Chapter 13: Receptive Praxis

In some ways, the model of public education we have in place at present is failing many, if not most, children and young adults. Erikson et al. (2008) describe a continuum of toxicity, ranging from “increasingly toxic,” to “manageably toxic,” to “relatively positive” to qualify students' experiences of school. Ken Robinson (2008) explains the high numbers of children taking prescription drugs for attention deficit disorders as being necessary because students require anesthesia in order to make it through long days of passively sitting that are counter to their other experiences in the world. Many scholars have directed their attention toward contributing ideas about how schools can be places where children awaken to themselves, recognize themselves as powerful thinkers and problem solvers, and learn to participate as necessary members of our nation's democracy. One particularly important body of scholarship about how schools can be places where all children experience success and growth is that of culturally responsive pedagogy. It is common to hear talk about traditionally marginalized populations in schools, usually “children of color”: African American, Hispanic, and Native American students, and about what can be done to “close the achievement gap” between them and White students (Gay, 2000). The paradigm of culturally responsive teaching is one approach designed to correct the reality that “too many students of color have not been achieving in school as well as they should (and can) for far too long” (Gay, 2000, p. 1). While I embrace the idea of responsiveness, I recognize that Gay's (2000) intentions are mostly for the marginalized populations named above. But, given the recognition that schooling today fails to meet the needs of many children, regardless of culture, there is room to expand the responsibility for responsiveness beyond the boundaries of culture. Additionally, the concept of “cultural responsiveness” is becoming institutionalized and appropriated by schools and school people; I worry this might usurp its good intentions and replace its potential with more oppressive expectations. It will get woven into curriculum revisions as just something else for teachers to do; so it will become an act and will be put upon teachers and students. By “put upon” I mean imagining something like culturally responsive pedagogy, something that should be dynamic and present in the space between teachers and learners, being extracted out of this space and fixed into a “thing” that can be laid upon them as an expected, observable, measureable way of being.