Being Black in America's Schools
A Student-Educator-Reformer's Call for Change
1 of 1 copy available
In a polarizing and racially divided America, what do children of color learn about themselves before they even go to school? How do they see themselves and is that image only exacerbated by spending twelve years in a public education system that perpetrates negative stereotypes? Brian Rashad Fuller personally knows that the impact of low expectations can be devastating, as proved by the "school to prison" pipeline that so many students have experienced. He aims to make a difference in this humanizing and very personal portrayal of what it means to be Black in America's schools.
As a Black man who has spent his life as a student and educator, Brian shares his own story of navigating the world, overcoming his family struggles, and eventually entering an educational system that he believes is inherently racist, damaging, and disserving. He exposes the challenges Black students face in elite and predominantly white universities and spaces, dissects "Black exceptionalism" in the schooling experience, and offers a firsthand account of the emotional and psychological impact made by teachers, administrators, policies, practices, lessons, and student interactions. Most Americans are looking for answers on how to improve our education system—as illustrated by the critical race theory debate—but have not fully understood the lived
Black experience, until now.
With powerful insight into a thoroughly American institution, Brian offers present-day solutions, and liberating hope, for a centuries-long issue, as well as a galvanizing and radical step forward. It is a book essential to our challenging times.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
July 23, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781496746627
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781496746627
- File size: 532 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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June 1, 2024
A Black educational leader and strategist uses his personal experiences to expose the racist underpinnings of America's school system. Fuller began his schooling as a student in a predominantly white, Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool in Richmond, Virginia. The author remembers that being the sole Black child in his class made him feel "a strange sense of otherness," a feeling that followed him as a high achiever in his elementary school in Sumter, South Carolina, and as a hardworking student selected for a prestigious International Baccalaureate program at his high school, where academic tracking separated him from most of the other Black students--and especially Black men. Racism continued to affect Fuller after high school, from Emory University to his time at the Success Academy Charter School and New York City Department of Education, as well as during his pursuit of an advanced degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "I began to contemplate how systemic racism is the symbolic center in our education system and what it would mean to truly dismantle it," he writes. The author encapsulates that vision within this narrative, which "flows from a deep commitment of mine to storytelling, to a belief in the way personal stories hu-manize the policies and systems that give rise to present inequities." At its best, the book is perspicacious, passionate, and insightful, and the author shines in his analyses of how the pressure to overachieve intersects with racist systems, as well as how, though his personal awards were celebrated, their effect was not fully positive. At times, Fuller seems torn between specifying and generalizing: Moments when he refers to the broader, systemic problems often lack citations and pull focus away from his gift for storytelling. A promising debut by a Black educator with a vision for change.COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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