Culture Clash

By Debra Viadero

Ms. White, a teacher in an isolated rural community, is teaching her 1st graders how to tell time. She points to a clock, telling her students that "It's 10 o'clock because the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 10."

"What time is it?" she asks the students. Many of the white children raise their hands, eager to answer. The black students sit silently. A few give her a puzzled look.

Ms. White concludes that many of her black students do not know the answer, and she silently makes a note to herself to revisit the...