Tempered Radicalism as Embodied Research Intervention: Reflections from within a Maligned and Necessary Identity

by Andre Samuels and Sharon Ravitch

Dr. Ravitch is the March 2022 Mentor in Residence for SAGE Methodspace. She is a co-author of Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological. The focus for the month is on sensitive, controversial, risky research and studies with vulnerable participants.

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In this post, Andre Samuels, leadership coach and executive doctoral student in the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, reflects on his experiences as a doctoral student and researcher within academic spaces that deficitize and pathologize Blackness as a matter of course. In these rarified academic spaces, problematic research often gets raised up as a model without critique, allowing racialized tropes, stereotypes, and biases to fester, quietly contorting research, undermining its authenticity and validity. This research does harm—to the people at its center, those who read and replicate it, receive the practice it informs, and those sitting in every seat in every school from pre-K to doctoral studies. Andre illuminates his presence as an interruptive experience for colleagues and professors, the toll this takes on him, and his choice to become a tempered radical, a leader “who wants to succeed in their organizations yet want to live by their values or identities, even if they are at odds with the dominant culture of their organizations. Tempered radicals are likely to think ‘out of the box’ because they are not fully in the box. As ‘outsiders within,’ they have both a critical and creative edge. They speak new ‘truths’ (Meyerson, 2001, p. 7). Andre teaches researchers, and academia more broadly, the power of balancing critical inquiry and tempered radicalism based on a lifetime of being an outsider within the proscriptive boxes of White hegemony.

To Be Young, Black, and Average

Patient, excited, nervous, these were all of the feelings I experienced awaiting my junior high school schedule.  My older brother had already attended and; told me all about tracking. "You do not want to be in Track Four!" That meant you were "Below Average." Ugh!  Not me!  I just knew I earned "Talented and Gifted" (TAG) even higher than Track One because I could draw!  During the week, I got phone calls from my friends with last names at the alphabet's beginning.  Brian Avery:  Track One.  Michael Browne: TAG. Patrica Sam: Track Two.  Finally, the day came, "To the Parents of Andre Samuels." With my parents' permission, I opened the envelope.  Six months prior, I was expelled from Grace Lutheran, but I excelled in the "Red Robbins" reading group in the 6th grade at Northern Parkway.  Andre Samuels: Track 3, "Average."  Before this day, I never cared. What was different?  Why did it matter?  Why did it hurt so much?  Why, 30 years later, does it influence my academic performance, my constant desire to attend school?  The answer: "Prove them wrong while proving yourself right." 

Street art from Philadelphia

To Be Black and the Topic

Why Black men? In 2015 Washington, DC Public Schools employed 12 Black male principals, 11 of whom were assigned to Title I schools. The remaining principal led an application-only Montessori elementary school. Unless struggling to fulfill our instructional leadership obligations or in our first year, we did not receive leadership mentoring or coaching. In the wake of the public lynching of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, Philando Castille, and Freddy Gray, public protest poured in the streets of Washington, DC. My behind-the-scenes dissent provided Black boys and men access to education and growth opportunities through mentoring and coaching. The eruption of systematic degradation of African Americans influenced my decision to share my knowledge to benefit others, partnering with them to increase learning and discover their inner genius. Despite the majority of Black males being ideal instructional leaders for under-performing schools, simultaneously, we are assumed as threatening, violent, limited, and underachieving, making us the target of mistakenly placed aggression and bias in academic and professional settings.

On April 3, 2021, my life changed when I earned admission to the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education. An average young Black boy made it to an Ivy League university. Arriving with three graduate degrees, I am a minority in the cohort as a Black man. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in Fall 2020, Black students comprised 16% of the elementary and secondary public school population in the United States. However, when class topics arise concerning the highest-need student populations, I am suddenly the majority. I am the Black boy my White classmates discussed as being furthest from achievement. My son and I are the topics of classroom discussion and dissertation topics. My son looks like the students with low test scores and high suspension rates attending under-resourced urban schools. Yet, in reality, none of these descriptors are true.

At the start, my temperament would fluctuate. Frustrated and exasperated, I would turn off my camera in virtual classes to hide my emotions. Isolated and disheartened, I would cry after class to release my sadness. Why does it still hurt so much? Abandoning the program would have lessened the acute emotional stress, moving me out of the deficit White gaze spotlight. However, leaving would prove them right and prove me wrong.

To Be Educated, Ostracized, and Needed

Professionally, I represent the 1% of Black men in the District office of my school network. Of the 21 schools in the network, two Black men hold a school principal position, the only Black man in the network's 25-year history. Black male assistant principals, instructional coaches, and deans of culture comprise 18% (n=89) of the network's population. Within this small population of Black male school leaders, most are tasked with responding to student behavior. Black men represent 18% (n=642) of classroom teachers. The role of Black male teachers and school leaders has long been viewed as an ideal role model and a surrogate father figure for Black youth, especially Black boys (Brockenbrough, 2014).

The organization's diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative developed out of the desire to lead an anti-racist organization. Leaders believe Black men are needed in the classroom and as school-based leaders; however, their human resource data exhibit a lack of transparency in instructional leadership candidate selection processes. As a result, Black male leaders see that the organization has not done much to dispel the stereotype of Black men as role models, In the absence of workplace norms, the systematic exclusion of Black leaders hinders their career trajectories and undermines their human capital.

Black men are not the problem. The issue lies in the behaviors that create an organizational culture of social ostracism. Organization leaders believe representation matters, and Black children need to see Black men in schools, creating a vision of a pedagogical human, minimizing their instructional leadership capacity while benefiting from their maleness and Blackness to enforce school-wide discipline plans and redirect student behavior (Pabon, 2014). This vision keeps Black men as disciplinarians, cultural interpreters, or counselors for students of color, monitoring the bodies and behaviors of children that look like them.

To Be Black, Educated, and Necessary

Street art from Philadelphia

Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in my academic and professional spaces value the uniqueness of Black boys and men while fostering a community of low belongingness. Our unique characteristics are required and utilized for organizational success, yet our otherness relegates us to specimens for analysis, unprotected from the comments, thoughts, and biases of scholarly elites. As one of two Black men in my graduate school cohort, and the only Black man influencing leadership policies in the district, I experience things differently from the organizational norm, frequently at odds with the prevailing culture. Leveraging my experience and education as a catalyst for positive change, I remain committed to reconstructing narratives of Black men, particularly in urban school districts, using my experience and education to be the impetus for constructive change.

The concept of "tempered radicals" was catalytic for me in that it describes individuals who challenge prevailing organizational wisdom and gently push the existing culture of their organizations to evolve (Meyerson & Scully, 1995). While an organization's culture is unlikely to change overnight, I remain committed to developing leaders, particularly in urban school districts, to speak words of love, encouragement, self-care, and joy into every young person who may be a dissertation’s subject, ostracized yet intelligent, powerful, and bold. I remain in academic and professional spaces to push back on decisions that may alienate Black men, to challenge traditional and retrogressive mindsets, and to denounce small-minded exclusionary policies about Black boys, highlighting our unique perspectives and value as instructional leaders, students, and humans. My very presence is an intervention in these exclusionary spaces.

References

Brockenbrough, E. (2014). The Discipline Stop. Education & Urban Society, 47(5), 499–522.

Meyerson, D. E. (2001). Tempered Radicals: How People Use Difference to Inspire Change at Work.

Harvard Business School Press.

Meyerson, D. E., & Scully, M. A. (1995). Crossroads Tempered Radicalism and the Politics of

Ambivalence and Change. Organization Science, 6(5), 585–600.

Pabon, A. (2014). Waiting for Black Superman. Urban Education, 51(8), 915–939.

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More Methodspace posts about research with sensitive topics