May 15, 2015 - 02:02
David White
Multicultural Education
When I enrolled in Multicultural Education, my one major thought was that “hopefully this class will teach me how to interact with (and subsequently teach) a diverse group of individuals.” I saw multicultural in the title and I immediately thought we were going be told how to teach other students who were different than us. I was so naive.
Let me first say that I am very happy that our class was not a lecture from you, Jody Cohen, on how you thought we should all be teaching diverse students. First of all that would be counter intuitive to the whole idea of education as an art rather than a science, but it would also go against one of the key tenets of multicultural education. We as students all had different experiences and ideas to share with the group, and by structuring our class so that we could explore each other’s thoughts and musings, I found I learned a whole lot more about interacting with a diverse group of individuals, more than I think I would have learned had our class been a lecture.
My ambition is to teach after college, and this course was a fantastic pre-teaching college course. I’ve learned more about dialogical learning, about how to facilitate crisis in a classroom so that everyone can feel that they are being heard and their voice is a part of the conversation, and about the idea that educators must meet their students where they are and then work from there. These ideas will hopefully help guide me as I continue my path towards an educator.
One of the hardest things about this course was admitting that I didn’t know as much about education and teaching as I thought I would. I can’t give any concrete examples, but there were many times when I would listen to my classmates talk about a different situation, or a different idea that I hadn’t thought of, and I would (1) blow my mind, but (2) remind me that I still have a lot to learn, and that frustrated me at first. I guess I came in thinking that I knew a lot and this class would not only teach me more, but would also reinforce my knowledge. Realizing that I had just touched the tip of an enormous iceberg of educational knowledge and ideas was frustrating, however this did not mean that I didn’t enjoy my classes.
This class made me appreciate my classmates so much more than any other class I’ve taken. Sitting and listening to what my classmates had to say was so captivating and interesting that sometimes I would forget that I too could jump in and offer some sort of comment or ask a question. I would yearn sometimes to hear how certain individuals would respond to a specific question or prompt because I knew that whatever they would say would be extremely well articulated and well thought out.
My inquiry project for this semester has further complexified my ideas surrounding multicultural education. I struggled, and probably will continue to struggle, with the notion that if I disagree with something, say a certain form of sex education, do I still teach it? How can I be true to my students if I am teaching something that I myself find false? How can I bridge the gap between what I want to teach, and what I am allowed to teach? These are all questions that I have leaving this class.
I will end with how I think I performed overall in the class. I must say, towards the end of the course, probably the last handful of classes, I felt that I was participating less and less. I’m not sure if this was because I didn’t have anything to say, or maybe I was just tired as the semester was wrapping up and cricket was just entering into our final tournament. It wasn’t that I wasn’t finding the conversations interesting and mentally engaging, I guess I didn’t have much to say for those last couple of classes. However I think for the rest of the course I was an active participant and contributed to class discussions. I enjoyed many of the small group discussions we had where I got to talk to my peers about my ideas and listen to them on a more intimate level. I also loved any chance we go to do barometers, the sheets of paper on the walls, or fishbowl discussions.
Thank you so much Jody for all you’ve done with the class, and I look forward to taking other education classes in the future, both with you and with other professors.
Thanks,
David (Dwhite) White