“I Do This for All of the Reasons America Doesn't Want Me To”: The Organic Pedagogies of Black Male Instructors

ABSTRACT

This article examines the teaching philosophies of Black male teachers of Black male students in manhood development classes in a district-wide program in Oakland, California. Drawing on observations and instructor interview data, we explore the teachers’ histories, teaching philosophies, and the trajectory of their racial-educational understandings. We utilize Gramsci's (1971 Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci: Hoare, Q. & Smith, G. N. (Eds.). (Hoare, Q. & Smith, G. N., trans.) New York, NY: International.  [Google Scholar]) theory of the organic intellectual, Mills’ (1997 Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]) and Leonardo's (2013 Leonardo, Z. (2013). The story of schooling: Critical race theory and the educational racial contract. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 34, 599–610. doi: 10.1080/01596306.2013.822624[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) theories of the subperson and substudent, and Dumas’ (2014 Dumas, M. J. (2014). “Losing an arm”: Schooling as a site of Black suffering. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 17(1), 1–29. doi: 10.1080/13613324.2013.850412 [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) notion of Black suffering to theorize the ways that race comes into play in the teaching of African American male students. We find that racialization and re-humanization are key to instructors’ teaching, and we identify two key aspects of their teaching philosophies: (1) Humanization/Love and (2) Reciprocity.     

Investigation of high-speed badminton racket kinematics by motion capture

The kinematics of a badminton racket during a smash stroke was observed in this study with the purpose of investigating stroke dynamics and racket behaviour. Motion capture measurements of the racket during several smash strokes performed by three players of different skill levels indicated a clear increase in racket velocity at impact with increasing skill level. Variations between translational and rotational contributions to the impact speed could also be seen between the players. The advanced player produced a much higher peak angular velocity and also relied much less on translation, with a translational velocity of only 8% of the total velocity versus the 20% for the recreational player. It is proposed that, as an alternative to shuttlecock speeds, racket head speed measurements can be used as an indicator of performance, and can also provide some insight into the interaction between the racket and player.     

Required pecking and refraining from pecking alter judgments of time by pigeons

There is evidence that humans' perception of time is affected by the activity in which they are engaged while they are timing. The more demanding the task, the faster time appears to pass. A similar effect has been found in pigeons. Pigeons trained to discriminate between a short-duration (2-sec) and a long-duration (10-sec) stimulus were required to peck when the stimulus was one color and to refrain from pecking when it was a different color. On probe trials of intermediate durations, the bisection point (50% choice of the stimulus associated with both long and short stimuli) for trials in which the pigeons were required to peck was almost 1 sec longer than on trials in which the pigeons were required to refrain from pecking (Zentall, Friedrich, & Clement, 2006). In the present research, we replicated this effect and determined the relation between this effect and the typical bisection point that occurs when pecking is permitted but not required. Results indicated that the typical procedure results in a bisection point that is between required pecking and refraining from pecking. Furthermore, the rate of pecking when pecking is allowed but not required also falls between the rate of pecking for the required-pecking and refrain-from-pecking conditions. This result suggests that, similar to humans, pigeons underestimate the passage of time when they are active or when attention to time-related cues has to be shared with attention to satisfying the response requirement.     

Teaching and learning cycles in a constructivist approach to instruction

This study attempts to analyze and synthesize the knowledge collected in the area of conceptual models used in teaching and learning during inquiry-based projects, and to propose a new frame for organizing the classroom interactions within a constructivist approach. The IMSTRA model consists in three general phases: Immersion, Structuring, Applying, each with two sub-phases that highlight specific roles for the teacher and the students. Two case studies, one for mathematics in grade 9 and another for science in grade 3, show how the model can be implemented in school, making inquiry realistic in regular classes. Beyond its initial purpose, the IMSTRA model proved to be a powerful tool in curriculum development, being used in producing mathematics textbooks, as well as in developing teaching courses for a long-distance teacher-training program.