Diversity in Education-July 21st

Today's excercise was equally facinating, and I was particularly stumped by the fact that just by chance, I ended up my 'society's' leader. I'm a strong personality and I often find myself in leadership positions whether or not I seek them out, and it was interesting for me to note that me being the leader was totally by chance, it was because I happen to be the youngest person in the group. But I am getting ahead of myeslf. The activity was that were were to take 20 minutes to create our own unique culture that didn't resemble any real culture. We were given several guidelines and probing questions and also some props to assist. Our culture was highly respectful, ritualistic, and had many rules. We were also a youth or child based culture (hence me being the leader since I was youngest). We then interacted with the other cultures that people had created and found many of the problems that occur in real life, when different cultures interact, were true in our classroom study as well. And this was with all cultures with a more or less even playing field. I look forward to the continued debrief of this activity tomorrow.

As for the required readings, I've been unable to do the Bates & Bates readings yet because for financial reasons I've declined to purchase the book at the UO book store, and instead bought it on Amazon (for a savings of $50!). So clearly it hasn't come yet, though I received a notification that it shipped today. The other readings however, I was able to do.

In the Hall, it was interesting to note that from the point of view of my sustainable curriculum class, the more ecologically intelligent and cultural commons oriented aspects of culture (as designated by the somewhat stratifying distinction of low and high) were those that were not exemplified by American culture.

The Lenssen article outlined a series of activities one could do within a classroom in order to get kids thinking about cultural differences and the difficulties that they can create. Particularly it seems to allow students from a main stream culture to identify with the disorientation, alienation etc. that students from minority cultures experience. Or along those same lines, to allow students from varied cultural backgrounds to have a culturally significant experience in common, even if it is superficial. Some of these strategies I had heard before, and others are new, but I look forward to adding them to my tool box.

In the rest of the readings, the one thing that stood out to me as somethign I'd never thought about before was the definition(s) of race and how problematic it is, and how it is used interchangebly with culture or ethnicity. Being white myself, I feel like white doesn't determine my culture, and it would be laughable if I were defined only by being white, as if I were the same as all other white people. My culture has more to do with the area I grew up in, my religion, my artistic endeavors and the people I choose to associate with. However, for people who are part of a racial, ethinic or religious minority. All of these elements are often lumped together as one thing, and generalized. That the lable of race or ethnicity was in of iteslf the problem is new to me.

Diversity in Education-July 20th

I'm taking a class called Diversity in Education this summer, which requires me to make a journal entry for each day of class. Most, if not all, of my entries for the next few weeks will be reflections on the class activities and readings.

This class has definitely not matched my expectations. Having already taken several classes having to do with issues of diversity in education, I expected a ho-hum revamp of the same info I've heard several times. It's important information, but I sort of feel like I've got it. The activity in class today, however was really fascinating. So now my impression is that this class will, in fact, deal with same issues of student identity and diversity that I've seen in other classes, but will approach it in a new and fresh way, arming me with pedagogical tools that I can then use in the future.

Today's activity asked us to make snap judgments and stereotypes about our professor, and then about each other, and to in turn debrief those judgments and see how right, or wrong we were. It was interesting from a self-serving point of view in that I always enjoy hearing from people the way I come across, the type of impression I give, and I was fairly pleased with the things my partner said about me, most of them were even true. It was neat to examine our bias, and I definitely noticed that my bias and stereotyping was effected by the class I'm taking immediatly before this one, Curriculum Reform for a Sustainable Future. And while the excercise was interesting and a great tool, I didn't feel like it pointed out anything to me that I was already aware of. Either way, I feel like I will likely enjoy the class.