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University of Toledo Welcomes Renown Education Scholar
By Tricia Hall
Sojourner’s Truth Reporter
Educators, students and residents gathered at The University
of Toledo’s Scott Park Campus Auditorium on Thursday,
January 26, 2017 to hear from renown education scholar
Gloria Ladson-Billings, PhD. Her background and
accomplishments include being a researcher at the Wisconsin
Center for Education Research, an author of several books
and scholarly articles, the keynote speaker at educational
and community events and her work in the field of Culturally
Relevant Pedagogy and Critical Race Theory.
The university began the day with a two-hour lecture-style
presentation by Ladson-Billings on the subject of her famous
research, “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy,” followed by a
two-hour evening lecture-style presentation on “Diverse
Teachers Matter.”
The evening presentation included visual charts and graphs,
scholarly article references, videos, and open questions
from attendees. Ladson-Billings opened the discussion by
sharing how initially she would receive requests from school
systems to assist with implementing the points of her
theory.
“Most of my calls were from cities like New York, Chicago
and Detroit, but now my phone rings from suburban schools.
The teacher population has changed since Brown vs. Board
of Education, the number of black faces has declined.
That ruling had a large impact, over 3,500 teachers were
fired after that ruling. Unfortunately, some kids can say
they never had a black teacher,” said Ladson-Billings.
Discussions continued and focused on the teaching profession
and the impact Hurricane Katrina had on the entire state of
Louisiana. “In New Orleans 25 percent of the
African-American teachers were fired after Hurricane
Katrina, and 11 years later people are still trying to get
their jobs back,” said Ladson-Billings.
Ladson-Billings closed the discussion by sharing a video
which provides a visual demonstration of the three points of
her “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy,” which are: focus on
academic achievement and student learning; cultural
competence and socio-political consciousness.
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