I think that the
greatest shift in my paradigm that has occurred in result of taking this
Multicultural Education course at BYU and completing the assigned readings,
writing assignments, and portfolios, is shown through a quote from our first
week of class by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin in his talk “Concern for the One”:
“Jesus Christ
is our greatest example. He was surrounded by multitudes and spoke to
thousands, yet He always had concern for the one… We are commanded to seek out
those who are lost. We are to be our brother’s keeper. We cannot neglect this
commission given by our Savior. We must be concerned for the one.”
I
have realized the truth that teaching is not about reaching the greatest amount
of people, marginalizing children, students, and humanity along the way in
order to reach the end goal of an educated population by justifying not
focusing on “the one” because it would detract from “the whole.” Rather,
teaching is about being concerned for each individual’s needs and actually
recognizing and meeting those needs. This mentality requires much more
attention and effort than marginalization, but I believe that it is possible to
change societal structures and myself in order to benefit the greatest number
of people by focusing on individual needs.
Especially as an
educator, I need to take responsibility not only for the intent of my actions,
but for the impact that my actions have on students. As Gorski explained, “I can never be totally aware of the
biases and prejudices I carry into the classroom and how my students or
colleagues experience me,” but I have to take responsibility for the
consequences of my actions despite how I intended them. In order to do so, I
need to be in a constant state of self-reflection. It is also beneficial and
necessary for students to learn how to be self-reflective because “an education
for equity enables students not only to acquire basic skills, but to use those
skills to become agents for social change,” (BANKS). Self refection is critical,
as well as teaching students to question the structure of society, enabling
everyone to promote social change and better human rights. My portfolio has
aided my process of change prompted by self reflection, as shown and outlined
below:
In Portfolio I,
I created an imagined classroom. I had no idea what I wanted to put in my
classroom and I had no idea what student needs even existed that would need to
be addressed. This portfolio helped me to assess how much I already knew about
what kind of teacher I wanted to become and how much I would have to learn in
order to reach that point. By the end of the semester, my standards for the
teacher I would like to become have undergone a great shift; they are much more
specific and take multicultural issues into consideration.
In Portfolio II,
I created a cultural snapshot of a single story for feminists. Undergoing the
process of recognizing how students are affected by this specific single story,
as well as how school policy and curriculum is affected by a single story,
helped me to feel personally connected to the oppression that victims of other
single stories face. This portfolio also helped me to recognize some societal
standards for gender expression that can be oppressive and incorrect.
In Portfolio III,
I described my experience as being the “Other.” I was able to learn that just
because society has labeled some stereotypes as “bad,” does not mean that they
are bad. Just because society and culture says that something should be a
certain way does not mean that it is correct. Previous to this experience, I
had tried to justify my interactions with people that I perceived as gay by
reassuring myself that just because they seem gay does not mean that they
actually are. I tried to give them the “benefit of the doubt.” This experience
required me to reevaluate why I would feel that I would have to give anyone the
“benefit of the doubt” about being gay because that mentality implies that
being gay is bad. This experience also helped me to recognize that stereotypes
do not always or usually ring true. I need to be aware and careful of how I
label people: good or bad. I need to be aware of my own prejudices and how
those prejudices influence the way that I treat people.
In Portfolio IV,
I assembled some of my personal cultural artifacts and explained how the
values, beliefs, and norms of my personal culture could affect my classroom. It
was super interesting to me to explicitly outline what concepts I hold as good
and just in society, what beliefs or convictions I hold to be true, and how
those things influence what cultural norms I adhere to. My beliefs will be
different and even seen as oppressive by my students and other members of the
community, and I need to be able to recognize and validate others’ beliefs, values,
and norms while creating a better environment for my students to learn and grow
and gain better opportunities for themselves in the culture that we live in.
For Portfolio V,
I had a community experience where I attended a forum that provided perspective
on Mormon black history. My main takeaway from this experience was realizing
that we don’t necessarily had to forfeit our own culture in order to appreciate
other cultures, but that what is more beneficial to every culture is to
recognize the similarities between cultures. By recognizing similarities, we
can open a means of communication and better understand and get along with one
another, diminishing whatever feelings of hate occur by “othering” someone.
This experience also gave a specific example of how to be anti-racist as
opposed to a passive racist. By including multicultural texts and perspectives
in the classroom, we can help show similarities between cultures and minimize
the negative affects caused by ignorance and misinformation.
For Portfolio
VI, I revised my imagined classroom. By the end of the semester, my standards
for the teacher I would like to become underwent a great shift; they are much
more specific and take many more multicultural issues into consideration. This
portfolio helped me to recognize that there are many opportunities to address
multicultural issues in the classroom, whether through curriculum, policy,
teaching style, or classroom surroundings. Everything about the classroom can
either reinforce the dominant culture and structures, or appropriately,
positively recognize non-dominant cultures and break down oppressive societal
structures.
For Portfolio VII,
I reviewed the book, “The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High
School for Immigrant Teens” by Brooke Hauser. This book provided perspective on
race, immigration, language, religion, and homelessness. What was most
influential to me was feeling like the school was a positive environment compared
to other schools that the students might have attended, even though education
was still difficult for most of the students. Many resources were provided for
the students and International High School that they would have not received elsewhere,
and that I didn’t realize where even available when I was a student in high
school. Reviewing this novel helped me to recognize ways to implement
structural ideology, as well as just how critically necessary structural ideology
is for multicultural education. I need to adopt and be an advocate for
structural ideology and help my students to break down the structures that
oppress them and limit their opportunities for success.
In order to
illustrate the process that I have undergone throughout the course of this
class and the creation of this portfolio, I have included my weekly disruptions
that occurred from the reading assignments in the form of journal entries. Some
are only a few lines; some I felt required greater explanation.
DISRUPTIONS:
January 25 Culture
Some disruptions
that I had from the reading were that my pity, or attempt at sympathy, however
well intended, can be just as offensive and unacceptable as intolerance, as
well as that hegemony is so invasive that it tends to be invisible, and I can
go on not even knowing that there’s a problem at all.
February 1 Costs and
Benefits of Culture
What
made me uncomfortable from the readings was realizing that my judgments on
other cultures can come from my unconscious, and I can’t usually explain why I
might feel the way that I do, or where those feelings originated. I benefit by
white supremacy through my own unconscious, as well as others unconscious. Even
if I try to be reasonable and aware of white supremacy, my bias is often
unconscious. As an educator, my unconscious analysis of students will affect
the way that I treat them, which in turn affects the way that they act and
learn.
February 8 Language and Culture
I
felt discomfort that Lisa Delpit was not speaking of how things should be, but
of how they currently are. Just because things are a certain way doesn’t mean
that they are correct or should stay that way, but we as educators have a
responsibility to prepare our students to be able to function in the world we
live in. My disruption was the reality that I need to prepare my students to
function in a society whose cultural norms and expectations I don’t even agree
with. We can’t create change unless we already function in the system, and our
students need to be able to function in the system.
February 15 Race and
Ethnicity
I
was very, very bothered about the Japanese concentration camps during WWII. I
was bothered that I hadn’t learned much about them. Yes, there was maybe a
sentence or two in my 11th grade U.S. history book, and maybe one
test question, but the importance of the reality wasn’t there. Our education
was posed from a very pro-American standpoint, and bad parts of American
society were always deemphasized. I think that this “America is so great”
teaching standpoint reinforces white privilege, racism, and discrimination both
within schools and in society. By not acknowledging that racism exists, those
that benefit from it go on believing that racism is not something that they
should worry about. What bothered me the most was the realization that not only
do teachers and administrators act racist in the way that we treat students,
but that the material that we teach is also racist and we usually don’t realize
it or don’t teach it.
February 22 Class and Poverty
The
greatest general discomfort came from the assertion that education is about so
much more than being smart and capable – where you come from really does have
an effect of where you go. I have been becoming more and more aware of the
difficulty level of getting out of poverty, but I didn’t realize the details of
extremity. Schools provide different opportunities to different economic
classes simply because different economic classes values different things,
influencing each culture to reinforce the values unique to their class.
Teachers can make many incorrect assumptions about the students they teach
surrounding the issue of poverty. For example, if a student is sleeping in
class because they are homeless and uncomfortable in a car, or waking up at
night because of his or her hunger, the teacher might assume that the student
is disinterested in school or lazy.
February 29 Language and
Immigration
I
hadn’t before realized how hostile and cruel the education system often is for
immigrant students. Where I’m going to school to become an educator, I value
education as a means for helping others to learn and better their lives. To
realize that the structure of schooling environments often does just the
opposite for immigrant students, that their educational success is “not
necessarily because of the system, but despite the system,” was very upsetting
to me (Gonzalez 242). In Portes’ article, Unz and his supporters fought to end
the bilingual education of their communities. This was at first surprising to
me because of the videos talking about how we learn language and about how the
students struggled when they hadn’t first learned English before taking the
regular classes. As I read further, I realized that this fight against
bilingual education was not against “bilingual education at all, but a well
intentioned albeit misguided security blanket thrown at immigrant children”
(570). While bi-lingual education can help students to learn English as a
secondary language, it often enforces the assumption that because someone can’t
speak English that they are insufficiently capable in other academic areas as
well. I was upset hostility, cruelty, and unfairness of well-intentioned
programs as well as the bullying and racism that occurred among the students as
reinforced by the school.
March 7 Utah NAME Conference
In “Increasing Global Understanding with international
and Multicultural Literature,” at the Utah
National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) Conference, I was
upset that it’s now acceptable to study literature from different cultures
including Latino/a, African and African American, differing socioeconomic
levels, religion, Asian and Asian American, Native American, and even literature
with strong female protagonists as part of class curriculum in order to provide
a “sliding glass door” through which students can experience these different
cultures, but it’s not yet acceptable to do so with LGBTQ literature. The
presenters gave different reasons for including all of these varying genres of
literature, as well as different ways to incorporate the suggested novels into
class time. However, the suggestion for incorporating LGBTQ literature was to
provide the literature at the library and within your own classroom, but not
necessarily to focus on it as a whole class because it is still an extremely
controversial and not yet generally accepted for discussion. We talked about
the concerned parents and citizens who would fight back and possibly cause you
to lose your job. My disruption was realizing that I could lose my job by
trying to educate my students about different cultures.
March 7 Religion
I
think that a statement found within the Rolling Stone article, “The Forsaken, A
rising Number of Homeless Gay Teens Are Being Cast Out by Religious Families,”
can summarize my greatest discomfort. Alex Morris wrote, “The number one hurdle
to LBGT equality is religious based bigotry,” and I think that religious based
bigotry is the number one hurdle for creating a safe, positive learning
environment within my own classroom.
This
statement is especially difficult for me because I am a member of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I do believe this church to be true. The
Mormon church believes marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God,
and that acting on “same-sex attraction” is a serious sin, even though being
attracted to someone of the same sex is not. In addition to this belief, there
are certain doctrines that I believe to be true that other religions do not.
Our church is very devoted to missionary efforts, and we ask others to build
upon the truth that they already know and value, but in order to be an active
member there are certain rules that must be followed. While I concur with the
belief that marriage between a man and a woman is God’s ordained way, I also
believe that people who identify as LGBTQ need to feel accepted, loved, and
supported. Everyone needs to feel that their lives have value, and I believe
that “religious based bigotry” doesn’t help anyone. I need to figure out how to
validate my own religious beliefs while simultaneously respecting and
validating those that differ from my own. Just because I believe my religion to
be the restored truth does not mean that other people are inherently “bad” or
“wrong,” and they need to be supported in their own beliefs.
March 14 Ability
My
disruption is best summarized by the statement from Nocella, “The disabled are not ill,
sick, or diseased. They are different. A disease or illness is not part of ones
characteristic or being.” While I previously understood this to an extent, the
videos and reading helped to analyze and understand some of my own beliefs
about disability. My sister has a physical disability that limits the function
of the left half of her body. When she first received the traumatic brain
injury that caused her hemiplegia, my mom dedicated all of her time to finding
Kaylee the best occupational therapists and physical therapists. She fought
through the systems to get Kaylee the help that she needed, but at times she
was frustrated at different approaches from different therapists or educators.
I remember her trying to explain it to me, that one approach enforced the idea
that Kaylee could improve and her disability could be made less and the other
approach settled on the idea that the disability was permanent and she would
not improve and she just had to figure out how to function around her
disability. It has been 13 years since the accident, and while Kaylee regained
a lot of functionality, her disability will remain throughout her entire life
and it is part of who she is. While her disability presents limitations, it is
different from a “disease or illness” because it has become part of her
identity.
March 21 Gender
My
greatest disruption came from the “Dude, You’re a Fag” article where the
students talked with the experimenter about their use of the word “fag” and how
they would never actually call an openly homosexual person a fag. They said
that they accepted homosexuality as a lifestyle or personal choice of whom you
want to sleep with, and implied that they didn’t have a problem with it and
didn’t want to offend homosexual people. The real issue for these adolescents
was whether or not there was conformity to gender stereotypes, and I realized
that I enforce this same mentality. I never use the word fag, but I have come
to be more accepting of the idea of someone being gay or lesbian than the idea
of someone being transgender and completely rejecting the gender that they were
born with. I hadn’t realized that homosexuality and gender conformity were
completely different concepts, and it made me uncomfortable to realize both my
ignorance and that I was reinforcing the same gender stereotypes that bother
me.
March 28 Sexual Orientation
Up until this point in my life, I have been fairly
neutral in my views and actions in concerns to gay rights and interacting with
the LGBTQ community. I knew that hate was wrong and that all people deserved
love and respect, but I didn’t know how to interact with people who identified
or had strong feelings about LGBTQ from either side (supportive or
unsupportive). I felt uneducated and uninformed and unqualified to speak about
LGBTQ and therefore didn’t stand up for members of that community because I
didn’t know how. What hit me hardest from the videos and from our discussion
here is that by trying to remain neutral I have contributed to the hate and
discrimination against LGBTQ. It’s not that I was unaware, but that I didn’t
know the best course to take because I felt conflicted between my desire to
love everyone and my testimony of the truth of a Gospel that condemns
homosexuality.
The videos helped me to understand that I am definitely
not forfeiting my faith by standing up for members of the LGBTQ community, and
that is my responsibility not only as a future educator but also as a
Christian. I really liked what Jonathan said about preferring to have a live,
unchaste student than a dead, chaste one. This rings true to me. All life has
value and we need to encourage life and learning rather than hate.
April 4 Teaching for Social Justice
My
experience this week was different in that the article by Ladson-Billings
didn’t really make me uncomfortable. It felt like a good wrap up to the
semester by suggesting that teachers need to utilize a culturally relevant
pedagogy by helping students achieve academic success, cultural competence, and
critical consciousness. How I felt during the article rather confirmed
necessary action to a disruption that I had during the videos. I realized that
instead of being anti-racist, I am non-racist, and I have come to be more
comfortable with Grit Ideology than Structural Ideology. Because the issues of
multicultural feel so huge, I have come to adopt the mentality that I need to
help students be aware of the structures of inequality and know how to work
within the system. My disruption was acknowledging that learning to navigate
the system is different from refusing to challenge the system. I need to be
careful that I don’t just become comfortable with working the system rather
than trying to change it.
Rather
than provide a works cited page from everything from the course, I have labeled
the lesson topic for each of my disruptions and you can explore the course
readings associated with each lesson through this link:
By recognizing
my disruptions I have been able to evaluate what I should do and what I am
willing to do in order to become the teacher that I want to be: focusing on the
one, creating a safe class room environment, enabling student success, and
inspiring social change.