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?

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.