Final Blog

Prior to this class,I had some very naive view on multicultural education. I simply thought it was acknowledging diversity in your classroom. I also thought many of the topics would not apply to my career path choice. I was schooled in a district that was 99% white and I have wanted to return to that school and teach there. I didn't  think I needed to learn about multicultural  education. I was completely wrong. Multicultural education is so much more. I learned that multicultural isn't just teaching about different cultures, although that is an aspect of it. I learned just how important it is for me as the teacher to understand my students cultures so that I can effectively teach them. I learned about the importance of recognizing that all my students will identify differently with different aspects of their culture and it is incredibly important for me to tailor my teaching to that when at  all possible. I also thought that multicultural education couldn't really be incorporated into that math classroom because math and numbers are a universal language, but I learned how to incorporate different cultures into the math curriculum and I even learned different ways to instruct ELLs so they can actually understand what I am teaching. I also began to understand some of the legal aspects of multicultural education. Sadly as a teacher II must deal with the politics involved in education and it is incredibly important for me to understand the laws that dictate my teaching.
In terms of improvement, I feel this class is on the right track. Our class seemed  to be dominated by discussion. I love discussion classes, but I felt like many of our discussions got very off topic from the assigned readings and a lot of the comments seemed redundant and not really pertinent. I feel this could be improved by  more structured discussions. I guess I would like the professor to keep us more on topic so I could learn more from the readings. I enjoyed the key assessments and I learned a lot from them, but I would have liked a little more feedback on the things I wrote. I also liked the idea of the Twitter page being used, but I felt like it wasn't  a part of the class because it was never really brought up and I would have liked more inclusion of that page.  

No blame

Valerie Strauss, a Washington Post blogger, recently posted an excerpt from Paul C. Gorski's book ,“Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap,” about the 5 stereotypes about poor families and education. In chapter 8 of the text, Bode discusses the importance of family for student success.
In this excerpt, Gorski mentions, "There exist several common stereotypes about poor people in the U.S. that suggest that they are inattentive and, as a result, ineffective parents. Low-income parents or guardians who do not attend parent-teacher conferences can become targets of stereotyping—or worse, targets of blame—by those educators." Contrary to the stereotypes, Bode mentions many students in the chapter who come from a low-income family whose parents are neither ineffective nor inattentive, yet these parents may not show their support in conventional ways. As Bode mentions in the book on page 313, "Although relationships with their parents and other family members were obviously prominent in the academic success of these students, their families were not always involved in the school according to the traditional definition of parent involvement. Most of the students' families did not go to school unless called, did not attend meetings or volunteer in school activities, and were not members of parent organizations." This also coincides with Gorski's first stereotype, "Poor People Do Not Value Education". It really isn't that they do not value education, it's that the don't show it in the conventional way. Teachers need to understand that their are so many ways families show they value education. They also need to show support to all families, not just blame. I know personally I could find it very easy to simply blame the parents for not caring, but it isn't that simple. It is our responsibility to show our students that we care, but also communicate, to the best of our ability, to the parents and get on the same page in terms of showing their student we both value their education. We teachers need to remember to not only be aware of our stereotypes our students must overcome, but also the stereotypes their parents must overcome in their education experience. We must not blame, but assist to up our students success.

Is "Acting White" really a burden?

The burden of acting white. That is what many cultural-ecological theorists attribute differences in academic achievement to. According to the book on page 269, John Ogbu developed a cultural-ecological theory to explain this difference. "Ogbu and Herbert Simons suggested that it is necessary to look not only at a group's cultural background but also at its situation in the host society and its perceptions of opportunities available in that society. Ogbu concluded that the variability in academic performance can be explained by the sociopolitical setting in which they find themselves and the experiences of the voluntary and involuntary minorities. Basically the burden of acting White is that students from involuntary minorities attribute certain behaviors, like being studious, to being White and do not want to be ostracized by their peers. In Ivory A. Toldson's article The 'Acting White Theory' Doesn't Add Up, she turns this idea upside down. She mentioned a study that said, "(Fryer's) research clearly demonstrates that the "social price" paid by the lowest-achieving black students is far greater than the so-called price paid by the highest-achieving black students." She also states, "For more than three decades, researchers have found that black students consistently exhibit more positive attitudes about education than white students, contrary to their lower levels of academic achievement." While the  Acting White Theory may have made sense in the past, Toldson cites many more examples of how black/African American, an involuntary minority by Ogbu's definition, students prove that there is no burden of being white. She talks about their view on being smart and going to college compared to white students and even the difference in parental views. Her overall conclusion, "that the Acting White Theory for black education is more fodder for cultural critics than it is a construct that will advance any meaningful solutions for academic achievement gaps" is how I have always viewed this theory. I am not saying it does not exist for individuals, but that is going to happen anytime you assimilate into another culture. As Toldson says, "The problem with the Acting White Theory is that it promotes the misconception that black students underachieve because of their corrupted attitudes." It is much easier as teachers to say this student isn't doing well in my class because his or her culture is standing in the way. The lack of motivation does not solely come from the fact that students don't want to get ostracized for being smart, especially in minority students. Lack of motivation comes primarily from low expectations. It is wonderful that future educators learn about all these theories that try to explain the achievement gap because we need to try and make sense of this so we can solve it, however we cannot get lost in theories. This article cites many studies that shows the burden of white is not and cannot be an excuse. We need make sure that we have high expectations for all students and push them to reach these. Along with that, the world of education needs to ensure we provide all students opportunities for academic enrichment. It is critical that academic support and resources are provided to all students, particularly those from low-income areas. Most important, educators must advocate for policies that reduce racial disparities in income and increase equity and inclusion in education.

Bilingual Education Act

Before Race to the Top and before No Child Left Behind, there was a bill that addressed the controversial topic of Bilingual Education. An article by Kasia Broussalian entitled Immigration Reform 2013: Bilingual Instruction Defines Our Education System discusses this act and how it changed the way American schools dealt with non-english-speaking students. Broussalian discusses a podcast with Natalia Melhman Petrzela that focuses on the importance of language. "She believes that bilingual instruction has not only been a key party of education in our multicultural society, but also a defining issue in public schools during the past 50 years." She then continues to discuss the rocky history of bilingual education and the passage of the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) in 1968. "Before BEA was passed, many school districts had already implemented innovative language programs, only to see them replaced with programs characterized by standardization and a top-down approach. In addition, poor funding for proposed programs and BEA’s focus on children from low-income families had the unintended consequence of stigmatizing English language learners." The article doesn't touch much on the most recent education bills and their implementations on bilingual education, but the current bills aren't much better in terms of promoting school creativity and celebrating students for their progress towards bilingualism. In fact, Petrzela even states, "Instead of being celebrated as unique and recognized for their progress toward bilingualism, these students were looked at as if they had a problem, and because of this, many performed poorly academically.” Chapter 6 of the book also cites studies that support this idea. On page 226 it states, "Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut came to a striking conclusions: students with limited bilingualism are far more likely to leave school than those fluent in both languages. That is, rather than being an impediment to academics achievement, bilingualism can promote learning."

In this article, the book, and even in class, the discussion of what can be done to improve bilingual education has come up and criticized what the federal government has done. This article made a very good point about how poor funding led to a standardized approach. However, each school is different. A school in downtown Toledo should approach bilingual education differently than a suburban school in Colorado. Each district is caters to a different group of students, yet the way we approach teaching the non-english speaking students is the same. I don't think simply giving these programs more money will fix everything, but change the funding structure so the schools who need more bilingual teachers get them and allow for creativity in the schools in how to solve the problem. This article is not long, but it brings up very different ideas that could have huge implications in bilingual education.

How can teachers change their expectations?

Self fulfilling prophecy. Every teacher know it exists. Robert Rosenthal is most famous for bringing this idea to light in the classroom. He completed a study in San Francisco where he told teachers that this very special test from Harvard, which was really just an IQ test, had the very special ability to predict which kids were about to be very special — that is, which kids were about to experience a dramatic growth in their IQ. He then selected randomly selected students and told their teachers that these students were about to be very special and by the end of the year they were. Why? Because the teachers had high expectations for these students. As Rosenthal continued to do more research, he found expectations affect teachers' moment-to-moment interactions with the children they teach in a thousand almost invisible ways. Teachers give the students that they expect to succeed more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval: They consistently touch, nod and smile at those kids more. This is all wonderful to know, but as we discussed in my EDFI 4080 class this Friday, how does one do that. I recently read an article entitled Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform by NPR Morning Edition reporter Alix Spiegel. He asked the question, "since expectations can change the performance of kids, how do we get teachers to have the right expectations? Is it possible to change bad expectations?" This brought him to find Robert Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Pianta understands that the traditional way of talking to teachers' and telling them their beliefs are wrong does not work. It's not effective to try to change their thoughts; the key is to train teachers in an entirely new set of behaviors. He even gives 7 ways teachers can change their expectations. Observe the students so you know all they are capable of. Listen and try to understand what motivates them, what their goals are, and how they view you, your classroom, their classmates, and the activities you assigned them. Talk to students about their interests. Each week, spend time with a student outside your role as a teacher. Reach out and know what students like to do outside of school. Finally reflect and think back on your own best and worst teachers, bosses or supervisors. List five words for each that describe how you felt in your interactions with them. How did the best and the worst make you feel? What specifically did they do or say that made you feel that way? Now think about how your students would describe you. Jot down how they might describe you and why. How do your expectations or beliefs shape how they look at you? Are there parallels in your beliefs and their responses to you?

This speech article, while it may seem simple, can actually have a big impact of teachers across the nation. As i said, everyone knows self fulfilling prophecy exists, it would be pretty hard to argue the opposite. Now the question is how do we take the knowledge of its existence and use it to make our classrooms better. Everyone goes into a classroom and the very first day judges their students to know which ones are the "good" kids and which ones aren't. However instinctual this practice may be, it can be extremely detrimental to our students, so we must find a way to combat this. Spiegel's article finds a realistic way to do this that really doesn't take much time. In fact it can be done by anyone, all it takes is simply changing our behaviors and our beliefs will follow.

Teaching Critical Thinking

In chapter 2 of Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education it states there are 7 basic characteristics of multicultural education and to me the most important is the statement, "multicultural education is critical pedagogy." There is always a question of how to teach critical thinking. Even at the college level, the critical thinking courses offered to honors students at Bowling Green State University vary largely based on the professors who choose to teach it. One fourth grade teacher has a very interesting idea to teach his students critical thinking skills.

John Hunter plays a game with his students called the world peace game. He divides his students into different countries and each student is assigned a role. Some are prime ministers and other country officials, but others have no country affiliation and are directors of the world bank or other international officials. Each country starts out with different economies and for the game to be won every country must end the game with more money than they started with. Also John created a set of 50 crises that must be fixed and they must be resolved before the time runs out for the game to be won. All these crises are inter-related so as one thing changes, everything else changes. There is also a child called the sabotagour, whose job is to stir up trouble. All the teacher is is the clock watcher and the clarifier. He tells anecdotes about some of the experiences he has seen over the years of playing the game, but what stuck out to me most was the critical thinking skills developed during the days this game is played. This video can be watched at http://youtu.be/0_UTgoPUTLQ

According to the book on page 54, "a multicultural approach values diversity and encourages critical thinking, reflection, and action." Instead of lecturing about global warming, John Hunter encourages his students to solve it. He has them take everything they have been told and flip it upside down and question it in order to create "world peace". My favorite part of this game is that for every life lost in battle, the country of students have to write a letter to the avatars fake parents apologizing for the lost of their child's life and explaining the sacrifice they made and why the life was lost. This really made the students think about going into battle and brought out a compassionate side of war. It's rules like these that make this game so wonderful. If this game were to be implemented in every classroom, could you imagine its affects. Not only would students be introduced to critical thinking skills,but they are using them to solve the major problems of the world. If they can use these skills to solve problems that our greatest minds can't solve, then would there be a need for the massive school reform the book calls for. I am not saying it would eliminate all the problems with multicultural education in America's schools, but it would at least teach students to question what they are being told and show them that they can think for themselves and they can make a difference.

Single Story

As I was scanning through articles and lectures on multicultural education, I found a TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche entitled The Danger of a Single Story. She began her talk describing herself as a reader, even from an early age. Growing up on a college campus in Nigeria, she typically read British or American stories. Then as she began writing her own stories, her characters had the same culture as the ones she read about. As a child, she thought that stories were only about white characters who talk about the weather, which was nothing like the culture she was immersed in. She continued telling antidotes about her families house servant and her roommate and college and other experiences she had over her life, but they all had one message in common, the power of a single story. She then goes on to explain that these single stories are basically stereotypes. She exemplifies this by mentioning some negatives events in her life and states that by focusing on only the negative events flattens who she is. She has had many experiences in her life that has shaped who she is. She then stated the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that the are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. This relates strongly to the part in the book Affirming Diversity: The Sociopoiltical Context of Multicultural Education about hybridity and how it isn't just about the culture they look like they should be in, but also how they identify. Also the book states that "the danger of considering culture lies in overgeneralizing its effects"(158). This talk really focuses on expanding what it means in real life to over generalize its effects.  As educators we need to be certain to not give our students a single story. Whether they have the same culture as us or not, all students have a million stories and all are different from student to student and all shape the way our students will learn. It is also important for us to explain to our students to not fall into the trap of the single story.