Crossing Over to Canaan

Diversity is an issue that is not going away. The number of students who are members of minority groups is on the rise. Yet few teachers are prepared to adequately address the needs of students from different cultural backgrounds. What can we do to better prepare the two million new teachers who are expected to enter these classrooms during the next decade? Just as the younger Joshua rather than Moses in the end led the Israelites into the Promised Land, it will be up to these new teachers to develop a different model for teaching students who are not only multi-racial and multi-ethnic, but who differ in language, religion, learning ability, and economic backgrounds. How do you teach such a diverse group of students and unlock and inspire their innate love of learning? How do you help students achieve rigorous academic goals without sacrificing their cultural identities? Crossing Over to Canaan tells the story of eight novice teachers working in urban, elementary school settings. It details their struggles and triumphs as they confront challenges in the classroom and respond with innovative strategies that turn cultural strengths into academic assets. Gloria Ladson-Billings offers a model of teaching that focuses on academic achievement, cultural competence, and socio-political consciousness. Drawing from her own experiences as a young African-American teacher working in Philadelphia, she successfully weaves together narrative, observation, and scholarship to create an inspirational and practical book that will help teachers everywhere as they work to transcend labels and categories to support excellence among all students. The Author Gloria Ladson-Billings is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked for a decade as a teacher and administrator in the Philadelphia Public Schools. She is the author of The Dreamkeepers (Jossey-Bass, 1997).