Chapter 8: High Expectations: The Key Ingredient to Academic Success

Teaching has always been considered a noble profession in the African American community. Teachers were revered by young people because of their position and status in the community, intellectual acumen, and ability to serve as role models. Teachers of African descent, when teaching students of African descent often find that the “hidden curriculum” requires them to focus on education as a means of “liberation” because they see themselves in the students that they are educating. These teachers often use culturally relevant pedagogies and curriculum to empower their students. These beliefs and approaches are the underpinnings to the high expectations that permeates the culture of the teacher’s classroom and is the glue to the relationship that he or she establishes with each individual student. Culturally relevant pedagogies and curriculum address issues of access, inclusion, and racism in schools by empowering students socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson Billings, 1992, p. 382). Similarly, they cultivate a strong academic base, and foster students’ positive self-worth and racial and cultural identities (Asante, 1991; Ladson Billings, 1992; Mudhabuti & Mudhabuti, 1991).