Jose Vilson > Quotes

“Do SMART Boards and iPads really change pedagogy for the millions of students institutionally ostracized based on their race, religion, or gender? Or are they merely Band-Aids that can be used to say, “Oh look, we did something and we never had to get our hands dirty to make it happen”?”
― Jose Vilson, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education

“Despite the plethora of studies and papers written about teachers as learners (Paulo Freire comes to mind here4), the top-down structure of schooling has long stifled independent thought.”
― Jose Vilson, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education

“By teaching students of color that the best way to succeed is to respond to tests the way the state demands, determine the validity of an argument under the state’s rules, and examine essays only if they follow the state’s standards, we are creating education via deculturation, or stripping a culture, instead of transculturation, the merging of cultures. We didn’t land on education reform. Education reform landed on us.”
― Jose Vilson, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education

“Sometime in March, when things got really tough, I tried to arrange a meeting with administrators and deans. I wanted to be taught how to handle the situation, but instead, they used it against me in a schoolwide meeting about how teachers needed to address their own classroom problems.”
― Jose Vilson, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education

“consciousness about our status in this country means harboring a permanent, simmering sense of anger and resentment about our second-class citizenship, triggered by people turned events:”
― Jose Vilson, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education