how we talk about racism

As I was reading an article this morning about social justice in curriculum evaluation, I considered how I usually discuss racism (often in the context of immigration). My argument is typically that we cannot stereotype people as a whole, and I often mention the model, hardworking immigrant.

That argument doesn't address what I believe actually causes prejudice: institutionalized racism. However, the argument about institutionalized racism is a lot harder for people to hear, because it requires whites to admit that we are oppressors. Another problem with the argument of institutionalized racism is that it makes the speaker seem more distant from their audience -- if you (and by 'you,' I mean a white person discussing racism) acknowledge that institutionalized racism is an overwhelming force in america, you probably place yourself within the (small) population of people working to resist it. That will create a divide between speaker and listener if the listener is not also down with the cause; and arguments tend to be more persuasive and more easily 'won' if the speaker can forge a connection with the listener and make it less threatening for the listener to alter their point of view.

Anywho, I don't have any answers to this quandary, just some observations. I'd like to move towards the more radical way of arguing, but I feel that doing so would just alienate my sparring partners -- I predict that they would listen to me less, placing me in a "radical crazies who talk about stuff I'll never agree with" category.

Edit: I think I'd like to do a research project on this at some point, exploring people's opinions of institutionalized racism (and their motivations for thinking the ways that they do) and perhaps trying to create a curriculum/unit that investigates institutionalized racism.

Culturally Relevant Education

I've been thinking a million things I want to write about lately, but haven't found the time. Four classes = approx. 500 pages of reading per week = a slow and painful death.

Today in my evaluation class we briefly looked at a curriculum that is being developed for schools in Hawai'i and Kaua'i. It's designed as a culturally relevant science/Language Arts/art curriculum (and it seemed to have social-emotional standards to me as well) for 4th grade students. One of our professors (it's a co-taught course) is going to part of the team that evaluates this curriculum. From what I understand, it is being piloted in a super elite school: it's private, they spend about $39,000 per year per pupil (the Illinois average is about $10,000), and students must have a Hawaiian blood lineage prior to Hawaii becoming a US state. The program was designed for several purposes, one of which being that the native Hawaiian language(s?) is being used less and less; they fear that when the current generation of elders die out, the language (and, therefore, a large component of the culture) will die with them.

The curriculum consists of videos and accompanying graphic novels of a traditional Hawaiian story. There are also other books that (I believe) delve deeper into the science content (we did not get to view these materials). We watched the video of one of the stories: Menehune and the birds. Here's a very brief synopsis:

The Menehune people are small and can build things very fast; they are never seen. They have a close relationship with the forest and the birds. They pluck feathers from the birds to use in clothing and decorations, but they never pluck more than a few at a time, so the birds can still fly happily and produce more feathers. One day, men come from another tribe, kill many of the birds, and take all their feathers. The Menehune warriors (all men) find them, become invisible with the assistances of some leaves, beat them up mercilessly, and only spare their lives because they promise to make amends and restore the balance of the forest.

There are some great social lessons in this piece, as well as some that I winced at (gender norms, extreme violence). I got stuck on a few things as I considered the curriculum...

• I've been thinking about teacher and student cultures in one of my other classes as well, and I debated this a lot when I was teaching at Rudy: is it possible to successfully create and implement a culturally relevant curriculum when you (the teacher) are of a different culture than your students? If it is possible, it must take a LOT of work and learning and years immersing yourself in the culture. If it's not possible, did I do a disservice to my students simply by the fact of being their teacher? And what are the implications for my future jobs -- should I just apply to schools in the area where I grew up? Even there, the schools are diverse and I don't know all the cultures that the students bring. I know that sensitivity and openness to all are givens, but I would really love to be able to create a classroom where students can learn and demonstrate their understandings in their cultural style. (I could write forever about this, but I'm cutting myself off for now.)

• How can we (fairly) decide whose culture gets taught in the classroom? Our state standards have already decided this for us, but it's a singular culture that not all students relate to. In the video, the story that was told is a well-known one of Hawaiian culture -- similar to our folk tales (except it's real) or Bible stories. I was thinking about teaching at Rudy and talking to students about several Latino stories -- in particular, ghosts. It seemed like ghosts, and believing in them and their power in your life, were part of Latino culture. (You could say that a lot of people believe in ghosts, but they seem to have a more definite, stronger presence among the Latino students that I talked to.) However, if a student asked a science teacher to discuss the science behind ghosts, the teacher would probably say that there is none, and ghosts don't exist. Our bodies rot in the ground when we die. (At least, if they were speaking strictly according to the standards, they would say that.) We don't leave room for the truths of other cultures to mingle with Western truths, and we simply label them myths or falsehoods. For students who are connected to their cultures, this must create an awful tension -- which truth do I believe? It's funny, because if this argument were framed around Creationism vs. Evolution, I would probably not be quite so tolerant with older students...but really, what's the difference? They're all different truths, and are all reality to different people. How can we, as teachers, decide that we all need to stick to one truth?

evaluation of educational programs class

DANG! This one seems awesome. It has a good mix of Master's and Ph D students, and the coteaching professors have a nice balance. One has an evaluation background and the other has a curriculum background -- hopefully the curriculum prof will keep it grounded in practical application. But they both seem awesome, and the class has a good vibe -- very informal, yet very focused on the course content. The back-and-forth between the professors is complementary -- I would love to coteach someday with someone and pull it off like they do.

And we practiced by evaluating chocolate chip cookies! The way to win students over is definitely delicious food that pertains to the content :)

Notable moments from the class:

• It seems like several people have had experience with scripted curriculum. I always knew that these existed and was horrified by them, but I was disgusted anew today. If it came down between not having a teaching gig at all and working at a school with a scripted curriculum, I would probably rather be unemployed.
• I'm interested in evaluating higher education programs for preservice teachers, as I would eventually like to teach undergrad preservice teachers. At the same time, I dislike the notion of merit pay or judging teachers solely on their students' performance. I didn't realize (until this class) that evaluating higher ed programs for preservice teachers could possibly be doing just that -- judging the teacher on the student's performance. Hmm. I will have to think critically and carefully about what goes in to the preservice teacher program evaluations, and the purpose of them -- would my evaluation lead to improving the programs? Would it simply judge them? Would it unfairly judge the professors?
• This last part can't be explored in one post, or even in one lifetime: What is the purpose of schooling? (similar to the ideas I began exploring in my "what is a graduate education?" post, but this is the historical perspective)
• Initially (and still in many institutions today), it was the "Old Humanist" perspective. Education is in place to teach traditional academics. This probably falls in line most closely with the banking method of teaching -- you are an empty mind who has come to me, the all-knowing teacher, to be filled with knowledge.
• Then it moved to the social efficiency model, which had economic connections. You should be educated so that you can best perform your job. The professors didn't mention when this idea was popular, but I'm betting that it was around the time cars were invented and Ford's assembly-line model became popularized. You are educated just enough to be economically valuable, and (I'm hypothesizing), you are taught how to be a good member of society: how to shut up, sit down, and not think independently.
• Next was the developmentalist, "child centered" focus. I didn't quite catch this -- I think it means to educate the student according to their level of development. 
• And the social Meliorist/social reconstructionist view: schools should be focused on the betterment of society. Apparently this was popular until the 1930s, and then was viewed as socialist and quickly became very unpopular.

I feel that, today, many of the professional development resources I've encountered push for the social efficiency model, and I never really thought much about their motives. (I would consider my teaching style somewhere between the social efficiency and social Meliorist models.) All of the PD that pushes for "21st century skills" is all about the social efficiency: how will these students need to behave in the workplace, and how can we best prepare them for it? Teamwork, collaboration, technology skills, ability to adapt to new technologies, creativity, ingenuity -- these are all highly praised by the "21st century skills" PD people. And it's making me realize that I've never attended a corporate professional development workshop on how to create a classroom of students who will help the world become a better place.

Luckily, the school that I taught at WAS focused on the importance of the social Meliorist model (although we never use those terms), and we had a few PD sessions done by external and internal people on how our curricula can improve society. Go us!

what is a graduate education?

This is a topic I want to explore more in-depth when I have time (I'm currently scrambling to do readings that the professor assigned before the first day of class). After attending two more "syllabus day" classes, I started to consider what the graduate college wants out of me, and what I want out of it.

What I want:

• to become a better teacher. This includes studying a little bit of theory (but ONLY when discussing it in the context of actual experiences) and a lot of practical stuff. I want strategies. I want examples of successful assessments. I want to study and poke holes in grading systems. I want to think about all the crap I did wrong when I was teaching and to figure out how I'm going to do it better when I go back to teaching in a few years.
• to prepare myself for my Ph.D. Although this is probably a few years (or many years) away, I have a lot of questions to ask. I want to eventually teach pre-service teachers at the college level, and I think that a lot of universities do a shit job of this. I want to figure out how to do it right. 
• One of the classes I went to today (EPSY 400) allows grad students who are taking it for 4 credit hours to do a research project proposal on any topic that relates to learning. I was a bit hesitant about staying in the class (I loathe syllabus days), but this totally open ended project has me hooked. I've got a dozen ideas already, but I'll probably end up studying preservice teacher programs -- as in, what kind of program produces better teachers: theory-based or practical-based? (That definitely needs rewording. I don't remember how to write academically yet.)

What does grad school want out of me? Thus far, it seems to vary depending on the class...

• Writing Studies wants me to be creative, to explore metawriting, and to learn about writing in the context of a buncha sweet topics (social protest, veganism advertising, feminist rhetoric). It wants me to learn about what I want to learn about (in the context of texts).
• Psychology of Learning in Education wants me to know who's who in the land of educational psychologists. It wants me to fight about Piaget and Vygotsky's theories. It wants me to fall in love with the Japanese school system. And the best part, as I mentioned above, it wants me to explore my own ideas in relation to learning. 
• In case you couldn't tell, I seriously can't wait to get started on that proposal. I think it will be hugely helpful since I want to write a dissertation next year.
• Okay, so to recap: thus far, the coolest parts of grad school are where I get to learn about stuff I'm personally interested in and do projects on them. Basically, stuff I always wanted to do when I was teaching, but didn't have the time or support for.
• Sociology of Education: hmm. I think this class wants me to be a sociologist first and an educator second. It wants me to write summaries, which, as a teacher, I kind of cringe at (great for a starter, but c'mon, let me do some critical thinking!) I think....that this class wants me to drop it. Ah well, that's why I signed up for 2 extra classes anyway.