Culture And Inclusion Reflective Essay #2 - Reidy 3o2f4

Running head: CULTURE AND EDUCATION - LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD

Culture and Education – Looking Back, Looking Forward Virginia Reidy 2-6-16 Culture and Inclusion, Reflection #2 Alderson

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Based on class discussions, readings in and outside of class, the self-examination tools provided, and your professional experience as an educator, reflect on your own beliefs, perspectives and values related to culture and education. Please use your own classroom as a reference point. Have your perspectives changed? Why? What will you do as a result? Share your ideas. Growing up in a suburb of New York City, I experienced cultural diversity right from the start. The sacrifices and hardships that of my family just two generations above me endured to give me a “better life” were instilled in me early on. My grandparents told stories about the “old country” (Italy) and the excitement, hope and heartbreak of coming to the United States. One story that still amazes me is of how my grandmother, at around age 10, took the train across the U.S. from N.Y. to California with her Italian-only speaking mother to help negotiate with California grape growers to purchase the fruit for their own wine-making “business” in Long Island. Unable to reach an agreement on fresh grapes, my grandmother negotiated the purchase of a half-car load (train car) of raisins. The deal sealed, they traveled home with their precious cargo and learned how to make raisin rum!

From these stories and from first-hand personal experience (this same grandmother along with my grandfather had a tomato garden so large an entire house was built on the property later on), I learned very distinct boundaries about what was “right” and what was “wrong”, how people should be treated, and how to take care of my family. If someone was new, you welcomed that person. If someone needed help, you gave it. If someone was hungry, you made a meal. If they were cold, you clothed them. It was that clear.

My own home growing up was a bustling household of children (there were six of us), aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and many friends from all walks of life. My father, a teacher and

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coach, had an insatiable need to help others and life was filled with students, parents, and other teachers in and out of our house for dinner, discussions and paperwork. He loved nothing more than to help a student, who may otherwise not be ed, get into college, and better yet, get a scholarship. He knew people at colleges all over the country that trusted his judgment. His football teams were “no-cut” and frequently won state championships. At one point, when our family moved to “upstate N.Y.”, this brash Long Islander’s teaching and coaching methods were so progressive, we were eventually drummed out of town, leaving students and parents reeling from the loss. My mother, a first grade educator, was constantly providing for needs of the poor children in her class and school. She would call local businesses for paper, pencils and warm clothes, talk to neighbors for donations and give away anything we could do without. I being taught a healthy distrust for the istration as “not having the best interest of children at heart.” My mother said she would quietly listen, then do her own thing. Her classroom was “project-based” and “inclusive” before those were ! Having grown up disadvantaged, my parents could not fathom any child being without what they needed, no matter where they came from.

This family history and upbringing have certainly shaped my own views on culture and education. I would like to think that I view all people with the same open heart and mind as my parents, and that my classroom is warm and inviting to everyone. However, with all the reading we have been doing, I am now questioning if, in the culturally diverse environment in which we live, am I doing enough? Or am I operating more from a vantage point of the “culture of power” and don’t realize it? Cris Cullinan’s article, Vision, Privilege and the Limits of Tolerance, has caused me to consider who I am as a person, citizen and teacher more deeply. She challenges us

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to live an “examined life”: acting consciously to examine how we think about, how we hear, and how we act toward others”, when we are part of the “dominant culture” in which innocence, worthiness and competence are presumed. One area of her article that especially gave me pause was when she was describing why we should not dismiss the past because the “view looks different when you are up above the fray, looking down at the valley” (Cullinan 1999). She gives some examples of horrific historical events, such as legally recognized slavery and the Jewish holocaust, which she implores us not to forget as past history. I was reading along agreeing from my perch above the fray when something she wrote stopped me cold. Cullinan recalls “a couple of years ago,” “as in the case of the murder of two lesbian partners in Southern Oregon” (Cullinan 1999).Wait. That. Hit. Home. I tumbled from my perch as my stomach lurched and I thought of my young-adult daughter, a lesbian and her partner. I full well realize how much of our own country view their relationship and the risks and dangers they face. I can claim a small piece of the tip of one of the “large, dangerous, and present icebergs” (Cullinan 1999).

The biggest shift in my thinking so far has to do with the difference between “acculturation” and “assimilation” as described by García in his book, Student Cultural Diversity, Understanding and Meeting the Challenge, and from examples in Delpit’s book, Other People’s Children and Geneva Gay’s article, The Importance of Multicultural Education. In all three readings, the authors stress the importance of understanding, honoring, celebrating and including students’ culture in the entire education process versus “helping” them to “adjust” and “adopt” new customs. In reference to teachers who are skeptical about implementing multicultural education, Gay says, “A fallacy underlies these conceptions and the instructional behaviors they generate; the perception of multicultural education as separate content that educators must append to

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existing curriculums as separate lessons, units or courses. Quite the contrary is true. Multicultural education is more than content; it includes policy, learning climate, instructional delivery, leadership and evaluation” (Gay, 2003). When I think about my role as an educator of kindergarten and first grade learners, I think the first steps towards becoming a truly multicultural classroom will be to examine the “learning climate”. What ways can I create a climate to help all students access the curriculum? Knowing my students deeply will move me in the right direction. More than just accepting whom I have before me, active learning about their families, customs and traditions will give me insights to how I can create the inclusive climate that s all students learning.

Most days I go about my teaching concerned with the day’s lessons, the off-task child, the staff meeting, etc., and don’t stop to ponder the enormity of the responsibility of educating children. A couple of years ago I discovered that I had been mispronouncing the name of an Indian father whose child was in my class for a whole year! When I discovered my error, I apologized to him and asked him why he hadn’t corrected me. He said, “Because you are ‘teacher’, and I would rather have you have a different name for me than correct you.” Sources Cullinan, C. (1999). Vision, privilege, and the limits of tolerance. http://www.eastern.edu/publications/emme Delpit, L. D. (1995). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: New Press. García, E. E., & García, E. E. (1999). Student cultural diversity: Understanding and meeting the challenge. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gay, G. (2003). The importance of multicultural education. Educational Leadership

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