Equity, Diversity, and Design Principles
I am currently teaching two classes at Pacific Ridge School that focus on topics that lend themselves to equity and diversity issues in the classroom. I teach a 10th grade history class which covers content like imperialism in Africa and the 20th century European holocaust. The other class that I teach is called Post-Colonial Africa and it also deals with the sensitive issues of race, and how they continue to affect the continent and its people.
An equity moment developed in my class recently when our Post-Colonial Africa class discussed recent political and social issues in Zimbabwe. I lectured to the class on how the country came to be known as Zimbabwe and how it moved from white minority rule in 1980 to the ZANU PF Mugabe present day government. Most students listened diligently to how the Bush-War affected both black and white people living in the country. The class then engaged in a really interesting conversation on this topic. I did notice that one white student in the class; Philip seemed very interested in the atrocities committed during the Bush War. I asked him at the end of class why this interested him so much. He did not directly answer me, but he did ask if he could do a presentation on some of the major battles that had been fought during the war at our next class meeting. Philip is not the hardest working student in the class and he had never before volunteered to teach anything to the class. I said to him that it would be great if he were to present to the class and we decided that he would present a brief 5 minute account of some of the important battles in the war. At our next class meeting Philip arrived early and set up his computer to use during the presentation. The students filed in and Philip started his presentation with some fairly graphic images of black Zimbabwean independence fighters who had been killed by the Selous Scouts. The Scouts were an entirely white commando unit that operated during the war. The rest of the presentation consisted of Philip touting the white Rhodesian forces as being vastly superior to the black freedom fighters. Most of the class did not seem to notice that Philip was acting inappropriately but by the end of the presentation the feel amongst most class members was that Philip had overstepped the mark, and that he was beginning to sound racist. After the presentation I asked Philip why he had focused so much on the white Rhodesian soldiers and their achievements in the war and I mentioned that he might have offended some people in the class. He said that he was not being racist but that he was only pointing out the facts of the conflict. I felt that the conversation was going nowhere and that I had failed to seize the opportunity to teach a student about being compassionate and tolerant of all races when Philip said, “nobody in the class was offended, I asked”. I looked up from the papers on my desk and asked him if he had asked me if I had been offended. Without skipping a beat Philip said “but you’re a white African why would you be offended?” I really did not know how to respond, and in hindsight I should have sat him down and lectured to him on how things have changed in southern Africa since the war and that he was not only being racist in his presentation, but that he was now making unfair stereotypes about a part of the world he had never visited. I did explained to Philip that although he was probably correct with his figures with regards to soldier performance during the bush war, he needed to be more sensitive to the way in which he delivers his findings to an audience whenever he is presenting subject matter that could be potentially offensive to some people. Philip said that he understood this and that he was sorry for offending me.
I am going to be lecturing to the class next week on how white Zimbabweans were negatively affected during the 2000 land redistribution act and I think that this might be a choice opportunity to ask Philip to redeem himself by presenting this topic to the class in a more sensitive way.
I recently became involved in an equity issue with colleagues at my work site. This was an entirely new experience for me, but it was an event that could make a difference in one person’s life.
Our staff had a development day recently where we were divided into groups to discuss various issues that were scheduled to arise at our school over the upcoming year. I elected to sit in on a talk from a colleague on the POCC (People of Color Conference) which our school will be hosting in December at the San Diego Convention Center. After the presentation I elected to speak at the conference on education in South Africa which was not something that I had initially planned to do. The rest of the meeting was based around our head of school talking to us about diversity in schools and if our school was measuring up to the expectations that parents and board members had for our enrollment of students of color. The head of school said that it was difficult to attract students of color due to the fact that the students feel like they would not be well represented at the school. The head of school mentioned that our school has a 100% scholarship fund available for one student of color who lives in the area. I was astounded to hear that in the 3 years that our school has been doing business, the scholarship fund has not been used. Basically, the school has been unable to find a family that is interested in the offer! I mentioned that I might know of a family that has a daughter that is entering the 9th grade who might be interested. The girl in question is the daughter of Rudy, a man who arrived in a crew of workers to do work on a fence that I had erected around my property. I really enjoyed speaking to Rudy over the course of the 3 days that the work was being completed, and he has done other work on my house since then. It was during one of these jobs that Rudy brought his then 11 year old daughter Maria to help him work. I was very impressed with her and how hard she worked and I asked Maria about her schooling. She told me that she was a very diligent student and that she loved school.
I mentioned Maria to our head of school at the above mentioned meeting, and told her about Rudy and the rest of the family. Our head of school said that she would be interested in interviewing her for the scholarship. I spoke to Rudy about this and he is very interested in visiting the school with Maria to see if it might be a good fit for her.
Growing up in South Africa during apartheid subjected me to lots of negative propaganda towards people of color. I feel like I am over that part of my life and want to use the experiences that I had to help students and teachers better understand issues of diversity and equity in education. The two above examples have taught me that although I think I have a lot to say about racism and equity, I can learn just as much from listening to others. I learned a lot from Philip and how although he was clearly being racially insensitive, he did not necessarily realize it at the time. I also learned from our head of school that Latino families living in San Diego think that the integration of schools is not necessarily going to benefit their children.
Equity moment
Having been schooled in South Africa I have faced many “equity moments” as a student and resident in that country. Coming to the US as an adult I expected to encounter issues of racism and intolerance and felt that I would be ready for them if they occurred. What I was not prepared for were issues of sexuality. In my 2nd year as a teacher at a school in Escondido I noticed that a particular girl in my class was made to feel inferior every time she said anything in class. Most of the girls in her 10th grade class would give her nasty looks and make deep shying sounds whenever she said anything in class. I, being naive did not realize that it was because she was gay. The issue intensified when one of the girls in class made a comment during a classroom discussion that I could not ignore. I asked the girl who had made the comment to see me after class and she basically said that the other students could not tolerate the behavior of their classmate because she was gay. I asked the female student if she disliked her classmate purely because she was gay. She responded that it was not because she was gay that made her disliked, but that “she behaved like all lesbians”. When I asked her to describe the behavior, she seemed unable to do so. It was obvious to me that somebody was being unfairly discriminated against due to her sexuality, but I had not the faintest idea of how to deal with the situation. The school and community where I taught were quite conservative and I did not feel comfortable speaking about the situation with the school administration. I met with the girl who was facing the discrimination and I basically decided to try and protect her from the others in the class. I decided that I would validate her reasonable opinions as soon as she said them, before others could shoot them down. The situation was not helped by the fact that most of the class had a different political outlook. Basically, by the end of a very trying school year, I feel like I failed the girl who was facing the discrimination, I failed the class, and importantly missed an opportunity to have a series of conversations with the class about equality and fairness. In hindsight I should have treated the situation very differently and that by avoiding conflict I caused the entire class to think negatively of me. I also failed hopelessly to aid the girl how was facing the discrimination, and missed a series of powerful teacher able moments. Although I see this as an enlightening experience, depressingly I am not sure how I would do it differently in the future. Equity in my classroom is vital to ensure optimum student learning but I feel not prepared to deal with all types of discrimination in the classroom.
An equity moment developed in my class recently when our Post-Colonial Africa class discussed recent political and social issues in Zimbabwe. I lectured to the class on how the country came to be known as Zimbabwe and how it moved from white minority rule in 1980 to the ZANU PF Mugabe present day government. Most students listened diligently to how the Bush-War affected both black and white people living in the country. The class then engaged in a really interesting conversation on this topic. I did notice that one white student in the class; Philip seemed very interested in the atrocities committed during the Bush War. I asked him at the end of class why this interested him so much. He did not directly answer me, but he did ask if he could do a presentation on some of the major battles that had been fought during the war at our next class meeting. Philip is not the hardest working student in the class and he had never before volunteered to teach anything to the class. I said to him that it would be great if he were to present to the class and we decided that he would present a brief 5 minute account of some of the important battles in the war. At our next class meeting Philip arrived early and set up his computer to use during the presentation. The students filed in and Philip started his presentation with some fairly graphic images of black Zimbabwean independence fighters who had been killed by the Selous Scouts. The Scouts were an entirely white commando unit that operated during the war. The rest of the presentation consisted of Philip touting the white Rhodesian forces as being vastly superior to the black freedom fighters. Most of the class did not seem to notice that Philip was acting inappropriately but by the end of the presentation the feel amongst most class members was that Philip had overstepped the mark, and that he was beginning to sound racist. After the presentation I asked Philip why he had focused so much on the white Rhodesian soldiers and their achievements in the war and I mentioned that he might have offended some people in the class. He said that he was not being racist but that he was only pointing out the facts of the conflict. I felt that the conversation was going nowhere and that I had failed to seize the opportunity to teach a student about being compassionate and tolerant of all races when Philip said, “nobody in the class was offended, I asked”. I looked up from the papers on my desk and asked him if he had asked me if I had been offended. Without skipping a beat Philip said “but you’re a white African why would you be offended?” I really did not know how to respond, and in hindsight I should have sat him down and lectured to him on how things have changed in southern Africa since the war and that he was not only being racist in his presentation, but that he was now making unfair stereotypes about a part of the world he had never visited. I did explained to Philip that although he was probably correct with his figures with regards to soldier performance during the bush war, he needed to be more sensitive to the way in which he delivers his findings to an audience whenever he is presenting subject matter that could be potentially offensive to some people. Philip said that he understood this and that he was sorry for offending me.
I am going to be lecturing to the class next week on how white Zimbabweans were negatively affected during the 2000 land redistribution act and I think that this might be a choice opportunity to ask Philip to redeem himself by presenting this topic to the class in a more sensitive way.
I recently became involved in an equity issue with colleagues at my work site. This was an entirely new experience for me, but it was an event that could make a difference in one person’s life.
Our staff had a development day recently where we were divided into groups to discuss various issues that were scheduled to arise at our school over the upcoming year. I elected to sit in on a talk from a colleague on the POCC (People of Color Conference) which our school will be hosting in December at the San Diego Convention Center. After the presentation I elected to speak at the conference on education in South Africa which was not something that I had initially planned to do. The rest of the meeting was based around our head of school talking to us about diversity in schools and if our school was measuring up to the expectations that parents and board members had for our enrollment of students of color. The head of school said that it was difficult to attract students of color due to the fact that the students feel like they would not be well represented at the school. The head of school mentioned that our school has a 100% scholarship fund available for one student of color who lives in the area. I was astounded to hear that in the 3 years that our school has been doing business, the scholarship fund has not been used. Basically, the school has been unable to find a family that is interested in the offer! I mentioned that I might know of a family that has a daughter that is entering the 9th grade who might be interested. The girl in question is the daughter of Rudy, a man who arrived in a crew of workers to do work on a fence that I had erected around my property. I really enjoyed speaking to Rudy over the course of the 3 days that the work was being completed, and he has done other work on my house since then. It was during one of these jobs that Rudy brought his then 11 year old daughter Maria to help him work. I was very impressed with her and how hard she worked and I asked Maria about her schooling. She told me that she was a very diligent student and that she loved school.
I mentioned Maria to our head of school at the above mentioned meeting, and told her about Rudy and the rest of the family. Our head of school said that she would be interested in interviewing her for the scholarship. I spoke to Rudy about this and he is very interested in visiting the school with Maria to see if it might be a good fit for her.
Growing up in South Africa during apartheid subjected me to lots of negative propaganda towards people of color. I feel like I am over that part of my life and want to use the experiences that I had to help students and teachers better understand issues of diversity and equity in education. The two above examples have taught me that although I think I have a lot to say about racism and equity, I can learn just as much from listening to others. I learned a lot from Philip and how although he was clearly being racially insensitive, he did not necessarily realize it at the time. I also learned from our head of school that Latino families living in San Diego think that the integration of schools is not necessarily going to benefit their children.
Equity moment
Having been schooled in South Africa I have faced many “equity moments” as a student and resident in that country. Coming to the US as an adult I expected to encounter issues of racism and intolerance and felt that I would be ready for them if they occurred. What I was not prepared for were issues of sexuality. In my 2nd year as a teacher at a school in Escondido I noticed that a particular girl in my class was made to feel inferior every time she said anything in class. Most of the girls in her 10th grade class would give her nasty looks and make deep shying sounds whenever she said anything in class. I, being naive did not realize that it was because she was gay. The issue intensified when one of the girls in class made a comment during a classroom discussion that I could not ignore. I asked the girl who had made the comment to see me after class and she basically said that the other students could not tolerate the behavior of their classmate because she was gay. I asked the female student if she disliked her classmate purely because she was gay. She responded that it was not because she was gay that made her disliked, but that “she behaved like all lesbians”. When I asked her to describe the behavior, she seemed unable to do so. It was obvious to me that somebody was being unfairly discriminated against due to her sexuality, but I had not the faintest idea of how to deal with the situation. The school and community where I taught were quite conservative and I did not feel comfortable speaking about the situation with the school administration. I met with the girl who was facing the discrimination and I basically decided to try and protect her from the others in the class. I decided that I would validate her reasonable opinions as soon as she said them, before others could shoot them down. The situation was not helped by the fact that most of the class had a different political outlook. Basically, by the end of a very trying school year, I feel like I failed the girl who was facing the discrimination, I failed the class, and importantly missed an opportunity to have a series of conversations with the class about equality and fairness. In hindsight I should have treated the situation very differently and that by avoiding conflict I caused the entire class to think negatively of me. I also failed hopelessly to aid the girl how was facing the discrimination, and missed a series of powerful teacher able moments. Although I see this as an enlightening experience, depressingly I am not sure how I would do it differently in the future. Equity in my classroom is vital to ensure optimum student learning but I feel not prepared to deal with all types of discrimination in the classroom.