Leaders in Diversity?

When I was hired to document the first year of a New York City public middle school, my job was to provide feedback and raise questions that would encourage more reflective practice, and then to write about the dilemmas facing this new school...[W]hen I went over my notes at the end of the first year, the themes of race and ethnicity stood out prominently. Almost every incident that caught my eye seemed tinged by issues of equity, differences, and how children are known as part of their own cultures. Equally striking was that despite the faculty's expressed commitment to structures that supported equity and respected differences,my notes suggested that children's daily experience of race went undiscussed among the adults...I was further struck by how I, as a White staff member, had registered events without seeing them and had failed to understand earlier the meaning of what I had recorded. (B&S 475-476)

Why is race a topic that adults have historically avoided? How can adults implement a free discussion about race in our schools? Where are schools failing in promoting a comfortable space for all ethnic cultures?

Would race be a more comfortable subject in schools if schools adopted "culture days" or days that schools honored and featured a certain ethnicity? Perhaps the event could involve history and unique practices of that culture. Perhaps students could be given the opportunity to demonstrate their culture.

School Knowledge

The working class school...

I asked the two fifth- and two second-grade teachers in each school what knowledge was most appropriate for the children in their classes. Most spoke of school knowledge in terms of facts and simple skills. One fifth-grade teacher said, for example, "What these children need is the basics." When I asked her what the basics were, she said, "The three Rs--smple skills." When I asked why, she responded, "They're lazy. I hate to categorize them, but they're lazy." (B&S, p. 422)

There were occasions when the teachers did seem to make attempts to go beyond simple facts and skills and to transmit more elaborate conceptual knowledge. (B&S, p. 424)

The executive elite school...

When I asked the two fifth-grade and two second-grade teachers in this school what knowledge was important for their students, most referred to intellectual processes such as reasoning and problem solving. One said, "They'll go to the best schools, and we have to prepare them." Another said, "It's not just academics; they need to learn to think. They will have important jobs, and they need to be able to think things through." (B&S, p. 425-6)

My question is...are the stereotypes that the teachers are making about these two different types of schools setting the students up for either success or failure? How important of an impact does the teachers' attitude play on the students' success? If the teachers approached teaching the working class school students the same way as they approached the executive elite students, would the students be more apt to succeed?

Tongue-Tyed

In fact, the present overdose of monolingualism and Anglocentrism that dominates the current educational debate not only contributes to a type of mind-tied America, but also is incapable of producing educators and leaders who can rethink what it means to prepare students to enter the ever-changing, multilingual, and multicultural world of the 21st century. (B&S, p. 375)

While arguing for the use of the students' native language in their educational development, I would like to make it very clear that the bilingual education goal should never be to restrict students to their own vernacular. (B&S, p. 377)

Educators must understand the all-encompassing role the dominant ideology has played in this mystification and distortion of our so-called "common culture" and our "common language." ... Without the cultivation of their native language, and robbed of the opportunity for reflection and critical thinking, lingiustic minority students find themselves unable to re-create their culture and history. Without the reappropriation of their culture, the valorization of their lived experiences, English Only supporters' vacuous promise that the English language will guarantee students "full participation first in their school and later in American society" (Silber, 1991, p. 7) can hardly be a reality." (B&S, p. 383)

Research has clearly revealed that it is short-sighted and counter-productive to promote a 'common language'. If educators are to advance and develop and keep up with the times, they should adapt to the multicultural and multilingual approach for their students. Educators should not only encourage the development of the native languages, but also, at the same time, lead students to a comfortable use of second, and perhaps third and fourth languages. Educators will no doubt reap the benefits of building upon the unique cultures of their students rather than trying to erase their individual cultures/mold them into one common culture.

Model Minority Stereotype

Although the majority of Asian American students at Academic High School spoke proudly of being stereotyped as model minorities and even engaged in the self-silencing of their experiences, there were Asian American students who actively resisted the conditions of the model minority stereotype.

There were a few Asian Americans and African Americans who attempted to builda coalition of racial minorities to deconstruct white dominance. I examine both with consensus and resistance to the hegemonic discourse of the model minority stereotype. (B&S, p 334)

How can a school system help to change things like model minority and white dominance stereotypes? How does society underline of promote one race over another? How can equality and self respect be encouraged among all students, regardless of minority, gender or social status? Does the media emphasize the differences? Does the prejudice in families or cultures divide people into groups that cannot accept one another? How can we as teachers work with the conflicts as well as influence equality among students?

Acceptance Code

Adolescents who hide their sexual orientation from others expend enormous amounts of energy monitoring and restricting their interactions with others. The process of coming out often has deleterious effects on family life, peer relationships, and development of intimate relationships with others.

Recognizing the complexity of the individual, family, and social dynamics of adolescent development can be invaluable to gay, lesbian, and "straight" students alike. (B&S, p. 343)

Acceptance of others for their differences should be an understood code among students and teachers. How can schools promote an atmosphere of acceptance? While certainly not everyone is entitled to his/her viewpoints on behavioral and culture issues, there should be no variance when it comes to the decision and viewpoint that all people are created equal and have equal rights.

The social setting is crucial to the development of adolescents. Adolescence is such a confusing time for a person because s/he is discovering both a new world and herself/himself all at once. The nurturing that adolescent students deserve is to be loved and accepted for who s/he is. There should be no deviating from that. We as teachers should promote a comfortable atmosphere for students to safely and confidently develop through adolescence and into adulthood.

What are some healthy ways that teachers can encourage students to feel accepted through the difficult adolescent time? What are ways to handle students who have been hurt by others because of their gender or other differences? What are ways for teachers to promote acceptance of social differences in the classroom curriculum?

Healthy Identity

"Identities are about quesnos of using hre resources of history, language, and culture in the process of becoming rather than being: not "who we are" or "where we came from," so much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves...Identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse..." (B&S, p. 237)

Erik Erikson asserts in his writing that "identity formation has been deemed the pivotal developmental task for adolescents, as they traverse the path from childhood to adulthood." (B&S, p. 238)

The catch phrase that has come up time and time again for me is, "I need to find myself." If we, as adults, are still learning about/trying to figure out ourselves, how much more would a 12-14 year old person be confused about his/her own identity.

The words of the text above that jump out at me are "how we represent ourselves." This answers the big question of why middle school age children are notorious for being difficult to communicate with/guide. Middle school age kids are trying to figure out how to represent himself/herself. That said, how can educators nurture the process of helping kids find themselves while at the very same time, teaching them what they need to know? What are the most effective methods that teachers can use to help a student tap into his/her unique potential? How can we as educators help students develop a comfort level with themselves and who they want to be?

Awareness of Others as Relates to Conflict Resolution

"Before endeavoring to develop cultural knowledge and awareness about others, we must first uncover and examine personal social and cultural identities. Guided self-reflection allows us to better understand how social group memberships inform who we are." (www.tolerance.org)

The foundation of getting along with others is awareness of others. Each of us has his/her own impression of what is socially normal. Our impression is formed from the time we are born. Our environment is the biggest influencer upon our view of normal. That said, we mix with others who do not share the same norms and we are expected to live and work with them successfully. I often think of the old saying that one should not judge another until he/she has walked in his/her shoes. This awareness of others is key to getting along with others and resolving interpersonal conflicts. We must make every effort to explore the feelings of others. When we do this, we empower ourselves to understand another viewpoint. By seeing others from his/her own perspective, we can better understand why he/she feels the way he/she does. The key to successful relationships is awareness and consideration of others. No matter how convinced that we are that we are right about any given subject, we must accept that another person may see things through different glasses.

Successful School for Adolescents

Therefore, successful schools for young adolescents provide:

1) Curriculum that is relevant, challenging, integrative and exploratory, 2) multiple learning and teaching approaches that respond to their diversity, 3) assessment and evaluation programs that promote quality learning, 4) organizational structures that support meaningful relationships and learning, 5) school-wide efforts and policies that foster health, wellness, and safety, and 6) multifaceted guidance and support services. (National Middle School Association, 2003, p. 7). B&S, p. 152

What strikes me about this excerpt is that it carefully addresses each part of a whole, a whole process of successfully providing a balanced environment for students to both feel accepted, yet challenged to do his/her best. Each of the above five steps requires careful planning and research. One principal or one great teacher cannot accomplish these goals. It would take the entire learning community to make these five steps happen. That learning community would need to be broken down into committees. These cannot simply be accomplished by a vote of a governing body or the school board. Task forces would need to be assigned these tasks and each task force would need to form a plan of action and take the steps to ensure that steps are implemented to reach each of these goals. Finally, after each of these tasks is implemented, there needs to be an assessment plan to monitor the progress and/or suggestions made to solve any conflicts and tweak the process for success.

JonBenet and make-believe game

"But if the boundary between innocence and impurity, child and adult, became blurred in both cases, JonBenet's notoriety as an object of public fascinatino revealed a dark and seamy element in American culture." (B&S, p. 135)

Our culture is quick to blame youth for irresponsible behaviors. But our culture does not appear ready to accept responsibility for having brought children up in an atmosphere that fosters insecurity among youth and instills the need in youth to compete at an adult level for love, attention and acceptance. Clearly, our media puts glamour on a pedestal to the extent that young girls in our culture try to emulate superstars and sex symbols instead of being content with themselves as they are. Even many young children's Disney DVDs of today place the emphasis on glamour and sexualty.

We cannot expect girls to not be promiscuous and insecure in their teenage years if these are the only examples that have been presented to them. Children need wholesome examples to follow. Children need to feel safe and comfortable with themselves at each stage of their development.

Adolescence as a Construct

How does approaching adolescence as a construct change the way we treat and understand adolescence? What are the positive and negatives associated with our approaching adolescence this way? Will this approach cause us overlook individual needs or embrace them?

From TCMSR:

The social, historical, and political approach to the study of youth emphasizes that the meaning of youth like the meaning of democracy itself is in playand is struggled over by different groups with competing material and ideological intersts. The social construction of adolescence is of prime importance to those involved in and concerned about middle school.