Reproduced with permission of MILKWEED EDITIONS in the format Post in a course management system via Copyright Clearance Center.

COPYRIGHT © 1'194 BY HERBERT KOHL

"I Won't Learn From You" was previously published in somewhat di fferent form by Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, in Iggl.

"Uncommon Differences" appeared in somewhat different form in The Lion and the Unicorn 1992-, vol. 16, no. I, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

A section of"Creative Maladjustment and the Struggle for Public Education" appeared in somewhat different form under the title "In Defense of Public Education" in Dissent, Spring 1993.

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J4 95 J t) 97 9 8 7 9 5 4 3 2 1 I Won’t Learn from You

YEARS AGo, ONE of my fifth-grade students told me that his grandfather Wilfredo wouldn’t learn to speak English. He said that no matter how hard you tried to teach him, Wilfredo ignored whatever words you tried to teach and forced you to speak to him in Spanish. When I got to know his grandfather, I asked, in Spanish, whether I could teach him English, and he told me unambiguously that he did not want to learn. Fie was frightened, lie said, that his grandchildren would never learn Spanish if he gave in like the rest of the adults and spoke English with the chil- dren. Then, he said, they would not know who they were. At the end of our conversation he repeated adamantly that nothingcould make him learn to speak English, that families and cultures could not survive if the children lost their parents’ language and finally that learning what others wanted you to learn can sometimes destroy you. When I discussed Wilfredo’s reflections with several friends, they interpreted his remarks as a cover-up of either his fear of try- ing to learn English or his failure to do so. These explanations, however, show a lack of respect for WiLfredo’s ability to judge what is appropriate learning for himself and for his grandchil- “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU dren. By attributing failure to Wilfrcdo and by refusing to lack of exposure. My father speaks both Yiddish and English and acknowledge the loss his family would experience through not never indicated that he wouldn’t teach me Yiddish. Nor did he knowing Spanish, they turned a cultural problem into a personal ever try to coerce me to learn the language, so I never had educa- psychological problem: they turned willed refusal to learn into tional traumas associated with learning Yiddish. My mother and failure to learn. her family had everything to do with it. Theydidn’t speak Yiddish I’ve thought a lot about Wilfredo’s conscious refusal to learn at all. Learning Yiddish meant being party to conversations that English and have great sympathy for lus decision. I grew up in a excluded my mother. I didn’t reject my grandparents and their partially bilingual family, in a house shared by my parents, born language. It’s just that I didn’t want to he included in conversa- in New York City, and my grandparents, born in the Yiddish- tions unless my mother was also included. In solidarity with her I speaking Polish part of the Pale of Jewish Settlement in Eastern learned how to not-learn Yiddish. Europe. I know what it is like to face the problem of not-learning There was Yiddish to he heard everywhere in my environ- arid the dissolution of culture. In addition, I have encountered ment, except at public school: on the streets, at home, iii every willed not-learning throughout my thirty years of teaching arid store. Learning to not—learn Yiddish meant that I had to forget believe that such not-learning is often arid (lisastrously mistaken Yiddish words as soon as I heard them. When words stuck in my for failure to learn or the inability to learn. head, I had to refuse to associate the soundswith any meaning. If Learning how to not-learn is an intellectual arid social chal- someone told a story in Yiddish, I had to talk to myself quietly in lenge; sometimes you have to work very hard at it. It consists of an English or hum to myselfl If a relative greeted me in Yiddish, I active, often ingenious, willful rejection of even the most compas- responded with the uncomprehending look I had rehearsed for sionate and well-designed teaching. It subverts attempts at reme- those occasions. I also remeniber learning to concentrate on the diation as much as it rejects learning in the first place. It was component sounds of words and thus shut out the speaker’s through insight into my own not-learning that I began to under- meaning or intent. In doing so I allowed myself to he satisfied stand the inner world of students who chose to not-learn what I with understanding the emo~jonalflow of a conversation without wanted twteach. Over the years I’ve come to side with them in knowing what people were saying. I was doing just the reverse of their refusal to be molded by a hostile society and have come to what beginning readers are expected to do—read words and look upon riot-learning as positive and healthy in many situations. understand meanings instead of getting stuck on particular letters Befbre looking in detail at sonic of my students’ not-learning and the sounds they make. In effect, I used phonics to obliterate and the intricate ways in which it was part of their self-respect and meaning. identity, I want to share one of my own early ventures into not- In not-learrung Yiddish, I had to ignore phrases and gestures, learning and self-definition. I cannot speak Yiddish, though I even whole conversations, as well as words. And there were many have had opportunities to learn from the time I was born. My lively, interesting conversations upstairs at my grandparents’. They father’s parents spoke Yiddish most of the time, and since my had meetings about union activities, talked about family matters family lived downstairs from them in a two-family house for fhur- and events in Europe and later in Israel. They discussed articles teen of my first seventeen years, my failure to learn wasn’t from in the Daily Forward, the Yiddish newspaper, and plays down-

a 3 “i WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU town in the Yiddish theater. Everyone was a poet, and everybody going to Hebrew school was not to learn Hebrew but to ensure had an opinion. I let myself read hands arid faces, and I imagined that I didn’t embarrass my parents when I had to recite part of ideas and opinions bouncing around the room. I experienced the Torah at my bar mitzvah. As I figured it, if I not-learned these conversations much in the way I learned to experience Ital- Hebrew, it would save me a lot of effort and time I could use for ian opera when I was fourteen. I had a sense of plot and character science projects and my rather tentative experinients with writing. amid could Ihllow the flow and drama of personal interaction, yet I And so for two years I applied what I had learned about not- had no idea of the specifics of what was being said. To use learning Yiddish and I not-learned Hebrew. I could read the another image: it was as ifI were at a foreign-language movie with sounds and recite my way through the Ma/tzor, the daily prayer my father, my uncles, and my grandmother providing English book, and tlie Torah. I listened to our teacher-rabbi drone on subtitles whenever I asked fir help understanding what was going about the righteousness of theJews and oi.ir special role in history; on. I allowed myself to be content with this partial knowledge, and I was silent thoughcynical. but now I mourn the loss of the language and culture of my I did, however, get in trouble lhr my arrogant not-learning. father’s family that it entailed. One day the rabbi gave us a test with questions written in Deciding to actively not—learn somethng involves closing off Hebrew. Since I couldn’t translate a word from Hebrew to part of oneself and limiting one’s experience. It can require English, much less an entire question, my prospects for passing actively refusing to pay attention, acting dumb, scrambling one’s the test were not good. I was too proud to show the rabbi that I thoughts, and overriding curiosity. The balance of gains and couldn’t do the test, so I set it up with my friend Ronnie that I losses resulting from such a turning away from experience is diffi- would copy his test. Cheating in Hebrew school was riot a moral cult to assess. I still can’t tell how much I gained or lost by not- issue to me but a matter of saving face. Ronnie understood my learning Yiddish. I know that I lost a language that would have dilemma perfectly and told me he would have loved to not-learn enriched my life, hut I gained an understanding of the psychology Hebrew too, only his father insisted on testing him every night on of active not-learmng that has been very useful to me as a teacher. his Hebrew school lessons. Because riot-learning involves willing rejection of some aspect During the test I succeeded in copying Ronrue’s whole paper, of experience, it can often lead to what appears to he failure. For which I knew was a sure A, only I failed! worse than if I had writ- example, in the case of some youngsters, not-learning to read can ten letters at ramidom in mock Hebrew on the test sheet.. The be confused with failing to learn to read if the rejection of learn- rabbi returned all of the papers except Ronnie’s and mine. Then ing is overlooked as a significant factor. I had that happen to me he called the class to attention arid said he felt a need to give spe- when I was eleven arid expanded not-learning Yiddish to not- cial appreciation to Ronnie, for not only had Ronnie gotten one learning Hebrew. I was sent to cliedar, Hebrew school, to learn A, he also received a second A which, the rabbi said, was the first that part of the Torah that I would have to read aloud in front of time in his career that any student had done that well. Arid, he the whole congregation during my bar mitzvah. My family was riot added, Herbert didn’t hand in any paper at all, which he told the at all religious, and though we belonged to a temple, we attended class was worse than trying amid failing. It seems that I had copied services only on Yom Kippur. From my perspective the point of Ronnie’s paper so accurately that I had answered the Hebrew

4 5 “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” WON’T LEARN FROM YOU question “What is your name?” with Ronnie’s Hebrew name. I “behind” in reading, I assumed that they had failed to learn how was thoroughly humiliated in front of all of my friends and, for all to read. Therefore, I looked for the sources of their failure in the my arrogance about getting away with not-learning Hebrew, felt readingprograms theywere exposed to, in their relationships with very stupid. teachers and other adults in authority, and in the social and eco- I never fbrgot tins humiliation, and when I became a teacher, nomic conditions of their lives. I assumed that something went I resolved never to humiliate any of my students. I also decided to wrong when they faced a written text, that either they made errors assume that there were complex factors behind any apparent fail- they didn’t know how to correct or they were the victims of bad ure which, if understood, could be used to transform it into posi- teaching. tive learning. Not-learning Yiddish and Hebrew has made me Other causes of failure I searched for were mismatches very sensitive to the difference between not-learning and failing to between the studenits’ language and the language of the schools or learn. Failure is characterized by the frustrated will to know, between the students’ experiences and the kind of’ experience whereas not-learning involves the mmill to refuse knowledge. Failure presupposed by their teachers or the reading texts. In all of these results from a mismatch between what the learner wants to do cases I assumed that my students had failed at something they and is able to do. The reasons for failure may be personal, social, had tried to do. Sometinies I was correct, and then it was easy to or cultural, but whatever they are, the results of failure are most figure out a strategy to help them avoid old errors and learn, free often a loss of self-confidence accompanied by a sense of infer or- of failure. But there were many eases I came upon where obvi- ity and inadequacy Not-learning produces thoroughly different ously intelligent students were beyond success or failure when it effects, It tends to strengthen the will, clarify one’s definition of came to reading or other school-related learning. They had con- self~reinforce self-discipline, and provide inner satisfaction. Not- sciously placed themselves outside the entire system that was try- learning can also get one in trouble if it results in defiance or a ing to coerce or seduce them into learning amid spent all their time refusal to become socialized in ways that are sanctioned by the and energy in the classroom devising ways of not-learning, short- dominant authority. circuiting the business of failure altogether. They were engaged in Not-learning tends to take place when someone has to deal a struggle of’ wills with authority, and what seemed to he at stake with unavoidable challenges to her or his personal and family loy- for them was nothing less than their pride and integrity. Most of alties, integrity and identity In such situations there are forced them did not believe that they were failures or that they were ink- choices and no apparent middle ground. To agree to learn frotn a nor to students who succeeded on the schools’ terms, and they stranger who does riot respect your integrity causes a major loss of were easy to distinguish from the wounded self-effacing students self. The only alternative is to not-learn and r&jeet the stranger’s who wanted to learn but had not heen able to do so. world. I remember otie student, Barry; who was in one of my com- In the course of my teaching career I have seen children bined kindergarten and first-grade classes in Berkeley in the choose to riot-learn many difl’erent skills, ideas, attitudes, opin- 197os. He had been held hack in the first grade by his previous ions, and values. At first E confused not-learning with failing. teacher for being uncooperative, defiant, and “not ready for the When I had youngsters in my classes who were substantially demands of second grade.” He was sent to my class because it

6 7 “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU was multi-age-graded, and the principal hoped I could get bum to even bother to think about remediation. I was convinced he could catch up and go on with other students bus age by the end of the learn to read perfectly well if lie assented to learn how to read. year. Barry was confident and cocky but not rude. Froni his com- The strategy was simple amid involved a calculated risk. I decided ments in class it was clear that he was quite sensitive and intelli- to force him to read with me and then make it appear to other gent. The other students in the class respected him as the best members of the class that he could read well, and that his past flgbiter amid athlete in class, and as a skilled arid funny storyteller. resistance was just a game lie controlled. The goal was to have During the first week of school, one of the students men- him show nrc up in class, as ifhis past failure was a joke he was tioned to rue that their teacher the previous year had been afraid playing on us all, and have him display to the entire class a read- of Barry. I’ve seen a niumber of eases where wbute teachers treat ing ability he didn’t know he had. very young African-American boys as if they were seventeen, over I prepared myself for a bit of drama. One Monday afternoon six feet tall, addicted to drugs, and menacing. Barry was a victim I asked Barry to conic read with inc. Naturally, all the other stu- of that manifestation of racism, lie had evidently been given tbie dents stopped what they were doing and waited for the show. run of the school the previous year—had been allowed to wander They wanted to see ifBarry would he able to not-read one more the halls at will, refuse participation in group activities, and avoid time. He looked at rue, then turned around and walked away. I any semblance of academic work. Consequently, lie fell behind picked up a book, went over to him, gently but firmly sat him amid was not promoted from first to second grade. down in a chair, and sat down myself. Before he could throw the The first time I asked Barry to sit down arid read winh mtie, he inevitable tantrum, I opened the hook and said, “Here’s the page threw a temper tantrum arid called tne all kinds of names. We you have to read. It says, ‘This is a bug. This is a jug. This is a never got near a book. I had to relate to his behavior, not his read- hug in thejug.’ Now read it to me.” He started to squirm and put ing. There was rio way for nne to discover the level of his skills or his hands over his eyes. Only I could see a sly grin forming as he bus knowledge of’ how reading works. I tried to get him to read a sneaked a look at the book. I had given bum the answers, told him few more times and watched bus responses to me very carefully. exactly what he had to do to show me and the rest of the class that His tantrums clearly were manufactured on tbie spot. They were a he knew how to read all along. It was his decision: to go on play- strategy of not-reading. He never got close enough to a book to ing his not-learning game or accept my face-saving gift and open have failed to learn how to read. up the possibility of learning to read. I offered him the possibility The year hefore, this response had the efl’ect he wanted. He of entering into a teaching-learning relationship with me without was let alone and, as a bonus, gained status in the eyes of the forcing hini to give up any of his status, and fortunately he other children as being someone teachers feared. Not-reading, as accepted the gil’t. He mumbled, “Thus is a bug, this is ajug, this tragic as it might become in his future, was very successful for is a bug in ajug,” then tossed the hook on the floor and, turning bum as a kindergartner. My job as a teacher was to get him to feel to one of the other children, said defiantly, “See, I told you I more empowered by reading than by practicing his active not- already know how to read.” learning to read. This ritual battle was repeated all week and into the next, I developed a strategy of empowerment for Barry and didn’t subsiding slowly as lie felt that the game was no longer necessary

8 9 I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU “1 WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” and that he was figuring out the relationship of letters to sotinds, three times. Rick is very quick in math, and there were no intel- words, and meamungs. After a while, reading becamejust another lectual reasons he couldn’t learn algebra. one of tbie things that Barry did in class. I miever did any remedial There were emotional reasons Rick refused to learni algebra, teaching or treated him as a failed reader. In fact, I was able to but it’s essential to distinguish here between his decision to not- reach him by acknowledging his choice to not-learn and by trick- learni algebra and his ability to learn it. Rick could have learned ing him out of it. However, if he had refused assent, there is no algebra quite easily. There was nothing wrong with his mind, his way I could have forced him to learn to read. That was a very ability to concentrate, or his ability to deal with abstract ideas. He important lesson to me. It helped rue understamid the essential could read, and he did read books he chose. He knew biow to do role that will and free choice play in learning, and it taught me very complex building projects and science experiments. He the importance of considerimig people’s stance toward learning in enjoyed playing around with athletic statistics and gambling odds. the larger context of the choices they make as they create lives and He just rejected the whole idea of being tested and measured identities for themselves. against other students and, though he was forced to attend school, there was rio way to force him to perform. He refused to learn and Over the years, I’ve known many youngsters who chose to actively through that refusal gained power over his parents and teachers. not-learn what their school, society, or family tried to teach them. As a free autonomous individual, he chose to not-learn, and that Not all of’ them were potential victims of their own choices to not- was what his parents and the school authorities didn’t know how learn. For some, not-learning was a strategy that made it possible to deal with. for them to function on the margins of society instead of’ falling It’s interesting how stuck parents and school authorities are into madness or total despair. It helped them build a small, safe on a single way to live and learn. Any youngster who refuses to world in which their feelings of beimig rejected by family and soci- perform as denianded is treated as a major threat to the entire sys- ety could be softened. Not-learning played a positive role and tem. Experts are consulted, complex personal or family causes are enabled them to take control of their lives and get through fabricated, special programs are inivented, all to protect the system difficult times. Recently, I encountered a young mmian I’ve known from changing itself and accommodating difference. People like since he was in elementary school who has become a master of Rick then get channeled into marginial school experiences and, not-learning and has turned it into an artistic life form. Rick, who too often, mniarginahzed lives. is nineteen, has consciously chosen to reject the conventional val- Rick told me that not-learning algebra was an intriguing chal- ues of nuddle-class life. Through his poetry lie scorns and criti- lenge, since he felt that the abstract representation of complex cizes such pious values as hard work, obedience, patriotism, loy- mathernaticai relationships might interest him as much as chess alty, and money Fle honed his not-learmung skills in elementary (lid. In order to force failure Rick found ingenious ways to dis- school and became particularly adept at them in junior high solve equations into marks on the page by creating visual exercises school. An articulate, conscious riot-learner, Rick is very explicit that treated the equations as nonmathemniatical markings. For about his achievements. He claims that the most difficult not- erample, one exercise consisted of’ reading an equation from the learning he ever did was in introductory algebra, wbueh lie failed equal sign out in a number of steps so that he would read

II 10 “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” WON’T LEARN FROM YOU

3a+2b=I2a—32 as the sequence: =, bi, 2hn2, +2h=i2a, More generally, Rick is not asking to be accepted or rejected a+2b=12a—, etc. Sometimes he would even memorize the for what he does. Being left alone to be as he pleases is enough. sequence. He has chosen how he will arid won’t be socialized, what he’ll When Ins teacher asked him what he was doing, he explained learni and what he’ll not-learn. Many of Ins arguments against exactly what his procedure was, infuriating the teacher more than consunnerismn and the arrogant wastefulness of our society are ifhe had merely said he didn’t understand the problem. convincing. In some ways his life is healthier and saner than the Rick’s rejection of authority is sincere, well thought out, and norm. Unfortunately, there are people who represent the institu- based on a personal analysis of some unsettling experiences he tions of’ conformity of our society and resent Rick’s choice to not bias had in his family life. There is fear of’ the world and personal conform. They try to categorize, stigmatize, and even institution- insecurity in his rejection too. He believes that people should not alize amid punish him. He refuses to learn to act according to their judge each other, that they should live with mimmal possessions definitions of him. He says he’ll not-learn to be crazy or criminal and take pleasure from each other’s compamiy and from their own and won’t be driven to give up his autonomy and sanity by creative abilities. Rick, who is a mniusician, is an anarchist who accepting their right to invalidate his experiences and stigmatize lives Ins belief’s. He lefi school, moved out of his home, and now him. I don’t know how Rickwill make out in the future. I worry lives communally with other members of his hand and a few other that the rejection he has experienced will finally wear him down friends. Their ambition, in addition to making music and art, is and that he’ll turn nasty or go crazy. to live free of institutional control and to restore some peace and It may be that he’ll also find that one day he’ll wish he knew sanuty to an earth they see pulled apart by greed and competition. things he’d not-learned. That happened to me when, in Septem- Consistent with tins philosophy, Rick told me that he has not- ber of i954, I left the Bronx for Harvard, encountered my first learned many things whicbi go against his beliefs. Some of them Protestants, and found myself wishing I could speak Hebrew In appear extreme, but none of them harm anybody or hurt the my neighborhood in the Bronx and at the Bronx High School of earth though they do offend social customs. For example, he has Science, I never considered myself a member of an ethnic or not-learned to wear shoes and bias developed a whole series of racial minority, since I wasn’t. Most of the people in my neighbor- strategies so that he can manage to get into places where shoes are hood and at school were Jewish. I wasn’t naive—I knew that Jews required or expected, such as restaurants or theaters. Rick distin- were persecuted, that we were a sornietimes rejected and despised guishes not-learning to wear shoes fi’om simply refusing to wear ethnic minority in the Umiited States. But on an everyday level I shoes, The difference is manifested mi Rick’s total lack of hostility lived with Jews, went to school with Jews, and for the most part when people tell bum that shoes are required or expected. Rick’s socialized witbi Jews. In my neighborhood, in addition to Jews response is that he’s sorry about it but he can’t wear shoes. In there were Italians and Irish, anid a smattering of African Ameri- successfully not-learning to wear shoes despite the pressure on cans and Puerto Ricans. In high school, my few non-Jewish him to wear them, it’s no longer ani issue for him and therefore lie friends were African-American, Irish, or Italian; Before I went to has avoided the defiant attitude of someone who merely refuses to Harvard I was accustomed to living in a daily world in which I wear shoes. was part of the majority, and I acted amid lived without tbiat cau-

12 13 “I WON’T LEARN PROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU don, suspicion, and self-consciousness minorities often develop Germany and England to the United States. They didn’t try to when they have daily contactwith a dominant majority~ assimilate and didn’t fail into any protective religious onhodo~ At Harvard I soon realized that the social world was thor- My grandfitther maintained his socialist vision of one big union of oughly different from the one I grew up in. Not only did white all peoples and cultures and must have thought about the pith- Protestant males dominate my freshman dorm (Harvard was all- Inns I was now Scing. If — I could speak to him intimatel~c male then), but I felt they enjoyed indulging that dominance by personally~find out his ideas, learn his thoughts about his own bringing up the Sue of my Jewishness and of my working-class experiences and hear his words, not as songs or through transla- background. This may have been done in a spirit ofgoodwill, but tions, but as meanings. I wished I spokeYiddish and felt angry at I couldn’t experience it that wa~During all-night bull sessions I myselfforhavingwillfixlly reflisedtolearn it. Onlywhen itwas too was asked about the Bronx, about Judaism, about the way my late did I understand what I had lost by not-learning Yiddish. familylived,allinawaythatseemedtoprecludemyaskingthem The voice I needed to hear and to call on in my own musings about their backgrounds. I was the curiosity they were the norm. about identity was not there for me. I managed to limp along and One student on myfloor urged me to come with him toMemorial after a while discovered, first through reading, and later through Chapel to hear Reinhold Niebuhr preach so that I could be traveling and finding friends, voices and people that helped me exposed to the sophistication and relevance of contemporary understand how to cross boundaries of class and culture without Protestant thinking. Another urged me to read the New Tess- losing my own identity Heweveç I’m convinced that it has been a men~informing me that no educated person could live without longer and more painful voyage than it might have been had I knowing it. And then I rememberconversations about people and known the language mygrandparents spoke. places I had never heard of, prep school talk that made me feel Alcmiç a young African-American man I had the privilege of very much a foreigner. wing for the last three ye is of his life, v~ Iwas My problem was compounded by a number of other Jewish and struggled to learn and maintain his culture and learn his students who were also discovering their everyday minority status roots despite a racistschool system that he was required to attend. and were responding to it by becoming aggressivelyJewish. They In school he was a passionate not-learner. I remember his telling pressured me tojoin Hillel, the Jewish student organization, in me of spending a semester in a junior high school social studies order to alleviate some of the stress by spending time in a self- class not merely not-learning the subject but actively trying to segregatedJewish environment where the illusion ofbeingpart of destroy the teacher’s and the textbook’s credibilit)~Akmir had a mi~joritycouldbe reestablished. joined a militant separatist group that was an offshoot of the I wanted to be myself, neither minority nor majoritjç and Nation of Islam. They believed that they were among the y per- rejected both the pressure to assimilate and to separate. It was cent of African Americans who understood the truth that the very hard towalk that thin linealone, yet there was no one to talk ~ to about mydesire to learn everything Harvard had to offer with- destroyed. One oftheir— was purifying Harlem ofall whites. out giving up myselt And I thought a lot about my &ther’s par- Akmir’s experiences with whites did very little to refine the 7 ents those days. They had come from Eastern Europe through percenters’ analysis. That opinion accurately applied to one of

14 Is “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU

Akmir’s high school history teachers, who believed that his stu- raised questions that they interpreted as anti_American. They dents—African-American and Puerto Rican—were stupid, lazy, decided that he didn’t deserve to graduate because of’ this attitude and incapable of understanding complex ideas. He talked to the and decreed that he had to take and pass a course in citizenship class in a condescending mannel; addressing them as “you” as in sometime during the two years after his class graduated in order “You people don’t know how to hold a job,” arid “You people to receive the diploma he had rightfully earned by passing all the have never learned to adopt American values and that’s why you required courses. They also told mm that sometime in the future can’t compete in the marketplace.” they would decide what work or school experience could count as Most of the students were content to not-learn what he taught a citizenship class. Akmir told them what he thought of them by playing dumb. A few actually learned what he taught and before leaving the school for what he believed was the last time. believed that they were stupid arid incapable of productive lives. At the time (it was 1965), 1 was a graduate student at Teachers Akmir aud one friend, Thomas X, were actively defiant. They not College, Columbia Ijniversity, and Betty Rawls, another graduate only refused to learn what he taught but tried to take over the student, and I were teaching a class in psychology for a group of class and change the curriculum into an attack on white racism. high-school-aged students who were older brothers and sisters Whenever lie talked about American values, for example, they of former students of mine from Harlem. Brenda Jackson, one would point out that slavery was an American value according to of the students, brought Akmir to class one day. They were a hit the Constitution and would try to demonstrate that racism, not late, arid when they arrived, the class was discussing whether lack of intelligence or ability, was the root of black failure and Freudian ideas applied to teenagers growing up in Harlem. The pover~The teacher tried to shut them up, referred them to the discussion was quite lively, but when Brenda and Akmir came guidance counseloi sent them to the principal, and in every way into the room, everyone fell silent. Brenda sat down, but. Akmir but answering their challenges, tried to silence them. Nothing remained standing and looked straight at me. I noticed how worked, because Akmir and Thomas X refused to accept the strong he looked, both physically and mentally. validity of school authority and preached to the principal and the Since everyone else in the room remained silent, I talked counselors the same line they preached in class. After one about my understanding of Freud and brought up some questions semester of bitter struggle at this school, both Akmir and Thomas I had about some main Freudian concepts. After about five min- X were transferred to a special school for discipline problems. utesAkmir took a few steps toward the front of the room and said These were schools fbr youngsters who had mastered strategies of quietly but fiercely, “That’s white man’s psychology.” not-learning and infririated school authorities hut had done noth- I didn’t disagree and suggested he go into his reasons for ing wrong. The schools were created to separate, within an making that statement. He said there was no point in doing it for already racially segregated system, teachers who were failing their a white man, whereupon I told him he was wrong, adding that students from their angry victims, though Freud was a white man, he was also a bourgeois Viennese I didn’t know Akmir until three years after he left high school. Jew who had grown up in the late i800s and that it was unclear He had passed all of his classes, hut his diploma had been with- whether his ideas were adequate to account for the psychology of held fi-orn him for “citizenship” reasons. The principal and guid- non-Jews, of working-class people, of women, and of’ young peo- ance counselor decided that he wasn’t a loyal American since he ple in the x96os, as well as of blacks.

17 “1 WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” 1 WON’T LEARN FROM YOU He pushed aside my comments and began a harangue on ses how I too fell into sloppy, racist linguistic habits arid came to racism, injustice, and the Wilderness of North America, which take his criticisms seriously. I tried to read texts from his point of was the way Black Muslims referred to the Umted States. I grew view and pick out the phrases and thoughts that he might find angry and told him that the class was voluntary, that he could offensive. In some cases, it made reading familiar material very leave if he wanted to, but that we were there to learn togethei; and uncomfortable. I had thought of having the class analyze Con- I wasn’t bullshitting about wanting to know his ideas. Any intelli- rad’s Heart of Darkness from a psychoanalytic point of’ view hut gent position could he presented, defended, and argued, hut decided to abandon that exercise because, on rereading it with learning couldn’t take place without respect for everybody’s voice. The students glanced anxiously back and forth from Akmir to Akmir’s sensitivities in mind, the explicit and offensive racism at me. I rested my case and he smiled and said, “Well, maybe we the heart of the story appalled me. I had known hefbre that the story could be interpreted as racist, hut had always felt that that should start with ego psychology and see what ego means for was just a secondary, unfortunate aspect of an extraordinary piece white people and fbi black people.” I agreed, and we entered into of writing. This time, though the quality of the writing wasn’t that discussion. diminished by my new reading, the story became repugnant to After class Akmir came up and introduced himselE I told him me, The racism became the primary characteristic of the writing, that his questions and challenges were just what the class needed not a secondary one that could he umiderstood and explained and invited him to join us. Betty and I usually assigned material away in light of Conrad’s cultural background and historical situ- to be read for each class, but since most of the students didn’t get ation. And I understood that I shouldn’t teach The Heart of around to reading it, we began each class summarizing the issues Darkness unless I was ready to deal explicitly with the text’s we intended to discuss. Akmnir read everything, studied it thor- racism and condemn Conrad. oughly; and came to class prepared to argue. He read all of’ the Last year, more than twenty years after this incident, I read an material aggressively, looking for sentences or phrases that indi- essay by the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe entitled “An Image cated or could he interpreted to imply racism, ranging from uses of the words “black” or “dark” to signif~’evil to sophisticated of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart ofDarkness” * that confirmed arguments that implied the superiority of Western culture. For a my analysis of the Conrad story. Achebe, after tnaking his case few sessions the class was dominated by his qucstioning of our against Conrad, states quite unambiguously; “The point of my observations should he quite clear by nos~namely that Joseph texts. At first I thought it was a gamne meant to provoke me, hut it Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. simple truth is soon became clear that that was an egotistic response on my part. That tins glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white Akmir was hunting down American English fbr insinuations of racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its racism and was trying to purify the language. He had learned manifestations go completely unremarked’t sotne of these techniques from the Black Muslims and ~ per- centers, who were very skillfhl in hunting out claims of European I learned from Akmir’s reading techniques how to unlearn pureness amid African primitivity and who understood that when * In Chinua Achehe, Hopes and Impediments (Garden City, N.Y.: Double- sophisticated Westerners were ctmtrasted with unsophisticated day, 1989), pp. 1—20. peoples of color, racism was afoot. I learned from Akmir’s analy- ~Ibid., p. ~r,

18 19 “m WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU habits of mine that let such racism in books pass unexamined. tence in a story or article we read to make gender references exact. Before knowing him, I was not attuned to many of the nuances of I agreedwith her posiüon but was initi’aily annoyed at the time it racist implication because I was not the victim of racism. I d~d was taking up in class. Howevei when some of the male students not suffer through every offensive phrase I encountered when started baiting her for being so insistent on chamiging their habits reading, nor did I experience rage when racism was cloaked in of thought and ridiculing her as a “liberated girl,” I supported the authority of tradition or the language of excellence. The lack her in her struggle and resolved to let the issue take over the class, of that sensitivity bothered me, and I had to unlearn this insensi- if it caine to that. I decided that, for those students, it was mmiore tivity to biased yet traditional ways of speaking and writing. In important to deal with gender issues than with the other educa- addition, I had to learn how to choose my own language and tional issues we were supposed to he covering. I made gender amid learn to make the avoidance of racist reference h’abit. I had to the power of lamiguage to mold thought the focus of the rest of the think very carefully about talking about “dark intents” amid “black semimiar. Unlearning the language of sexism with the guidance of deeds”; to avoid using comparisons like “civilized/primitive,” and someone who had not-learned it was a wonderful educatiotial “sophisticated/unsophisticated”; and to eliminate characteriza- adventure for me and, I hope, fur the rest of the students. tions like “disadvantaged” arid “deprived.” I had to learn to thitik As a white male, I am included in time male referent of most from the perspective of someone who had miot-learned racist lan- general phrases. I feel included in, though not necessarily guage, and that experience has been an imnportant part of mny described by, statements such as: growth and development. Akmir’s insistence upon the details of racist reference inlluenced how I read, speak, and write in much Man’s actions aredetermined by egocentric motives, the same way that current feminist writing is influencing me. For Man is a rational animal. All men are createdequal. me it was a matter of’ unlearning what could be called habits of inclusion and exclusion. Akmir’s not-learning to speak or think in It is man’s fate to die. the racist ways of his teachers was, for him, a healthy response to Up to about ten or fifteen years ago it never occurred to mnc racism. Unlearning racist and sexist language represents for me a that women might not feel included in these statements. When similar commitment to struggle against racism and sexism in an this lack of inclusion was first pointed out to me, I put it down to everyday and thorough manner It is not merely an intellectual historical circumstances of no current significance—nothing to exercise. take too seriously. The use of the male pronoun “lie” in sentemices A few years ago in a college seminar I taught, one of the such as “If a person wants something, he should fight for it” young wotnen in the class took a stance toward not-learning sexist seemed comfortable and ordinary. I had developed a habit of language that remninded me of Akmir’s stance toward the language inclusion that was eomfbrtable to me because I was included. It of racism. For example, she constantly corrected anyone in class wasn’t comfortable to the excluded, to mny wife or daughters, as who used masculine references to represent all people. She my student pointed out to me. She was right. Exelusiomi, whether rephrased, out loud, statements such as “Man needs to do mean- based on gendei; race, class, or any other category; is a way of ingful work” or “No matter what a doctor is doimig, he’s always on insultittg and injuring people. I taught myself to unlearn the call,” and she would insist upon class tine to rephrase every seri- habits of what could be called mnale-talk by thinking of her as a

20 21 I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” reader when I read, until sensitivity to gender reference bwinne would call me a learning and discipline problem, amid the princi- habit. pal would threaten to expel, transfer, or refdr me, all of which Unlearning racist and sexist language habits is part of the happened to Akmir because of his project of’not-learning racism. struggle against racism and sexism. I have learned new habits of Not-learning and unlearmung are both central techniques that inclusion and exclusion in reference. I think about nouns and support changes of consciousness and help people develop posi- pronoutis and their references with greater precision than hefbre, tive ways of thinking and speaking in opposition to dominant and I raise political questions about language in ways that have forms of oppression. Not-learning in particular requires a strong increased my insight into miseducation through language. For will and an ability to take the kimids of pressure exerted by people exannple, when I read “American teenagers think that,” or “teach- whose power you choose to question. Akniir and I often talked ers believe that,” or “the average American is,” I have to stop and about the quality of his school experiences. He refused to drop search for the specifics of the rekrenee. Does the average Anueri- out. He decided that he would sit right in the Wilderness of can teenager live in Harlem or Hanover? Does the wackier unrk North America and openly not-learn what was offered to hinn in a private school or a public school, in a rural, urban, or subur- rather than simply drop out amid join a total community of other ban school? Who has been honored to he the average American nonlearners. That meant having a response to every mention and of the week? Claims like these, so common in the media and in reference to race, reading and monitoring one’s reading for even school textbooks, dismiss complex issues with glib generaliza— the slightest implications of racism, speaking very carefully and uons. Sloppy habits of reference lead tiot only to loose thinking precisely; revising everything said in order to eliminate the white hut to the continued avoidance of dealing with social, racial, and version of reality gender issues that must be solved in order for this society to I otice asked Aknur if he ever thought beyond his not-learn- approximate its claims to democracy. ing amid the time it took up. I-Ic said that he did, that lie wanted to I had to unlearn to tise the pronoun ‘‘he” to refer to all peo- use that not-learmtitig to clear a space for himself to learn without ple. I can, however, imagine actively not-learmtig it just as Akmir feeling oppressed by words. I-Ic also wanted to write, to tell stories not-learned racist language. Not-leartuing it would have consisted in a language that was positive amid unselfconscious, that spoke of of’ being aware of the problem from die start, knowing as a child the life of black people without the need to qualify life by refCr- that adult hahiis of speech were biased and choosing to oppose ence to white oppressioni. He said he wanited to write in a sepa- these habits. I might have, for example, insisted on pointing out rated, separatist language, a postrevolutionary language. Flis to my teacher that the title of our lnstory book, Man and His dream was one of writing beyond race while affirming the qtiality JThrbI, was not merely imprecise but insulting. I cot.ild have then ofhis experience and the history ofhis people. gone on to underline all of the incorrect refCrenees to the male His resistance to racism was the result of his vision of a world and made a point of correcting the historical record. If’! took the beyond racism, which lie was afraid he would never see. It was matter a step further and insisted that the issties I raised be cen- this dream that propelled his not-leartntig. It was probably my tral to our discussion of history and called for a vote to change the respect for that dream amid my appreciation for what I learned name of the subject to herstory-and—history, or to theirstory; it’s through the creative eflbrts of his not-learning that niade it possi- likely that the teacher would try to shut me up, the counselor ble for us to become as close as we did. It was 1967, and we

23 22 I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” talked about the meaninig of the Vietnam War, which lie decided As it turned out, Akmir didn’t really need the diploma. City to resist. We also talked about how he could approach college College had sent him the wrong letter. But he was devastated by through his strengths rather thati through resistance. He wanted that rejection, fearful of going to jail fur being a war resister, and to learn, to become a writer and social activist, and he needed feeling, I believe, that the place he had spent his life clearing was teachers who would teach beyond personal and institutional violated or inaccessible. I never saw hint alive again. That night, racism. Betty was one person who inspired him, and there were so far as I’ve been able to reconstruct, Akmir returned to his old others who taught in the writing program established under the neighborhood, ran into sonic friends, and ended up being aban- open-enrollment policy at City College. Akinir decided to move doned in the emergency room of a nearhy hospital where he died out of Harlem fur a while. He felt his not—learning had to move of an overdose of’ heroin—one more victim of’ what lie spent his him beyond the ghetto. Not-learning made him a discipline life not-learning. problenn mi school, htit irotiically it helped himn to stay’ confident Struggling to maintain integrity and hope may not always he as a learner. It prevented him from thinking of himself as a Iii.ilure the key to survival under conditions of oppression. Imitating your or resigning himself to anything less than a fully developed life oppressors and trying to integrate yourself into their society might andl self. work better. Sometimes survival dictates swallowing otie’s pride In late May of that year things began opening up for Akmir. and giving up self-respect. When there is no large-scale move- I-Ic had gotten imito the open-enrollmetit program at City College, ment for liberation, Akmir’s alternatives, resistance and rehelliomi, found ajob at Teachers College, and moved imito an apartnnent on are lonely and dangerous choices. Some of Akmir’s frietids the Lower East Side. He began a series of stories about rebirth in became the violent, angry, and dangerous people white society what lie called his “new language” and was platining a small vo]- imagined them to be. They succceded on the streets for a while, ume of poetry In June, however, lie got his draft notice, on the but they also set themselves up for eventual self_destruction. Oth- same day he received a letter from City College inifornning him ers did what their teachers and bosses told them to do and man- that. lie needed to show his high school diploma befhre he could aged to integrate theniselves into certain corners of the white he formally admitted. We visited his high school counselor, and I world. Akmnir was among those brave people who refused to aban- wrote up a course description amid certificate of completioni for the don self-respect or allow himself to be consumed by hatred amid psychology course he had taken with Betty and me. The course self-hatred. Not-learning to think white was a strength that got was to serve a.s his citizenship class, his atonement for his not- him in trouble with his teachers, with sonae of the people he learning in high school. The counselor, to our astonishment. worked for, amid with sonic of his own friends who, as much as refused to accept the class and told us that he wasn’t sure Akmir they admired his integrity and resistance, felt he was too righ- was repemitant enough. He infbrnnied us that he would release the teous, too uncompromising. He died poitmdessly and in despair, diploma at his own pleasure. I pleaded and did everything I but so far as I’m concerned, his life was honorahle amid his death could to convince hini to change his inimid, including trying to a tragic loss. use the prestige of’ Teachers College, where I was a research asso- ciate. There was no appeal, though, arid we both left the school Over the years, i’ve come to believe that many of the young peo- ready to blow the place up. ple who fail in our schools do so fur the same reasons Akmir did

25 24 “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU and use many of the samne strategies he adopted. I remember visit- thing on me. Whatever the motivation, lie left the room, arid I was ing some teacher friends in San Antonio, Texas, about lifteen there with the students. I went up front, reread the sentence from years ago. I was there to help them eliminate anti-Latino racismmi the book, and asked the class to raise their hands ifthey believed in the public schools in the barrias—Latino ghettos. There were what I had just read, A few of theni became alert, though they very few Latino teachers and rio Latino administrators in barrio looked at me suspiciously as I continued, “This is lies, nonsense. schools in the parts of San Antomno where my friends worked. In fact, I think the textbook is racist arid an insult to everyone in Many of the administrators were Anglo, retired military personnel this room.” The class woke up, and the same student who had from the nearby Randolph Air Force Base who had hostile, impe- addressed the teacher earlier turned to me and asked, “You mean rialist attitudes toward the children they taught amid the commumti- that?” I said I did, and then he interrupted and said, “Well, ties they served. I was asked by a community group, as an out- there’s more than that book that’s racist around here.” sider and as an Anglo myself~to visit a number of classrooms arid A few of the other students nodded, and then the class went participate in some workshops discussing the specific ways in silent. It was up to me to continue with what I’d opened up or which racism functioned in their schools. in one junior high I close the conversation down and protect the teacher. I decided to was invited to observe a history class by a teacher who admitted continue on, saying I didn’t know their teacher hut that I had rtin that he needed help with this particular group of students, all of into more than one racist who was teaching and ought to he whom were Latino. The teacher gave me a copy of Ins textbook, thrown out by the students and their parents. I added that it was and I sat in the back of the room and fullowed the lesson for the obvious that the textbook was racist—the racism was there for day; which was entitled “The First. People to Settle Texas.” The everyone to read—but that I wondered how they detected racism teacher asked for someone to volunteer to read and no one in their teachers. The class launched into a serious and sophisti- responded. Most of the students were slumped down in their cated discussion of the ways racism manifested itself in their desks and none of theni looked directly at the teacher. Some everyday lives at school. And they described the stance they took gazed of!’ into space, others exchanged glinipses and grimaces. in order to resist that racism arid yet not be thrmm out of school. The teacher didn’t ask for attention but instead started to read the It amounted to nothing less than full-blown, cooperative not- text himself It went somethimig like, “The first people to settle learning. They accepted the failing grades not-learning produced Texas arrived from New England and the South in . . .“ Two boys in exchangr for the passive defense of their personal and cultural in the back put their hands in their eyes, there were a few giggles integrity This was a class of school failures, and perhaps, I and some murmuring. One hand shot up and that student believed then and still believe, the repository for the positive leader- blurted out. “What are we, aninrals or something?” The teacher’s ship arid intelligence of their generation. response was, “What does that have to do with the text?” Then he decided to abandon the lesson, introduced me as a visiting Willed not-learning consists of a conscious and chosen refusal to teacher who would substitute fur the rest of the period, amid left assent to learn. It marufests itself most often in withdrawal or the room. I don’t know if’ he planned to do that all along and set defiance and is not just a school-related phenomenon. I recently me up to fhil with the students just as he did, or if his anger at discovered a version of a traditional religious and peace song that being observed overcame him arid he decided to dump the whole goes, “I ain’t gonna learn war no more.” Learning to make war is

27 26 I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU “1 WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” the opposite of learning to make peace. Many people who never is not acknowledged as an appropriate response to oppressive learned to make war are told they niust learn to make war when education. Simice students have no way to legitimately criticize the their nation decides to fight. During those timnes, pacifists and schooling they are subjected to or the people they are required to other people who choose nonviolent ways have to not-learn to learn from, resistance and rebellion is stigmatized. The system’s make war despite strong social pressures to do so. Poor people problem beconies the victim’s problem. However not-learning is have to not-learn despair if they are to survive. Christians have to a healthy; though frequently dysfunctional~response to racism, not-learn pride arid arrogance. And on the opposite end of the sexism, and other fornns of’ bias. In times of social movements for moral spectrum, soldiers have to not-learn to care about the lives justice such refusal is often turned to more positive mass protest of the “enemy;” and the boss has to riot—learn to care about the arid demonstration and to the development of alternative learning sufferings of fired employees. Throughout life, there may he as situations~For example, during the ig6os in New York, students much occasion for not-learning as there is occasion fhr learning. who maintained their integrity and consciously reftised the racist It is uncomfortable to talk about the need to reject certain kinds teachings of their segregated schools became leaders in school of learning and reassuring to look at learmung in a positive way; but boycotts and teachers of reading amid African_American history mi without studying not-learning we can get only a partial view of’ the Freedom schools. complex decisions facing people as they choose values and decide I’ve known such student leaders and have had the pleasure of upon actions. I am just beginining to understand the importance working with some of them. jamila L., the student-body president of not-learning in the lives of children, and I urge other people to of an alternative high school I worked at during the late r96os, tlunk and write about roads people choose to not-travel and how told me that in the regular school she had spent four years in a those choices define character and influence destiny special~educatiortclass drinking orange juice, eating graham In rethinking my teaching experience in the light of not- crackers, and pretending she couldn’t read. The whole actwas to learning, I italize that many youngsters who ask impertinent keep from hitting several of her teachers who she knew were racist. questions, listen to their teachers in order to contradict them, amid In fact, she was an avid reader of romances arid of black history do not take homework or tests seriously are practiced not-learners. She used special education to keep herself in school because her The quieter not—learners sit sullenly in class, daydreaming and grandmother wanited her to graduate from high school. At our shutting out the sound of their teacher’s voice, They sometimes school she was a representative to the school board, helped fall ofl’ their chairs or throw things across the room or resort to develop projects and write proposals~and led students in a strug- other strategies of disruption. Some push things so far that they gle against racist officers in the juvenile bureau of the local police get put in special classes or get thrown out of’ school. In all of department. these cases the youngsters’ minds are never engaged in learning Jamila was not exceptional. There are many leaders and cre- what the teacher is trying to teach. On that level rio failure is pos- ators hidden away in the special classes of our schools, running sihle since there has been rio attempt to learn. It is common to wild in the halls, and hanging out in the bathrooms. In 1967 the consider such students dumb or psychologically dtsturhed. Con- poetJune Jordan asked me to introduce her to some seniors from scious, willed refusal of schooling for political or cultural reasons Benjamin Franklin High School, which, at that time, was the only

29 28 WONT LEARN FROM YOU “m WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” high school in Harlem. She was writing an article on what these hate. .. . We asked the librarian to get dieAulobiogi’aPkY ofMalcolm X. students planned to do with their futures.* Two of the students She said, “Some books you have to wait three years.” It’s still not were at the bottom of their class and two had done well in school. there. Jordan described the first two this way: I wonder how many times this situation, so sinifiar to the Paul Luciano and Victor Hernandez Cruz ate friends, Neitherof them one portrayed over twenty years later mi Spike Lee’s movie Do thinks of graduation, next Januar~as anything except a time of’ “get- the Right Thing, where there is a conflict over putting up pie- ring out” of the school,fter se. Paul regards the expected “little piece of tures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King next to those of paper” (the diploma) as proof that you have been “whiter-lied” fhr Italian.American heroes in a neigltborhood pizza parlor, has to four years. he reenacted? Later on in Jordan’s article it turns out that both Victor and In the course of their conversation Paul says: Paul were teaching reading at an education program sponsored by The lschool’sl program is a very cootiisisig system. There’s nobody to the Citizen’s Council of Columbia University; a group that was explain it to you. They just, you knon~like pat you on the hack, People involved in the student strike at Columbia that year. Both of them tell me if you don’t go along with the program, you’ll mess up your wanted to become teachers, the kind of teachers they imagined whole life, would empower students. And Victor, in one of Ins poems quoted I say then, well, to hell with my life, ‘~buhave to rake some kind in the article, expressed the feeling of nnost of the young people I ofstand, Everything you learn is lies, have encountered who have chosen the route of not-learniug It’s their education. Not mine. We would not he U’s their history. Not tRifle, like flowers resting dead in some hill It’s their language; Not mine. not cven genmg cred~ttot ~tScubIt You name ii. h’s theirs. Not mmne. or theway it smells. .4 white teacher, he has riot lived the uk. He cannot relate ai-iy of the In another poem written that year and published in his first things to isle. So I’m bored. volume of poetry, entitled Papo Gal his Gun, Victor is much And Victor goes on a hit later: nncre explicit about the significance of not-learning. In talking about junior high school he writes: George Washington had slaves, man. ~ou know one dine he traded a HS was boss black man for a pig? ... We told the librarian we wanted a picture of J Malcoltti X. We said we would supply our ows~picturearid everything. not because ofwhat you taught inc ~us she said, “No.” We wanted his picture up there with George hut because ofwhat I learned which was riot what you taught rnc* Washington and ThomasJefferson . . . the librarian said he preached

5 01cc Press, *Puhlished under the name June Meyer, ‘You Can’t See the Trees fbr the Victor j4ernanrlea Crur, Papo G~jJj Gun (New York: 5 School.” Urban Rem,iew, vol. 2, no. 3 (December m967), pp. 11—15. 1967), p. 6.

31 30 “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU”

Until we learn to distingtLish not-learning from failure and to respect the truth helnnd this. massive rejection of schooling by students from poor and oppressed communities, we will not be able to solve the major problems of education in the United States today. Risk taking is at the heart of teaching well. That means that teachers will have to not-learn the ways of loyalty to the system and to speak out, as the traditional African-American song goes, for the concept that everyone has a right to the tree of life. We must give up looking at resistant students as failures and instead turn a critical eye toward this wealthy society and the schools that it supports. No amount of educational research, no development of tech- niques or materials, no special programs or compensatory ser- vices, no restructuring or retraimung of teachers will make any fun- damental difference until we concede that fbr many students the only sane alternative to not-learning is the acknowledgment and direct confrontation of oppression—social, sexual, and ceo- nomic—both in school and in society. Education built on accept- ing that hard truth about our society can break through not- learning and can lead students arid teachers together riot to the solution of problems but to direct intelligent engagement in the struggles that might lead to solutions.

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