For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy)

For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too is a book for more than just white educators who teach primarily minority students. The book focusses on low income, urban schools which have a majority of black and latino students, but the themes can be applied to any scholastic or workplace setting. It is essentially a tutorial on a how to build a communal atmosphere in the classroom and then use that framework to motivate students to learn. Christopher Emdin shows why a traditional background in modern educational practices is not enough to motivate disadvantaged kids to learn. He uses his own experiences to illustrate how easy it is to falsely confirm biased preconceptions. Then he explains how the heart of the problem lies in how those elevated into administrative positions create policy based off those preconceptions. The overall tone of the book however, is optimistic. Emdin provides a strategy for making substantive change in urban education.The book effectively portrays the disconnect between white teachers and students of color. Emdin refers to these students as neoindigenous, literally meaning “new indigenous”. He believes their struggles are deeply related to those indigenous Americans experienced as the Unites States expanded and forced integration. He argues that the primary cause of discord in the past was the failure to acknowledge the value of Native American culture and incorporate it into Western dogma. Emdin claims that the same thing is happening today to black and brown students.” The leaders within the field of urban education can’t fathom the day-to-day experiences of urban students who see themselves as ready to learn despite not being perceived that way.”He proposes that schools are alienating students from their communities as they attempt to “reform” them. One of his core ideas is that Neoindigenous are failing because teachers treat them as if their culture is inferior. They think the only way to achieve progress is by erasing their identity and replacing it with obedience. Emdin makes it clear that this only leads to either rebellion or soul crushing submission. The best solution is sympathetic insight.“Addressing the issues that plague urban education requires a true vision that begins with seeing students in the same way they see themselves.”He acknowledges that it isn’t the teacher’s fault, that teachers are trying hard, but the methods they are instructed to use don’t reach neoindigenous populations.Emdin does a great job of introducing educational concepts and showing how to properly employ new techniques in the classroom. Each chapter of the book builds upon the ideas of the last to create a broad strategy. Every method he suggests is related to fostering a communal atmosphere, resulting in what he calls pentecostal pedagogy. In his own words“Pentecostal pedagogy considers the language of the students, and incorporates it into the teaching by welcoming slang, colloquialisms, and “nonacademic” expressions, and then uses them to introduce new topics, knowledge, and conversations...Pentecostal pedagogy teaches us that once student voice is prominent in the classroom, and a classroom family structure has been established, issues that traditionally plague urban classrooms, like poor management and low participation, are quickly addressed or even self-corrected.”The core tactic designed to implement pentecostal pedagogy is the cogen. Cogen is short for cogenerative dialogue, meaning a discussion among the teacher and students about their collective needs. By collecting a small, diverse group of students from the class and making them comfortable enough to share their thoughts the teacher gains a great deal of insight. After the cogen is established Emdin shows how it can be used to create a cosmopolitan classroom, one which lets students feel connected to their class and educational goals. The key is allowing students to take part in the process.“students in traditional K– 12 schools have to be viewed as partners with the adults who are officially charged with the delivery of content and be seen/ named/ treated as fellow teachers or coteachers.”Emdin chronicles his past experience with these methods by highlighting his success as well as the hurdles to proper execution.Perhaps the most demanding instruction the book suggests is that educators must go outside their comfort zone and into the neighborhoods of the neoindigenous. The majority of teachers never identify with their pupils beyond the teacher/mentor relationship. Emdin believes to really know someone you have to go where they live.“it became clear that there are three basic steps to fully learning about, and engaging with, students’ context….The first involves being in the same social spaces with the neoindigenous, the second is engaging with the context, and the third is making connections between the out-of-school context and classroom teaching.”This step is the embodiment of all the other processes in pentecostal pedagogy. Emdin contends that to really know someone and make genuine connections you have to enter their social spaces.I think Christopher Emdin does an incredible job of demonstrating how to use pedagogical techniques in any environment. The focus is the neoindiginous population but I think the insight he provides is universally applicable. The layman reader will finish this book with a deep understanding of why many kids are struggling and how to fix it. Professional educators will have a refreshing example of how to use the tools they have acquired in their own education to reach their students.

“You cannot teach someone you do not believe in.” A truer statement perhaps was never made, and a book perhaps has not proven this more than For White Folks Who Teach In The Hood. This is the basis of the book, a story that not only uses allusions and metaphors to teach about having a non-bias and educationally evolved classroom, but also fosters the need for support and empathy. It is hard to find fault in a text so beautifully written and intrinsic. There are two points that I could complain about, the first is that I teach at a low income diverse school and I was not told “not to smile until November” as the book suggests, but I did and do receive glimpses of judgement of students based on their name and how they look. I also see teachers who run militaristic classrooms where fun and humor are not fostered. So, although the book was not on the nose, it did dance around some of the issues that I see in my peers. My other complaint would be that it did not give enough examples as to how to apply some of the concepts. These ideas, the “Seven C’s”, were so well thought out and outside of my cultural comfort zone that they made me think, they made me question, and they made me imagine, but without even more direction I have concerns about applying them. “Cosmopolitanism” aligns with my class ideals and goals so perfectly it felt like a piece I had long been missing. “Co-Teaching” I could not relate to aside from having my students teach more, but I wish there was additional insight into ways I could comfortably do that. “Cogens” sound fascinating, but I am so unaware of Cyphers that I am hesitant to try. Is this still a common practice among youth? Will they even understand what my awkwardness is attempting? How do I even get started or know which students to include? “Context and Content” was all too familiar and supported my already formed goals of a universal learning environment. “Competition” stirred the thoughts already bubbling within me about more game play in teaching, and “Clean” reminded me of the importance of being “Ratchetdemic” a euphemism Christopher Emdin coined that will forever define part of my teaching philosophy. Overall, the text was enlightening and thought provoking. It’s ideas like “call and response” or “ secret handshakes” should and could be applied to classrooms well outside of what would be considered “the hood”. However, it requires teachers who are brave, creative, and unbashfully themselves to break the mold, deviate from their peers, and venture into a world of organized chaos. “It essentially boils down to whether one chooses to do damage to the system or to the student” and I, like the book suggests, choose to damage the system every time.

Christopher Emdin’s, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y’all Too provides a breath of fresh air for any urban educator who is looking to improve their practice or gain authentic insight on urban youth. The title and book cover alone grabs the attention of anyone who has even the slightest interest in education and relates to all educators stakeholders in education. Dr. Emdin, associate director of the Institute of Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and recipient of the Multicultural Educator of the Year award from the National Association of Multicultural Educators (to name a few) draws from his personal experiences as an urban student, urban educator and urban education researcher to offer a new approach to teaching and learning and urban educational spaces.In a time where researchers have described and discussed the pitfalls of urban education at nauseum, they also lack in providing notable policy or pedagogical practices that improve teaching and learning in urban schools. This allows urban schools to continue follow the same traditional narrative without a remedy. In his book, however, Emdin provides a rich description of urban schools through his multiple lens as an urban educator and more importantly and he provides pedagogical practices which he has developed through his research in urban schools.In his illustration of the context of urban education, he shares that urban educators often find themselves in a position to serve a “savior” to urban students to improve their circumstance or save them from their communities, which teachers may deem as dangerous, gritty or not palatable. Emdin argues that when educators feel as if their are in a position to act as a “savior” for urban youth, educators miss opportunities to create deep connections with students, which ultimately lead to the misunderstanding the realities of their students. Emdin questions and challenges the age old common practices of urban educators where teachers are encouraged to erase themselves to seem invisible to students, to not smile until november and condition students act “proper.” He argues that when educators enact these practices it allows them to be emotionally disconnected from students and in turn miss opportunities to foster deep connections with students.Emdin suggest that urban educators consider his approach to teaching and learning, Realty Pedagogy, which “focuses on teaching and learning as it is successfully practiced within communities physically outside of, and oftentimes beyond, the school.” Emdin’s Reality Pedagogy, which he thoroughly describes through personal anecdotes and practical examples, draws on enactments which occur in the Pentecostal church and Hip-Hop culture and is composed of practical tools (7C’s) that educators can use in their classrooms tomorrow.Emdin, writes this book for “white teachers who are already in these schools, the preparation of those being recruited to take these teaching positions, and [to] challenge a 'white folks pedagogy' that is enacted by teachers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds.” While Emdin does not blame educators for their lack of understanding of the realities of urban youth, he also does not believe that increasing the number of Black educators is the ultimate solution to improving urban schools. Rather, he believes we should focus our attention on working with educators on improving their knowledge of urban youth and their connections with their students, with the already established teaching workforce.For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y’all Too, comes at a pivotal time considering the state of urban education. Urban schools continue to fail to educate the students they serve. Emdin’s approach to teaching and learning encourages educators to try a different approach and “focuses on privileging the ways that students make sense of the classroom while acknowledging that the teacher often has very different expectations about the classroom.”

I was very interested to hear him describe the situations he saw in the classroom and how students reacted to the teachers. He has some valuable perspectives. However, since his message is uniformly, "here's what teachers can do better", it's also a very frustrating read for this teacher.As a teacher, you're often told to just relax and try to make everything fun. Just let the active kid be active and move around, loosen the classroom rules. Dr. Emdin echoes that sentiment, and it sounds great until you're trying to teach linear equations to a room with 15 ADHD kids who have been socially promoted and long since (years ago) stopped paying attention in math class, all immaturely interacting with each other because you let them be themselves, walk in a couple minutes after the bell after they finish their conversation, then emotions inevitably get high and you've lost total control with 80 minutes to go in the period.He constantly talks about how first year teachers are grilled to "don't let them see you smile until November", and what he misses is that this is largely learned behavior from bad experiences when teachers invariably crash and burn in their first year. Most teachers I talk to will say that in their first year they tried to be open and friendly as a young dynamic teacher and they got eaten alive by teenagers who instead sensed weakness from a new, nervous teacher still learning the ropes. Then they barely hung on for the next 8 months of their first year, because students have gotten used to taking advantage of the freedoms that the teacher gave them too easily. Meanwhile the teacher is going home every night saying, "I shouldn't have smiled in September!" and all the older teachers laugh and say, "I told you so!", the administrator gives them a stern talk at the end of the year about how first year is always tough but second year needs to be better, then the next year the teacher is much more stern.That said, his anecdotes did encourage me to start letting the controls go a bit (in my 4th year I'm a little less overwhelmed). I'm going to give the students some choices about lesson plans when we get back. In my first few years my tendency was always to up the pressure when I saw students underperforming, now when I recognize that I play a little mind trick where I visualize a balloon popping with a pin in my head, then I try to figure out how I can be the pin and depressurize the room, then get everyone back on track. The big thing is to try to understand as much as you can and attempt to meet students where they are.Example of this that hit home for me: His comments and examples highlighting how many underperforming students react to discipline highlights something that I've only started to recognize this year - many students get very angry when called out for behavior because they don't know that it's wrong. I learned very early on to explain every action I was taking in the classroom because otherwise students create their own narratives (I will always say something like, "let me just enter the attendance in the computer" because otherwise students will say "oh sure when I raise my hand he ignores me!"). But only this year did I realize that it's also often far more effective to pause, and instead of discipline, just review the behavior with the student and explain why it's wrong. "XXX, do you see how you just interrupted me? That's what I'm talking about when I'm referring to disrespectful behavior. I don't interrupt you when you're speaking," works better than, "XXX, please stop talking while I'm talking" because it's not confrontational. It's been a huge adjustment for me recognizing that 14 year old students aren't consciously misbehaving, they just don't know any better. Dr. Emdin's stories helped me understand their frustration a bit more and hopefully will allow me to be more patient and connect better, and have the conversation on a meta level. He relates a lot of this to cultural differences but that didn't hit home for me - if I allowed students to walk in late, interrupt me, and get out of their seats to stretch whenever they feel the need, I would be fired with cause by March. When you're outnumbered 25 to 1 you need to set some behavioral norms.When he gets into practices, I was happy to hear him say that administrators should actually come watch teachers teach instead of reviewing lesson plans. That said, the other pedagogical ideas are just far too ambitious for the reality I live in. Teaching 4 different subjects in 5 sections to 130 kids, with the curriculum evolving every year and, like most teachers, making hundreds upon hundreds of handouts each year, there's just not time in my schedule to set up ad hoc meeting groups during free time for all 5 of my classes, or to manage a constant rotation of assignments and supervise student led lesson planning groups (I don't even see how that would work anyway, with math being as cumulative as it is, most students aren't prepared for the next lesson until the previous one is done, how can they start creating a lesson a week ahead of time? This seemed more applicable to science). I am in my 4th year, and I have to create over 400 hours of unique, high school level mathematics lessons every year. This year about 200 hours is repeat and 200 hours is new.And now for the sad part. Where I am (high school math) all creativity has long since been stifled. Students have been failing and hating the subject for years. My average student is half a decade below grade level (but I'm supposed to teach grade level material). If I try to give students assignments that emphasize creativity I get blank stares. They're not ready for it. A big part of my job is just to teach the students that in high school there are some minimal expectations, and that they can actually get an F and find themselves repeating the class if they don't meet them (middle school students never fail). I stress routines, and I focus on effort. I send notes home and constantly tell students what they need to do to turn that F into a D. In the end, most do, with a lot of creative gradebooking by me, and I celebrate their achievement and try to foster a sense of accomplishment. I spend a tremendous amount of effort on anti cheating measures (multiple versions of tests, and actively following up on every case of cheating I see - there are tons at first but then they wise up that they can't get away with it. I'm usually a softy on consequences but just the fact that they got caught is eye opening). I have several students who crumble under the weight of anxiety as they're not prepared for the stress of a class where grades actually count, and that usually means meetings with parents and guidance counselors to try to come up with something to help the kid.The reality is, I don't think it's reasonable to turn my classroom into a rollicking church where everyone buys in. I think it's my job to hopefully turn my kids into high school students, to build good habits and remediate at least some of the massive educational deficit every one of them is struggling with, hopefully by springtime build up their confidence a bit more, so that somewhere, someday, they'll finally be in a place where they're ready to be creative instead of walking in angry, confused and with PTSD from 5 years of disastrous math classes. And again, I think a lot of this is specific to mathematics, and how bound we are to the curriculum and to the idea that students need to just keep moving on to the next topic regardless of preparedness.I'm open to the possibility that with a lot more seasoning, I'll get to a point where I actually have the time and capability to accomplish more with my math classes, but I'm not ashamed of where I am today. I can't flip a switch and become the teacher Dr. Emdin wants me to be, and I don't think it's because I'm a bad teacher, I think his expectations are unrealistic. He's insightful, he has clearly been in the classroom, and I'd love to see him focus more on "here's how you survive your first 5 years, and THEN here's what you do to start becoming more transformative in years 6-10" because I think he'd hit on some great ideas that might help new teachers without burdening them with another level of stuff to do. When he says, "One of the first things a teacher must do is to identify the possible roles that everyone who comes into the classroom can take on to help it function properly", I'm thinking about the blur of September, when I get 40 ieps to read 3 days before school starts, the district announces 3 new initiatives, we have parents night in week 3, you're figuring out who else is teaching the same classes as you and when you're going to meet and discussing how you want to evolve the curriculum from last year (or just learning the new curriculum yourself while frantically writing lessons and making copies 20 minutes before the students walk in), and it takes 3 weeks to learn the names of all 130 students. This bit of advice is just not fundamentally actionable.The cultural divide is a real problem, and I know every year that I'm going to have to work harder to connect with many of my students because they won't trust me. But Dr. Emdin's advice here is pretty vague and again doesn't feel actionable. I don't expect every kid to like me, and my class is never going to feel like chuuch, but I do aim to get every student's respect and also get them on a path to accomplishment. Whether that comes in one on one conversations after school, pulling in guidance, or even using students I connected with last year as a bridge to this year's group, I work at it. I'm very open with my history and using examples from my life in class (just talked my class through the car I bought and the budgeting process that went into it). But it takes months to get them to respect you and understand that your fundamental goal is to teach them. I recently had a student complain that I cared too much about whether he learned the material, arguing that he's his own person and can make up his mind, but to me that's a small victory because it means that my positive intentions are at least coming through. I also get a lot of, "Mr., this just isn't my thing. I know you love it but it's just not for me", and that's also ok! I can work with that and talk about how you can't expect to love and be good at everything you do. That said, one of my electives is absolutely chuuch... which is a reflection of the students in the room, who are generally older and volunteered to take the class, and the flexibility I have with the curriculum because it's not aligned to the standards. But most of the time math is gonna be a grind and that's ok.Anyway, as you can see, this book got me thinking! Made me want to take a class with Dr. Emdin. Hopefully my review, where I probably talked way too much about myself and not enough about this interesting book, helps others think too.

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.

As this is my first year teaching in a Title 1 school after having taught in a rural / suburban / affluent school, a colleague of mine recommended this book to me, and while I wasn’t sure at first whether this would simply be another teaching book that attempted to have teachers connect with their students by appropriating or mishandling their cultural artifacts, once I started reading, I was totally engaged by the author’s nuanced yet pragmatic approach to teaching “neoindigenous” populations (as he calls them). I gave my students a survey asking them about certain routines and procedures in our class that didn’t seem to be working for us, and used the suggestions in this book as possible alternatives for them to choose, and the results have already been beneficial. We switched from a silent 5 minute warm up to one where students can have a debate or a discussion on a short video, and the final independent portion of class allows students to get out of their seats to come check work with me or get help from a classmate (rather than wait for me to go over the answers as a whole group), and as a result, my classes have been running more smoothly than before. This book empowered me to see that a successful classroom environment need not look identical so long as our academically rigorous goals are still being met, and my students now love the autonomy / respect / dignity that classroom jobs give them (I was pleasantly surprised to see the enthusiasm that my 8th grade students put into being the week’s TA and teaching a lesson, and in addition to practical jobs like passing out papers or sweeping up at the end of class, I also added the job of Dean, who helps keep other students on track and who can be asked to step into the hall to speak with any student who needs some peer mediation rather than getting a negative consequence from me, and students have loved taking on that role and have taken it seriously.)TLDR: This book is useful for all teachers interested in best practices, no matter what population you are teaching.

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.

Iteach alternative certification made you have to read this or 2 other books. It was okay. He really liked the word co-gen. I have a large Hispanic population but some of the cultural things to look at or notice about students are good to think about.

I heard the title last year and saw the pre-order on Amazon and laughed. I was thinking, am I the “white folk” he means? Was my laugh out of discomfort? How could a book title cause so much thought? I was going to pre-order the book anyways but now I really needed to read it! It had me checking myself, my identity, my privilege, my lived experience…all from a pre-order on Amazon…wow Dr Emdin you did it! (FYI he goes into defining “white folk” and “the hood” in the preface).I got the book on Kindle the first day as I couldn’t wait for it to ship! This book needs to be in the hands of every single educator. Not just in urban settings and those working with youth of colour, as all our students would benefit from this work. I watched Dr. Emdin’s TED talks, read his papers, seen his articles, caught his news clips, re-tweeted his tweets, read his other book and seen him live multiple times in NYC and Toronto (so this review isn’t biased at all :) ). I thought I knew what he is all about…but I was wrong! I didn’t know about his work and experience around indigenous education. The first chapter opens up on indigenous education! With a lot of work happening in Canada, this comes at a perfect time and based on the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Education Recommendations it is a perfect compliment. Indigenous and Neo-Indigenous youth share very different histories but common circumstances and oppression in and out of schools.I started writing this review and had summaries and quotes from the book but I can’t possibly do the book justice, you need to read it. So I will continue on with why this book is important and how we can use the book to better education.Dr. Emdin breaks the book down into 11 chapters filled with amazing ways to transform education. It isn’t just about the students and “fixing them of their problems”, it is really about a complete change needed from top to bottom. Schools are failing students and Dr. Emdin is giving us the manual to fix it! As educators working with students, we need to look critically at the extremely complex and interwoven factors that impact the success and failure at school. The deeply engrained Eurocentric model of schooling that many of us as teachers were extremely successful at navigating in order to get to where we are today, is hard to disrupt. It is replicated class after class, year after year, with many teachers, teaching as they were taught (this includes teachers of colour as well). Dr. Emdin eludes that the “white folk” may not actually be white at all.I would challenge teachers of all colours, backgrounds and religions to evaluate the narrative they provide to students. This book is excellent for system leaders, policy makers, educators and parents, to understand the deeply rooted issues in our education systems. Dr. Emdin eloquently brings them to the surface and identifies ways to make change. This book looks at the past and theory but most importantly moves forward with actions and recommendations. I see this as a book I read again, return to and refresh myself as an educator.I read many of the other reviews and articles on this book with so many doing the book justice. A few articles though, try to undermine and suppress the work that is desperately needed calling this pretty much a manual for teachers to run schools like gangs. These authors need to check themselves and evaluate the hegemony in their own work. I took out the citation to them as the click bait they used in their titles get them enough clicks. ;)

Very interesting and informative. I highly recommend this for anyone working in or with an overstanding of the education systems... worldwide

I am in love with this book!I bought it after a recommendation from a channel I really like.The author is heavily inspired by Paulo Freire's pedagogical approach, which is one of my top reference educators/authors for sure. It also takes that to a more modern-ish/contemporary classroom/school setting, which is great!I have quotes from this book written all over the place now :)I also bought it used, but the book that came was in absolute pristine condition, it looks like it came 100% new straight from the store.

This book gives practical advice examples and insights to ways that we can improve our teaching. Every chapter is amazing. Well written!

Great book, fast delivery. Would order again.