Literature Response 2 "Classroom"

When I think about the set-up of this course, I couldn't help but think about how culture was put before classroom. It was very important for us to learn about culture more in-depth before we started to think about classroom. If we didn't think about culture in the making of our classroom, we won't be able to accurately build a classroom that is influenced and prepared for all different cultures. I have a few things that jumped out at me though that I want to try and tackle in this blog.

The first was a thought by Ogbu where he talks about multicultural education and how most multicultural education approaches that are in place don't really hold the students accountable. He says "One reason is that multicultural education generally ignores the minority students' own responsibility for their academic performance." (Ogbu, pg. 6) I had to sit back when I read this and think about why this meant so much to me. I like to think that I am taking a multicultural approach to my classroom this fall when I am going to start teaching for the first time. I look back at my student teaching though and I start to think that I didn't do the thing Ogbu says I should have been doing. I had a hard time keeping the students responsible for their own work. I think I did this with all students, but I can remember specifically doing this with a certain few minority students that I "thought" I knew. I took the time to go around and hang out with the students in their community. I wanted to get to know who they were and where they came from. I saw the home life for some of the students and started talking to parents, and stopped putting the accountability on the students when I learned more about them and their difficulties. I was doing wrong by the students though. Instead of holding them accountable for their own work and making them better, I was allowing them to get away with doing no work simply because of their minority status and what I "thought" I knew about them. These students started to fall off the grid in terms of their grades. I dug a little deeper and started to realize that their were cultural influences that were hurting classroom performance. I found that these students were bothered by their friends and family telling them that they were "acting White". This is something that Noguera brings up in his book quite often. He talks a lot about how academic performance in the classroom is hurt by the teacher not developing a culture within the classroom where these minority students can break the mold of what their peers think and become academically successful. Ogbu also states "There are also psychological pressures against "acting White" that are just as effective in discouraging involuntary minority students from striving for academic success." (Ogbu, pg. 10) When you have the outside pressures of culture that many of these students are experiencing influences their classroom performance, it becomes part of the teachers job to change that culture and develop a classroom where "acting White" becomes "acting like a student." What I needed to realize was that I was hurting these kids by not developing a classroom with a lot of cultural importance and a classroom in which all children were being held accountable regardless of their situation. If I could have done this, I think I would have built a stronger multicultural approach and avoided the downfalls that Ogbu discussed. In doing this I would have also helped break the mold of "acting White" as an excuse to not doing work like Ogbu and Noguera discuss.

I had two other major thoughts that I wanted to talk about. The first is religion and the second is LGBTQ issues in the classroom. Religion is very important to our society. We can look back over the years and see that the foundations of many cultures come from their religious beliefs. The problem in the classroom is that we often times depict religion in an improper manner. Banks and Banks does a 10-15 page section in Chapter 6 of their book about the shortcomings of religious information and understanding in classrooms and schools, and how these shortcomings can be addressed. One of the main issues was the treatment of religion in history textbooks. Banks and Banks state that "One study characterized the general treatment of religion in history textbooks as brief and simplistic at best, exclusionary at worst." (Banks and Banks, pg. 204) Religion is a major factor in most of our lives as I stated earlier. Textbooks need to be more culturally responsive to religion and not teach practice, but rather teach about the history of the religion itself. It doesn't have to be something that is simplistic. It can be an in-depth look at religion. The major factor that we must take into account is making sure we don't preach the religion through the text, but that we teach our students about the religion and the history of that religion. We also must make sure that we are recognizing all forms of religion and not just one or two. Instead of pointing out major holidays for the Catholic faith and allowing kids to have excused absences on those days, we need to look at many different religions and respect the holidays/events that will cause those students who practice said religions to miss school as well and consider those to be excused absences. I want to leave this section with part of a chart found in Banks and Banks chapter 6 that talks about the natural inclusion of religion into the classroom. I want to include this because I feel it addresses the curriculum and classroom expectations of teachers perfectly in terms of how to handle and address religion.

• Content related to religion should be presented within a historical and cultural context. 
• Only content essential to understanding the history and culture of people and events should be taught. Academic requirements should be used to determine which religions are included and what is discussed.
• Teachers should explain why specific religious influences and themes have been selected for inclusion in their study of history and culture.
• Teachers also need to make students aware of the diversity of opinion that exists within as well as across religions. (Banks and Banks, pg. 223)

The last thing I want to talk about is the LGBTQ issues that are surrounding classrooms and schools today. This is an issue that so many kids are terrified to talk about. I should include teachers and administrators in that sentence as well considering most of them also feel extremely uncomfortable talking about this subject with students. The school I student taught at and will be teaching at this fall has a program in place for middle school kids who identify with one or more of LGBTQ. This is something that threw me off guard at first since it is in a middle school and I come from a very conservative background in educational settings. I realized after a few weeks that it was the coolest damn thing I had seen for middle school kids. We have all heard of middle school, high school, and even college aged students killing themselves because they were being tormented by others or their own thoughts surrounding their place in society. My school is offering a welcoming environment for these kids and it isn't just for those students who are LGBTQ. Anyone can go to the club meetings and anyone can learn. It's an amazing thing and it is something that made me realize how little discrimination was present in my school towards this specific community. It has allowed for acceptance. This group does something that is talked about in detail by Blackburn and Clark. This group often did readings and used talk, yes TALK, to get everything out there in the open to help get rid of homophobia in this school and in the classrooms. Blackburn and Clark state "Unsurprisingly, we used talk to combat homophobia within LGBT-inclusive discourse. A significant amount of our talk together around the texts worked to accomplish this. As a group of LGTQ and ally youths and adults, we came together with a shared commitment to fighting homophobia, and our literature discussion group, to some extent, was a form of and forum for this work." (Blackburn and Clark, pg. 231) The key word in this quote is "unsurprisingly." Talking is something that we do everyday and it is something that is very simple to do. Why don't we do it then? We don't feel comfortable all of the time talking about the topic is one of the main reasons. Building groups and organizations that are willing to just talk and combat issues head on will help to create a strong and positive environment in which all people are accepted in the classroom, especially LGBTQ students who have struggled throughout history to be accepted.
 If you want to have strong schools and strong classrooms, you first have to understand the different aspects of culture that make the students in your classrooms who they are. You then have to find ways to adapt your classroom so that it is a safe environment for all. You must make the effort to learn about all different types of people and you must make the effort to make your classroom welcoming to their needs. It could be as simple as keeping a supply on hand that you know a certain cultural group likes or it could be as complex as building a club to help represent LGBTQ students. Either way, structuring your school and classroom is a difficult process that takes time and requires study and understanding of culture.