The idea of the American Dream works against my students. Here’s how ethnic studies could help.

A recent study laid out an uncomfortable paradox: For students of color, believing in the American Dream — namely the “bootstrap theory” that hard work and perseverance lead to success — predicts a decline in self-esteem and an increase in risky behaviors during middle school.

As Melinda Anderson put it in The Atlantic recently, this belief can become a liability for students “once they become keenly aware of how institutional discrimination disadvantages them and their group.”

That research only looked at a few hundred students in the southwest, and it’s always risky to draw broad conclusions based on a single study. But as a white teacher of mostly black students in Brooklyn, I’ve seen this firsthand.

My students reliably pick up on nuance, particularly when it comes to issues of fairness. If you are told that your world is a meritocracy, and your neighborhood looks like a disaster zone, you may reasonably come to the conclusion that your options are limited and internalize the idea that they should be.

Educators have a responsibility to confront and fight against these beliefs. This is where our own curriculum can work against us — and it’s time for that to change.

New York’s students deserve a class dedicated to ethnic studies, focused on the historical struggles and social movements of ethnic minorities, conscious of the ways in which race and ethnicity intersect with power and oppression. For too many young people, white students as well as students of color, school rarely connects to these critical concerns.

I’ve seen the promise of this approach, thanks to my experience working with children who do not look like me. Their engagement in lessons that deal explicitly with ethnic studies content convinced me that this emphasis should become part of my curriculum in every course. In addition, I am grateful for mentoring from a number of brilliant, experienced teachers and administrators, most of whom are black. They have convinced me that good teaching for all students must be approached in a culturally responsive way.

During my economics class this past semester, we looked not only at Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes, but also at labor organizers such as Dolores Huerta and A. Philip Randolph. This did not require an overhaul of the curriculum, but it necessitated reflection about how best to connect with the students in front of me. This was a simple first step, wholly insufficient.

In San Francisco, where full ethnic studies courses have been offered to ninth-grade students for several years, a study conducted by Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis demonstrated a remarkable, significant positive impact:

“Assignment to this course increased ninth-grade student attendance by 21 percentage points, GPA by 1.4 grade points, and credits earned by 23. These surprisingly large effects are consistent with the hypothesis that the course reduced dropout rates and suggest that culturally relevant teaching … can provide effective support to at-risk students.”

In the past year, California passed a law that will bring ethnic studies to every school in the state, building on popular programs in many of the state’s largest districts.

The most controversial discussion of ethnic studies at the K-12 level has taken place in Arizona, where state legislators banned a popular Mexican American studies program in the Tucson public schools in 2010. That ban was just overturned last week — making this an important moment to discuss how these classes could help students across the country.

Meanwhile, for my students of color in New York City, racist violence animates their lives to a degree many fail to appreciate.

I was struck recently by two stories in the news — reflections on the death of Mike Brown, three years ago on August 9, and a look back at the brutal assault of Abner Louima by the NYPD, 20 years ago on the same date. Sadly, the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville will join our collective memory, to be filed next to these two important parts of our history, along a continuum that also includes Medgar Evers, Emmett Till, and the victims of race riots in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Wilmington, North Carolina, and so many others that do not appear in our standard history books. These omissions must be corrected.

White students as well as students of color will benefit from ethnic studies courses, which expand on the core curriculum by including diverse voices and perspectives. Most importantly, these courses analyze power structures in a critical way, empowering students to challenge the status quo.

That’s what the state of New York should want for all young people. The 44 credits now required for a high school diploma, including courses in economics and a foreign language, are missing this component that is key to creating good citizens. In 2017, we can no longer suffer public schools that fail to meet this crucial obligation.

Will Ehrenfeld is a social studies teacher at Pathways in Technology Early College High School in Brooklyn.

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