Beyond textbook teaching: one Oakland teacher’s approach to learning

By Kate Neal

For students, meeting academic standards of excellence usually means taking a multiple-choice test once or twice a year. You know the type: bubble in an answer and wait a few weeks to see what happened. But when it comes to meeting personal standards of excellence, it takes a little more personal attention.

Dr. Dewaina Hardee is a fifth-grade teacher at Oakland’s Allendale Elementary School. She’s trying to create what she calls a “culture of excellence” in her classroom. And she’s getting results – from ten-year-olds.

KALW’s Kate Neal reports on the teaching methods and philosophy taking effect at Allendale Elementary.

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STUDENTS: “Self-Determination” by Frederick Douglass.

KATE NEAL: It’s first thing in the morning at Allendale Elementary.  

DEWAINA HARDEE: Stop. You’re killing me. (imitating students) “‘Self-Determination’ by Frederick Douglas.” What is that about? Excuse me. What is that about? Why are you dragging these words out? Is that how we do this?

STUDENTS: No.           

The fifth-grade students in Dr. Hardee’s classroom have barely gotten to their desks and put their backpacks on their chairs when they get to work on their morning routine. 

HARDEE: What is the expectation? It starts with an “E”. What is the expectation?

STUDENTS: Excellence.

HARDEE: What is it? I didn’t hear that that time.

STUDENTS: (louder) Excellence!

HARDEE: Thank you.

The kids are standing up in two large groups at the front and back of the room. The two groups are facing each other and reading Frederick Douglass’s poem “Self-Determination.” They will read this poem once a day, every day for a month. They do it out loud, as a class, to “practice their performance.”  

HARDEE: Obviously these ideas or thoughts are way beyond their experience level, but the whole point is that I want them to think, “Where you are right now – fifth grade, ten-years-old. What does this mean to you?” So, getting them to look up the vocabulary, decode whatever that sentence or phrase is and then come up with some kind of logical means by, “What does this mean to me?”

Dr. Hardee says kids learn best through reflecting and interpreting, not just rote memorization.

HARDEE: I actually believe that all children can learn. I actually believe that each student in my class has the potential to be anything they want to be. And I believe it’s my job to get them to see this and then to believe it.

To many of us, this might seem like a simple principle of teaching. But Dr. Hardee says that’s often not the case. She gave me an example of when she first started teaching and many of her colleagues assumed the kids couldn’t excel.

HARDEE: It was one of the kinds of schools that you see on movies. We’re talking drug dealers, prostitutes, condoms on the yard, trash on the yard … You could smell the boys’ bathroom from the front door.

She says the class she was assigned to was just as dysfunctional. It was a fourth-grade class that had never had a real teacher. They would get a new sub every 60 days, but they never had a permanent figure guiding them.

HARDEE: We had to establish some norms for our classroom regarding what respect was, again, what was responsibility, holding them accountable for the work I had for them and again, not assuming that they couldn’t do the work because of whatever their past situation was. My assumption was that they could. And we did.

But not everyone was as optimistic about her students as she was.

HARDEE: And I think what was the most astounding was that I was getting feedback, negative feedback from my veteran colleges, that I was doing too much. I was expecting too much. And I didn’t understand it. But now, 10 years later, I do. I understand that most people have a deficit view of these children. They do not believe that they can and so that … if you don’t believe it, the children won’t believe it.

So through her lesson plans and teaching practices, she’s getting her students to believe it.

STUDENTS (quoting Frederick Douglass’s “Self-Determination”): “Our destiny is largely in our own hands/If we find, we shall have to seek.”

Dr. Hardee doesn’t just expect more from her students. She shows them why they need to expect more of themselves. For instance, when a student forgot his book and didn’t do his homework, she related it to real-life responsibility.

HARDEE: You left your math book here. So that meant the keys to your car you left here and you couldn’t drive your car home. You got to the PG&E window and you said, “Oh, I left my money.” But today at 5 o’clock you need to pay them or they’ll turn your electricity off, but you left your wallet.

She has all of the kids that did their homework stand up and then she acknowledges them.

HARDEE: Thank you for being in the winner’s circle today. If you’re not winning, if you’re not winning what’s happening?

STUDENTS: You’re losing.

HARDEE: If you’re not winning what’s happening?

STUDENTS: You’re losing.

HARDEE: From day one, from the first day of school they got homework from me. I wanted to establish that homework is important – it’s paying your bills.  

Dr. Hardee is trying to get them to think about their roles not only as students, but as citizens. She wants them to be thoughtful, responsible, ethical individuals.

HARDEE: We’re trying to get into their consciousness – that you’re not just here on the planet, just to chew gum and blow bubbles, but you’re here because you have a role to play, as a dignified citizen in this global world that we have.

And Dr. Hardee says that her real work as a teacher is to get her students to understand this. So she leads the way.

HARDEE: Children are children and they will follow whatever the leadership is. If it’s poor leadership, they’ll follow that. If it’s great leadership, they’ll follow that. So why don’t we give them the best possible chance by giving them great leadership, holding them accountable, holding their feet to the fire, and modeling before them an ethical care that will be with them the rest of their lives?

For KALW, I’m Kate Neal.