Given the changing racial demographics of our nation’s schools (with the white population increasingly becoming the minority) and that the main role of our teachers, most of whom are white, is shaping the education of our students, the question is: How can white teachers effectively teach students of color? Although little is known about the effectiveness of white teachers and achievement in students of color, there definitely is an underlying philosophy of multicultural education that students benefit from being taught by someone of similar race and cultural background. That being said and understood, the question remains: With the majority of teachers (those already teaching and those in college to become teachers) being white, how can we actually meet the educational needs of our students of color? Can white teachers honestly and openly examine their own cultural identity and confront race and racism in themselves and LEARN how to teach students of color effectively? How does an ethnic group who has been historically dominant in our society change to a more modest or balanced role in order to teach effectively? These questions, and many more, have long been a part of the agenda for multicultural education but are recently coming more clearly into focus. Most of the work and studies in race relations and teaching in a multicultural environment in the U.S. have put an emphasis on the unique cultural experiences and perspectives of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American groups. These are the groups that have historically been marginalized in various ways by the repeated asserted dominance by American people of European backgrounds. As the populations of the U.S. changes to take in even larger numbers of those groups... ... middle of paper ... ...cessful she must find a place of humility and active engagement in her own continual growth and reformation. She must acknowledge her own inevitable privilege and racism as she works tirelessly to dismantle white culture’s legacy of dominance. She must realize that it is her place and her responsibility to engage issue of race and multicultural education in her life and in her classroom. And finally, she must celebrate herself as an educator and celebrate every moment spent in self- reflection regarding her practice, no matter how difficult it may be, because this reflection will, no doubt, make her a better educator. Works Cited Tatum, Beverly Daniel. Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. McIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies
Courageous Conversations About Race: Chapter 5. Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom. The first step towards addressing the racial achievement gap begins with educators addressing their individual racial attitudes for, as the authors purport, “As we become personally aware of our own racialized existence, we can more deeply understand the racial experiences of others” (Singleton, Linton, 2006). In all honesty, I think Singleton and Linton hit the bull’s eye by suggesting that the first step towards initiating culturally relevant teaching is for the teacher to really examine his or her attitudes, values, and principles.
...deny seeing what they actually do not see. Rather, they profess to be color-blind when trying to suppress negative images they attach to people of color…”(1993, p.167) A quote that stood out that I believe sums up how she portrayed her philosophy in her book. I think this quote explains how we as teachers need to work on ourselves much more than we really need to help these students and how it all begins with us. I might use this information to not just focus on the curriculum, but to focus on my teaching to see what I am doing. I might focus on getting more feedback from teachers that shadow my mentoring or teaching for constructive criticism. Am I discriminating these students without even knowing? Am I rewarding myself more for the teaching rather than helping the students achieve the goal? As cliché as it is, I learned recently we don’t know what we don’t know.
"White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies" (1988), by Peggy McIntosh. Macintosh.pdf
She explains that African American and Latina/o students and their families continue to have high educational aspirations despite persistent education inequities. The culture of power as the “norm” of Whites.
McIntosh, P. (1988). White Privilege and Male Privilege. Wellesley College Center for Research on Women: Working Paper No. 189, 1-20.
In Henry Lewis Gates’ article, The Debate Has Been Miscast from the Start, he reveals the advantages to having multiculturalism in the curriculum of America’s schools. He would argue that in order to create true diversity and understanding of cultural differences, the nation must provide its students with a wide array of opportunities to understand other cultures besides their own. Peggy McIntosh takes on a similar situation when she takes into consideration how she was taught diversity in schools as a child. She claims that dominance of the white race is unconsciously supported. She also describes how she did not receive the right kind of education that would teach her how to be aware of racism and how to be aware of her privileges as a white person. McIntosh desires change in the way that students are taught racism and the best way to accomplish this is for schools to incorporate multiculturalism into curriculum. If this is accomplished, future generations have the ability to be aware of cultural differences and they would be less likely to be perpetrators of color blind racism.
The author, Gloria Ladson-Billings, discusses in her book, "The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children," how African American students perform at lower academic levels in part due to teacher approaches and attitudes. She performed a study on eight teachers of different races and backgrounds and their approaches to teaching African American students. The purpose of the study was to identify what approaches or techniques have been most successful in helping African American students to achieve academic success. She also focuses on the idea of "culturally relevant teaching" and how it can positively impact students when teachers are aware and incorporate a student's culture and backgrounds into the classroom. Throughout the book, the
Some pre-service teachers like the tutors Sherry Marx interviewed in her book, Revealing the Invisible, “have a strong desire to ‘help’ children who are less fortunate than themselves” (Marx, pg. 40). This sent a red flag to me; they seem to have the belief that children of color are not as smart as children who are white, meaning that the children of color need more help. No student should ever be treated differently because of their background. I am a strong believer in the idea that what is on the inside is what counts! As pre-service teachers we need to put our thought of helping the “helpless” to the side and focus on education our future generation. They are not “helpless”, everyone has the ability to achieve anything they want and their teachers need to help mold them into great learners so they can achieve those dreams and goals without worrying about being perceived differently because of the color of their skin.
Quality training and instruction is a critical factor for educators, more specifically those who belong to minority ethnic groups. As the PK-12 population continues to increase in the number of minority students, education programs of Historically Black Colleges and Universities have become a focal point of education reform. In “Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Teacher Education Reform”, Mary E. Dilworth inadvertently poses the question what have Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) done to improve the presence and retention of minority teachers in the classroom. According to Dilworth, minority students are inclined to prosper under the guidance of someone who has similar racial or ethical backgrounds (as cited in Goldhaber and Hansen, 2010). The increase of minority students in PK-12 classrooms validates the need for a greater number of minority educators. At roughly sixteen percent, a significant decrease from the twenty six percent years ago, the presence of minority educators in the classroom is considerably low. Although education programs of HBCU’s have thrived and introduced minority educators to the classroom, efforts and goals of these institutions have failed to prepare educators for a successful occupancy in the classroom.
The. Landsman, Julie G., and Chance W. Lewis. White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms: Creating Inclusive Schools, Building on Students' Diversity, and Providing True Educational Equity. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2011. Print. The.
There are many challenges that teachers encounter when teaching children with learning disabilities, learners that are English language learners, or learners who are culturally and linguistically diverse. As a nation we are faced with the challenged that our schools are becoming more diverse. The majority of our schoolteachers are still predominately white females, but our student population is slowly changing. We are seeing more minority groups in our schools that are facing different challenges. The scary part of it all is that our teachers do not have the skills to accommodate those differences. “The nation’s changing school demographics are creating a demand for new teaching skills” (Utley, Obiakor, & Bakken 2011, pg. 5). Our student population
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2004) reported that Black students continue to trail White students with respect to educational access, achievement and attainment. Research on the effectiveness of teachers of Black students emphasizes that the teachers’ belief about the Black students’ potential greatly impacts their learning. Teachers tend to teach black students from a deficit perspective (King, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Mitchell, 1998). White teachers often aim at compensating for what they assume is missing from a Black student’s background (Foorman, Francis & Fletcher, 1998). The deficit model of instruction attempts to force students into the existing system of teaching and learning and doesn’t build on strengths of cultural characteristics or preferences in learning (Lewis, Hancock...
On Monday the class had received an article on profoundly Multicultural Questions, by Sonia M. Nieto. In class we all read the article and then discuss about it. It talked about how teachers are not taking notice of multicultural. She then went deeper into how theirs inequities of today’s schools by asking difficult questions related to equity and access. Her questions stayed with me for long time after reading her article. It prompted me think about what it means to provide an education that is both multicultural and equable. Neito, “then defines Multicultural education as an anti-racist education that is firmly related to student learning and permeates all areas of schooling.” For instances, the average 12th grade low-income student of colored
The concepts included in providing a more diverse, multicultural education are requiring teachers to review their own issues and prejudices while expanding their knowledge of the many cultures that make up the classroom. These efforts help the educator recognize the various individual and cultural differences of each student, as well as gain an understanding on how these differences impact the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon individual and cultural difference research and why diverse students struggle to succeed in school. Furthermore, I will share some instructional approaches I could implement in the classroom to accommodate diverse students. Finally, I will discuss the responsibility of educators in addressing the issue of how our o...
In conducting her research, the author understood that she needed to describe key issues of culturally diverse students, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In reading Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: Issues in Education (2010), s...