Berkeley High School Research Articles

The Future of Education: Black Life and Our Classrooms A Moderated Panel Discussion

Author(s): Gordon, C. Darius; Silva dos Santos, Andreia Beatriz; Ona Wale Borges dos Santos, Onire; Chism-Misquitta, Muwazu; Cook, Cherrish | Abstract: This piece is an abridged version of a panel discussion that was part of the symposium on Anti-Black State Violence Across the Americas: Power and Struggle in Brazil and the U.S., held at UC Berkeley on February 20–22, 2019, and organized by the LUTA Initiative, a coalition of scholars invested in facilitating international dialogue about racialized state violence across the Americas. The conversation featured Cherrish Cook and Muwazu Chisum-Misquitta (Berkeley High School Student Activists, United States) in conversation with Onire Ona Wale Borges dos Santos and Andreia Beatriz Silva dos Santos (React or Die/Winnie Mandela Pan-Africanist School, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil). C. Darius Gordon moderated the panel (Editor, Berkeley Review of Education, Graduate School of Education, UC Berkeley). Alejandro Reyes performed transcription and translation for this article. For more information on the LUTA Initiative, the symposium, and a full video of this panel discussion with English and Portuguese subtitles, visit https://lutainitiative.wordpress.com/

What the Black Lives Matter Movement Demands of Ethnic Studies Scholars

“Come in. Sit down. Close your eyes. Be silent and listen.” Melody engulfed the room. Our bodies unwittingly swayed softly to rhythms that conjured Ancestral memories. The bald, brown-skinned, goateed, dashiki-wearing man in front of the room exuded both warmth and strength. As a fourteen year-old ninth grader, the constancy of my giggle was interrupted by the sanctity of the space. Squeaks of the crotchety wooden desks that formed a large circle joined the music that hummed from the old record player at the front of the room. Minutes felt like days. Sound transported us through time and space and as the song came to an end, Mr. Navies instructed us, in a voice that prolonged the Spirit of what we had just experienced, “Now, write down your thoughts.” Silently, we scribbled down the ideas, poems, and stories that danced out of our Souls. We were greeted this way every single morning in African American History, Black Gold English, Black Male-Female Relationships, and the dozens of classes that comprised the Black Studies Department curriculum at Berkeley High School. At the close of each week, we would share our writings with the class, inspired by “classical Black musicians” from Charlie Parker, to Thelonius Monk, to Billie Holliday. Dassine, LaRae, Trinice, and Tomorrow would share poems. Ameer, always sat directly to my left and would break up the passionate tear-eliciting prose shared by others, with stories and jokes so hilarious that Mr. Navies would sometimes have to turn his back and hurriedly race across the room to shield his laughter from the class.

Art Practice as Research in the Classroom: Creative Inquiry for Understanding Oneself and the World

The article describes Art Practice (APR), an art pedagogy in which students independently investigate and interpret a theme of their choice. Based on the concept that art practice is a form of research, this approach blends inquiry and thinking skills associated with the natural and social sciences with interpretive and inventive methods linked to art. Inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education, APR calls for a structured yet open-ended inquiry-based curriculum. Equally inspired by the International Baccalaureate Program in Art, it stresses in-depth, prolonged investigations by students using Research Workbooks as tools to develop and record their inquiry. In emphasizing critical inquiry, creative visual interpretation, and text-based reflection, two important goals are achieved. Students construct deep, personal, and fresh understandings of ideas and issues that are particularly significant to them, and also become acutely aware of their creative research processes. This is evidenced in the work of one typical student from Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California.

Negotiating the Contested Terrain of Equity-Focused Change Efforts in Schools: Critical Race Theory as a Leadership Framework for Creating More Equitable Schools

Educational leaders attempting to enact equity-focused change in their schools are frequently met with fierce opposition by politically powerful parents whose children are well served by the status quo. The purpose of this conceptual article is to: (a) explore the utility of Critical Race Theory as a framework for helping K-12 school leaders anticipate and make sense of resistance to change efforts aimed at creating greater educational equity for underserved students, and (b) suggest ways that school leaders can more effectively engage in equity reforms in their schools. To do this, we examine a highly contested public debate over a recent equity-focused change effort at Berkeley High School (BHS)—a large, racially and socioeconomically diverse public school in Northern California. Using the events at BHS as an example, we argue that change efforts could be undertaken more effectively by: (a) identifying and addressing the underlying property interests up front, (b) anticipating how majoritarian narratives rooted in “colorblindness” and deficit thinking would be employed as a means for obscuring and maintaining unequal access to scarce resources, and (c) focusing on specific areas of interest convergence.

G. William Skinner, 1925–2008

Part I: A Professional Appreciation George William Skinner^ the most important American anthropologist to study China in the 20th century and a towering figure worldwide in China studies and spatially oriented social science, died of cancer on 26 October 2008. With his boots on. Bill Skinner was born in Oakland, California in 1925, the son of a druggist and a music teacher, and attended Berkeley High School and Deep Springs College, a tiny, two-year, all-male institution in the California desert. He then entered the US Navy, where he was trained at the Navy Oriental Language School, continu ing an interest in Asia that had begun at least as early as Deep Springs. After the War he attended Cornell University, where he earned his BA in Asian studies in 1947 and his PhD in anthropology in 1954. He was field director of the Cornell Southeast Asia Project from 1951 to 1955, and research associate in East Asian Studies from 1956 to 1958. After a brief stint as assistant professor of sociology at Columbia from 1958 to 1960, he returned to Cornell as associate professor of anthropology from 1960 to 1965. He was professor of anthropology at Stanford University from 1965 to 1989, and at the University of California, Davis, from 1990 until his formal retirement at age 80 in 2005. He continued active research until shortly before his death. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980, and was President of the Association for Asian Studies in 1983.

URBAN RIPARIAN RESTORATION: AN OUTDOOR CLASSROOM FOR COLLEGE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS COLLABORATING IN CONSERVATION

Despite the biological, social, and physical challenges that exist in urban creek restorations, there are opportunities to effectively involve local residents in ecological rehabilitation projects. An urban riparian restoration project along Strawberry Creek (Berkeley, CA) began with the goal of removing exotic vegetation and restoring native plant coverage. However, through the involvement of local high school and college students, the project accomplished an additional goal of educating the local community about restoration and conservation. Undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley conducted pre-restoration vegetation surveys of species richness and cover in order to assess initial species composition at the restoration site. Berkeley High School students, under the guidance of UC Berkeley graduate student mentors, removed exotic vegetation from an 800 m2 area of the riparian zone and replaced exotics with over 500 individual native plants. Post-restoration vegetation surveys found that this project succeeded in reducing the cover of exotic vegetation and increasing native species richness. A smaller area adjacent to the student plantings was more intensively maintained by the University of California, Berkeley Office of Environment, Health & Safety and had a higher survival rate among the natives planted. Student attitudinal surveys indicated that students' involvement in the restoration activities increased their awareness and appreciation of the creek's value and educated them about scientific concepts of restoration and conservation. In spite of the various challenges of coordinating several interest groups, the involvement of local students has the potential to increase the likelihood that the project will succeed in the long term, especially if such involvement signals greater appreciation for the creek habitat.

Unfinished business : closing the racial achievement gap in our schools

Acknowledgments. Preface. The Editors. Part One: The Structure and Culture.of Inequality in Schools. Introduction: Unfinished Business: Closing the.Achievement Gap at Berkeley High School (Pedro A. Noguera, Jean Yonemura Wing). 1 Structuring Inequality at Berkeley High (Beth C. Rubin, Jean Yonemura Wing, Pedro A. Noguera, Emma Fuentes, Daniel Liou, Alicia P. Rodriguez, Lance T. McCready). 2 Integration Across Campus, Segregation Across Classrooms: A Close-up Look at Privilege (Jean Yonemura Wing). 3 The Discipline Gap and the Normalization of Failure (Anne Gregory, Kysa Nygreen, Dana Moran). Part Two: Agency in the Fight for Equity. 4 Changing Teacher Practice and Student Outcomes (Pharmicia Mosely). Teacher Voices: Dana Moran, LaShawn Route-Chatmon, Miriam K. Stahl, Tamara Friedman, Leslie Plettner, Susannah Bell, Magi Discoe, James Dopman. 5 Creating Demand for Equity: Transforming the Role of Parents in Schools (LaShawn Route-Chatmon, Katrina Scott-George, Anne K. Okahara, Emma Fuentes, Jean Yonemura Wing, Pedro A. Noguera). Parent Voices: Isabel Parra, Julina Bastidas Bonilla, Michael D. Miller, Juana Villegas, Vikki Davis, Liz Fuentes, Valerie B. Yerger. 6 Songs of Experience: Student Reflections on Four Years at Berkeley High (Elena Silva). Student Voices: Nabila Lester, Joey Christiano, Jimmy Thong Tran, Pranoumphone (Pam) Pradachith, Jamie McMaryion, Shabnam Piryaei, Niles Xi'an Lichtenstein. Conclusion: Lessons Learned: The Limits and Possibilities of Using Research to Counter Racial Inequality (Pedro A. Noguera). Epilogue: Finishing School (Jabari Mahiri). References. Index.

Racial Politics and the Elusive Quest for Excellence and Equity in Education

This article examines the factors that influence the development of educational policies and practices designed to ameliorate the achievement gap in relatively affluent school districts. To provide a context for understanding the issues surrounding efforts to promote educational equity, the article begins by describing initiatives undertaken by schools in the recently established Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN). The remainder of the article draws on research collected from a 4-year study carried out at Berkeley High School (BHS) to illustrate how racial disparities in academic outcomes are influenced by the structure of opportunity within schools and how efforts to address inequities often become politicized. The goal is to use the case of BHS to show how political factors complicate efforts to reduce racial disparities in student achievement and to make it clear why political strategies, rather than educational strategies alone, are needed to respond to the racial achievement gap.

Lessons on Judicial Interpretation: How Immigrants Takao Ozawa and Yick Wo Searched the Courts for a Place in America

Introduction My United States history and American government survey classes at Berkeley High School are quite heterogeneous in both ability and ethnic background. Approximately 25 percent of my students are African American. Another 25 percent are likely to be Asian or Latino. I am constantly seeking ways to make the survey course relevant to their past so as to engage them more fully in their study of American history and government. A continuing problem has been a tendency on the part of many texts to portray minorities merely as victims, a process that inevitably leads to a not so subtle dehumanization of their role in history and makes more difficult explanation of the sudden outburst of minority protest movements in the mid-twentieth century. As part of my effort to counteract this trend, I introduce my students to two federal court cases involving Asian immigrants' efforts to guarantee their rights. I begin with a brief look at a remarkable case involving Chinese Americans, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886). I follow this with a contrasting lesson on one Japanese American's use of the federal courts in his struggle for citizenship, using the case of Takao Ozawa. Unlike the Chinese and African American model of successfully using the courts to assert constitu tional rights in cases such as Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) or Brown v. Board(l 954), Takao Ozawa's case was hindered by the Court's basing its decision on a strict interpretation of a federal statute rather than broad interpretation of language in the United States Constitution. The Takao Ozawa lesson is designed to explore this distinction. As such, the lesson could also be useful in American government courses. Besides reviewing and illustrating the functions of the Supreme Court in interpreting federal statutes as opposed to the Constitution, it also reveals methods of judicial interpretation such as the doctrine of Original Intent, literalism, and stare decisis. Finally the lesson points to the vital interplay between Congress and the federal judiciary in the making of law. Prior to using either Yick Wo or the Ozawa documents, I discuss the structure of state and federal courts, as well as the process by which the Supreme Court makes its decisions. An indispensable teaching reference for this task is Lee Epstein and Thomas G. Walker's Constitutional Law For A Changing America: A Short Course. While most useful in their present form for Advanced Placement or honors courses, both lessons entail a personal quest for justice and so should pique interest in regular classes as well. With adequate vocabulary cues and encouragement in the use of primary documents as detective work, the documents can be successfully adapted for use in heterogeneous American history or government classes. An inspiring teaching reference for making this effort is James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle's Alter the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection.

The Teacher's Nightmare: Getting Fired for Good Teaching

r. Cissy Lacks is a highly praised and lated. Judge Perry also awarded Lacks apaward-winning language arts teachproximately $76,000, representing back pay er who taught at Berkeley High from the date Lacks was fired through the School in the Ferguson-Florissant end of her trial. School District in St. Louis County, Cissy Lacks' case, however, is not over: Missouri. She has taught for almost claiming an imperative protect the chil30 years, 25 in Ferguson-Florissant. dren, the Ferguson-Florissant School DisIn October 1994, Lacks' trict announced in mid-December 1996 that eleventh-grade language arts stuit will appeal both the verdict and the mondents wrote and videotaped a drama etary award. Accordingly, Lacks' job status exercise which included street lanand award are still pending.-Ed. guage. Three months later, the principal of W W W Berkeley High School heard about the exercise. The next day Lacks was suspended by I told my attorney the legacy you create for me cise. The next day Lacks w as suspended by a d o l e c e s m s et e rg t o e the school district. After a public hearing in and for all teachers must be the right one. I March 1995, she was fired by the Fergusondon't want my name to be associated with the M arch 199 5 , sh e w as fired by th e F ergu son ca e t t ru k a i th h a ts nd m ds o Florissant School Board. case that struck fear in the hearts and minds ofe of the Lacks appealed. In September 1996, every teacher And certainly, I don't want selfOn Judge Catherine Perry in the federal district censorship to take place because teachers do it most wellcourt of St. Louis reversed the decision of themselves out offear I want a strong stateknown recent the Ferguson-Florissant School Board and ment to be made for academic freedom and censorship ordered Lacks reinstated with restitution of teachers' rights to teach because those praccases is that of back pay and legal fees. In addition, Lacks tices make for good education. Cissy Lacks. filed suit against the school district for -Cissy Lacks She tells her abridgement of her First Amendment rights ry. and for discrimination. In testimony at her I am writing this piece because I was sto trial, NCTE Executive Director Miles Meyers fired, and almost no one can make any sense appeared as an expert witness.o of it. But I am increasingly coming to believe In 1996 Lacks was given the $25,000 and to understand that some very scary and In 1 9 9 6 L a c k s w a s g iv e n th e $ 2 5 ,0 0 0 d n e o s c r u s a c s c e t d t e a m s PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment dangerous circumstances created the atmos-

Coming to Meet the Wolf

May Day, in the labor movement, is supposed to be the day that exploited workers celebrate liberation. On May 1, 1992, the board of directors of The Animals' Agenda magazine inadvertently gave Kim Bartlett and me something to celebrate, by firing me for rocking their political boats too much, and by imposing other conditions that obliged Kim to resign. This enabled us to leave that sinking ship, which Kim had been bailing out with little help from the board for six years. Within weeks we founded Animal People, our own protection newspaper-a faster, more flexible, more economical and above all more independent medium. We're still working the sixty to seventy hours a week we did at Animals'Agenda, and we're making even less money (I was never paid more than part-time wages even there). But we're reaching more people, reaching beyond the narrow animal rights movement audience to which we were formerly limited, and working conditions are infinitely better. Most importantly, at Animal People we answer only to our readers and our conscience, not to paid representatives of national groups with their own agendas. I am a journalist, not an activist, a point I emphasize many causes I have written about, among them not only protection but also child protection, environmental protection, human rights, occupational safety, and peace. However, I believe these causes are best served by honest coverage, not partisanship. Partisans have a place and value-and also a tendency to confuse cause with self-identity. My job as a journalist includes pointing out the distinction between the objectives of each cause and those of individual leaders and groups, an obvious source of friction. I was born in Oakland, California, and although I lived many places as a child, I spent more years in Berkeley than anywhere else. I remember looking up at the f~ade of the Berkeley High School auditorium when I was about five or six, picking out the words, Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free. I was still pondering their meaning a decade later, in the mid-to-late 1960s, when I attended Berkeley High and broke into journalism as a fifteen-year-old cub reporter. I don't think rve lived a day since without asking, What is true? And what is free? At the Seventh Day Adventist academy I attended for a while in Santa Rosa, sixty miles north, they told me that the words on the ~de are attributed to Jesus and claimed he defined them as well. Others cite other gods, other idols, and other gospels, equally content to live by a single creed, whether it is religion, philosophy, or just the law. My own creed is more complex, including borrowed mottos