Diversity in Education-August 12th

I have a problem with the fact that students have more rights about their religion then teachers do. I understand that it is true, and I understand why it is that way. But I feel persecuted that I can't wear religions jewelry or clothing without fear of persecution and even loosing my job.

During our Law and Governance course last summer we discussed the details of the case you mentioned with Sikh person who lost her job because she wanted to wear her religious clothing. If she has said, oh, I just like this fashion style, it would have been ok, but because she worse it because it was prescribed by her religion, it's unacceptable. Similarly, if I wore a necklace with a star on it that is nondescript, no problem. But as soon as it resembles a pentagram or a star of David, I am in dangerous territory. I wonder if I, as a non-Jew could wear a six pointed star, because it is just fashion, but a Jew could not.

I appreciate the separation of church and state that exists in our country, and I don't think it is the right of teachers to be able to preach to their students or try and convert their students, but it seems to me that teachers should have as much right as anyone else to express their own personal religiousness, or not.

Diversity in Education-August 10th

Post Encounter-

I really enjoyed my encounter with the Baha'i, I found that their religion genuinely appealed to me and that they were very helpful as far as giving us information pertaining to the way in which we could interact with Baha'i students we might have and any special considerations that they might need.

The one thing that I had an issue with was all the rules. If people want to follow strict rules, great, but I've never done well with them. Fortunately it sounds as if the Baha'i aren't judgmental about their rules, they don't project them on others, but it's not a religion for me.

This activity was really really interesting because I had permission to go somewhere and explore something new without feeling like a voyer, or self-entitled to explore someone else's culture. I was afraid of feeling like I was some white person headed to Africa on safari, to see the exotic animals and culture, but it wasn't that way at all. I feel like this experience will help me to branch out and explore different culture more in the future.

Capstone: In Review

This was a very challenging project for me on a number of different levels. My first issue was that I had a very had time choosing a topic to focus on, I felt pulled in many different directions. My second difficulty is that not only have I never had to do something like a Capstone project before, as it is a fairly unique project, but I have also have very limited experience doing research and writing research papers. My partner, Taunya was a very experienced researcher and paper writer, so I was inclined to allow he to take the lead organizationally. For me this is a very unusual position to be in, as I find myself more often then not taking on the leadership role when I work with groups. As we moved through the process of defining our question and gathering our research, I found that these were skills that were difficult for me and I was glad for the guidance of a more experienced researcher.

As we began the writing process it was difficult for us to not move to a more traditional research paper/thesis model and stick to the parameters that were unique to the capstone. We knew what we wanted to look for, and after researching, we knew pretty clearly what we thought our answers would be, but making it fit into the Capstone model and making sure that we included all the pieces that we felt was expected of us was really tough. In the end, we ended up doing significantly more writing then was originally necessary, but all of the writing that we did was useful and helped us in our clarifying and focusing process.

Another challenge for me was learning to use embed citations. I never really took writing classes in college, and though I feel that I am an excellent writer, I have trouble with some of the more conventional things like using APA format. I feel like I grew a lot in my ability to do proper citation in this manner through the course of this project.

Taunya and I both went through a period where we were very frustrated with this project. We felt like we knew what we were asking, what the research said, and what kind of plan we wanted to have, and yet we felt like the way that we were communicating that wasn't fitting the prescribed format, or rather wasn't being understood in the same way that we understood it. It wasn't until we sat down with our adviser for the project and explained it to her, who then explained her expectations for us that we finally felt good about the product we were creating. Were I to do this project, or another like it again, I would make an appointment to meet in person with my adviser much earlier in the processes, and to continue those visits frequently.

It seemed like having your 'ah ha' moment was a big deal, and after watching a few presentations, it sort of became a cliche, but the truth of the matter is, we did sort of have an 'ah ha' moment (though we avoided calling it that in our presentation). While we were researching and categorizing and then trying to narrow down this huge field of information, we decided as part of our part III to make a graphic. And I created this hokey chart with what was then four elements (we later combined two of the elements so we only had three) and highlight what each element shared in common with each other element. In creating this chart, we realized that though we had a really wide variety in our solution, and it seemed huge, it had to be huge, we couldn’t use one part without the other because of the way that they all supported each other. This really gave direction to the rest of our refinement and the way that we chose to implement our plan. It also helped us to keep our plan streamlined and manageable.

One thing that I am very grateful for is that my group had a variety of content areas that we represented, not just one. Having my math/social studies, and Taunya’s social studies/language arts kept us thinking about how our plan could be applied across the curriculum. We won’t have the power to change our whole school, but ideally our plan would be implemented not only in our classrooms, but in every classroom, so having already considered the challenges that might present themselves outside of our shared content area (social studies) better prepares us to aid our colleagues in implementing this in their classroom.

There were a lot of aspects of this project that were hard, aspects that I didn't want to do, or didn't understand why I had to do them. However, I am grateful for the opportunity to do this project. For the experience of doing research, and putting together a research based plan. I feel like that experience will serve me in the future, giving me the experience I need to feel confidant about creating research based plans in the future. I'm grateful that I had a committed, hard working partner who's strengths balanced my weaknesses and with whom I worked well. And most of all, I am grateful that provided that I have a job this coming fall, I will come armed with a plan to make my classroom exemplary.

Diversity in Education-August 5th

McIntosh's article about the now proverbial 'Invisible Knapsack' is a fantastic peek at the rest of the ice burg. I'd heard about this knapsack before, and reading the actual article really articulated the issues surrounding it. I would love to find a way to incorporate that article, or a cutting from it, into my lessons, for students of all races and ethnicities. I've always found that metaphors, especially ones I could visualize, helped me to understand issues, and I don't think I am alone in that. Using the metaphor of the knapsack, and as someone in class today mentioned, identifying what is in it. What are those benefits, each day. And what is the flip side of that could be a really eye opening experience for children. Another way to approach this issue, without the complex reading or specifically saying 'this is about race'. Would be to ask students to make lists of their privileges, and things that they think aren't fair. We'd have to talk about what we mean by that. And we could discuss the reasons for privilege, such as someone being the oldest child, getting good grades, having lots of money, living near certain amenities, and hopefully also broach race and ethnicity in that same conversation.

Diversity in Education-August 4th

We.

A seemingly innocuous little word, but carries with it so much power. Being social creatures, we (see what I just did there), and by we I mean humans, desire to be part of a group, this isn't universal, but most of us do. We is generally an inclusive word, but it can also make it painfully obvious that you are NOT a part of a groups as well.

I noticed this most starkly in class with our guest speaker, but I feel like she is not alone in making this slip up, I feel like I have heard this throughout my Masters program, and my education in general. But it comes through most clearly when in a class that is discussing issues of diversity and multicultural curriculum. The professor repeatedly will say 'we' when referring to white, dominant cultures. "We must do..." "We have this privilege..." "We do this, and they do that". Some times this is appropriate. We could refer to graduate students, Oregonians, Eugenians... any number of groups that might be accurate, but when the person speaking chooses not to define what they mean by we, more often then not, the understanding is that we refers to white dominant culture. And then I look around the classroom and I know that we have people in our group who do not identify as white, and who do not receive white privilege. I can only imagine that having the teacher refer to themselves and a majority of the class as we, must be alienating to those students who are not part of the group, especially in the context of a class in which we are supposed to be unpacking and examining those issues, but there is still this invisible division.

I'm not sure what the solution is, and perhaps acknowledging that it happens is the first step. For me, whenever I refer to we, especially when in a professional situations, I define what I mean by we. That way, if I am excluding someone around me (for instance saying we, referring to white people in a group with many ethnic or racially diverse people) the people around me know that I am not assuming that they are part of the group I refer to, and that I am acknowledging that their point of view or way of knowing may be different then my own.

Diversity in Education-August 3rd

We were discussing in class racial bias and Prof. Lenssen was discussing a study where black children (girls primarily I think) were asked to choose which doll they thought was prettier and better, between a white doll and a black doll, and most of the girls chose the white doll.

This brought to mind an anecdotal experience from my own childhood that I wanted to examine. Growing up I had LOVED the American Girl dolls, I had paged through their catalogs and longed for one of their dolls. After playing a gig with my fiddle band, at the age of 10, I received a pay check large enough for me to purchase one of these dolls. At this point in time there were only five. Each representing an important period of time for America. Felicity, the colonist, Kirsten the immigrant, Samantha, the Victorian, Molly, from WW2, and the most recent addition, Addy the escaped slave from the Civil War. I don't remember my reasoning, and it might have been something simple and unconnected to race, but I bought the black doll. And I LOVED that doll, my grandmother made a trunk of clothes for her (and another doll that I eventually also got, this one made to look like me) and I played with them long after it was socially acceptable for me to play with dolls. The doll did have one issue I was unprepared to deal with, her hair was textured, much like the typical African's hair, and I didn't know how to deal with it, so years of combing resulted in very thing hair and near dreadlocks.

I don't have a lot of analysis for this, I guess. I grew up in a very very white community, I had only one black person in my entire high school. No black friends or family members, no experience with black people outside of seeing them around town or interacting in the most mundane manner. I wonder if perhaps my reasoning for choosing that doll was that she was the newest, or different then all the others (I was very interested in being different at that point in my life), or the fact that she wore a dress that I liked. Perhaps the draw was her straw bonnet. But in retrospect it's a very interesting question. Why did the little white girl choose the black doll?