maria pairitz's
community of teachers portfolio
x. multicultural understanding
evidence
Multicultural understanding is an imperative skill for any citizen participating in our democracy, but it is especially important for teachers because in order to impart positive attitudes towards those with cultural differences to future generations of citizens, we must affirm its value in our classrooms. The evidence I have collected demonstrate my commitment to promoting multicultural understanding in my own classroom.
The evidence I have compiled includes my blog and field reports from my experience teaching abroad through Global Gateway for Teachers, my Fairview Elementary Field Experience, relevant texts, my ENL Service Learning Reflection Journal, my Pedagogic Creed, a reading response to diversity and civic education, certificate of Cultural Competence, a curriculum presentation, my CoT Lead Raised By poem activity, my current event for CoT, and journal excerpts.
These experiences have allowed me to communicate more effectively with students of diverse backgrounds and have helped me to recognize my own cultural misunderstandings. These experiences have helped me develop tenets I will enact in my own teaching including creating a safe classroom community, strengthening cultural and intercultural awareness, developing positive self image, and encouraging critical thinking. In developing multicultural understanding, I have become a better teacher because I am able to effectively communicate with my students, I am challenging my students to look beyond their own understandings of the world, and I am creating a classroom community that affirms and values cultural diversity.
I believe, with the evidence I have compiled, that I have achieved ready to teach for this expectation. I have demonstrated not only my ability to promote multicultural understanding in my own classroom, but my willingness to go the extra mile to gain as much experience as I can working with multicultural students.
Global Gateway for Teachers
I participated in Global Gateway for Teachers as an additional, graduate-level practicum abroad. I was assigned to teach in Byron Bay of New South Wales, Australia. This program is unique in providing an immersive experience in which I was not a passive observer of a culture different from my own, but an active participant of that culture’s community and society.
As I was teaching students within an entirely different culture, I had to learn to tailor my instruction to culturally influenced learning styles and adapt to cultural conditions and values in the classroom and within community interactions. I kept a blog detailing my experiences in the community and school I lived in and some of the insights I've gained. I have also included my field reports which were completed each week during my time in Byron Bay along with a service learning project.
Being "the other" for the first time in my life has helped me develop the compassion and empathy needed for educators working with multicultural students. It has allowed me to develop a repertoire of instructional strategies and classroom management strategies when teaching students of different cultures.
Fairview Elementary School
Field Experience
Fairview Elementary was a very unique experience for me. Students from this school come from a disenfranchised community with a low socioeconomic status. There is a highly diverse population including white, Hispanic, and African American students. A significant portion of the students have parents who are divorced, in jail, or known drug/alcohol addicts. As I came from an upper, middle class community, working with these students and their experiences and culture was new to me. I knew that I needed to really connect the lessons to these students personal interests and experiences or else they would completely disconnect from class.
I started with an "I Aspire to Be" unit, drawing inspiration from a quote I heard at Octavia Spencer's talk at IU: "If they can see, they can aspire to be." So I had discussion with students about what it means to be a role model and what role models they had in their lives. Then they created a mixed media piece depicting who they aspired to be. During the "I Aspire to Be" unit, I noticed a ton of students talking about or playing with Pokemon cards. As a past Pokemon fanatic, I decided to exploit their interest instead of suppressing it. I created the next sculpture unit on designing and building a new, unique Pokemon. They absolutely loved it!
Classroom management was an issue. Students from this area grew up in a culture that values sticking up for yourself and yelling or fighting to do so. I had to adjust my instruction to culturally influenced behaviors. Instead of yelling back at the students thus challenging them to stick up for themselves, I would often joke or give them attitude when they were misbehaving. They found it funny the teacher was being sassy or giving attitude so they would stop right away. I just knew I had to stay firm and consistent because these kids have a lot of inconsistency in their lives.
Relevant Texts
The two majors texts I have read dealing with diversity in the classroom have helped me to reflect on ways I hope to make my class a community for students to express themselves, to develop multicultural understanding, and to create change. Key ideas I took from these readings that contribute to building this type of classroom community include myself as a teacher being open with and interested in my students, encouraging and valuing student contribution, and getting students involved in the community at large. Enacting these values in my classroom will also free individuals from discrimination, at least for a period of time, that they may face outside of my class. Making my classroom a space free of discrimination though may change the behaviors of my students in their daily lives that may make the community at large less discriminatory.
The last texts I have included shifted my understanding of several different cultures. Part of my philosophy of education is that true learning can only occur when a rift is discovered between what you know and reality. Reading is one of the most powerful ways of immersing yourself into another person's or culture's experience and realizing that every human experience is unique but universal simultaneously. The experiences I read about in these books are universal in the sense that I can empathize, at a human level, with their lives and emotional struggles even though the circumstances and events are things I may never experience in my life. I believe art has the same capacity, just communicated in a different way. So while I can't necessarily ask my students to read "The Color of Water" for an art class, I can incorporate excerpts or short articles that can inspire a project. Art is also extremely personal, so by incorporating your identity into a piece, when we come together as a class, we can appreciate and understand each other's identities. I will encourage my students to read these texts outside of class though because they are life changing.
Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Castaneda, C., Hackman, H. W., Peters, M. L. & Zuniga, X. (Eds.). (2013). Readings for diversity and social justice. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-99140-7
This text contains a mix of short essays created to challenge students to affirm diversity and racial justice. These readings helped push my boundaries and understand that I wasn't always as empathetic or aware of social injustices that occur on a daily basis as I believed myself to be. I could see myself using some of these essays to instigate artistic responses for a project.
Sadowski, Michael (Ed.). (2010). Adolescents at school: Perspectives on youth, identity, and education. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press. ISBN: 978-1-891792-94-6
This book provides a look into the the complexity of identity in adolescents as they manage the challenges of school, and offers educators ways to foster success in every student. This book is a huge resource that I could use in my own classroom because there are essays written by students that I feel would be accessible for my own students to read. I could also incorporate this into my own understanding and empathy for adolescents that may be experiencing their teens much differently than I experienced and possibly be better prepared to help students navigate issues of identity.
McBride, James. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. 10th Anniversary edition. Penguin Group, 2006. ISBN 978-1594481925
In this autobiography and memoir McBride depicts the conflicting emotions that he endured as he struggled to discover who he truly was, as his mother narrates the hardships she overcame as a white, Jewish woman who married a black man in the 1940's. As a story of the development of identity concerning race, religion, and economic status, from early childhood on, I was reminded that we all struggle with these issues growing up. It also gets the reader to question what race really is and what it means to the individual and society. It reminded me of all the progress we've made but how much further we have to come. Reflection Paper
Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis. 10th Anniversary edition. Large Print Pr, 2017. ISBN 9781432840006
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck.
Our service learning portion of M300 was completed at Binford Elementary with students part of MCCSC's after school ENL program. The purpose was to increase the service of SOE students in the Bloomington community, to develop a sense of service & civic engagement in preservice teachers, and to meet an identified community need. We kept a journal to record and reflect on our experiences with our student. I had a great time with my ENL students. I learned a lot about different lifestyles and perspectives. Maybe my own school will have an ENL program after school that I can volunteer for and encourage my own students to get involved with.
This is a reading response I wrote regarding a reading by Meira Levinson called "Diversity and Civic Education." In it, I reflect about my stance on diversity in education and actions I would take as a future teacher to support and advocate diversity in the classroom. A link to the reading can be found here. Reflecting on readings about diversity in education helps me to recognize my own progress and areas that I lack in terms of multicultural understanding. I will continue to reflect on readings that challenge my preconceptions and misunderstandings about multicultural groups so I may be a better educator for my students.
The goal of this project was to explain how a substantial piece of curriculum reflects ideals of multicultural education. We had to consider how various voices and ideas are presented and represented, whether certain groups and individuals are excluded (who ought to be included). We analyzed if this was textbook we would want to use in our classrooms or how we would supplement it. This exercise helped me to realize every textbook is biased and that bringing materials into the class from one source is not sufficient. My students need to be exposed to multiple viewpoints. In my own teaching I will continue to critically examine the resources I expose my students to and always supplement them with opposing views so my students can come to a conclusion on their own.
My final assignment for M300 was a paper that reflected on the readings, discussions, experiences, and ideas connected to the course and to use those to craft my“Pedagogic Creed.” It needed to address the commitments, beliefs, values, attitudes, and dispositions concerning diversity that I hoped to carry forward into my career as an educator. The statement that I think is the most important in my paper is that, "I believe that a teacher’s commitment to pluralism and multicultural education should not be contingent on the diversity, or lack thereof, in the classroom." This embodies my commitment to developing multicultural understanding in my students. I will refer back to this writing to reflect and improve these base ideas I have about education and try to enact them in my own teaching.
This was a three part seminar, hosted by the school of education, that helped education students develop cultural competency in the classroom. The first seminar focused on personal identity, the second focused on investigating the world, and the third focused on recognizing perspectives. Taking the initiative to attend this seminar demonstrates that I am willing to expand my world view and learn new methods of promoting multicultural understanding in my own classroom. I will continue to seek out professional development opportunities concerning working with multicultural students so I can continue to develop a better classroom community that values diversity.
I led an activity for seminar that allowed students opportunities to:
-develop classroom community.
-understand how your personal cultural beliefs are influenced by your upbringing.
- connect with others in ways you may not previously have known.
-develop a sense of pride and ownership of your culture.
These poems were inspired by Kelly Norman Ellis' "Raised by Women" poem. They are low pressure as they are a kind of free-flow poetry with repeating stanzas. In the future, I would like to start an art lesson with this poem activity and then have students create a response to their poems be it collage, drawing, painting or anything really.
For my first time leading the current event portion of seminar, I decided to take the opportunity to bring the Dakota Access Pipeline to light in the midst of a media blackout. We discussed how visual culture permeates native american protests to connect it to my subject matter, but we also had a chance to openly discuss environmental discrimination and social injustice done to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. I believe using current events like this helps students recognize that discrimination is still happening today, it's not just a thing of the past, and to prompt them to critically engage in raising awareness for those who are frequently targeted. I will continue using current examples of social injustice towards minority groups as points of entry for students to develop empathy and compassion for fellow human beings.
Journal Excerpts
We also played the name game where you say your name and a food or animal that starts with the same letter and then have to repeat everyones names around the circle. Again, the class wasn't super responsive, but I just kept pushing through some of the awkwardness. It was funny though because apparently a girl in an earlier period told her friend that takes the class in a later period that she'd have a lot of fun in class today! So just goes to show that my efforts weren't all for naught. My one issue with the name game is that students always got stuck on students with more unconventional names or names of different cultures. It made me feel bad that that student might have felt like everyone forgot their name or grossly mispronounced it. I might be looking for some other name game.
Fishers was on spring break so I didn't have my mentorship. I did, however, have a really unpleasant experience at Fairview Elementary during my field experience this week. I've been going to Fairview for the past five weeks, so at this point I know the students and understand the general atmosphere in our art room. This past week, I was having them work on creating a foil sculpture of a Pokemon they created. One student, T., made a knife from the foil and began to chase his friend around the room. The friend was obviously not in danger because it was foil, but I ended it right when it started. My cooperating teacher witnessed this too, and he's the type to brush stuff off to the point where I feel he's too lackadaisical (making threats but never following through, never reprimanding kids for very rude before, etc.) Anyway, I go over to T. and asked if he remembered when I said that everyone needed to follow the rules and work with the materials appropriately or else they would not get to continue participating in the project. And he was like "no!" and I said, well I did, and I've repeated it multiple times, so I think you're going to have to sit out for the rest of class. I didn't want to do it, but these kids literally have no repercussions so I thought I was doing a good thing. He runs to the corner tearing up, which is hard for me because he acts really tough. So I walk over to him and sit on the ground with him and ask if he understood why it was inappropriate to make a knife out of the foil and then chase his friend and he nodded. Then I asked if he could behave would he like a second chance. Then he said, "I just can't do it, so I don't want to!" At this point I realized that he probably made a knife because he didn't feel confident creating the Pokemon, so he made something he knew he would be successful at instead of failing at something new....or he was just being a kid, who knows. So I said I would be willing to help him get started and he nodded okay. As I went to go get his supplies to bring them to him, I turned and see the resource officer standing behind me. My teacher had called the resource officer on this kid. At this point I was so furious I wanted to cry. This teacher had literally escalated the situation WAY more than it needed to be. Luckily the resource officer did not take him down to the officer, but I could see T. no longer wanted to engage in class. I have never thought so low of another teacher before. Can't wait for this field experience to be over with.
Anyway, thought it was a valuable experience in knowing exactly what not to do when a student is misbehaving in my room. Sure, if the fake knife had been something that could actually hurt the other student, that would call for harsher punishment, but it was foil and they are in third grade, they will do stupid things.