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Where is our love of learning? "we must destroy all of our self-imposed barriers"
St. Petersburg Times ^ | November 9, 2003 | Bill Maxwell

Posted on 11/09/2003 3:06:55 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

Each time I had a black student, I spoke with her or him about my concern. A handful understood and began to read and show interest in other intellectual matters, such as watching television news each night and hanging out at museums and exhibits.

Most, though, dismissed me either as an Uncle Tom or a strange old man with nothing better to do than to "f-- around with books and white-people s--," as a student told me when I taught at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. When I inquired as why he was at U of I, he said, "To get my degree and get out." His vehemence persuaded me to drop the whole thing then and there.

Right now, the hottest book in education is The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn from Each Other, by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Harvard University sociologist and education professor. I have read the book and believe that it makes a valuable contribution to showing teachers and parents ways to ease, if not eradicate, their adversarial exchanges when they meet for conferences.

Although the book's subject is of utmost importance for all Americans, it means next to nothing to many black parents who, for one reason or another, do not comprehend the inherent value of education. What good is parent/teacher conferences if the parents are not totally invested in their children's learning?

During the last four weeks in different parts of the nation, local African-American leaders have asked me to identify the most pressing issue facing the nation's black communities.

My answer is unequivocal and always the same one: education.

What do I mean by education? Blacks must attend class, earn good grades and score high on standardized examinations. (These three things we can do, although we are not doing so in great enough numbers in 2003.) More important, however, we need to accept and inculcate the love of learning itself. For me, the love of learning is the enjoyment of seeking knowledge and respecting it when it is gained.

Learning is free and can occur anywhere. It is devoid of race, gender, nationality, religion. And it feeds on itself.

I know from personal experience. Even though my father did not graduate from high school, he was an excellent teacher. In fact, he taught me how to read before I started first grade. He would put me on his lap and read comic books to me for hours at a time. I especially loved The Phantom and Superman. I do not know what method he used, or if he knew, but I learned to recognize letters, words, sentences and concepts. My father read all of the black magazines and newspapers and Signet paperback novels, of which he had a large collection. During each meal, he read. His behavior grew on me: I, too, read during each meal.

I did not need a formal head start program; my old man was my head start.

As a college teacher, I met many white students who came from love-of-learning backgrounds, where at least one adult had loved learning for its own sake and passed it on. On the other hand, I met few black students smitten with the love of learning.

Each time I had a black student, I spoke with her or him about my concern. A handful understood and began to read and show interest in other intellectual matters, such as watching television news each night and hanging out at museums and exhibits.

Most, though, dismissed me either as an Uncle Tom or a strange old man with nothing better to do than to "f-- around with books and white-people s--," as a student told me when I taught at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. When I inquired as why he was at U of I, he said, "To get my degree and get out." His vehemence persuaded me to drop the whole thing then and there.

As a historically deprived group, American blacks must find an effective means of throwing off institutionalized shackles. But before we can do that, we must destroy all of our self-imposed barriers.

Education/learning is the surest path. The obvious and most natural place for education/learning to happen is in the home. If the home fails, the next best place is the church, our most powerful institution.

Many will disagree, but I believe that education/learning should become our new religion. If anything is to consume our time on Sunday morning and the rest of the week, it should be instilling in our children the love of learning. Our churches literally govern many of our lives, persuading us to take certain courses of action and convincing us to hold certain beliefs.

The love of learning should be part of every gathering. Teachers, lay and professional, should be on hand to teach parents about their responsibilities to their children's learning. We need to start emulating other minority groups, such as Asians, whose children lead in education.

We - African-Americans - need to establish a genuine collaboration between our homes, schools, churches, civic and social organizations, government agencies and earnest individuals.

Our churches - because of their power to influence - should lead the way.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blackstudents; education
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A cry in the black education wilderness
1 posted on 11/09/2003 3:06:57 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
This comes under the heading of "duh". How can they not see that or know that?
2 posted on 11/09/2003 3:30:33 AM PST by patj
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To: patj
Exactly.
3 posted on 11/09/2003 3:31:58 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Thanks again!
4 posted on 11/09/2003 3:36:09 AM PST by RAY
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Good post. Thanks.
5 posted on 11/09/2003 3:41:23 AM PST by PGalt
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To: RAY
Bump!
6 posted on 11/09/2003 3:41:40 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: PGalt; All
***Many will disagree, but I believe that education/learning should become our new religion. If anything is to consume our time on Sunday morning and the rest of the week, it should be instilling in our children the love of learning. Our churches literally govern many of our lives, persuading us to take certain courses of action and convincing us to hold certain beliefs. ***

Better than bashing conservatism and looking for excuses. Articles like these are running regularly now. I've posted a lot of them at the LINK in Post #1.

7 posted on 11/09/2003 3:45:01 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Thanks for the link and your efforts to educate by your posts. Learning...it's one of the many reasons I enjoy waking up every day.
8 posted on 11/09/2003 3:53:47 AM PST by PGalt
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To: patj
What you think is obvious may not be so. Look at the frontpage of many local newspapers as well as nationally distributed newspapers and over a period time you will see sport stories outnumbering education stories twenty to one. the same holds with this forum with threads relating to sports and the entertainment industry vastly outnumbering, both in numbers and length, threads relating to education. National spelling bees and geography contests are the closest this nation comes to promoting the importance of education and this miserly attemption pales to tne national audience for the merely for image Oscar awards or the Super Bowl.

To me it is far less obvious than you would have us believe.

9 posted on 11/09/2003 4:01:33 AM PST by monocle
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To: PGalt
Learning...it's one of the many reasons I enjoy waking up every day

Dittos!

10 posted on 11/09/2003 4:23:11 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: monocle
Our national space program inspired students and they went into math and science fields. Now NASA is searching for a mission and education is floundering.

A return to the Moon to stay, would give them both new life.

November 6, 2003 - Senate Hearing on Lunar Exploration

11 posted on 11/09/2003 4:26:36 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Africans love learning, in society there the more doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc you have in your family the more prestige you have. The parents will put the oldest child thru school, and as each graduates and gets a job they put all the rest thru. I think only the Jews are more obsessed with education than the Africans.

Old school blacks here in the US valued education, reqardless of social status. The despising of education by the majority of blacks is a recent thing, the product of socialist liberal policies since the Great Society. They think getting an education is acting white, when in reality not getting an education is basically white limousine liberals putting the blacks back on the plantation, with people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton serving as their race and poverty pimps.
12 posted on 11/09/2003 4:52:27 AM PST by Free Vulcan
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To: monocle
You're quite correct. Anyone who thinks this anti-learning attitude is peculiar to black culture (non-culture?) has their head in the sand. While US graduate education has a lot to offer, too frequently (especially in the math and science related disciplines) the majority of advanced degrees are earned by foreign students. And American undergraduates routinely gravitate to "fluff" majors with minimal intellectual challenge and maximum opportunity to slip through to their BA with pure BS.

Getting "the credential" and getting out is the goal for too many, and they are acquiring this 'get my ticket stamped and get out' mentality from their primary and secondary education experience. Student's intrinsic love of learning is flushed out of them by the time they get through the third grade and, absent strong countermeasures at home, it never returns for most of them, even when their formal schooling is over.

13 posted on 11/09/2003 4:52:41 AM PST by Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
"Many will disagree, but I believe that education/learning should become our new religion."

"Education" is already a religion in this country. The temples are government schools and colleges. The high priests are from the NEA and liberal university faculty. The sacrament is conferring meaningless sheepskins.

I think the author probably should have left out the word "education" and emphasized "learning." However, even that has become a doctrine in this country....as long as it is the politically correct "learning."

14 posted on 11/09/2003 4:59:17 AM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: monocle
I do think that it is obvious. Parents should be the ones instilling this, not the newspaper. Immigrants that could not speak or write english made sure that their children got an education so they could better themselves. Most parents want to see their children do better than they did.
15 posted on 11/09/2003 5:02:46 AM PST by patj
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To: Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek

The most recent statistics are showing that this poor attitude toward learning is rapidly infecting white boys as well. Check it out...
16 posted on 11/09/2003 5:09:45 AM PST by kittymyrib
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To: anniegetyourgun
bttt
17 posted on 11/09/2003 5:14:56 AM PST by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for posting this most FASCINATING article showing Dr. Spudis' testimony! This is a "must read" for anyone who wants to see our country flourish in the future as a technological, educational, and economic superpower.
18 posted on 11/09/2003 5:18:24 AM PST by alwaysconservative (Democrats recycle: bad ideas, bad policies, bad people.)
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To: patj
In your desperate search for obviousness, you fail to miss my point. Newspapers, television broadcasters and the like respond to the interests of their readers and viewers and thereby by reflect what is important to their audiences. Your use of the word "duh" somewhat mirrors this general apathy towards education. Flippancy on a serious subject is more telling than you would imagine.
19 posted on 11/09/2003 5:55:25 AM PST by monocle
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To: Free Vulcan
Something went haywire here in the Sixties.

Bill Maxwell: The blacker-than-thou paradox divides*** When I entered college in 1963, the term "black power" was becoming popular on campuses with black students.

At first, it was used as an ideological umbrella under which so-called nationalists, culturalists and pluralists of all stripes were grouped. Gradually, we students used the term to convince ourselves that by uniting as one people, by loving our history and traditions, by pooling our vast resources, we could become a powerful bloc that could influence -- if not change -- the basic nature of the United States and thus improve our status as citizens.

I remember those days well, a heady time when African-Americans took education for granted as the sure route to self-improvement and the subsequent uplifting of the whole race.

On my tiny Texas campus of fewer than 1,000 students, only fools refused to read and study diligently. Only fools destroyed their brains with drugs. Only fools physically hurt their brethren. In fact, "being smart" was in. We called it being "heavy." We even expected jocks to be heavy. All musicians, especially the jazz types, were heavy.

Black power meant just that: being black and powerful, being armed with education and the drive to improve our lot in a hostile environment where the very concept of racial egalitarianism was still alien to most white Americans. Black power meant sharing the good and eliminating the bad.

In time, the concept of black power changed. Instead of being a sentiment that united us, it became a source of deep division. Those who followed Martin Luther King and his nonviolent movement, for example, were not as black as those who followed, say, Malcolm X's philosophy or that of the fearless Black Panthers.

No longer bringing us together, black power had become a negative litmus test for one's degree of "blackness." We had entered the "Blacker than Thou" era. On campuses nationwide, black students separated themselves into enclaves.

Groups whose members adopted African-sounding names, perhaps wore dashikis and other African garb and spouted words by the likes of Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver were blacker than those who majored in business and talked of Wall Street.

If you could quote from Frantz Fanon's book The Wretched of the Earth: The Handbook for the Black Revolution That Is Changing the Shape of the World, you were one black brother or sister.*** (more at LINK)

20 posted on 11/09/2003 6:09:56 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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