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INTRODUCTION ASSIGNMENT
INTRODUCTION ASSIGNMENT
Thinking about diversity and multicultural education:
GO TO Educating Everybody's Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners. (Cole, R. W.). (2008). (2nd ed.).
1. Explore the webpage
2. Read through the 12 Elements of Effective teacher education for diversity:
IMPLICATIONS FOR ACTION: In a comprehensive review of the literature, Zeichner (1993) identifies 12 key elements of effective teacher education for diversity. These 12 elements provide a comprehensive synthesis for effectively teaching "ethnic- and language-minority students." holistically. The 12 elements are as follows:
Teachers have a clear sense of their own ethnic and cultural identities.
Teachers communicate high expectations for the success of all students and a belief that all students can succeed.
Teachers are personally committed to achieving equity for all students and believe that they are capable of making a difference in their students' learning.
Teachers have developed a bond with their students and cease seeing their students as "the other."
Schools provide an academically challenging curriculum that includes attention to the development of higher-level cognitive skills.
Instruction focuses on students' creation of meaning about content in an interactive and collaborative learning environment.
Teachers help students see learning tasks as meaningful.
Curricula include the contributions and perspectives of the different ethnocultural groups that compose the society.
Teachers provide a "scaffolding" that links the academically challenging curriculum to the cultural resources that students bring to school.
Teachers explicitly teach students the culture of the school and seek to maintain students' sense of ethnocultural pride and identity.
Community members and parents or guardians are encouraged to become involved in students' education and are given a significant voice in making important school decisions related to programs (such as resources and staffing).
Teachers are involved in political struggles outside the classroom that are aimed at achieving a more just and humane society.
3. Choose one element that resonates with you, read through the description and respond with your own reflection of what this means to you, personally and professionally, as a teacher or someone in the workforce. Please bring your prepared reflection with you to share with peers during first meeting.
Follow 3-2-1 Reflection response:
a. restate three points from what you read
b. two questions that come to mind as you read and think
c. One AHA! that you never thought about before, new concept,
idea, WOW! moment for you
(I am more concerned about your thinking and reflectiveness, rather than how long it is.
Be courageous to think and express yourself.)
LASTLY:
Read my Philosophy of Education (below) for this will help you better understand my expectations of your ownership and authenticity of learning and in creating a respectful place to think and learn together this semester.
Contact me if you have any questions: fvitali@unm.edu
Instructor's Reflection
I focused on Element 8: Curricula include the contributions and perspectives of the different ethnocultural groups that compose the society in educating teachers for diversity (Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners, 2008).
Issues of power and privilege are reenacted daily within the system and institution of schooling. As a microcosm of society, schools perpetuate dominate society’s values, beliefs, and language. Delpit (1988) emphasizes that “issue of power are enacted in classrooms” (p.282) within the curriculum and instruction. Power, as intrinsic, is the ability to get what you want and that is different for each person. Privilege, as extrinsic, is a special advantage or right one acquires throughout their lifetime. Privilege often gives a person or group power over others. For example, as teachers, we can exercise certain privileges. Therefore, in our textbooks, we can have a conversation with our students' experiences and perspectives. Textbooks by omission and inaccuracy, censor history from limited perspectives (privileged), thereby leaving out the storied experience of those students who are in fact reading the well-intentioned textbooks. As educators, we can recognize these omissions by providing additional and alternative material in a more equitable stance.
In my philosophy of education (attached below), as reconceptualists, we do not take everything we teach for granted but become discerning educators who recognize bias, censorship, racial proclivities, microaggressions; inequalities in the curriculum we teach; disparity in the system of education and the policy makers who establish the rules which govern our profession. As culturally relevant teachers we become activists and advocates for our students challenging the system in the best interests of our students. In our UNM College of Education Conceptual Framework, professional understandings, practices and identities are recognized in the importance of culture and language, being culturally responsive teachers, and acting as advocates for social justice.
My question is how not to alienate anyone with concepts of Dominant/White Privilege, critical pedagogy, power and privilege that we unpack during our learning. As teachers, we have more of a responsibility to be aware of the complexity of diversity and to begin to explore it, and delve into the challenging curiosity of seeing in ways we have never understood or perceived before. As Anais Nin said: “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” As teachers we hold power and privilege in the educational system of which we are part. How do we use our power and privilege to empower, advocate, and communicate for our students?
The discourse in our nation is providing more opportunities to talk freely, openly, and civilly about these issues upfront and less covertly. As teachers, with privilege and power enacted in our classrooms, it is our responsibility to better understand the political and sociocultural issues embedded within the system of education as well as identifying our own biases and cultural perspectives. In this way, we can resonate and reflect from more culturally responsive, responsible, and
humble teaching and learning perspectives.
Our course gives us a way of delving into the complexity, resiliency, advocacy, national history within multicultural education that represents multiple perspectives coexisting at the same time.
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