The author attempts to prove that the teacher's emphasis should not be on marginal (mostly minority and poor) students, but should equally address the education of the stable, wealthier class (such as the author's). All too often, the teacher and many of these "marginal" students come from opposite ends of the economic and social plane. Instead of being authoritarian (mainly because that is the way these marginal students have come to expect pedagogy), the teachers attempt to provide a non-threatening environment, encouraging students to not only form their own opinions, but create their own learning curves. Yet, there is a vast lack of understanding between students in the so-called "dominant" culture/society/segment and the "minority" position, with dominant-position students unable to grasp more than common biases, such as "why African-American males have so much difficulty in school.
While such perceptions can surely be explained and some sort of re-positioning of students' mindset improved, the author is rather adamant about the lack of success and the lack of interest in education and schooling for most minority children: it is the fault of parents and the community for not being interested and not being supportive. In addition, she fears that there is what she refers to as "institutional racism", part of society's feelings that there is the inability of white pedagogues to underst6and the social context of African-American and other minority students. She explains some of her own teaching methods, on different levels, in order to bring into sharper focus the reality of the outside world -- and some answers to nanve questions (why do more males do better in math than females? Why can't African-American families want their children to do well in school?, etc.).
The teacher here is obviously making a conscious effort to reconcile the dominant and the minority positions within her classroom. However, it seems ra...