Prior to Monday, please construct a post of your own for either 3a or 3b, then for the one you did not choose, please provide a comment on one of your colleague’s post. So, in other words, if you choose to post in 3a (7 Characteristics of Multicultural Education), then please respond to one of your colleagues in 3b (Learning from Students). Said one more way, your assignment is two posts—one original, one as a response to someone else.
In chapter 9, Nieto discusses critical ingredients of a multicultural education agenda. First, she reminds us that racism and discrimination, structural conditions in schools that may limit learning, impact of culture on learning, and language diversity are four areas of potential conflict. Then, she tackles the seven characteristics:
- Anti-racist education—meaning that we must work affirmatively to combat racism. This is everyone’s business: “Although not everyone is directly guilty of racism and discrimination, we are responsible for it. . . .[I]t means that working actively for social justice is everyone’s business” (p. 350).
- Basic Education-- It is not extra, it is: Nieto contends,“We need to expand what we mean by “basic” by opening up the curriculum to a variety of perspectives and experiences” (p. 351). Further, “We are not talking here of simply the contributions approach to history, literature, and the arts. . . .[Rather, it] is a consideration of how generally excluded groups have made history and affected the arts, literature, geography, science, and philosophy on their own terms (p. 352).
- Important for all students. That is, multicultural education is not just for non-white or poor students, it is for everyone: “Although the primary victims of biased education continue to be those who are invisible in the curriculum, those who figure prominently are victims as well. They receive only a partial education, which legitimates their cultural blinders” (p. 353).
- Pervasive—it permeates everything—all curricula, policies, procedures, etc.
- Education for social justice-- “A multicultural perspective presumes that classrooms should not simply allow discussions that focus on social justice, but, in fact, welcome them and even plan actively for such discussions to take place” (p. 356).
- Process—Very little about social justice work focuses on product/destination, it is all about the process/journey. We cannot achieve just, peaceful, and democratic ends if our process is not just, peaceful, and democratic.
- Critical pedagogy--“Teachers and students need to learn to understand even those viewpoints with which they may disagree, not to practice political correctness, but to develop a critical perspective about what they hear, read, see” (p. 359).
If choosing to respond to this post. Choose one characteristic that you think you may already be incorporating in your classroom. What is an example? How is that working out? What is one characteristic that you might want to try this upcoming year? What might it look like in your classroom?
9 comments:
Of the 7 characteristics of multicultural education Nieto listed, critical pedagogy is the one I strive to incorporate in every lesson. To me, the highest calling of education is to teach or encourage students to “think for themselves”. Critical thinking is key to developing the individual talents of each student. If students lack this skill, they can end up being robots. I like what Nieto says about being active participants in society, “students need to see the complexity of the world and the many perspectives involved.”
When teaching math, I would encourage alternate ways of solving problems. I found that students were very reluctant to show their work if they had solved the problem in a different form, fearing that they would have the wrong answer. As long as they could explain what they did and why, I would accept the answer. I encouraged original and unique responses even if the “answer” was a little off the mark. I think it sends a message that we can be different and still both be right. (In my rural community, anything that is different is often perceived as wrong.) Another attitude in math that I worked to change was that all that mattered was the answer. I wanted them to see that the process used to solve a problem is just as important as the end result. (If you get something right but don’t know how or why, have you really learned anything?) I also like to incorporate geometric puzzles or “picture in picture” activities that force the student to see something other that what appears at first glance. My reasoning for this is to encourage them to go deeper that the surface and not accept everything that is told them as truth. A new strategy I want to try is to reward students in some way for asking questions and backing up their positions on a problem. This will give them incentive for speaking up or “disagreeing” with the status quo. I want them to learn to do this in a respectful way.
I think critical thinking skills are even more important to develop today because of all the hours spent in front of TV, computers and video games. Everything appears to be reality and we know that that is not the case. Students will be swept away by all the mass media unless they learn to analyze what they see and hear.
Mary Ann I agree with you. I strive to incorporate a critical pedagogy in every lesson. I too think it is very important to teach especially high school students to think "outside the box". A goal of educating students is to get them to open themselves up to the possibilities around them and the many facets involved in making a decision.
I can think of a couple of examples in which my students were reluctant to practice what I taught them. Its impossible in Social Studies not to examine an issue from many perspectives. And just like you Mary Ann in math, my students were almost always reluctant to share what they thought because they might not have the correct answer or might offend someone. Eventually they came to realize they could be open in my classroom and offer their perspectives. It made our discussions a lot richer.
Another example I have was during the 2004 election. I was teaching political science at the time and we were discussing the presidency. Of course, most of the students liked Bush but couldn't tell me why and knew nothing of the other candidates. Well I went with it and showed snapshots of movies like Farenheit 9/11, bought in newspapers articles, magazine prints of all different perspectives. We had several debates but it enriched my class so much. The students even began to realize the bias in the media and of the movie industry,etc. They began questioning what was really important to them and why. OMG! However, parents and my administration didn't care much for this and made me stop. But it was a celebrated moment for me.
Other things have happened such as my hearing impaired student and his talk on being discriminated against, girls who were very good in "shop class" being riduculed,etc.
I agree critical thinking skill are what students lack the most. They don't see outside that box and its up to us as teachers to show them how.
This year in my class I hope to quit "miseducating my students". I want to show them ALL perspectives of history and not somebody told me they needed to know. I want to incorporate social justice into my class. This may take the form of more debates on issues such as discrimation, assimilation, etc., or developing the mentorship program to help both struggling students at the high school and at the elementary, and maybe even starting to make home visits to students to try to connect myself to the community. And maybe try to get my fellow teachers on board so that people in the community won't see education as a big bad wolf.
When it comes to incorporating one of the aforementioned characteristics in my classroom the previous school year, I can cite an example for the characteristic, Important to all students. In the exploratory class of Pathways to Careers that I taught, I have mentioned to this class (EDUC 610) that I have incorporated literature and videos from the Teaching Tolerance series in that class. My reasoning for using this type of information, and, sharing it with my students was to bring a better awareness of some of the obstacles, prejudices, and hardships that many people have had to endure. I feel that if the students have some awareness of where other groups have been, it may bring a better understanding of people who might not look like them or do things like they do them, but, are human just the same. I present this series to do just what the title implies. I make an attempt to teach tolerance so that these students do not go into the world cold, unfeeling, unaware, and unenlightened. I have mentioned that I had one student, who is a Caucasian male, tell me that the series made him feel uncomfortable. I, as a person who will be instrumental in teaching tolerance, must find ways to help him move beyond his guilt to an area where he can move to an area of being enlightened. This same fellow once told me that his own father, who was passed over for a promotion, said to his son that if he was a black woman, he would have gotten the promotion. I hope that he is not teaching the boy that some have it easy because of so-called quotas or token positions that some institutions fill to make themselves feel better.
Another thing that I do during our daily BAT (Bulldog Advisory Time) is have the twelve students that are assigned to me discuss and debate a current event. I usually play devil’s advocate in an effort to offer my students (advisees) a viewpoint that may challenge the widely held belief or assumption. I do this in hopes that the students can begin to imagine a world beyond the gates of this post as well as gain a better understanding of how events that are happening seemingly far away can and do impact all of us. I feel that this activity falls in the category of critical pedagogy.
Next year, I will reach beyond BAT and Pathways to Careers and search for ways to incorporate more of the aforementioned characteristics in the other classes. If things go well, I will be teaching Science in the upcoming year. I will use this as an opportunity to not only teach the curriculum, but, to teach it in a way that will inspire, empower, and uplift all.
I chose Critical pedagogy from the seven characteristics of a multicultural education agenda. I agree that the knowledge we impart as a school system is politically biased and promotes a one view of history. We do not want to offend anyone powerful, create discussion, controversies, or go against scholastic magazine’s view of the world. I also agree that textbooks exclude information about unpopular perspectives or the perspectives of disempowered groups in our society. I have sat on textbook committees and quite frankly the book has already been chosen by the state…the county has to pretend to look at all the books sent to it.
Oldham County is predominantly a white school system but we do have many families who are on free and reduced lunch, Hispanic families, and transient families because of LaGrange Prison. There are black families but Oldham County was a rural county until busing started in the 70’s which created a white flight and with the building of interstate 71 created a migration from Jefferson County. So I believe it is important to have all perspectives of our history.
One way I can promote multicultural education in my classroom is through literature. I did look the Boston Children’s Museum as mention in the chapter and a few other resources available on children’s literate that includes diversity and gives a multiple perspective of history.
http://www.bostonkids.org/educators/american_history.html
The museum offers for a fee, multicultural units that include activities and literature from a different perspective than our current history books.
The next resource I looked at is the Multicultural children’s book web site for children’s literature. The web address is listed below which includes many resource for children’s literature for teaching multicultural education for K-12 students.
You could spend days looking at the children’s books that are available and know one would ever know that you are exposing your students to a different perspective….your principal would think you are just teaching Language Arts.
http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/multicultural.htm
• Social Justice Resources Center
Maintained by Virginia Tech, the Social Justice Resources Center aims to promote social equality by transforming educational practices and curricula. The site offers a searchable database to provide print, media, and web-based resources relevant to developing "diversity-inclusive" curricula and pedagogy for use by students, faculty, and educators. "Diversity-inclusive" is a commitment to developing anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic curricula and pedagogies appropriate to K-12
http://oyate.org/aboutus.html Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us. For Native children, it is as important as it has ever been for them to know who they are and what they come from. It is a matter of survival. For all children, it is time to learn the truth of history. Only in this way will they come to have the understanding and respect for each other that now, more than ever, will be necessary for life to continue.
They have compiled a list of books not to use.
It was very informative looking at the above sites…I do plan on investigating further not only from a multicultural perspective but by reading literature relevant to a child they will know their culture is important they will be intrinsically motivated to read, when they are included in the literature.
Ann, I agree with you that what we teach is already chosen for us through the textbooks that they offer. But I feel as teachers we have that right to not use the texbook as our primary source and look for more realistic resources. Luckily for us we are in an age of technology where we can surf the net and find many different kinds of teaching tools to teach core content. I am not sure how it works in a public school but I have the freedom to not even teach from the textbook if I don't want to. For example, I rarely use my science textbook. I am always inviting guest speakers and using the internet as my primary tool. I invite John Belski from WAVE 3 to come in and speak to my class about severe weather and weather safety. I have Raptors Rehabilitation of KY come in and speak to my class about owl food chains and food webs. Not only do my students love having someone esle teach for that hour but they see how their content relates to their world and how useful it really is to know the material.
Multicultural Education Thoughts…
In reflecting on my own school and our response to multicultural education, I have been thinking hard on what we are doing well. Hmm. After reading Chapter 9, I think the area where our school is trying to succeed is viewing it as important for all students. Unfortunately, the only time I really hear about a push for anything multicultural is when preparing for the test. Then we are suddenly concerned with breakdowns of students and how we can meet their needs individually and as subgroups. I guess this time is better than never, but this is not teaching anything to our students at all.
Perhaps out of necessity, our school is finally identifying multicultural education as a true need that must be discussed. Our recent surge in our Latino population has triggered this, but in no way is that the only way we need to stretch our thinking and teaching.
Over the last few years, several different tactics have been tried as “quick fixes” to our ever-changing population. Up until now, we have not really seen multicultural education as a necessity for raising well-rounded individuals. Our recent principal (our school’s first African American principal), thought that by mandating a day-long study of Columbus Day and Black History Month, we were covered and well on our way. Granted, this was more than we had done in the past as a school, but this obviously didn’t change our entire worldviews.
Reading Chapter 9 has really made me see our school’s vast need for multicultural education in all of its characteristics.
Of the seven categories, I feel like I am most incorporating the Basic education aspect. I feel like I am allowing the students to use their own knowledge and backgrounds to encourage what we are working on in the class. I like to try to let them ask questions and let them lead the direction of what topics we study and connect that to the curriculum that we have to cover by the state mandates. I may not always follow the order of how things should go in the curriculum but I do follow it. I try to allow the students the process of discovery and let them use that as a way to connect their learning and make it more personal. I also like to incorporate more of the different views of what has happened in our history. Although with younger students you have to view what happens and sometimes limit what they know because of the fact of what they will understand. For example last fall I taught about September 11th and the events that surrounded that, from that study a student wanted to learn more about the Flag and why it is the way it is. So I found books on it and had the student make a flag like the original American Flag. Allowing this student to better understand her culture and the events that have lead up to what our culture as Americans is today. For me the basic education is working well because I have a small enough class that I can tailor instruction to each student and don’t have to teach in a one size fits all style. I would like to try a pervasive learning technique so that the students are exposed to the different cultures and experience it more before they are in middle school and have not been exposed to the different cultures and feel like they are behind. I would like to begin teaching the students in my class about the different groups of people and how they affect our society. I would also like to establish a library in my class that offers different view points and different cultures through the readings.
When looking at the seven characteristics I agree with Tia that I most use basic education. With my small class size I am able to allow students to discover their own learning. Because my students struggle so much with learning the content I have a hard time finding the time for the extras. With their struggles also comes some understanding that there are differences in the world. They know that they are not the same as the students in their classroom. They know that they learn differently. I really focus on teaching them that just because they learn differently doesn’t mean they won’t do well. I think that as a school we need to focus more on multicultural education. A lot of times we don’t see the differences in our population because they all come from the same basic backgrounds. Ch 9 helped me to see that there are a lot of ways we could expand our current curriculum to include the multicultural aspects. While our students aren’t very different from each other, as teachers we need to better prepare them for the reality of the world outside the school building.
So many good points, Mary Ann, related to teaching in the math classroom and the importance of students being able to analyze. What you are working on is the ‘process’ of both mathematics and being in the world. Learning the process is so crucial for a more critical engagement with the world around us. Imagine if we educated a generation of problem-solvers with a belief they could actually solve problems. Imagine the power and the beauty of such a humanizing existence. Like Mary Ann, Lee Anne, you are engaging the students around a process to help them more critically interrogate and read the word and the world. The students may ultimately forget that the project was about the 2004 election, but what will stay with them is the process toward finding about more about themselves and the world around them. For me, it doesn’t matter so much what a person believes about the world as much as why or how they believe it. If someone possesses the ability to dig deep into their consciousness and argue coherently, connecting several points of information and recognizing how it impacts others, then I trust whatever they come to. As well, Tia, your work to have the students investigate more about the flag and culture will provide them the tools to do similar research later. The important issue isn’t the flag, the election, or the mathematical answer (although that is important if you are building a rocket or something!); it is the analytical and intuitive process toward the answer that is most crucial.
Cheryl, your work to bring in Teaching Tolerance is a major coup for social justice in our school systems today. While I don’t think Teaching Tolerance often goes far enough, it probably goes further than most of our students have otherwise been taught to think and consider. Education ought to provide a venue to at least challenge previously held notions that makes them support what they believe beyond “well my dad says,” or “the preacher told me,” etc. What these folks tell you is certainly important. And what I as teacher tell you is no more or less important than that. My guess is, though, that it is the most critical and will challenge the students to struggle with their world a little bit more.
Thanks, Ann, for checking into these sites and providing us with more thoughts on resources. Any time you teach history, I might strongly recommend A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. Zinn’s account, by admission, is biased, as well. What differentiates Zinn from most others, of course, is that he admits to his bias—copping to the fact that he tells history from the perspective of the disenfranchised/marginalized/oppressed. All of our texts are biased, as you point out Ann, they just typically don’t admit as much, which gives us the mistaken impression, perhaps, that what is written is taken for granted fact. That’s what Jeb Bush wants us to believe, anyway! As well, Josephine, you provide some good advice here, letting the text assigned to us be only ‘one’ resource in the classroom. My hope is that you will continue to seek out these other sources—the one’s Ann pointed out, other resources in Nieto’s text, Teaching tolerance (www.teachingtolerance.org), Rethinking schools (www.rethinkingschools.org), etc.
Molly, undoubtedly, your school system would see Nieto’s challenge as overwhelming (and probably too politicized). Remember to start small and build. There are ways to take a day long investigation of Columbus and days during Black History Month to the next level, which builds in criticality year by year. I would definitely recommend either teaching tolerance or rethinking schools for this.
Amanda, I certainly agree with you regarding your thoughts on multicultural education. Preparing children for the world beyond school is one of our sacred duties. Our work should entail a process for which the student can ultimately become the teacher. As we fade, the student can emerge. Ira Shor refers to this concept as “withering away.” Since we cannot be with our students forever, we must try to give them everything we have in the brief period we are together in order that we can confidently give them to the world when our class is done. Again, why process is so important.
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