Gloria J. Ladson-Billings is an American pedagogical philosopher, author, scholar, and teacher educator, and is on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-MadisonSchool of Education. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Teacher Education from Stanford University in 1984. Ladson-Billings addresses the issues of educational incongruity in teaching African American children in the 21st Century. She coined the term/notion of “culturally relevant teaching.” She is well known for her book entitled: The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children
Dr. Ladson-Billings was the President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2005. During the 2005 AERA annual meeting in San Francisco, Dr. Ladson-Billings delivered her Presidential Address, “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools,” in which she outlined what she called the “Education Debt” highlighting the combination of historical, moral, socio-political, and economic factors that have disproportionately affected African-American, Latino, Asian, and other non-white students. An audio clip of portions of that speech can be heard below. (listen to speech)
Here is a short clip of her at another speaking engagement.
Ladson-Billings on labeling children “at-risk”
We cannot saddle these babies at kindergarten with this label and expect them to proudly wear it for the next 13 years, and think, “Well, gee, I don’t know why they aren’t doing good.” So if anybody gets it, I know that writing project people know language matters. What you call something matters.
Ladson-Billings on unethical education practices
I do spend a fair amount of my time in schools. I get to hear many things about what’s quote “wrong with our students.” And one of the things I hear is that children lack exposure or experiences. I hear this really at the early level a lot. So as a consequence, many of their classroom days are filled with day after day after day of experiences, but little, if any, teaching. Now I do believe that schools can and should offer students some interesting and new experiences, but those experiences have to be tied to student learning. . . . To take kids to the zoo or to the amusement park without some learning link to it, particularly when none of these high-stakes tests are going to ask them or hold them accountable for whether or not they’ve been to Six Flags, it’s not only unfair, it’s unethical.
Ladson-Billings on reconceptualizing the racial achievement gap
Last year, in my American Educational Research Association presidential address in San Francisco, I challenged my colleagues in education research to reconceptualize this notion of the achievement gap and to begin to think about the incredible debt that we as a nation have accumulated. So rather than focusing on telling people to catch up, we have to think about how we, all of us, will begin to pay down this mountain of debt that we have amassed at the expense of entire groups of people and their subsequent generations.
Click here for an interview about ‘teacher quality’ with Dr. Ladson-Billings.
We cannot saddle these babies at kindergarten with this label and expect them to proudly wear it for the next 13 years, and think, “Well, gee, I don’t know why they aren’t doing good.” So if anybody gets it, I know that writing project people know language matters. What you call something matters.
