First Person - February 9, 2000


Improve teaching and forgo stereotyping
Creating an educational environment where every student can learn

by Kim Pearson '78

Education was my family's religion. When I was five, my father went back to high school (he had had to quit when he was younger to help support his 12 brothers and sisters). He worked full-time while he earned a G.E.D., B.A., and M.A. from Temple University. By the time I entered Princeton in the fall of 1974, he was working on a doctoral dissertation.

My stepmother was a former domestic who worked the night shift in the mailroom of the Spiegel catalog retailing company. She would go on to receive her G.E.D. the week after I received my Princeton A.B. She entered college in the fall of 1978 and, six years later, emerged with an M.S.W. My birth mother earned a G.E.D., went to business school, and by 1974, was a credit manager at J.C. Penney.

I attended selective public schools in Philadelphia and went to Princeton prepared for Socratic dialogues and serious exploration of my responsibilities as a young black intellectual in the post­civil rights era. However, I found myself frustrated and offended by people who demanded that I prove my right to be at the university.

One classmate sidled up to me in the library and said, "You're one of the smart ones-you can admit it to me. Most of the black students aren't qualified to be here, are they?" I also remember watching some eating club members march around campus dressed in Klan-like robes and pointed hoods; professors who suggested that a black student who turned in a well-written paper might be a plagiarist; the angst of a black female friend who was tired of hearing her white students label her in-class comments "announcements from the NAACP."

 

Black Students and Alienation

As a professor at The College of New Jersey, in Trenton, I see students who struggle with feelings of alienation, and they remind me of my time at Princeton. When I read last October's news about improved black student graduation rates at Princeton, and in other universities, I was pleased because it was evident that things are better. Fortunately, university leaders striving to create inclusive academic communities can now draw upon research and expertise that did not exist two decades ago.

From my point of view in academia, there are two good avenues for fruitful discussion that would go a long way to help black students in any college or university. The first is to strengthen teaching: Princeton's efforts to do this, particularly its new Center for Teaching and Learning, are welcome. Presumably, this center will encourage faculty to apply the insights into learning processes that cognitive psychologists have gained in recent years. The challenge will be to create a culture that clearly defines, values, and rewards good teaching, particularly in the lower level courses.

Second, I think addressing the evils of stereotyping is of paramount importance. In last August's Atlantic Monthly magazine Stanford University psychologist Claude Steele reported on a phenomenon he called "stereotype threat." Steele's research suggested that the academic performance of well-prepared, highly confident students of any race could be impaired when those students believe that they are being evaluated according to a negative stereotype. His team administered challenging standardized tests to black and white Stanford undergraduates. According to Steele, black students worried that their difficulty with the test would be seen as confirmation that blacks lack certain cognitive abilities. White male math students' performance suffered when the researchers administering a math test commented that on this particular test, "Asians generally did better than whites."

 

Asking Alumni to help

Discussions about improving teaching should include ways to uncover, document, and reduce stereotype threat. Steele's report offers some suggestions; one is to tap into the university's alumni body and seek advice from people who are both leading experts on equity in higher education and former minority students. Already, a group of African-American alumni, many of them noted scientists and mathematicians, has offered to assist Princeton in recruiting scholars of color in the sciences.

When I meet students of color at Princeton now, I'm pleased to know that their opportunities for an enriching, multicultural education that seriously values their ideas and learning styles are much greater than mine were in 1974. There is more work ahead, though, if Princeton, and academe, is going to fulfill its obligation as an engine of promise in a democratic society.

Kim Pearson is a professor of journalism at The College of New Jersey.


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