M., Maddox , M. A., & McNulty, C. P. 2011 ). Culture in the classroom, Critical Thinking and Empathy Beyond.
I believe that culture, empathy and critical thinking can be incorporated into these subjects with the use of creative projects such as acting exercises, writings, discussions and stories. What project is chosen can depend on the age range, the environment of the classroom, and the preference of the school or the teacher, but I believe that there are projects that will accomplish the core learning objectives of the subject as well as incorporating multiple perspectives in a cognitive way.
For this example, I will use one of the continuing elements of History taught in U.S. schools: The Revolutionary War. Not only is this one
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They did this through the stories that they heard during their training, they also brought some of the storytellers into their classes directly. One teacher even made a “theme year” out of everything she had learned (Bequette, 2014).
The empathy that the teacher’s reported and passed on to their students could be an example of ethnocultural empathy. The teachers and their students were able to look and the unique culture of the local Native American tribes and appreciate them. Additionally they were able to understand the challenges faced by its modern day members and still recognize the fact that even with those culturally specific experiences the tribe members were still people just like them.
One of the first papers on ethnocultural empathy cites the need for this skill in the incident of the Rodney King beating and the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, not just the injuries inflicted on King, or the tragic deaths caused by the attacks, but the injuries and deaths that occurred because of them. The Rodney King beating sparked the L.A. riots in the early 1990’s. The terrorist attacks lead to hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern decent. The paper mostly mused on how to measure ethnocultural empathy, and how if more people had that skill, then fewer people would have been hurt in these response crimes because these people would have understood that those who committed the atrocities were not indicative of the entire population (Bergland, 2013; Wang.
This awareness does come with a social outcry, an explosive retaliation, as the stress builds and boils until the injustice cannot be tolerated any longer. The Rodney King incident in Los Angeles is a prime example of social retaliation by the masses. The injustices that occurred paved the way for a group to become enraged and provided an outlet for the social mistreatment of African-American citizens to finally be expressed. The violence that followed would force political officials to respond to an issue that had existed, but was ignored because minority groups’ issues did not fit into a political agenda. However, this form of retaliation cannot thrive and lead to a consensus where terms are fair for both parties. Counterstances stems for violence, and forces violence to become a response. As Anzaldúa expressed, “The possibilities are numerous once we choose to act and not react.” (pg.
I will cite examples of how intercultural imperatives relate to the 1995 American short documentary film, “The Shadow of Hate”, directed by Charles Guggenheim. I will define and describe two imperatives demographic and ethical imperatives.
... order to make a larger difference. They do so by either telling their story, asking the audience directly to think about an issue, or by putting them in someone else’s shoes. When faced with difficult topics involving class, race, and/or sexual identity, using empathy as a tool to think about the issues is more beneficial to creating lasting social change than having the mindset of “this doesn’t affect me so why should I care?” Having knowledge of, being attentive to, and vicariously experiencing others positions, allows one to be empathetic to the situations that affect people’s lives every day, in hopes that change will occur, progressively. When we are privileged or members of the dominant group, we tend to not notice, or take for granted, the things that marginalize others. Using empathy as a vehicle for social change helps to make the unconscious conscious.
A huge part of being able to critically think is expanding horizons and going outside of comfort zones. Each person has a bias based on their walk of life. Which, is why each individual sees the world differently. Being born outside of the United States has definitely given me a different lens through which I see the world than my native peers. Growing up in a conservative Mexican household my customs and traditions have definitely shaped my thinking process. I was raised to believe the woman is submissive to the man, and her duty was to cater to his each and every need. It wasn't until I came to America when that ideology began to be a point of challenge. A shift in my thinking was made when I saw the power and abilities the independent American
In our day and age where our youth are becoming more aware of the history of the country and the people who inhabit it, the culture of Native Americans has become more accessible and sparks an interest in many people young and old. Recent events, like the Dakota Access Pipeline, grab the attention of people, both protesters and supporters, as the Sioux tribe and their allies refuse to stay quiet and fight to protect their land and their water. Many Native people are unashamed of their heritage, proud of their culture and their ancestors. There is pride in being Native, and their connection with their culture may be just as important today as it was in the 1800’s and before, proving that the boarding school’s ultimate goal of complete Native assimilation to western culture has
...lves to think with an open mind on things for which they did not know or could not understand. I hope that as generations go on the Native Americans will be portrayed objectively and thus accurately to young students when they learn about them.
Students will partake in a seven week and seven lesson series on marginalized groups in America, these groups include- Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Women, Arab Americans, and Children. Lessons will take place the last two months of school, once we reach the 1960’s in American history. This is in an effort to have students realize that there is not merely one group that has seen racism, discrimination, and a near destruction of their culture. The following lesson will be on Native American portion of the unit. The goal of this lesson is for students to understand that each period from colonization to self- determination had causes of historical context and can still be felt today by many Native Americans.
The author Vincent Ruggiero defines critical thinking in his book Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking, as a “search for answers, a quest.” It is the idea that one does not accept claims, ideas, and arguments blindly, but questions and researches these things before making a decision on them. From what I learned in class, critical thinking is the concept of accepting that there are other people and cultures in this world that may have different opinions. It is being able to react rationally to these different opinions.
Morgan, H. (2009). What every teacher needs to know to teach Native American students. Multicultural Education, 16(4), 10-12.
Empathy is used to create change in the world by reaching out to the emotions of people and attending to them. It is used to help others learn and decide on matters that would not be reasonable without feelings attached to them. Empathy helps bring together communities that would have long ago drifted apart, but instead welcomed all who were different. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This attribute of human-beings really allows us to not only attend to situations as if they were our own, but it allows us to feel most of what others feel because humans are very much alike in some ways. In many of the articles and novels that we have read this quarter, characters from different pieces of context have portrayed empathy whether it was toward
Empathy’s emotional nature tempts us to pass it off as a fixed concept. Just as emotions tend to elicit a consistent response, such as tears in response to sorrow, we often categorize empathy as having particular unwavering benefits and downfalls. Empathy’s benefits lie in its connective abilities, but its short duration is often its undoing. Yet the history of humanitarianism implies that empathy is not as steadfast as its stereotype. In early Western history, pain was seen as “a pathway to spiritual enlightenment,” thus inciting little empathy from its witnesses (Hutchinson). Then, upon the emergence of modern medicine, pain became an option rather than a requirement of life, and thus the culture that had once responded to pain with apathy began to show empathy (Hutchinson). Societal expectations clearly mitigate empathetic responses to some extent, which means changing these expectations could revitalize modern humanitarian efforts. Of course, the transformation that Hutchinson refers to took place over
Empathy means “the ability to understand and share the feelings of others” (Miriam- Webster dictionary). Empathy requires that we recognize that other people feel very differently than others and it requires that the pain they feel exists in other people even if we don’t understand why (Pg. 393). Empathy is society’s ability to understand the anger and hurt that is caused by racism. Some examples of empathy can be looked at when we think back to the Travon Martin case. Many white mothers felt empathy towards not only Trayvon’s mother but all African American mothers once the news was announced that the shooter walked free. Many people felt the anger and pain that his parents felt because they have children of their own and understood that his
Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000. 167-186. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secon Ogawa, Brian K. Color of Justice: Culturally Sensitive Treatment of Minority Crime Victims. Allen and Bacon: Needham Heights, MA, 1999. Saleh Hanna, Viviane.
The importance of having a curriculum that accommodates diverse learners, it allows the child to learn at their own level or ability. A child with emotional and intellectual challenges may not have the verbal or comprehension skills or the ability to control their body as their peers. With this in mind, classes with diverse learners can excel with an adjusted curriculum. An activity for example, using large Legos to teach the entire class their colors or numbers can help the intellectual challenge by asking to build a building by using on certain colors or amounts. By doing this activity the students can have fun and learn at the same time with using very little words. Also in a group activity the emoti...
Social Psychology and examining empathy. Steadily watching the Sam Richards: A radical experiment in empathy where he explain his reasoning on empathy in the Middle East. He starts by doing an analogy; what if a hundred years ago China had been the most powerful nation in the world and they came to the United States in search of coal, and they found it, and, in fact, they found lots of it right here. And pretty soon, they began shipping that coal, ton by ton, rail car by rail car, boatload by boatload, back to China and elsewhere around the world. And they got fabulously wealthy in doing so. And they built beautiful cities all powered on that coal. And back here in the United States, we saw economic despair, deprivation. (Smith, 2010)