WebLog VII: Education in a Multiculture Society

Article "Education in a Multicutlural Society: Our Father's Greatest Challenge" by Lisa D. Delpit

Lisa Delpit’s article and her five aspects of Multicultural Education relate to Landson-Billings models of Academic Achievement, Cultural Competence, and Sociopolitical Consciousness.

I think how Delpit claims African American children respond better to explicit directive instructions better than implied directive seems to be a big generalization. Maybe she is right but I’m not sure, she did not report any studies done on this topic, only two students’ statements supporting her claim. I just think it’s hard to generalize how a complete race responds to implied or explicit instructions.

Delpit expresses, “Educators must have knowledge of children’s lives outside of school so as to recognize their strengths.” This definitely relates to Ladson-Billing’s statement “Cultural competent teachers take responsibility for learning about students’ culture and community.”
I also like how Delpit used the word “atrophy”. She said student’s intellect will suffer from atrophy if the focus of instruction is on low-level thinking because teachers believe African Americans cannot think abstractly. This relates to some of my work and discussions with teachers. I have heard many teachers tell me “I only teach what they are tested on, any other information will just confuse them.” And other teachers said “These kids can’t read out loud in class, because it will take to long, and they cannot be expected to do any homework because they just won’t.” Like Delpit I think this is terrible because how are you ever going to know what students can do if we/teachers never challenge them.

WebLog VI: Caanan Chaps 3-5

I am currently pre-student teaching at Euclid Central middle school. My classes are about 95% African American, I have some exposure and experience working with a minority race. Ladson-Billings claims that “the current performance of some students of color suggests that education is not a priority for them.” The book is stating that minorities perform lower in school because it is not a priority for them. I agree because lower class minority students have parents with very little education levels. Parents are the first role model to any child. When a child has parents that did not attain a higher education the student does not view education as a priority. My students are Euclid Central seem to be the same way. Most of the students at Euclid Central test poorly on exams and through parent conferences I learned that my students with better grades usually had parents who graduated from college or attended college for a year or two.

Students and all citizens should have cultural competence of their surrounding communities. At Euclid Central the students asked many questions about my culture, being a young Caucasian college student. My students have never been exposed to many people outside their race and they were very shocked that I liked similar music, food, and similar hobbies and extracurricular activities. I think students need to be exposed to all cultures. This will only help eliminate students’ misconceptions about people from different races, religions, socioeconomic classes, and languages.

Sociopolitical consciousness can be learned best through service learning projects, integrated units, or themed projects. As a Social Studies teacher I can find many service learning projects to help students better understand their government. I observed a teacher have her students write to their congressman. The students could write to their congressman about any topic they wanted to learn more about. The students were really interested and learned a lot about the law making process and also how to conduct a formal letter. World history is a very hard subject to grasp for younger students. Students have trouble trying to relate the lifestyle of an ancient Egyptian to their lifestyle in the year 2007. I think projects that reenact ancient lifestyles helps the students connect ideas. Sociopolitical consciousness can be obtained through service learning, integrated units or themed projects. These activities benefit the students because a variety of learning strategies are addressed and it is a hands on project which will grab the students attention.

WebLog V: Canaan Ch. 1-2

Why is there such a high drop out rate among first year teachers? Is there anything that can be done about it?

The new teachers are faced with teaching students coming from the poorest communities. The new teachers are overwhelmed with the workload. They are new to the building and feel uncomfortable asking for help from veteran teachers. The new teachers become stressed and change their profession. I think a lot can be done about the situation. One thing I think would help is if all teachers in upper class districts and poor districts received the same salary. However, because upper class districts pay more money they hire more experienced teachers and the beginning teachers are stuck working in poor districts. Another way to help the drop rate is if student teachers had to get hired in the same district they student taught at would help beginning teachers feel more comfortable in their building.

In chapter 2, Vanessa, a teacher in the TFD program was very discouraged by amount of minority teachers in the program. Do you think the history of her education made her feel discouraged?

I think her history of education made her feel discouraged. She grew up Atlanta, which has a dominant African American culture. She also attended a historically African American college. The TFD program did not have a racially diverse set of teachers. However, I think the problem was her in-exposure to diversity. She always grew up in African American communities and attended an African American college. I am not sure how her teacher education program was handled but it seems that she had little experience working with Caucasians. I think because she was never exposed to Caucasians I could not consider her to have a diverse understanding of all children. She only knew how work with her own race.

WebLog IV: Spring Ch. 3

What is the difference between and an enslaved Creole and an indentured servant?

Indentured servants were usually white males. They were instructed to live with a master for about seven years to learn a trade, skill or occupation. The servant worked for his master for the designated time period and once the time period was fulfilled

A Creole is considered to be a person of mixed European and African descent. Creoles were the first slaves to be brought to Jamestown in 1618. Creoles were brought to America and socially they already fit in with the general public. Creoles mostly spoke European languages and understood European culture. Socially the Creoles were considered equal to an indentured servant and worked side by side with indentured servants. However, a Creole could not just work for a master for an extended period of time. A Creole had to buy his or her freedom from their master.

Think of a person who fought for education for the African American people. Describe the philosophy and strategies this person used to help fight for educating African Americans in America.

Booker T. Washington was an African American who fought for educational rights for African Americans in America. Washington was supporter of segregated schooling. He opened the Tuskegee Institute where African Americans could gain an education. Washington believed to gain in freedom for his people, African Americans must gain acceptance from the “white” or European people in America. He believed white people viewed African Americans as uncivilized. At Tuskegee African Americans were taught how to read and write. However, B.T. Washington put an emphasis on hygiene, morals, work habits, and taught African Americans how to perform menial labor jobs. He thought if African Americans learned how to be clean and learn how to do good quality labor work then the white community would accept them as valuable.

WebLog III: Zinn

Zinn’s approach to history is to “emphasize new possibilities by disclosing the hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win.” Zinn uses historiography when he adds the excerpts from the journal of Columbus and Cortez. Through these writings it reveals the sentiment feelings the Europeans had towards the Indians. Europeans of this time period believed the Indians to be savages, uncivilized, with no religion, and no hierarchy of power. However, Zinn does describe how the Natives were quite advanced, they grew corn, made rubber, had priests, elected leaders, women and men were equal, and children did not get beat for punishment like Europeans. Zinn approaches history to uncover both sides of the story to reveal how the Natives were persecuted and how their rich culture were unnoticed by the first Europeans.
The curriculumn guide developed by the National Museum of the Native American approaches their history in a watered down conservative manner. The curriculum focuses on mostly treaties and does discuss some war, bloodshed, and diseases brought over by the Europeans. However, I think the guide still filters to much of the truth because it is less graphic and never describes the genocides Europeans put the Native Americans through which eventually destroyed their culture.
What would America look like if the Native Americans and Europeans lived together, peacefully? And how would the complete history of America be changed?

WebLog II: Sequoyah's letter

Dear Self,

I have created a Cherokee alphabet. The alphabet consists of 86 characters that represent the sounds of the Cherokee language. My people can learn the alphabet in one day and learn to read in one week (Pg. 26). Which is much more efficient than the Protestant’s language of English taking years to learn how to read. My language was a valuable resource for my people because soon Cherokee’s all over began to learn how to read and write. Letters were being sent from the Cherokee’s in the East all the way to other Cherokee’s located in Arkansas (Pg. 26). My new alphabet has also united the Cherokee culture because we can now record our religious songs (Pg. 26). A white man named Elias Boudinot was rather impressed with the language and decided to request funds from the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia to create a printing press to publish a newspaper in English and Cherokee (Pg. 26). Boudinot published the first Native American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix in February of 1828 (Pg. 26). However, the Protestant missionaries want to strip us of our culture because they fear if we become literate in our own language, we will never learn English, and never adopt the Protestant cultures (Pg. 27).

My First Post!