Why I Became a Researcher
The images above are of two inference activities that were completed by a middle school student that I had the pleasure of teaching and learning from during my tenure as a special education teacher. Let’s call him Darius. Darius was a funny, lively, and intelligent Black boy who "happened to be" labeled disabled and relegated to self-contained learning environments for much of his schooling career.
When I met Darius and those with whom he shared a (largely) segregated education, I could tell that they did not expect the academic and social challenges that I would eventually provide them. Some students explicitly verbalized that sentiment. This is likely due to the fact that, for years, the system had treated them as incapable. School administrators and district representatives were particularly culpable. For instance, they expected me—a Black man with a degree in government, special education training, and years of experience working with Black children and youth—to “engage” students solely in an online scripted curriculum that primarily targeted students’ phonic and phonemic awareness skills. I, of course, challenged the higher-ups’ low expectations. As I was responsible for teaching students English literacy, I thought it was irresponsible and unjust to not engage students in comprehension activities on the grounds that students had difficulty decoding texts. I understood that teaching and learning mustn’t necessarily unfold in a linear fashion. I recognized that students could deeply engage with texts and acquire essential comprehension skills—even if they lacked decoding skills—provided they were given the necessary supports. Thus, I supplemented the mandated scripted curriculum with comprehension instruction.
For the fiction activity depicted above (left), I provided Darius and his classmates with an electronic chapter from R.J. Palacio's novel Wonder. With assistance from free read-aloud software, the students read the chapter on their district-issued computers and completed an inference activity, where they had to match six provided inferences with four pieces of textual evidence from the chapter. I provided six inferences rather than four to challenge students. I didn’t want them to simply guess; I wanted them to really think. I structured the non-fiction activity (right) in a similar manner with an article titled, "Are teenagers sleepwalking through high school?"
The above images demonstrate that Darius was capable of successfully employing the skill of inference—a literacy skill with which many middle schoolers struggle—in the context of reading age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction texts. Together, Darius and I constructed a situation that challenged the notion that Black boys labeled with disabilities are academically deficient and unworthy of academic rigor. I can only hope that Darius' experience as my student has continued to mediate his conception of self for the better as he journeys through the U.S. education system.
I share this story to illustrate why I entered special education and why I am pursuing an academic career in this field: I believe in Black boys with and without disability labels, and I want the entire field of education to do the same. High expectations, challenging instruction, and care for Black boys must move beyond the isolated classrooms of a few “radical” teachers. Such practice much be universalized to improve the schooling experiences of large numbers of Black boys who currently reside at the margins.
When I met Darius and those with whom he shared a (largely) segregated education, I could tell that they did not expect the academic and social challenges that I would eventually provide them. Some students explicitly verbalized that sentiment. This is likely due to the fact that, for years, the system had treated them as incapable. School administrators and district representatives were particularly culpable. For instance, they expected me—a Black man with a degree in government, special education training, and years of experience working with Black children and youth—to “engage” students solely in an online scripted curriculum that primarily targeted students’ phonic and phonemic awareness skills. I, of course, challenged the higher-ups’ low expectations. As I was responsible for teaching students English literacy, I thought it was irresponsible and unjust to not engage students in comprehension activities on the grounds that students had difficulty decoding texts. I understood that teaching and learning mustn’t necessarily unfold in a linear fashion. I recognized that students could deeply engage with texts and acquire essential comprehension skills—even if they lacked decoding skills—provided they were given the necessary supports. Thus, I supplemented the mandated scripted curriculum with comprehension instruction.
For the fiction activity depicted above (left), I provided Darius and his classmates with an electronic chapter from R.J. Palacio's novel Wonder. With assistance from free read-aloud software, the students read the chapter on their district-issued computers and completed an inference activity, where they had to match six provided inferences with four pieces of textual evidence from the chapter. I provided six inferences rather than four to challenge students. I didn’t want them to simply guess; I wanted them to really think. I structured the non-fiction activity (right) in a similar manner with an article titled, "Are teenagers sleepwalking through high school?"
The above images demonstrate that Darius was capable of successfully employing the skill of inference—a literacy skill with which many middle schoolers struggle—in the context of reading age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction texts. Together, Darius and I constructed a situation that challenged the notion that Black boys labeled with disabilities are academically deficient and unworthy of academic rigor. I can only hope that Darius' experience as my student has continued to mediate his conception of self for the better as he journeys through the U.S. education system.
I share this story to illustrate why I entered special education and why I am pursuing an academic career in this field: I believe in Black boys with and without disability labels, and I want the entire field of education to do the same. High expectations, challenging instruction, and care for Black boys must move beyond the isolated classrooms of a few “radical” teachers. Such practice much be universalized to improve the schooling experiences of large numbers of Black boys who currently reside at the margins.