Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success by Christopher Emdin

Author:Christopher Emdin [Emdin, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: education, Philosophy; Theory & Social Aspects, Urban, Multicultural Education
ISBN: 9780807089514
Google: vcndDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2021-08-10T00:12:05.729522+00:00

CHAPTER 7

CLONES

Clone: Make an identical copy

Cloning: Imitating or replicating another thing and then functioning as a separate entity

In one of the schools where I conduct research, I remember being awestruck while watching a new teacher who had a certain magic in the classroom. The sister had flow. Lessons began with images from the neighborhood and then transitioned into stories that grabbed the students’ minds and hearts till they seamlessly landed on academic content. Her high expectations for students and high emotional intelligence created a classroom that was simply magical. This was teaching in its purest and most ancestral form. She spoke and I heard grandmothers’ voices and griots telling stories. I remember one lesson in which the science class started with a discussion of Meek Mill and Drake’s rap beef, moved on to a conversation on the need for scientific argumentation, and ended on a discussion of Newtonian physics. She had a gift. Her hand claps for emphasis of scientific formulas and comfort with talking about herself and her challenges with science made the class feel like light. She was ratchetdemic in the purest sense.

I also remember an assistant principal in the building having it in for her. There were pop-up class visits and random critiques of her instruction. One day, she mentioned to me that the assistant principal had walked into her class and reprimanded her in front of her students because a few students still had their hats and hoodies on in the classroom. She had had enough and responded to the administrator in the same tone as he spoke to her: “I realize they have hats on, but they are learning. Please leave my classroom because you are interrupting us.” Students’ eyes opened widely when she spoke up for herself, and they cheered her on. One kid said, “That’s why nobody like him. He’s mad petty.” The administrator was livid. He grew increasingly unpleasant after that interaction. There were no morning greetings, and no flexibility was given for her to do the types of lessons she usually did. Notes would come in about the noise in her class even when the volume was not disruptive to other classes. At one point, she was so uncomfortable that she asked me to speak with the assistant principal, even though I was only at the school in my role as a university researcher.

A few days later, while reporting some observations of other classes I was working with in the school, I subtly mentioned this particular teacher’s class and what I enjoyed about her lessons. His brows tightened, and he told me the same story she did but from a very different perspective. He mentioned that he visited her class like he usually does for all teachers and realized that there were several of the school’s rules being violated. Young people were sitting in the wrong seats, they were talking, and they were not following the school’s dress code. He mentioned that this has frequently been the case with her class.

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