So, I was finally able to put my ideas from my previous post into practice. I was able to volunteer at the Augusta University Literacy Center. 
There, I was to help tutor students with their reading comprehension and literacy skills. The predominant demographic of students receiving tutoring and enrichment were African-American. There are other races and ethnic groups ( Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, Native American) that use the Literacy Center, but they were not present on the days that I went. Even though my blog is to inform people about the discrimination of Native Americans in schools, the African- American experience can also show this discrimination as well. Why, you might ask? Poverty, that is why. Many Native Americans and African-Americans share the same economic disadvantages. Rural, urban or Reservation, Native American students have very little funding for their education from states and the federal government. Both Native Americans and African- Americans live in rural or urban areas, with the exception of Reservations, they share a lot of the same economic woes and living conditions. That effects student learning to a very high degree, however, it is also a catalyst for discrimination. This inequity due to poverty creates a culture gap. This gap is created when a dominant group controls what is learned and how it is learned. The testing is based on the norms of the dominant culture. That is why Dr. Williams was inspired to come up with the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity. You can go HERE to actually take a sample of the test and find out more about the African American experience. Native Americans have their own slang or cultural understanding of language. You can go HERE for a sample of Native American Slang. It also varies from tribe to tribe and nation to nation. It would be hard to make a general assessment with using slang or cultural language because of so many variants. However, one thing that I did find out was that cultural gaps did in fact put marginalized people, ethnic groups, and minorities and a disadvantage. As Dr. Williams showed, standardized tests does not show the true intelligence, especially if the standardized test is intended for one specific culture.
With the limited time I had to help, I devised a study/lesson on this form of discrimination that would take ten or fifteen minutes to administer. I had the perfect chance to see if my postulates were correct. I helped students from the ages of ten and thirteen. They were all African-American. Two were in Elementary School and three were in Middle School. They were behind in their reading levels in comprehension and vocabulary. These students were to retake their Milestones assessment, because of failure or poor performance. I wanted to see if they truly understood the reading and if it was due to cultural discrimination by the dominant culture.
The student listens to the story that is given to them by a computer program. They are to listen to it and read along twice, then perform a vocab quiz, a “game” which is another quiz, and third and final quiz about the stories main ideas. They are also to write a summary or report of the story as well at the very end. I watched and read the stories along with the students. However, before they began I asked them some questions, like an interest inventory. I asked them about their hobbies, what do they do for fun in their neighborhood, what do they like to read, etc. I would then let them do their normal routine of reading the story and do the quiz. While watching them I noticed that all the students I tutored was getting bored. Heavy sighs and breathing, hard hits on the keyboard to change pages, and the rolling of the eyes were enough to tell me they were not enjoying the story. But, I let them finish what they had to do. I saw them not struggle with vocabulary, but I saw them struggle on reading comprehension. They could not answer certain questions pertaining to the story. All the students would get 100 percent on the vocab quiz but do not do as well on the comprehension. 
I was intrigued by that. It was consistent when it came to certain scenarios. For instance, one story about M&M candies and how people prefer different colors, contained a reference to Van Halen and the contract to not have brown M&Ms in their dressing room in the story, a 1970’s and 1980’s rock band. The young boy missed a question referencing them. After completing his tasks for the Literacy Center, I asked him to answer some questions about his reading. I asked him if he knew Van Halen. He said he didn’t know what a Van Halen is. I told him it was a Rock Band and he quickly informed me that he didn’t listen to that stuff. He liked Young Jeezy and Lil’ Wayne. So, I asked him if the story said ” Lil’ Wayne hated brown M&Ms and in his contract, he wanted his dressing room cleared out of brown M&Ms or he was walkin!” What does contract mean in that sentence? The young boy quickly answered that Lil’Wayne would quit if he saw brown M&M’s in his room and people said it was OK for him to do that. I was amazed, but after reading Dr. Williams research, I was not surprised. I asked him if any certain words or sentences threw him off. He said no words. Just weird stuff. I asked him what he meant. He said the things they talk about. He said it was hard for him to be interested in it. He thought it was boring. I interpret this as not relating to what he is reading, so his interest dies out once the student gets confused. I also pointed out that he understood it better when the story was tied to his type of music. He said that he likes sports and “mission” (spy, adventure, military) books. He did not like M&Ms.
Why would a 13-year-old African- American boy or girl be expected to know or interested in an 80’s rock band? Not saying it is impossible but highly improbable. Candy is a good topic, but it is not for every demographic. Candy is a luxury to some people. A child of a white, middle class family might listen and know who Van Halen is. It threw his concentration off and he missed the question. He said he was confused because he did not know “what a Van Halen is.” That was only one example.
Another example, a 10-year-old elementary student was reading a story about “Quixit” from the Planet “Knebellia”. It was hard for me to pronounce these! Like the previous student she understood the vocabulary and aced the quiz, however, did not do as well on the comprehension portion. She did not, at first, understand what a foreign exchange student was or what a translator is. The story line incorporated an alien as the main character of the story as the foreign exchange student. I reread that part of the story to her as, ” Raul Martinez from Mexico was coming to school in a America for the first time as a foreign exchange student. He was very nervous and could not speak English like the other kids. He needed a translator to help talk to the teacher.” So, I asked her again what a foreign exchange student was. She took a little while to answer, but she looked up at me and said “A student from Mexico?” I was like yes, but do they all have to come from Mexico do you think? She said “No!” “They can be like Jacqueline, from Haiti!” She knew what a foreign exchange student was, however, I can assume she became confused by the alien character and the scenario. Once again, I asked her if she liked the story. She said she did not like it. She hates stories with aliens. She likes drama. Drama as in reality TV drama, soap operas, and teen issues. She told me she “got it” when I changed the story line. She did not know what a translator was in the original story context either. However, she remembered another person with Jacqueline at school and she spoke for her sometimes. I asked her how long was this person at school. She said not very long. However, it was long enough for her to relate to the change in the story.
SO WHAT DID I LEARN FROM ALL THIS…
I learned that discrimination comes out very subtly sometimes. That is why a lot of people feel they are not racist, although they exhibit microaggression towards other ethnic groups and races, they cannot see it. When the dominant culture ( which happens to be white, upper and middle classes in America) sets the standards, the marginalized people tend to get left out of the structuring of state standardized tests and curricula. Stereotypes as exhibited by Ruby Payne, assumes that there is deficiencies in the acumen of certain students because of “their” culture. That is a play on the “other” factor. However, when you are setting the standard in favor of one culture over another you tend to get the results I saw. The students who were “failing” the Georgia Milestones test knew the vocabulary that was being presented. They did not grasp the scenarios because it was foreign to them. It made them bored because they had trouble relating. One student asked me after missing a question “Why would they barbecue in the middle of a hurricane?”. My reaction was “What!?” So, I read the part of the story he was talking about. It talked about after a hurricane, all the power was out, so the family grilled their food out to save it from spoilage. The story did not say “grilled out”, I understood that is what it meant. However, it said “Barbecue”. The student said, “You don’t barbecue in the middle of storm. You wait until it is nice out and you invite your cousins and family on a Saturday.” Where he was from, a barbecue is a large family gathering, almost like a reunion. However, when people write these stories they believe that white, middle-class norms is universal and everyone will know what they mean. It could be further from the truth.
I used to think this way, until I seen it and experienced it with my own eyes. I felt that everyone should know these scenarios, if you didn’t then it was a problem with that person. I seen research on how minorities, especially Native Americans, are being overlooked and left out on gifted programs. The standardized tests that determines “gifted” abilities is more than likely structured for the dominant culture. Hence, not very many Native Americans, Hispanics, and African-Americans get chosen for gifted programs or classes. Just like the simple stories for these students’ reading exercises, made for another intended group. I feel this discrimination, even though subtle can be very damaging. The “unintended” student will get frustrated and reject reading when bombarded with stories they cannot relate to. In my history class, I would give primary source documents to the students showing the dominant culture version of events and the versions from the non dominant culture. I would ask which version is more accurate. What evidence can you cite to say it is or isn’t? A good example to use is the Wounded Knee Massacre, there are primary accounts from both sides. Teaching and relating history to civil rights issues will keep students interested and show how discrimination has affected many classes of people throughout history and how it still affects them today. Even though I chose to work with African-American students, it still shows the effect of the standardization of tests by a dominant culture who leaves a large underrepresented portion of the country behind.
Deficits in Native American Education 