Janie Ward's research paper on racial identity was a very interesting read for me. Coming from small town Iowa I have not really been faced with too many schools in which race could be a dividing factor. This article did a great job of showing me how young black people, specificially females identify themselves and how this affects their behavior at school. Some schools try to focus on the individual, this makes sense to me. Sure alot of people may be a minority, but each students individual experience with the world is how they will contect to the material and ultimately learn. Now this is not to say that it isnt important to respect and understand minority cultures, a teacher needs this knowledge about their students, but ultimately the biggest gains will come when you connect with the individual, not their group. This article also showed me how people with multiple "other" characteristics handle their unique situation. Being a female and a black person did not inhibit these girls from anything, it gave them a sense of uniqueness and the desire to show people a "positive racial identity." This article will help me as a teacher when I encounter unique students like the girls in this study.
I was wondering....
How can we make sure that we know all of the cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities that are students are?
Is it our responsiblity to get this out of students, or should the school provide us with this information?
These are good questions to be raised, I also came from a small school. Since the majority of my classmates were also whites, it made the minority truly a minority. My school tried to spice up cultural diversity in subtle ways. Trying to create ethnic pride within our schools could be a doubled edged sword. I feel very lucky that I came out of my school without any racist thoughts (many rural schools aren't exposed to other races; thus, the kids become bigots so these rural schools especially need some sort of culture diversity. They are isolated to the outside world for the majority of the early childhood. So I think this is where it needs to start, or at least a large focus of effort should be focused. Rural schools need culture ex poser in order to function in the real world.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who also came from a small school, I have seen what happens when a school does not educate their students about the various identities of students. Four years before I attended the school, the school district redrew their boundaries and as a result they gain more students who were of different backgrounds. Before this there were less than 1% minority population and after this it became about 5%, which is still a small number however, their was a lot of fights and ethnic/racial slurs the minority students experienced inside and around the community. Therefore, in response to your question, I would say that as an educator is our responsibility but I would also include the school and community because xenophobia doesn't stop after the student leaves the school.
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