The Urban Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1995

Inner-City Realities: Democracy within Difference, Theory, and Practice Barry Kanpol and Fred Yeo In these bloody days and frightful nights when an urban warrior can find no face more despicable than his own, no ammunition more deadly than self-hate and no target more deserving of his true aim than his brother, we must wonder how we came so late and lonely to this place. ~

INTRODUCTION Critical theorists in education have described the end of the twentieth century as a period of "democratic decline," an age seemingly content with an "illusion of education" (McLaren, 1994). In no place is this more true than in America's inner-city schools. Having taught in and conducted critical ethnography in such schools (Kanpol, 1992a; Yeo, 1995), we have been forced to the ugly conclusion that Kozol's descriptions in Savage Inequalities (1991) are frightfully on target. It is perhaps justifiable, then, that the mood of many critical theorists is one of increasing despair. Even within that normally avuncular spirit, there really seems to be no hope for inner-city schools, no way for them to begin to match their more affluent contestors for cultural capital, despite the multicultural, diversity, and "school choice" panaceas that have gripped higher education and now teachers in our public schools. Critical theorists in education have done well theorizing over the pitfalls of urban schools in general (Fine, 1991) and the reproduction of both workingclass values (Bowles and Gintis, 1976; Willis, 1977; Anyon, 1980) and race, class, and gender disparities in particular (Apple, 1986; McLaren, 1994; Weiler, 1987). However, seemingly lost within this particular literature is a push to seriously (and pragmatically) understand how one may support democratic values within ostensibly dead-end urban schools. Barry Kanpol teaches at Pennsylvania State Harrisburg, Middletown, Pennsylvania. Fred Yeo teaches at Siena College, Loudonville, New York. 77

0042-0972/95/0300-0077507.50/0 9 1995 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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With the above in mind, it is our intent to pose an abbreviated narration of one of our teaching experiences in an inner-city school in California around which we will propose a democratic educational platform that suggests ways to move beyond the despair and frustration that inform inner-city teaching, yet without losing sight of these realities. While this platform is seemingly technical and contradictory to the postmodern condition (Lyotard, 1984), it still conforms to critical educational theory's outcry for democratic school institutions within borders created to understand differences (Giroux, 1992). We take the stand, however, that, despite postmoderuism's outcry against a singular reality or one truth, steps have to be taken to incorporate differences and multiple realities into some form of comprehensive framework for a democratic ideal to have any chance of survival, particularly in the inner-city urban school milieu. In short, we risk reductionistically arguing for a democratic platform in the face of postmodern difference, multiple identity, and multifarious subjectivity, realizing that this attempt can be only partial and sporadic. In our conclusion, we will also suggest that teacher education departments around the country must take a more proactive stance in outlining democratic principles for in- and preservice teachers, targeting the needs and peculiarities of urban school sites. Although by no means can we assert here an exhaustive set of solutions, we do suggest certain practicalities in an aim to augment a different paradigm, and it is that paradigm that is our chief concern. NARRATIVE

PRESENTED 2

A short drive up Martin King Boulevard in South Los Angeles presents a stark contrast to the usual images of that city: beaches, palm trees, and Beverly Hills. This is Watts, a terrain of black, nightmarish kaleidoscopic images within an atmosphere of ugly xenophobia, palpable tension, and violence bearing witness to the consequences of the lethal linkage of economic decline, cultural decay, and political lethargy in American life. It is populated in increasing numbers and diversity by those people particularly burdened with lifelong poverty and soul-devastating despair, who live beyond the pale of the American dream. Scattered within America's urban ghettos and barrios are those sites euphemistically termed inner-city schools, schools whose dehumanizing conditions should be a national embarrassment, except that they exist within a national concord of silence. They bear witness to our national response (or lack of one) to the increasing impoverishment of this country's urban minority populations. Driving to my teaching job each morning, I passed from a world of clean, quiet residential streets and corner shops to one of graffiti, police and ambulance sirens, the omnipresent police helicopter, and brooding faces. Walking onto the school grounds was to be immersed in a sea of black and brown faces;

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of shouts, epithets, and obscenities; of a sweaty "brownian" motion of bodies dressed in L.A. Laker jackets and red bandannas. It's 8:15 A.M., first period, Monday morning at Washington Middle School, 3 near the site of the movie Boyz in the Hood. Bounded by freeways dividing the area from the more prosperous neighborhoods, this is the ghetto--here there be the Crips, the Bloods, and the Pirus. At the school, I taught eighth-grade science, math, and social studies; coached the girls' sports; and argued with the principal over the yearbook, the school newspaper, Malcolm X, and how many classes I would have to sub in today. I was fresh out of a private college's teacher education program, where I had taken the usual courses in methodology, teaching strategies, evaluation models, and curriculum and had learned how to construct lesson plans, assertive discipline schedules, unit plans, tests, and reading assignments. Instead of the schools that I remembered and that the college had prepared me for, I entered a world where much of the language was unfamiliar, where teachers and administrators hid behind closed doors, and students placed great importance on colors of clothing, "dissing" the teachers, and avoiding schoolwork. Lesson plans were hopeless, and techniques of classroom management were drowned in the sheer volume of fights, obscene language, and constant talk. I was absolutely unprepared for classes where assigned homework was never done; tests became a farce as answers were shouted across the room; essays were generally unreadable, nonsensical, and obscene; and my attempts at reflective dialogue floundered in the face of street language in which I was the illiterate. Instead of creativity in the presence of adversity, I was inundated in the "basic skills curriculum" of prepackaged everything designed by the state for urban schools, ostensibly to give students "job skills." I listened to the PA. announcements to "work hard, follow directions, be on time, stay on task, so as to graduate and get a job." I learned from students that there weren't any jobs, except on the street selling crack and snow. I discovered that school literally had little meaning in the students' lives. I heard teachers rail against the gangs, and the students describe how joining meant survival in the "hood." There was a constant student angst about gang activities, especially the omnipresent drive-by's; it was a regular occurrence for students to come to school mourning friends and/or relatives killed by this insanity. I tried at first to teach about oceans, chemistry, and geology, and instead I heard details about lives of abuse, hunger, and only knowing a few square blocks of squalid streets. Sometimes, instead of science, I learned gang signs and how to speak "street"; they learned about white folks. I found out that many could read at only about a second-grade level; math skills were four or five years behind or, in some cases, were nonexistent. I jettisoned the paraphernalia of teacher education and instead used humor, self-deprecation, and listen-

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ing to students' personal histories, voices, and cultures. Since this took a great deal of class time, I discarded formated lesson plans, assertive discipline, and the "basic skills" curriculum. I questioned students about their language, the streets, and their sexual attitudes. I learned about red shoelaces and scarves, dreadlocks, and the hood and mastered the art of "baggin." I answered questioned about what it was like to be white and old (forty). We talked about pollution and population and whether it applied to blacks, or were these inventions of the "Man"? We discussed jobs, religion, racism, music, and what school was really about. We formed groups to go outside and see who or what lived on the school grounds, to bet on which type of clouds and weather would occur tomorrow, and to "rap" about stars and planets. I asked my kids what they wanted to know about a science topic and went on from their questions. As I increasingly realized that I simply did not comprehend much of what was happening around me, I struggled to understand the contradictions between the administration's rhetoric and the students' reactions, and those between the curriculum and instructional practices demanded by the administration and the experiences related to me by students and parents. Without knowing anything about research, urban educational theories or history, multiculturalism or critical theories of education, I began to explore both the pain and the joy that seemed to construct my children's lives. I wanted to understand why there were few job prospects and yet the administration continued to hammer out the equation of obey-study-rules-diploma = jobs; why so many of them came to school hungry; why their test scores were so uniformly low--and whether the tests were relevant; why sixth-graders got pregnant, and seventh-graders acted jealous of them; why so much anger exploded in constant fights; and a myriad of other questions that were to frame my daily interactions at the school. I asked questions of students and parents about their lives, their language, and their perceptions. I asked questions of visiting community service folks and stayed overnight at students' homes--and began to understand slowly that there are different realities and ways of making sense of the world, and that little of the school's knowledge and practices was significantly relevant to my students in their world delineated by race and social violence. It became painfully clear that in this place, "equal opportunity" was not synonymous with having a just opportunity. By comparison to other districts and communities that, although in reasonable proximity, had more funds, better schools, more teachers, and higher levels of equipment and materials, one had to question why this district and its schools were underfunded, dilapidated, and yet filled with overflowing and underprivileged youth. I came increasingly to understand that these children and their school were subject to race and class stigmatization. One factor that constructed the daily life at the school and sets the frame for possible prospects of change was the contradictions in the rhetoric and practices

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of teachers and administrators. One of the most profound contradictions was the dichotomy between the verities of students' lives and the rhetoric of teachers and administrators arguing that schooling and education would equal careers and jobs, even in the face of 65 to 75 percent unemployment. In reaction to these contradictions, the students generally rejected the staff messages that society and education were neutral, and that "equal opportunity" was theirs for the price of studying and following teachers' directions. An example of this rejection of rhetorical contradiction often occurred in assemblies, where the principal brought in speakers (usually paid for out of the already slim budget for some other category, such as physical education equipment, supplies, or textbooks) to tell students to study hard, follow the rules, be quiet, and obey teachers to get A's and a "Cadillac job"; angry students could be heard: "There ain't no jobs fo' blacks in Dodge, man!" Sometimes the administration's rhetorical contradictions were even more marked. One afternoon, after a day of fights, "misbehavior," and three teachers fleeing (quitting), the principal came on the PA and announced to the school that students should be good and obey the school codes: "If you want to be free, you have to obey and follow our rules." The students responded with laughter, disdain, and rude comments, clearly aware of and rejecting the contradictions of the message. I could only agree, and we spent the rest of the science class period talking about rules and who makes them and why. This was often the kind of moment when thestudents would ask me about whites and racism, and about why their schools were so poor compared with the suburban schools they had visited during sports activities. The culmination of the contradictions was in the annual festival of CAT tests, state-mandated cognitive knowledge tests given to schools all over the state. These tests used a style of English my students had rarely heard and were unfamiliar with, and they tested reading, writing, and math skills the students were simply not prepared to handle. However, this was the "big" event for the administration and the district. Assemblies were held to exhort students to do their best, to follow directions and to "prove to the rest of the country that we're Number One in the USA!" Incessant PA announcements were entirely about the tests. Prepatory tests were given by teachers every day in class during the previous two weeks; all other lessons were placed on hold for the duration. The resulting test data, although still in the lower 20th percentile of the state, was heralded by the principal as showing that the school was improving the students' education, and our school was lauded in local news media. The real results were available for all to see: the dropout rate ran in excess of 50 percent for black students and about 85 percent for Hispanic students at the school; the dropout rate for teachers was around 250 percent over any year. Children still suffered abuse at the rate of 60 percent, many students ate one meal a day,

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illiteracy was rampant--their parents or caregivers were in equal situations; and yet few outsiders knew or claimed to know these conditions--this silencing of terror in the "land of possibility," democracy, and "Be all you can be." In order to offer any discussion for amelioration of the conditions, practices, and failures of urban schools, we must face what passes for education in them. The only way to change the state mandates that determine the funding, the curriculum and/or pedagogy, and the ongoing urban travesty against democratic ideals is to face what Bell (1992) calls the "faces at the bottom of the well; the maintenance in American society of racism," where there is little hope and an increasing descent into nihilistic violence (West, 1994). Within America's inner cities exist millions of humans whose lives consist of pain, hunger, poverty, crime, and misery; given relief only periodically by glimpses of the "dream," often contextualized within the historic black hope of education. Nowhere in the ghetto is this more of a problem than in the urban schools, where hopes and dreams of generational and racial betterment meet the "peculiar institution" of urban education. Perhaps, to put it bluntly, racial segregation and the racialized education of children is bad enough, but when the hellish conditions of innercity schools are added, despair, hopelessness, and tragedy become the order of the day. We see no other option but to attempt, in part, a shift in paradigmatic focus in order to move the educational left out of its, at times, nihilistic state. Rather than concentrate on inner-city schools and obvious despair, we will move to a terrain of hope and possibility, informed by democratic principles. THE MOVE TO A CRITICAL DEMOCRATIC PARADIGM

We must infuse our definition of politics which challenges the structures of oppression, power and privilege within the dominant social o r d e r . . , as a critical project which transforms the larger society. (Marable, 1992, p. 258) The last twenty years or so have witnessed an increasingly public outcry by critical theorists over race, class, and gender disparities centered on a paradigmatic struggle over what counts as experience, knowing, and learning. Behaviorism has been severely criticized for its objectivistic bias and stereotypical deterministic assumptions. In its view, allegedly abundant equal educational opportunities deterministically translate into social and economic equality and lead naturally and predictably to high achievement. In the very despair of the inner-city experiences, in the faces at the bottom of the well, the veracity of these assumptions must be questioned: in point of fact, they are a terrible lie! More theoretical movements both within and outside the education field have sought to solve the urban dilemma. Critical theorists are now well aware

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of the concept of voice (Giroux and McLaren, 1986), of the concept of not naming (Fine, 1991), and of various multicultural concepts that have at least attempted to challenge educators to rethink public schooling, perhaps even in inner-city schools. For example, the move by reading education to a more holistic (or constructivist) approach is guided by a holistic, or phenomomonological understanding of how students deconstruct meaning from texts. Clearly, the move to understand the whole child is a more liberal and humanistic approach to education in general and constitutes a move against deterministic forms of knowledge and learning. Its guiding philosophy is that everyone is different and has different experiences, and thus texts must be construed differently. We have always contended that this form of pedagogy, guided by this philosophy, is good when it builds self-esteem and challenges positivistic truths. Unfortunately, in many inner-city schools, such holistic educational practices often become reduced to so-called feel-good teaching practices without connection to the oppressive conditions in which these children live. For example, a common occurrence at the school was an antigang assembly accompanied by speeches from outside "experts." Their approach was usually meritocratic and holistic and completely failed to understand that, for the students, gangs meant personal survival, income, status, and identity. We are critical of the holistic philosophy and the educational phenomonological literature in general, particularly when there is a patent avoidance of the more critically loaded race, class, and gender configurations, subjectivities, and identifies that could inform a holistic philosophy. Without the inclusion of these critical elements, the holistic approach, especially as practiced in urban schools, is simply one more of many compensatory programs which ultimately prove to be irrelevant and nondemocratic. While there is certainly much to be included from the holistic approach, it is not enough to effect meaningful change in these schools. The holistic experience, while certainly not reductionistic, and certainly incorporative of understanding different experiences, is not enough to propel the democratic teaching and learning process into challenging the oppression that students and teachers face, particularly in inner-city schools. Critical theorists both in and out of the education field argue that what is needed is a democratic agenda which requires more than mere "understanding" of the "whole child." To move beyond the holistic agenda, democratic education must include the "critical" component within the teaching and learning process LThat is, if schools are to be democratic institutions (which we contend that they must be in order to effect any deep change), they must seriously incorporate what has been described elsewhere as a "democratic imaginary" (Kanpol, 1992; Mouffe, 1988) into school practices. The resulting purpose of schools thus becomes the pursuit of the undoing of oppressive, alienating, and subordinating conditions centered on race, class, and gender assumptions.

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Granted, this is a lot to expect in the face of Kozol's (1991) glaring stories and the narrative presented in this paper. Yet we affirmatively believe that it is possible to move inner-city education in the direction of possibility and democratic change. In light of these comments, we next present some principles of both the holistic and the constructivist (Stainback and Stainback, 1992) conceptualization of teaching and learning so often used as a means to better our understanding of different learning styles, cultures, and the like. We contrast these principles to those of a more critical democratic teaching and learning process. In no way do we want to undermine a wholistic-constructivist-learning paradigm. We argue that this paradigm alone is a necessary but not sufficient condition to transform inner-city schools. We thus move to a democratic paradigm to guide us in this effort.

PRINCIPLES OF THE HOLISTIC CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS VERSUS PRINCIPLES OF A CRITICAL DEMOCRATIC TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS The first statement of principle in each set is holistic-constructivist, while the second represents the critical-democratic position: 1. The whole of the learned experience is greater than the sum of its parts. versus 1. The whole learned experience is divided by parts reflective of different social experiences. 2. The interaction of the learned experience transforms both the individual's spiral (whole) and single experience (part). versus 2. The interaction of learned experiences transforms individual's spiral and single experience as related to similar and different social experiences (whole and part). 3. The learner's spiral of knowledge is self-regulating and self-preserving. versus 3. The learner's spiral of knowledge self-regulates and self-preserves as

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it directly relates to the connections between personal experiences and the learning process. 4. All people are learners actively searching for and constructing new meanings. versus 4. All learners search for and construct personal meanings and experiences as related to institutional and social structures that connect them to their social identity within their respective race, class, and gender. 5. The best predictor of how someone will learn is what he or she already knows. versus 5. Learning prediction is never complete, as the accrual and meanings of experience and knowledge are ongoing, changing, and in flux. 6. The development of accurate forms follows the emergence of function and meaning. versus 6. Accurate forms are the function of ongoing meaning-making by the student and the teacher in a dialectical process of inquiry that is nonthreatening and nonauthoritarian. 7. Learning often proceeds from whole to part to whole. versus 7. Learning is defined by its incomplete nature as whole, as experience is always meaning-negotiated. 8. Errors are critical in learning versus

8. Errors relate both to learning and to the socialization process of values such as competition, success, and teamwork. 9. Learners learn best from experiences in which they are passionately involved.

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versus 9. Learners learn best from dispositional interests mixed with normative judgment, democratically negotiated between higher school authorities, teachers, parent groups, and student representatives. 10. Learners learn best from people they trust. versus 10. Learners learn best when trust is a function of identity understanding and negotiation. 11. Experiences connected to the learner's present knowledge and interest are learned best. versus

11. Experiences connected to the learner's present knowledge about social conditions as related to race, class, gender, age, and so on prompt the learning interest-level to rise. 12. Integrity is a primary characteristic of the human (learner's) mind. versus

12. Integrity as the learner's mind condition is connected in and out of the schools, experience-based, identity-driven, and different for every student.

In reviewing these contrasting concepts of learning, one can see that the holistic set fails to include elements of the social and the political. It is still mired in the positivistic paradigm of individualism and is thus unable to engender collective (social) change. Without the inclusion of the social mortar, any conception of change is relegated to the personal only. The holisitc set also fails to include any sense of a collective framework or goal; it fails to answer the ethical and political question, "To what end?" With the above in mind, in the next section we will pose connections between these principles and the kinds of changes in inner-city schools and teaching practices that we believe should occur in a move to a more democratic education at these sites. D E M O C R A C Y WITHIN DIFFERENCE AND INNER-CITY REALITIES

Clearly, the above twelve holistic and democratic learning principles affirm a movement away from predetermined behavioristic outcomes. Moreover, the

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concept of democracy within teaching and learning praxis also accounts for understanding difference in its multiple contexts. That is, given that identity is subjectively formed and historically constructed, there can be no generalizations of experience, as in either the behavioralistic and/or the holistic sense (i.e., fixed), only personal and very general cultural particularities conscious of social, economic, and political-cultural boundaries. In the "critical" notion, it is the particularities that construct our differences and the latter our similarities (Kanpol, 1992b). The prior narrative also suggests that similarities and differences intertwine within experience, and that understanding points of similarities and differences are both personal and public (political). As suggested by the narrative, for Yeo, an understanding of the interactive nature of his and his students' similarities within differences (Kanpol, 1992b) guided a curriculum based on the feminist notions (Gilligan, 1982) of attachment, care, and nurture. A democratic curriculum affirming students' understanding of socially constructed contradictions, with students' learning cooperative democratic understanding across differences of race and culture, at times superseded the "success at all costs" and "be the best we can be" ideology that was the ongoing message of the administration. For example, by critically querying the positions of the administration, the students were able to compel the inclusion of readings from Malcolm X in assemblies, to account publicly for discretionary spending, and to gain increases in parental involvement and teacher cooperation. These moments of democracy, as exemplified by the narrative, meant making connections with the institutional and social structures of which the school is a part. The social structures of authority, individualism, and competition, as well as the more mundane curriculum, needed to be consistently challenged within students' experiences, not those of a teacher. In that sense, the teacher's and the students' interactions in the narrative constitute a more critical, democratic response, whereas a more holistic curriculum would have continued to subordinate students' as well as teachers' alienation. With the above in mind, teacher authority, while still important as a guide or facilitator of student notions, does not translate into authoritarianism. The dialectical process between teacher and student is nonauthoritarian in that it is only when one's "voice" (the oppression and cultural grammar, norms and values) is heard and validated that a democratic process can even begin to challenge students' subordination, oppression, and alienation. Intentionally we do not suggest specifics of practice, because democracy in process is necessarily about trial and error. Fred walked into this school armed with a bag of teacher education assumptions about classroom management and teaching methodology. Through trial and error, both he and his students learned to negotiate a path of what we might describe as "social error making." The nonauthoritarian position outlined above suggests that teachers can negotiate

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(but only through trial and error) an understanding of their own and others' identities within the social context of race, class, and gender. While perhaps ill defined, this principle must guide the teacher-student learning style. Understanding the "whole" child, which is more democratic in nature in this process, is about the in-depth structural comprehension of race, class, and gender as related to hegemonic ideological constructions of value structures--socially defined criteria for what counts as male, female, success, competition, nurture, machoness, cooperation, esteem, respect, tolerance, and so on. Democracy can be negotiated when learning includes a curriculum that takes into account a child's interests and identity within those socially negotiated value frameworks. Without that, teachers again assume an autocratic position of power, dictated by the state-mandated curriculum and based on fear and disrespect. This doesn't suggest throwing state-mandated curriculums into the garbage can, but does suggest considering understanding and disseminating the curriculums from within an understanding of multiple realities, identities, subjectivities, races, classes and genders. Only then, as Fred learned, will students learn in the inner city. We fully realize that our assertion that using the twelve democratic principles of learning and finding the appropriate balance within any given school environment require "social error making" is and will be disquieting for educators ideologically habituated to mainstream quantification and procedures. However, it is necessary if we wish to advocate leaving teacher praxis to teachers and students to define their own specific needs for democratic change. To argue that one school's experience represents a procedural map for others merely falls into the trap we wish to avoid. To summarize, our argument is that holistic learning is n o t enough in and of itself for inner-city schools to challenge oppressive structures and create what we described earlier as a "democratic imaginary." Holistic learning is simply not politically or morally conscious enough for the more democratic and politically loaded platform we have advocated. A new democratically paradigmatic learning process must be negotiated to begin to challenge inner-city school realities. What this means for teacher education programs becomes the focus of our conclusion. C O N C L U S I O N : A T E A C H E R EDUCATION C H A L L E N G E

Teacher education departments have been handed the responsibility of educating potential teachers for the classroom. This has historically meant preparing teachers to teach for the workforce. The racial and sexual undertones in such an education are in disagreement with the kinds of teacher preparation needed for teachers to become critical change agents, especially in urban schools. What is suggested here is that, at present, teacher education depart-

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ments do little or nothing to foster a liberative education for their students, thus leaving teachers to become emancipated or further dominated on their own, that is, by trial and error. Teacher education seemingly does little more than prepare the potential teacher with a set of strategies to conquer discipline problems, prepare lesson plans with clearly defined behavioral objectives, and the like. Caught within a "technocratic rationality" mind-set, teacher education in the United States has objectified the curriculum (what works best for one group will for another) and prepares professionals who are to be in control, autonomous, and managerial. This is ironic in light of so much teacher research that represents that teachers feel subordinated, alienated, and deskilled in their jobs. As the narrative suggests, a teacher needs to possess the feminist qualities that foster attachment (Lyons, 1983), spirituality (Purpel, 1989), community (Shapiro, 1990), and democracy (Goodman, 1989; Giroux and McLaren, 1986). It is not enough for teacher education to instruct its clientele on dress, writing clear behavior objectives, and having a stringent discipline plan for all groups; instead, it has become necessary to help education students be the kind of teacher who acts as a cultural worker struggling for democracy. For us, the theme for challenging the stereotypical consciousness of technocratic rationality in teacher education departments and for better equipping students with tools for working democratically within schools is to posit a democratic moral and political philosophy grounded in critical practice. Teacher education courses must begin to rigorously present students with the historical construction of the American school system that will open the possibilities for student critique of such a system. These courses must both affirm students' historical identities and challenge their hegemonic foundations as well. Within these courses, exposure to the philosophical stances of John Dewey (1933), Paulo Friere (1973), and Henry Giroux (1993), laced with feminist (Britzman, 1991, Stone, 1994) and "liberation theologist" (Cone, 1970; West, 1994; Purpel, 1989) readings, will alert students to the moral and ethical nature of the school's and the students' role as teachers for democratic change. As viewed by many critical researchers (Fine, 1991; McLaren, 1994; Carlson, 1989; Giroux, 1992), traditional teacher education methods n e v e r work in the heart of the inner city. Thus teaching traditional educational methods and practices is justified only when they are also critiqued, and prospective teachers are familiarized with the concepts of teaching democratically and critically. Teaching students must be encouraged to conceive their own multiple realities as well as those of others; to connect theory to practice as well as to be b o l d in their teaching; to dare to err; and to be critically democratic in the sense we have outlined. In summary, while the above represents a simple beginning, we also realize that, in order to effect a "democratic imaginary" within any school, much less an urban one, teacher education must become truly interdisciplinary, openly

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democratic, visionary, intellectual, and critical of policy in the most stringent and democratic ways. We are afraid that, without the challenge that we have outlined above, teacher education departments are not about infusing democracy into schools, but about the message: "We are autocratic; do it our way, and you will succeed." This message, with its presumptions, must quite simply cease as the preemptive rationale of teacher education programs, as well as of education in general. Instead, teacher education must be about histories and experiences and the valuing of sensitivity and democratic idealism. Neither traditionally positivistic education nor teacher education currently does much to offset the miasmic conditions or human results of inner-city schools. We firmly and assertively believe that it is past time for educators to take a public and institutional stance and to argue for a teaching process in urban schools that is democratic and liberatory. To that end, we suggest that teachers personalize their own narratives within a critical refleetivity. As to teaching in inner-city schools, it is our argument that only an educational format encompassing a critical democratic consciousness has any hope of making changes in these students' lives and education, and then only if within a story whose similarities within differences encompass the principles we have outlined. Kozol's (1991) narrative of hopelessness must be contrasted with West's (1994) assertion that within nihilism and violence lies prophetic hope and possibility. We believe that a democratic education is that hope!

NOTES 1. Poem by Maya Angelou; quoted in Bell (1992). 2. In this narrative, Yeo, one of the coauthors of this article, was a student teacher of the other author in California, in 1988, and continued to teach at the school site for four years. A more expanded version of this research will appear in (1995), intended as a textbook for urban education courses in teacher education programs. 3. Not the actual name of the school.

REFERENCES Anyon. J. (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Education 162: 66-92. Apple, M. (1986). Teachers and Texts. New York: Routledge. Bell, Derrick. (1992). Faces at the Bottom of the Well. New York: Basic Books. Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America. New York: Basic Books. Britzrnan, D. (1991). Practice Makes Practice. New York: State University of New York Press. Carlson, D. (1989). Managing the urban school crisis: Recent trends in curricular reform. Journal of Education 171: 3. Cone, James. (1970). A Black Theology of Liberation. New York: Lippincott. Dewey, J. (1933). The Curriculum and the Child. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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