(Justin Hudson, who used his graduation speech to challenge the admissions process for the school. Photo from the Times.)
"Then he shocked his audience. 'More than anything else, I feel guilty,' Mr. Hudson, who is black and Hispanic, told his 183 fellow graduates. 'I don’t deserve any of this. And neither do you.'
"They had been labeled 'gifted,' he told them, based on a test they passed 'due to luck and circumstance.' Beneficiaries of advantages, they were disproportionately from middle-class Asian and white neighborhoods known for good schools and the prevalence of tutoring.
"'If you truly believe that the demographics of Hunter represent the distribution of intelligence in this city,' he said, 'then you must believe that the Upper West Side, Bayside and Flushing are intrinsically more intelligent than the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Washington Heights. And I refuse to accept that.'"
Diversity Debate Engulfs Hunter High in Manhattan | NYTimes.com
Some of you know that I'm a math teacher. I've taught high school and college. I have taught in a lot of different places, from rough and tumble city school where few graduate, to elite private schools where half of the class will go to ivies. I have encountered 100s of students and watched them struggle with and eventually succeed in understanding and using mathematics.
I have noticed that my willingness to believe in my students (as cheesy as that sounds) has profound impact on their performance. Each day I remind my students how smart they are in one way or another. And I don't lack sincerity, my students really are smart. Few dumb people sign up for calculus courses. Yet, at times a student will have a crisis of self confidence. They will come to me not with an integral to solve but a deeper question "Am I in the right place? Can I do this?" I have watch as groundless self doubt ate away at the confidence of minority students until they dropped out of school.
I have also seen how kind words, can help brighten a students day and get them back on track, get them in to a place where they would later flourish.
Most of these students are women, Latino or black. I have seen the flip side of this too. My Asian students often say "I should be able to do this I'm Asian." (that is an exact quote, it's sort of a joke... but sort of NOT a joke.) But not in a, bragging way in a way that indicates tremendous pressure. As if they question their identity if they can't live up to the stereotype. The positive side, is that there is little room for self doubt.
My white male students hardly ever ask for help. But, when one did, he did it along with an outburst about how he should have been able to do this on his own. Could he have felt the pressure of stereotypes too? Maybe.
What I'm saying is my students come to me loaded with stereotypes. Stereotypes can get in the way of being yourself. They can get in the way of doing mathematics.
I do think talent is something you are born with but it is not as rare or deterministic as some think. You don't need to be in the 99.9 percentile to do the work of a genius just maybe in the top 35%, you need a little "smarts" the rest is hard work and confidence. I see the "spark" in all kinds of young people. I agree with Mr. Hudson. In fact, I would put my money where my mouth is. I believe that with any group of young people who are merely "bright" (no need for the 99.99 percentile) and well-trained teachers committed to anti-racism (yes you'd need to bring some serious anti-racist philosophy in to it. Some of my colleges don't understand the damage they can do-- with their words and tired old assumptions.) and parents who are reasonably stable (not perfect) we could produce a graduating class with test scores and achievements that looked just like a private academy.
The key element would be that every teacher believes in the mission of the school, and the fundamental anti-racist philosophy of the school. The idea would be that the young people would graduate far more free from stereotypes they would not be like my college freshmen are. Whatever they have learned in school one big lesson has been where they "belong" and what they "should be able to do" --
Just think about all of the potential we could unleash by doing this.
I know it is possible and I would love to do it.