I’ve recently been listening to Malcom Gladwell’s podcast series “Revisionist History” in which he explores aspects of history that have been overlooked or forgotten. I can highly recommend the series – it’s entertaining, informative, professional – even when he goes off-piste into a meditation on why country music is more “real” than rock music.
But, the episode which really got me thinking is called : Miss Buchanan’s Period of Adjustment.
It’s about what happened after the landmark ruling in Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 – 64 years ago this month – which saw the US Supreme Court strike down the separation of black and white children into different schools – the beginning of the end of school segregation. It has been called by one commentator “the most important legal decision of the 20th century” (Cohen).
Except what happened next is not what you’d expect.
Within a decade of the Brown vs Board of Education decision almost half of the estimated 82,000 African American teachers in the US south had been fired, says Gladwell – with likely long term impacts on the achievement of black children. “Integration” was something done to and for students not teachers, when integration of teachers should have come first or in parallel. The ramifications of this lack of integration of teachers are still being felt today.
I have two reflections on this – one is about the work my Cambridge Education colleagues in the US are doing on the The Calculus Project. This project, which aims to enable African American, Latino, and low-income students to enroll and succeed in the study of calculus in their senior year – is in some ways a direct response to the aftermath of Brown vs BoE and to the loss of so many teachers of colour as role models.
Its results speak for themselves and for the importance of having role models in classrooms, and in subjects, that allow students to see that race and gender should be no barrier to achievement and opportunity.
My other reflection is about how this lesson can inform those of us who work in developing countries supporting the reform of education systems to be more inclusive and representative. It reminds us why inclusion is so important and what the long-term implications are of not addressing inclusion in a planned way. And it reminds us why focusing on the role and capacity of teachers to drive that integration is essential if we want to achieve that goal.
The (un)intended consequences of changes in policy on inclusion, whether it be race, gender, disability, SEN – all require policymakers to be clear that most of the time it’s teachers who will drive those changes, teachers who will make them happen and teachers who will need training and support – not simply policies.
Gladwell has some trenchant points to make about how integration of schools post “Brown” became an excuse to dismiss African American teachers. He says that what Brown vs BoE revealed was that “educational equality is a function of who holds power in the classroom”. A history lesson for us all to keep front and centre.
Do listen to the podcast – 30 minutes to learn the lesson of a generation.
(First published on LinkedIn, May 4th 2018)
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