Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race - and Democracy)

Anyone who does any kind of teaching should read this. It of course helps with my work with young people from poor families (both rural and urban), but I have learned tricks that even work with my medical students and medicine residents.
Great educator, who knows how to write.

The book finally arrived and yesterday and I haven't put it down. It affirms so much of what I know but didn't have the words to describe about teaching. Also gives great stories, examples, and ideas for being diligent about equity work in schools. I truly wish I had this 5 years ago when I started teaching. So many things I learned the hard way would have went better and so many new ideas would have helped me be more successful.

Can't believe how anyone couldn't soak in the brilliance of this text. Helpful for a not White and not Black person who teaches in the hood but im sure especially helpful for a person who is unaware of how their Whiteness gets in the way of being a better teacher for kids of color. I highly recommend this and I NEVER give reviews

This is an important book for educators and people who believe they are informed or may not be informed about teaching in larger city schools. Why? Because whether someone agrees or disagrees with the author's perspective, the text provides valuable ideas and standpoints about differences in viewpoints that are often shaped by race, class, poverty, and the distribution or lack of distribution in some of the most underserved schools. "Reality Pedagogy" is a concept that is transferable to rural settings, too, in distinctly different ways because one of the things that strongly shapes how students and teachers and communities experience school is context: regional, demographic, historical, etc.. Anyway, this books is worthwhile because it gets - and got me thinking - about this important topic. I'm giving it five stars because the book has generated some excellent controversy and discussion. That's a good thing in a book - writing that makes me think!

As an older white woman new-again to the classroom and teaching in an "urban" (read: segregated, Black) school, this book is manna.

My passions are about student empowerment, but I find myself spending my days trying to push students into boxes. In the rare moments when I finally have some semblance of order there is rarely (if any) real engagement. Emdin begins by describing classrooms that look like mine, naming his own experience of frustration which mirrors my own, and then begins to delineate a list of practical tools that are new and yet apparently accessible. He begins each chapter with anecdotes which ring with prophetic truth, and then offers a series of step by step instructions for alternative visions. While Emdin is essentially challenging us to decenter whiteness in our classrooms, this book manages to sound the alarm while functioning as a beacon.

Emdin's vocabulary is priceless. "#HipHopEd", "neoindigenous students", and "reality pedagogy" are the foundations, but my personal favorite is "classroom colonialism". Words are power, and Emdin is a masterful storyteller.

People are destined to write the books that they right. Often their entire existence from birth to the present comes to bear upon the moment that they put pen to paper and begin to write. Dr. Christopher Emdin is no different.

As educators for the most part we are failing to properly educate all students primarily because in some cases our students are much different than we are and we are unaware of the ethnic and cultural differences.

In view of this it is necessary for us then to learn how our students learn best. Learning how our students learn best is not new.

We are aware of learning styles, multiple intelligences, and other forms of differentiation. However, we are still failing to properly educate our urban population students and the statistics show it.

Among students entering juvenile detention facilities a great percentage enter without a high school diploma. With the zero tolerance policies active in schools we have created a school to prison pipeline.

African Americans and Latinos make up a great percentage of those students entering juvenile detention facilities and the school to prison pipeline.

Along with students with disabilities and males specifically the two aforementioned groups are more likely than their Caucasian peers to enter the criminal justice system and to enter it without a high school diploma. I would prefer that none entered the criminal justice system or school to prison pipeline.

In view of this and the fact that minorities are educated in the public school system more than their Caucasian peers. As public school educators we are in a state of emergency to educate our students and deter them from the aforementioned systems.

To do this we need a different approach. Dr. Christopher Emdin provides this in his book. One definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expect a different outcome.

If we want a different outcome than we will have to adjust our traditional approach to one based on reality pedagogy or a semblance of It. We must get to know our students both ethnically and culturally to proper educate them.

A really important read for teachers and non-teachers. The answer to why African-American students overall tend to do more poorly in schools than their Caucasian peers is very simply because our educational systems were designed around Caucasian habits of mind and cultural norms. Black students are every bit as smart as white students. This book helps explore some approaches to addressing this monstrous inequity.

Christopher Emdin is no LouAnne Johnson. She’s best known for her book My Posse Don't Do Homework, which served as — very loosely — the basis for the movie Dangerous Minds, starring Michelle Pfeiffer. But her tour de force is her primer on teaching in urban schools, Two Parts Textbook, One Part Love: A Recipe for Sucessful Teaching — the greatest book I’ve ever read on teaching. Period!

It would be unfair to compare For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education to Two Parts Textbook, One Part Love, so I won’t. Emdin makes some good points: too often, it’s idealistic, inexperienced white teachers who get sent into “challenging” schools, where the population is 99 percent black or brown. They expect their students to be dangerous, disruptive and defiant — and, through cultural insensitivity and sheer inexperience, often reap exactly that. Unprepared, these teachers flee the schools — if not the profession — as soon as they can, creating a constant cycle of newbie teachers and ineffective teaching for students who need good teachers the most. Emdin has some good advice about checking stereotyped expectations, effective teaching style and getting to know your students — good advice no matter where you teach; however, Emdin takes a while to get to each point. This 220-page text could have been sheared in half and been the better for it. And some of Emdin’s advice would strike any experienced teacher as — well, insane. Co-teach regularly with students? Forget about classroom management? Exhuberance and cultural sensitivity is one thing; chaos is another.

Not bad (except for the classroom management advice), but Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race and, of course, Two Parts Textbook, One Part Love are much, much better.

Christopher Emdin does a wonderful job explaining why it is important to see disruption in the classroom reflectively. Making meaningful connections with the student in and out of the classroom allows the teacher to connect learning authentically, while also fostering buying from the students. That sounds simplistic; however the reality for any teacher is that engaging in meaningful content for true leaning can be sporadic.

The ideal of the "cogent", working with targeted students to have them critique and give feedback to improve classroom effectiveness, is brilliant. When students feel their input is valued and see it their input manifesting itself in the classroom, they are more willing to work and police each other. A teacher takes a huge risk here; the willingness to be vulnerable enough to get feedback on how their teaching practice effects students. The payoff can be rewarding.

The reality pedagogy rings so authentic. When I learned to shoot a rifle, the instructor gave me some advice. He said "learning to relax helps achieve a more accurate shot. When you fire, line up your shot. Then, close your eyes and take a breath, and when you open your eyes, your reference point should still be on target. It is then and only then that a slow release of the trigger will yield a great shot." As I was reading Mr. Emdin's book, I compared relaxing for target practice to prepping for lesson engagement. Even though, I wanted to shoot well, I was unknowing tense, which caused my rifle to jerk until the coach watch my performance and gave me feed back. In the same regard, student surveys and having community building conversations with students helps teachers build a sense of what the class community needs. This feedback provides a teacher with leads on what students like and find interesting. In addition to the "cogans", Christopher insight goes beyond surveys and takes us to "church" by opening a window that is rarely mention. The portal is the contributions neoindigenous students make to the classroom, after teachers are more in tune to these contributions and respect them, then there can be magic. Lessons will spark more authentic engagement.

Great professional development book for reflective classroom management!

As a white teacher in a largely minority urban setting, I had this book wishlisted for months before it came out. But Christopher Emdin lost me in Chapter One when he misidentified the protagonist of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man as Bigger Thomas, who is, as every high school English teacher knows, the protagonist of Richard Wright's Native Son. This could of course be blamed on sloppy editing, but it demonstrates rather clearly that Emdin hasn't read either of these landmarks of African-American literature. As a S.T.E.M. scholar, he might be forgiven for this lapse, but as a self-styled expert on urban pedagogy, he shouldn't be.

In Chapter Two, Emdin describes his experiences as a first-year teacher, saying that he and his colleagues created a self-perpetuating cycle of student failure by reinforcing a battle stance vis-a-vis their urban students. But he gives no evidence, not even a personal anecdote, to demonstrate what really went on. Between the egregious misattribution in Chapter One and the vague allegations, with no evidence cited, of teacher unfairness in Chapter Two, it was hard for me to take the rest of his book seriously. We teach our students to make evidence-based assertions; why should a respected scholar be exempt, especially when he's trying to give directions for improving student achievement? We need evidence-based solutions, not rehashed jargon.

I really enjoyed this book from beginning to finish, it was so hard to set it down. Simply because the Authors experience and commentary/explanation behind everything he did and went through was so raw, honest and unfiltered. It was rather brutally honest and transparent. What I also really liked about this book was the his experience and the stories that came out of other teachers who were also having the same struggles as he did at one point and how he learned from them and was able to help so many others with great tips, and insights. But also how to not only improve the situation but BEING the change in order to create an environment of change that can lead to so many open doors for the teacher and students to engage. Such a good read for students and teachers who pursue a deeper understanding in the education field and want to improve the chemistry of a classroom.

Unfortunately, in the first chapter, Dr. Emdin mistakenly identifies Bigger Thomas as Ralph Ellison's protagonist from Invisible Man. Ellison's protagonist in Invisible Man is unnamed in the novel; Bigger Thomas is Richard Wright's protagonist from Native Son. It's astounding that no editor caught this when the book is devoted to cultural competency in the classroom.

Otherwise, the book is useful for those who do not recognize that they are duplicating white colonialist social and pedagogical mores in the classroom. I feel that teachers who need his advice the most will not read this book because they are not open to introspection.

I haven't finished the reading yet. The examples, ideas and reasoning, etc., although exaggerated, are a good advice and very helpful if you are trying to adapt to the cultures of youth of color for the good of your teaching. The printing, however, is small with no illustrations at all. It certainly makes your reading hard and makes you sleepy..

The good:
All cultures should be valued and not judged for correction, or considered inferior according to the beliefs of a one’s personal culture.
Educators should get to know their students for who they are, and not fall into the trap of viewing them according to preconceived notions.
Curriculum needs to be relevant to the students, etc., etc.

The bad:
Teachers are too often overregulated, overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated.
Public schools are grossly underfunded, and have never been funded properly since their origins.

The ugly:
The original intent of public education is to teach students to do, not to think creatively so that they may acclimate into the workforce according to the needs of industry - period. Thus, there is a direct conflict in the purpose of public education and what people expect from it.
Public education’s objective is to maintain socioeconomic structure for good or bad. I offer…a) When a student graduates public school is he or she more likely to have the skills necessary to work for a company, or to create his or her own employment? b) Do rich people donate to public school for influence, while preventing their own children from attending? c) Do the outcomes of children who attend public school vary significantly by race and socioeconomic status?

Although this book is a good attempt to address challenges that do occur as the public school teaching force becomes increasingly white (and female), while its student population becomes increasingly of color, it does not properly address the effects of poverty on urban students. There is a plethora of research that details the damaging effects of stress and poverty on the body and brains of children. That’s not to say that the children can’t learn. My only point is that I doubt closing the achievement gap is as simple as holding “cogens” for “neoindigenous” students. This and the other academic language utilized in the book sounds good (i.e., big hat no cattle-esque), but I question if the suggestions are really useful for white folks teaching in actual urban classrooms.

To conclude, the author definitely has my attention, but I need more to keep watching.

Note to the editor and author of this book: In the next iteration, please take out the reference to Bigger Thomas as the protagonist of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. It is incorrect.

Buy this book!!!! What a masterpiece.
This text is a must read for the urban educator. Emdin discusses the implementation of Reality Pedagogy and asserts that teaching, using this proven method is a best practice for all teachers who want to effectively teach the urban student. He expertly weaves theory and practice, drawing on research, experience and lessons from the classroom. One comes away from the text with a bag full of pragmatic tools to add to the ever evolving teacher’s tool kit. Too many students are not being served in our educational institutions; Emdin offers solutions to this issue that leave the educator feeling hopeful and energized. You will be changed.

This book is filled with complex and interesting ideas, and it's fascinating. The author writes compellingly about his experiences with education as a student, a teacher, a professor, and an educational researcher observing other teachers. The title seems a little misleading somehow--I mean, it fits, but something about it made me think this would be a quick, easy read, whereas it's actually serious, dense, intellectual. At first I was a little intimidated (am I really the kind of person who can read a book that keeps using words like neoindigeneity?) but I'm glad I kept reading because this book is full of incredible insights into what it is like to be a child of color trying to get an education in an environment that is structured to preserve the status quo of social injustice. His concept of cosmopolitanism and description of how the anticosmopolitan classroom harms children is fantastic. This book particularly resonates for me because I see things as a parent volunteer at my child's school that don't make sense to me and that are actually largely explained in this book. One thing is that I see a lot of African-American kids who seem utterly brilliant to me, but somehow they are perceived at school as average or below average in intelligence...and they have a lot of intellectual curiosity but are seen as unwilling to learn and as being "not ready" to learn, somehow. Emdin describes showing a still pic of an African-American boy staring emptily into space to an audience of teachers and asking what they think is going on with him, and getting answers that he is unmotivated and doesn't want to learn. Then he shows them the video the pic is taken from in which the young man tries repeatedly to participate in class, but the teacher never calls on him; at one point he shouts out the (correct) answer and is unacknowledged, then he stares into space and rests his head on his desk for a little while. Emdin showed the video to the teacher of that class, who said that the child was too excited and had not yet demonstrated that he was "ready to learn." I would love to think that this book will revolutionize the world of K-12 education. The ideas in the book are great and they would be great for children in general, not just for the black kids. I feel sure that there are a lot of teachers out there who will find this book very valuable and start using this information in their classrooms with success. But I think there are also a lot of teachers out there who won't give any serious consideration to a book like this, maybe because of their own unconscious biases against and fears of black children, or because they value authoritarianism and order at school more than students' learning, and that worries me. Because I'm seeing that a lot of brilliant black kids are trapped in a place where their intelligence isn't seen or valued, maybe because they tend to talk a little more loudly than the average white kid, or because they are so "excited" (about the subject matter!) that some teachers perceive them as not "ready to learn." I would love to see more from Emdin about how to really shift whole schools around, including the teachers who are likely to disdain this kind of book. I'm a white person who's clueless about hip-hop culture and Emdin does a great job of explaining that for people like me who know nothing. He's also really empathetic toward well-intentioned (mostly white) teachers who feel unable to reach their black students, and he writes frequently about his own missteps and insensitivity in his first few years of teaching. The examples in the book are focused on secondary education but the ideas are really valuable for all education (preschool through college/grad school). This is a gem of a book, well-written and packed with great ideas--a must-read for anyone involved in or interested in education!

This is a bold piece which aims to foster dialogue around who is at the front of the urban classroom and how cultural differences shape the practice of even the best intention-ed educators. The author both challenges and invites White educators working in urban communities (especially ones they do not live in) specifically to consider the different ways of being in the classroom; that some insight into the lives of their students would enable them to understand how their students think, what success means to them and how they learn best. Many teachers tend to default to teaching the way they were once taught. However, that's not gonna cut it for many of our diversity of kids in big city schools. Great insight!

Buy this book!!!! What a masterpiece.
This text is a must read for the urban educator. Emdin discusses the implementation of Reality Pedagogy and asserts that teaching, using this proven method is a best practice for all teachers who want to effectively teach the urban student. He expertly weaves theory and practice, drawing on research, experience and lessons from the classroom. One comes away from the text with a bag full of pragmatic tools to add to the ever evolving teacher’s tool kit. Too many students are not being served in our educational institutions; Emdin offers solutions to this issue that leave the educator feeling hopeful and energized. You will be changed.

This book is filled with complex and interesting ideas, and it's fascinating. The author writes compellingly about his experiences with education as a student, a teacher, a professor, and an educational researcher observing other teachers. The title seems a little misleading somehow--I mean, it fits, but something about it made me think this would be a quick, easy read, whereas it's actually serious, dense, intellectual. At first I was a little intimidated (am I really the kind of person who can read a book that keeps using words like neoindigeneity?) but I'm glad I kept reading because this book is full of incredible insights into what it is like to be a child of color trying to get an education in an environment that is structured to preserve the status quo of social injustice. His concept of cosmopolitanism and description of how the anticosmopolitan classroom harms children is fantastic. This book particularly resonates for me because I see things as a parent volunteer at my child's school that don't make sense to me and that are actually largely explained in this book. One thing is that I see a lot of African-American kids who seem utterly brilliant to me, but somehow they are perceived at school as average or below average in intelligence...and they have a lot of intellectual curiosity but are seen as unwilling to learn and as being "not ready" to learn, somehow. Emdin describes showing a still pic of an African-American boy staring emptily into space to an audience of teachers and asking what they think is going on with him, and getting answers that he is unmotivated and doesn't want to learn. Then he shows them the video the pic is taken from in which the young man tries repeatedly to participate in class, but the teacher never calls on him; at one point he shouts out the (correct) answer and is unacknowledged, then he stares into space and rests his head on his desk for a little while. Emdin showed the video to the teacher of that class, who said that the child was too excited and had not yet demonstrated that he was "ready to learn." I would love to think that this book will revolutionize the world of K-12 education. The ideas in the book are great and they would be great for children in general, not just for the black kids. I feel sure that there are a lot of teachers out there who will find this book very valuable and start using this information in their classrooms with success. But I think there are also a lot of teachers out there who won't give any serious consideration to a book like this, maybe because of their own unconscious biases against and fears of black children, or because they value authoritarianism and order at school more than students' learning, and that worries me. Because I'm seeing that a lot of brilliant black kids are trapped in a place where their intelligence isn't seen or valued, maybe because they tend to talk a little more loudly than the average white kid, or because they are so "excited" (about the subject matter!) that some teachers perceive them as not "ready to learn." I would love to see more from Emdin about how to really shift whole schools around, including the teachers who are likely to disdain this kind of book. I'm a white person who's clueless about hip-hop culture and Emdin does a great job of explaining that for people like me who know nothing. He's also really empathetic toward well-intentioned (mostly white) teachers who feel unable to reach their black students, and he writes frequently about his own missteps and insensitivity in his first few years of teaching. The examples in the book are focused on secondary education but the ideas are really valuable for all education (preschool through college/grad school). This is a gem of a book, well-written and packed with great ideas--a must-read for anyone involved in or interested in education!

This is a bold piece which aims to foster dialogue around who is at the front of the urban classroom and how cultural differences shape the practice of even the best intention-ed educators. The author both challenges and invites White educators working in urban communities (especially ones they do not live in) specifically to consider the different ways of being in the classroom; that some insight into the lives of their students would enable them to understand how their students think, what success means to them and how they learn best. Many teachers tend to default to teaching the way they were once taught. However, that's not gonna cut it for many of our diversity of kids in big city schools. Great insight!

This author is so frustrating to read, he doesn't have any experience teaching in urban settings. How can he give suggestions and advice to those who are in the trenches every day. And not only given advice, but criticize. This was totally unfair.

Your book...beautifully written and moving... Amazing work. I remember when you initially told me the title... I was shocked but now...how could it be named anything else? Amazing and inspiring.... This book delivers in ways that others don't. Honest and useable strategies that implemented effectively will bridge gaps within the urban setting between teacher and student. A must read!

LOL
It must be some sort of miracle that black athletes from the hood can sit down and shut up during instructional time at practices, as well as that they don't need plays, schemes, techniques, or strategies explained to them through rap music.
Promoting ghetto-redneck values and undisciplined behavior is a great way to ensure failure, but if parents want to subject their unfortunate children to this idiocy, have at it.
I wonder why white people aren't arguing that white kids need to learn through redneck songs or loud and obnoxious redneck cultural practices. Such a mystery...
What a pathetic joke.
Talk about low expectations...

As a long -time educator in Title One urban schools, I can tell you that this book shows what the real problem is in many communities with troubled student populations: an unwillingness for students to take responsibility for their education and establishments that lack the courage to hold students and families responsible for poor behavior. This is racist drivel. Stop blaming white people for everything and allow students of all colors take responsibility for themselves and their educations.

I taught in an urban district in Pennsylvania for three years, and this book offers few realistic solutions to this educational chasm in our society because the real problems lie OUTSIDE the classroom - the biggest being the disintegration of the black family. Why doesn't he address this? Emdin recommends creating a culture of respect and responsibility, but why does respect have to be earned from these students? Why is it left up to the educator to teach personal responsibility, to be the parent? Students bring the chaos of their lives into the classroom with predictable results and the blame is often placed on the inexperienced teacher. Many students don't respect adults because the adults in their lives have failed them. I would have loved to pass all my students, but somewhere along the line, they have to learn that to pass the class you must do the work. Emdin doesn't report on the rampant practices of social promotion and grade inflation, but that wouldn't fit his narrative of putting all the blame on white teachers.

The white privilege thing, white guilt model, white savior complex, all facets of this book, but all are totally BS and not true. I as well am a 4th year urban teacher with a strong rapport with my students. The best urban teachers I have seen are the ones that provide the most strucured classes and clear cut rules and expectaions and enforcement on them. This is another new age philosophy of "whitey don't get the black man" polished up all nice and neat. There are cultural differences, but the problem that plagues urban culture as of the last few decades is not whites not recognizing Aftican American/hispanic interpretin of events around them, but it is a breakdown of a massive disfunctional family structure of students who many do not have father figures our nuclear families/marital relations, aND others in prison. The students need much attention and patience by "white people" and the author needs to recognize these students are very lucky to have these comitted "white folks" who come day in and out with love and hard work while dealing with students coming from unfair situitions primarily due to parental decisions made from bad life choices. A waste of money and a slap in the face of"white folks" who teach students that the "black folks" seem to not take the mantle up themselves.

It's unfortunate that our contemporary education system is being steered by people like Mr. Emdin, people who believe all educational precepts must be filtered through the lenses of race and socioeconomics. This reminds me of Hitler's decree that all academia in the Third Reich be taught in the guise of Aryan philosophy, so that German teachers in the 1930s taught German math and German biology. Educators like the author seem to believe that white people learn a different algebra than black people. More importantly, they believe that achievement is contingent upon students being validated in the classroom, and that teachers' primary mission in urban schools is to reflect the character and experiences of the community rather than to educate the students.

This was a difficult book to get through. As someone who taught in racially mixed classrooms for years, I saw in Mr. Emdin's rhetoric the beliefs of every black parent who believed his or her child was failing in my class because he was being taught by an inherently racist white teacher who was biased against their child. These types of parents seemed to believe that if only their child could be taught by a black teacher, all their issues would be solved. It's a racist and highly dubious notion to believe that white teachers cannot successfully teach black students. Imagine, for a moment, a white educator authoring a similar book with advice for black teachers on how to teach white students. A book with such a thesis would be dismissed out of hand as racist drivel. That's precisely how I feel about this book.

The author believes that the failures of black students in urban schools are largely the failure of their teachers. I couldn't disagree more. Quality of home life is a much larger issue facing these children. Whether their teacher is black, white, Asian, Amerindian, or American mutt matters not if their home life is in turmoil. Parents who don't care about education beget children who don't care about education.

Students don't need black teachers, or hip-hop math, or any other gimmick in order to be successful. What they need is structure and discipline. Too many urban classrooms are romper rooms, chaotic environments constantly disrupted by unruly students that the administration cannot or will not bring into line. No student can hope to succeed in these settings, yet teachers are thrown into such classrooms and told to sink or swim with no support. Teachers must be given the authority to keep order by removing disruptive students from the classroom. In most cases, teachers have no authority, and students know this. This is why urban black students taught by black teachers are no more successful than those taught by white teachers.

In conclusion, this is a racist and myopic book that details the failed philosophy of the urban classroom as cultural indoctrination center. Mr. Emdin believes that the 'white savior' mentality is what keeps white teachers from succeeding in educating our urban youth. I wonder what kind of prejudice must exist in people like this to lead them to single out the race of teachers as the critical factor in school failure. To point an accusatory finger at committed teachers of any race who choose to take on the challenge of teaching urban youth is to slap the hand that's trying to help you up.