Science: not a black or brown option

Antero Garcia, an English teacher at Manual Arts High School, writes:

As my 11th-graders worked their way through the long "Autobiography of Malcolm X," I struggled to explain the word “hegemony.” I struggled, that is, until I remembered a lesson that took place in a colleague’s classroom recently.

Trying to illustrate the effects of the Holocaust, Travis Miller, a ninth-grade English teacher, told his students to imagine that all of the white people in America were suddenly imprisoned or killed. Remember, this is at a South Los Angeles school where the population is approximately 80% Latino and 20% black. As Mr. Miller continues, a student raised his hand and asked, “If all of the white people are in prison, who will invent or be scientists?”

The comment terrified me, and the scenario became an ideal way for me to illustrate how hegemonic influence seeps into the limiting personal expectations our students have. In recounting the scenario to my students, I asked, “Why does that ninth-grader’s question make me so worried?” After a frightful moment of silence, a student in my class pointed out, “We don’t see ourselves as scientists.”

Hegemony and its confounding definition were made clear through the student’s simple analysis. Also made clear, however, were the societal challenges our students are asked to overcome; they are an illustration of a broken system.

Comments

[Brian Pacheco Corleto]

Well in terms of famous African-Americans in science, there are some examples (but not nearly enough), including Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the first person to perform open-heart surgery, that could be use to connect these youth to science. In terms of Latinos, that's hard to say, it would all depend on the student's family, race/ethnicity, and the family's place in the society of their country of origin; knowing that can help one determine how close one feels to certain famous figures in science in Latin American History.

[Katherine Biel]

The whole idea of imprisoning or killing people, even as a rhetorical exercise, really scares me! What if that were replaced with 'jews, blacks, american indians, and any other cultural or racial group? It has happened so recently, and with so much violence and vehemence that I would be very wary of teaching using such an example. I wonder, has anyone mentioned this to the teacher? I find it very irresponsible.