In reading this final chapter I kept thinking that as teachers we are in the business of service. We are servants to our community and to our students. When I reflect on that I think it means that we need to be willing to take the extra time and energy to go the extra mile. I think I was thinking like an assimilationist when I started to read this book and didn't even realize it. I grew up and though of America as a melting pot and then there was a global studies class in high school where we learned about other countries, but more in a political and historical sense.
When it comes right down to it the best way to serve students with bi-culturalism as their way of life is to not ignore it. Mrs. Starr thought ignoring it would just magically lead to assimilation and things would work out. What we saw was two children with a lot of potential, end up struggling because they had to live a dual life. They potential sucess as readers and learners was being damaged. Their self-images and their ability to learn through social interacts were non-existant.
So to best serve all your students you can't ignore differences. Teaching about the differences means that young learners can see that different is not wrong, it's just different and we can appreciate what is different.
I am lucky that the classroom I am observing in has already had a Mexican Festival day as many of the students are Latino and there is one class that speaks only Spanish. All the students in that school got to play games, sing songs and eat food from Mexico. And I got to see how much they enjoyed it.
Even if the first step you can make is to not ignore the cultures that are in your classroom...you are already making a difference! Reduced drop out rates, being literacy learning, potentially ingraining students at an early age to embrace diversity...these are all worhwhile reasons to break out of an assimilationist way and teach children about diversity. We are to enter classrooms of all types shapes and sizes and we are becoming a smaller world by the minute so global awareness seems just a normal as having computers in Kindergarten classes to me.
Imagine if all you learned and did in school was so opposite to you, so foreign. Would you feel like you, your life, your family ways must be wrong somehow?
I think that message gets sent to kids whether we realize we are sending it or not.
What do you think?
I think you're right about the messages getting sent to children. When I reflect on my views of the world, most of it was never actually said to me by my parents/teachers/etc. but was developed by things I've heard and observed even to the point that I don't always agree with my parents views.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally when I did my internship in the social work office of an elementary school, it was discussed that some of the children would come in and they may emit an odor that was less than pleasant and that we had to be careful about our reaction to things like that, because while children may not consciously pick up on it, they would pick up it subconsciously.
Also, recently I've been reading studies about teachers being told things about certain students and at the end of the year, those students either did really well or rather poorly depending on what the teacher was told about them, because the teacher then subconsciously starting treating the child differently.
So yes children get messages from adults all the time whether we mean to send them or not.
Susan
I don't think that it makes the children feel they are wrong, but it does, to me, make them choose between the two. Often times when choosing between the two cultures, home wins out and school suffers. This will, to me, make a child with a world of potential give up. I think though, as educators, we also need to recognize the cultural differences among different ethnic groups in our country, as you mentioned. By the school your working at being aware of the vast amount of Latino students in your school, Mexican or not, it made them feel welcome and gives them the potential to grow. Very encouraging
ReplyDeleteGreat discussion! I agree that in reading this book, my own stance was illuminated and perhaps I was unwittingly veering towards an assimilationist perspective. The focus was on the melting pot, and on the stew that was created therein. However, I don't want to overcorrect my stance and refocus in the opposite direction. While appreciating multiculturalism is what is needed to make an increasingly global classroom feel respected and valued, it does not do anyone justice to ignore the pot. The balance of appreciating and the singular value of all the ingredients (cultures, languages, backgrounds, ethnicities) and the collective value of the pot (how those cultures intertwine and make us all "American") is what I will try to aim towards. In a delicate balance, it will be a continual process of fine tuning, readjusting, reconsidering. Concerning this topic, our job will never be done.
ReplyDeleteApplicable quote pertaining to my response:
ReplyDeleteWe have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
-Jimmy Carter