Multiculturalism

 "Reading Multiculturally" was an interesting read. I was intrigued by the author's daughter's responses to his question. The nine year old said the Lion King, and the ruling of Scar, is Simba's story, not Nala's, therefore, he has to fix the horrible ruling of Scar, not Nala. However, I was mostly interested in his fifteen year olds answer. She states that she "doesn't like to let the details get in my way of enjoying a story." This reminded me of something one of my professors said the other day. I asked him something about using student's interests to teach, rather than using typical methods (I said that it is important for us, as teachers, to go into our student's discourse, in order for us to attempt to understand them and where they are coming from. I then asked why we weren't using things such as our student's raps that they write outside of class, or their poetry that they're writing in their free time, or their comics that they are reading on their own.) My professor brought up the point that students may think, "Why would I want to bring that stuff in here?! You're just going to make me clean it up and make the grammar proper. Why would I want to do that?" Essentially, the students may be afraid of losing the pleasure that they receive from their work. They just like to write their own stuff, while not bothering with the details that get in the way of enjoying their literature. Rebecca, the author's daughter, reminded me of this conversation....

This is a picture of The Lion King on Broadway. I want to see this production soooooooo much! The visuals look stunning, the dance remarkable, and the masks amazing!  

I also find it extremely interesting to view Hade's experience with using multicultural books in his classroom. It is important to note that humans do indeed mediate how we interpret text based upon race, class, and gender. Therefore, it is somewhat easier to accept the fact that our students may have similar reactions to multicultural texts, as the author's students had. Hade states that some students laughed at the dialect, refused to read some of the books because of offensive language, refuse to teach with these books because of the use of poor grammar, and others were "amused" because of evidence of stereotypical behavior. If we have students in our class that respond this way, are we prepared to deal with these situations? I think that Hade makes a wonderful point. He states that we should take these negative views and turn them into positive learning experiences. We need to confront the injustices that may arise from reading multicultural texts by asking such questions as Why did you laugh at that reference? Why do you not want to read a book that has this word in it? Why do you feel that this language has bad grammar? ... We need to ask these questions in order to assist our students and encourage them to challenge injustices that are represented in texts.

The video, "A Classroom Divided" presents a great concept... The results of the discrimination affected both the blue eyed and brown eyed students. It took the brown eyed students longer to go through cards (when they were discriminated against) than when they were the superior. Also, one blue eyed student called another student "brown eyes" in a discriminating manner (something he would not have previously done if he wasn't told he was superior). The fact that the students's test scores have increased when they were on top, yet declined when they were discriminated against, is outstanding. The power and consequesnces of discrimination are remarkable.

The adults that went through this were able to receive insight as well. They stated that no one had the courage to contest their discrimination, they felt anger, hopelessness, and even independently discriminated against the "lower" group.

This activity is an excellent way to teach about discrimination. I could see similar activities working in classrooms, especially if there is an issue of discrimination, or any type of segregation within the classroom (which is still apparent in schools today!). We could implement this, specifically when presenting a section about the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, Iraq War, etc.

I think that incorporating some type of writing reflection would be interesting to do in my classroom, in addition to this activity. This would allow for all of my students to voice their feelings, something that doesn't always occur during a discussion. Some people are able to be more open through writing than they are through discussing their thoughts and emotions to a large group. However, I do think that it is beneficial to discuss the results of the discrimination activity, as well as during it, like the video displays. Analyzing the entire activity allow the students to correspond their emotions to that of real situations that have happened and those that could happen.

Here are some pictures of events in America's past, or pictures that represent events that have occurred, that I was reminded of while watching the assigned video. These are very touchy subjects, but it is important to allow our students to know about them, and to even feel similar aspects that people in the past (and unfortunately present) have felt. Hopefully this exposure will diminish re-occurrences.