "Never Let Me Down" by Kanye West)

I get down for my grandfather who took my momma

Made her sit that seat where white folks ain't wanna us to eat

At the tender age of 6 she was arrested for the sit in

With that in my blood I was born to be different

Now n***** can't make it to ballots to choose leadership

But we can make it to Jacob and to the dealership

That's why I hear new music

And I just don't be feeling it

Racism still alive they just be concealing it

But I know they don't want me in the damn club

They even made me show I.D to get inside of Sam's club

             Nakkula writes that “race is a concept created in the modern era as a way of drawing distinctions between peoples such that some might benefit at the expense of others” (123).  While I was taking notes on this section, I wrote down race is a “social destruction” rather than “social construction.”

This seems to be a common societal problem.  We may have some differences, yet at the end of the day, I think people forget that everyone wants the same basic comforts: food, a place to live, a family.  People in power use our differences to divide us.  This sounds like a lesson plan in the making and reminded me of this song by Double Dagger, a punk band from Baltimore

:

(from "The Lie/The Truth" by Double Dagger)

In your perfect world of black and white

Where talk about grey is treason,

The compromiser is crucified

And no quarter is ever given.

You make it easy to divide us

When you exaggerate the reasons and meanings

Until everyone is defined

As the righteous and the demons.

But there's a Lie and there's a Truth,

There's something in between: that's me and you.

There's a Lie and there's a Truth,

There's something in between: that's what we do.

            I think of this song frequently when teaching.  We're constantly asked to skirt between lies and the truth as teachers.  It might be time to explain to students that the world isn't black and white, that there are ambiguities and false narratives.  This applies to race and identity.  We're not all the same and we can't pretend otherwise, but we're all looking for the same things out of life.

I was drawn to the idea of the looking-glass self, “in which one imagines how others react to one’s behavior and personality, affects the adolescent’s identity development in profound ways” (130).  It had never occurred to me that this was something we develop over time, this idea of self-image.  What does this student think of herself?  How can I help?  There's a Minutemen song that goes along with this idea:

(lyrics to "There Ain't Sh** On TV Tonight" by The Minutemen)

How can I make

An outline of myself?

Where's the guidelines

For the profiles?

For my country?

How do others see me?

I'm worried

Worried but I feel guilty

The media robs and betrays us

No more lies

We are responsible

            The last line of that song always kills me: we can't blame others or society.  It's up to us.  We are responsible to try and change these systematic problems.  Pretending they don't exist, that the world is color-blind, isn't going to cut it.  Complaining doesn't help, either.

Nakkula writes that “the trick is to see how adolescents’ language may suggest the ways in which they are orienting themselves racially” (141).  I don’t know this student well-enough yet to figure out where she lands on the Racial Identity Development chart, but I am more aware of her different identity development from her classmates.  I certainly have seen and overheard thoughts about how “this school is full of ignorant people” and I wonder how much else I’ll pick up on now that I’ve read this chapter.  I certainly will be paying closer attention, or at least am more aware of the differences.

I thought the end of the case study was especially constructive.  Nakkula writes that “being conversant with race identity development theory gives tools to interpret labeling and stop students from being misunderstood” (141).  I thought this was an important lesson.  Labeling is lazy, as Ayers wrote.  I thought the conversation that Mr. Campbell and Ms. Peterson have at the end of the chapter are especially constructive.  Ms. P. is asking for advice on how to work with her student, and Mr. C. says that she should “tell him you hear him, validate his feelings, make him feel like he’s being understood, then give your intentions and expectations”.  This was the major lesson I learned from this chapter.  Not only should we do this with minority students, we should do this with all our students.

Chapter Six: Gender Identity Development

Chapter Six of Nakkula’s book, Understanding Youth, goes along well with the book I’m teaching in my sports lit class: Friday Night Lights.  The book is about Odessa, Texas, a football-obsessed town that values sports before academics.  The story follows the trials and tribulations of the Permian Panthers, the town’s most popular high school football team.  Their games are the most important events in town.  They are looked upon with a disturbing religious fervor.  The players are treated as both royalty and celebrity, and the gender roles that they grow up in are consistent with the information found in Chapter 6 of Nakkula’s book.

On p. 100 of Understanding Youth, Nakkula writes “[a]s contemporary research has made clear, biology and environment (or nature and nurture) continually interact to inform virtually every aspect of human social functioning.”  This has clearly been true in my experience in teaching.  Environment and genetics always play a role in students’ personalities. 

This is also true in Friday Night Lights.  There are many “gendered norms” picked up by the students of Permian High School that are hard to break out of, especially because, as Nakkula adds, there complex gender scripts that have been established in their lives (100).  Football is considered the ultimate masculine activity at their town and school.  On the other side, the normative feminine activity is inclusion in the “Pepettes” a group of exclusive girls who are personal assistants to the football players throughout the season.  They deliver baked goods to their assigned player on game day, decorate their lockers, and create elaborate celebratory signs that are then placed on the players’ front lawn.  The manly football players are taken care of by their accommodating female assistants.  Few people question these obviously unfair gender norms and, as Nakkula adds, “ [i]n essence, the players are lost to the play itself” (100). 

The Pepettes

What happens to the young women affected by these unfair circumstances?  Nakkula mentions studies done by Carol Gilligan that have found that adolescent girls are forced to conform to established culture norms.  Gilligan calls this “going underground,” a process that forces young women to hide their true personality for fear of losing their relationships (103).  This commonly can lead to a disconnection with self.  I imagine this would pull someone’s identity into disequilibrium.  Since there are few moratoriums offered in school to help pull the self back into equilibrium, girls end up sacrificing their authentic self for social acceptance (107).

"Going Underground" by The Jam

Nakkula write about a need for a “home place” – a safe haven girls congregate to have “safe exchanges of ideas, intimate discussions of desire, and expressions of anger and frustration felt in response to the external world” (107). 

These ideas can be applied to Friday Night Lights.  There doesn’t seem to be any home places for the women to discuss their thoughts on the unfair societal rules.  Very few girls are in advanced level classes and even less in science and math courses.  Their SAT scores are much lower than the statewide average and much lower compared to the boys’ scores.  The townspeople expect them to be dumb and to serve the almighty football team. 

There is an interview in the book with a high-achieving female student who acknowledges the gender disparities in academics and sports at Permian High School.  She sometimes wishes she could dumb herself down in order to be part of the Pepettes, but realizes that’s not her.  She is one of the rare students at the school who hasn’t “gone underground.”

Nakkula writes about the frequent home places constructed for boys that breed homophobia.  These are the places that “socialize boys into masculine stereotypes of toughness and independence, thereby discouraging sensitivity and intimate caring” (111).  This parallel to Friday Night Lights is an obvious one: the football locker room is the ultimate home space for teenage boys and the emphasis put on masculinity is bewildering.  Nakkula writes that these situations “reinforced a sense of isolationism among many boys and men, thereby reducing their opportunities for mutually beneficial growth” (111).  No wonder so many middle-aged men never grow out of the teenage football years: they were never allowed to grow in a socially healthy environment. 

Nakkula goes on to write about how these ideas of masculinity negatively affects thoughts on homo-sexuality in youth.  Gay boys are frequently faced to hide in closet (114).  They must hold back from being their true selves, using energy to hide from others that they are different.  This reminds me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  If the second tier of the pyramid, the feeling of safety, falls out the bottom of a student’s identity, the results cannot be good.  

This last part of the chapter reminds me of Jason Collins, the first athlete in a major sport to come out of the closet.  Collins had been in the closet for most of his career.  He even became engaged a woman, only to break it off after he realized deep down, what he knew about his true self.  Perhaps Collins would’ve been able to avoid this heartache is society was more responsive to homosexuality, especially in sports.  However, Collins’ bravery does hopefully help others deal with their own sexuality.  Unfortunately, Collins hasn't been signed to an NBA team yet this season.  Hopefully, this will change soon!

 

Nakkula Chapts 4 and 5

The experience of reading Chapter 4 in Nakkula’s “Understanding Youth” left me a little cold.  Thankfully, Chapter 5 recaptured my attention and seemed to have more practical ideas.  In the end, I was much more captivated by Chapter 5.

Why did chapter 4 frustrate me?  To start, I’m getting a little tired of the “problems at home” premise for every high-risk behavior student.  Aren’t there students who have great home lives who get in trouble in school?  Haven’t we learned that many of these problems are complicated and nuanced and don’t all fit into one category?  Why are all these counselors portrayed as superheroes?  This couldn’t be further from the truth… 

The next issue I had was the fact that Lorena was able to join rowing as opposed to basketball – isn’t that playing a sport still?  I’m unclear why that she would be allowed to row but she couldn’t play basketball.  Couldn’t she have learned the same extracurricular skills she acquired from rowing while playing basketball?  Maybe I’m being nitpicky here, but if you’re disqualified from one sport, doesn’t it count for all?  Isn’t that one major reason why high-risk students go downhill: they can’t play sports, the one aspect of school they’re good at, so they give up on everything else?   

Extracurricular activities are important, but frequently participation costs money.  Low-income students are at a disadvantage.  I think Nakkula should’ve touched on this in the chapter.  Project IF is nice but like this entire chapter, a bit too idealistic to prevent me from rolling my eyes.

Whenever I read about projects like Project IF, it automatically triggers my memories of the television show The Wire.  In the fourth season, the main focus is on a group of four 8^th grade boys in inner city Baltimore.  By the end of the series (spoiler alert) all but one of the boys makes it into productive society.  The other three end up on the street, involved in the drug trade.  That’s likely the percentage of these programs: one in four make it.  Otherwise, this isn’t the end-all, be-all answer to our plights.  It’s way more complicated than that.  Our society needs to take a hard look at many facets of what creates these issues.

I also started getting frustrated by the next section of this chapter.  The author asserts that women are not socialized for math and science careers.  That is probably true, yet there is little to no evidence in his argument.  Where’s the study?  Where are the examples?  I recall more women than men in my AP math and science courses in high school, but less in college.  I’d be more curious about why this is the case.  Still, does the author think we already know this injustice before we’re reading?  There needed more explanation here. 

OK now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I see that I’m not focusing on what we’re trying to discover: how do students learn?  Sometimes students do learn from their extracurricular activities.  I only wish there was less of a generalized approach to this chapter and more of a nuanced approach.  How I wish I could make all my troubled students join the track team and discover the joys of distance running.  Unfortunately, that’s not how the real world works.

       Hey, the less-annoyed Corey is back!  And he has less negative thoughts about chapter 5! 

Chapter 5 linked more to the idea of identity and relationships that were found in chapters 2 and 3.  The interpersonal theory of psychiatry – that mental health is linked to evolving interpersonal history – was a profound thought for me.  I interpreted this theory as a solid argument that mental health problems don’t have easy black and white answer.  Issues of this magnitude could stem from many difficulties!  Interpersonal history could cause many personality problems! 

On p. 81, Nakkula writes that “time and again students tell us they work hard “for” the teachers they like, teachers by whom they feel respected and valued or, as some students put it: teachers who treat us like real people.”   This idea came up in my interview with an adolescent: the student said the more comfortable she was with the teacher, the more likely she would take risks with learning.  This idea also ties into the importance of extracurricular activities for students.  The adolescent I interview also said that she likes to work hard in English class for her drama teacher, since she has a relationship with her outside of class.  This section further solidifies my idea that relationships are important with teaching students.

  Further on p. 81, Nakkula writes “[u]nfortunately, so much of education has become a numbers game.”  Nakkula is referencing the high-stakes testing and scores that have over-taken our classrooms.  Testing does suck for teachers and students, but our sound bite, knee-jerk culture isn’t going away anytime soon.  I’ve been trying to look at these unfortunate teaching truths now more like a scientific equation, where there’s a constant never changes and is always going to be annoying.  Gravity can be annoying, too.  But that’s true of any job.  There are annoying points.  We try to find strategies to work around them, and do our best to not let it get to us.   

The next section, chumship, seemed like a sensible idea, though unfortunately named.  Adolescents finally start to learn empathy from their peers around the age of 12.  Nakkula explains this stage as a complex network of relationships that optimizes opportunities for learning.

On p. 88, Nakkula discusses interpersonal understanding, or, the evolution of child and adolescent sensorimotor and moral cognition.  He puts this evolution into different levels of understanding.  This goes along with the ideas of identity we learned about in chapters 2 and 3.  More empathy of others allows adolescents to learn to collaborate and negotiate with others.  Though these negotiations are not always healthy or wise (diffuse personality), they do help adolescents form a view of the world.  Students who have empathy problems probably find it difficult to negotiate or collaborate with others and have fewer opportunities for growth.  Adolescents need these ‘authentic’ opportunities in order to connect to their own self and promote these ideas in others (95).  When we are attempting to help students learn, we must keep these growth opportunities in mind.