Per Gutierrez and Rogoff (2003), the intent of acknowledging and learning about various "Cultural Ways of Learning" should always be on helping to "ensure student learning" (p. 23). This is enlightening to my practice and will constitute what stays at the forefront of my mind in unit planning.
Their idea of keeping in mind "historical constellations of community practices" (p. 23) reminds me of the idea of Kumashiro's pluralistic ideals and Sumara's multiple layers of identity. Overgeneralization is an injustice done to students, and overcoming it requires action on the teacher's part. What it will mean for me is teaching with my whole self in the classroom. Drawing upon hooks again, my teaching will not be anyone's kind of holy or traditional, but will be with my students' best interests at heart. I will advocate for justice and expansive learning for all with every ounce of my being, starting with my own.
Ladson-Billings, in "But That's Just Good Teaching!" (1995) reported that the successful teachers of African American students, the most underserved in the US, consisted of a particular set of CRP characteristics that I aspire to. The characteristics include "philosophical and ideological underpinnings of their practice, i.e. how they thought about themselves as teachers, and how they thought about others, how they structured social relations... and how they conceived of knowledge" (p. 163). Like the teachers in Ladson-Billing's study, I believe that I identify strongly with teaching. I see it as a way of life, and I have always seen my life as an artistic creation - the way days and weeks and years build, the way experiences intertwine to shift and make me.
From my reading of Gutierrez and Rogoff, particularly since I am not a part of the African American community, I will not assume this to be true for all African American students, nor certainly all students of other cultural or ethnic backgrounds from myself. If any assumption is to be made, it will only be to assume never to overgeneralize.
I conclude that I am in the place that I should be, and that everything I need to learn, I will learn in good time, that "knowledge is continually recreated, recycled, and shared" (Ladson-Billings, p. 163).
Listen, Slowly; Akata Witch; The Crossover; American Born Chinese
I think each of the characters from the stories we've read this semester have exemplified the characteristics of culturally empowering ways of life. In one way or another, within the broader sociopolitical context, each accepted some aspect of his or her identity.
- Mai from Listen, Slowly comes to respect and honor her Vietnamese roots by empathizing with and taking part in her grandmother's trip back to Vietnam. Her willingness to be vulnerable and change her perspective from the beginning of the story to the end, and her desire to stay true to her cultural assets (family connections, language, etc.) are key constituents of CRT. Her "traveling" could be compared with a critical education.
- Jin from American Born Chinese, after too many micro-agressions to count, realizes his own self worth, or, "how good it is to be a monkey" (so to speak) from the wisdom from his guardian... monkey.
- Josh aka Filthy from The Crossover has to sacrifice an aspect of his pride for the sake of his brotherhood and his family.
- Sunny from Akata Witch, through discovering her magical powers, a newfound aspect of her identity, simultaneously discovers acceptance and pride in her multiple, layered identities.
It's my hope that in bringing in a new multliplicity of characters into the curriculum, students will learn much earlier on than I did how beautiful it is to live in a diverse community of people that respects all forms each others' identities take on.
Brittany,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post—actually both of your posts because I read the previous week's piece on Kumashiro as well. Especially in conversations outside of class—in those minutes around our evening romp with linguistics especially—you have given me some valuable perspectives that I really want to acknowledge. I have a tendency to combat and I want to learn from you a role of mediation that I think you do really well. That said, I don't want to ignore your strong critical voice (which I see at work at the end of the Kumashiro post concerning where are the non-Euro traditions in theory). Anger can seethe in me—particularly when I feel that some of the theory we are reading goes in absolutely the wrong direction—but I count on you to bring me back to thinking about praxis: students and actual practices that you want to implement, orientations and ways of being as a teacher and a human, a general ease with course readings that I may well take too much to heart. Many thanks.
Your second paragraph seems like a kind of Oath for teachers in general, and had me flashing back to girl scouts. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that we should be careful not to take any specific knowledge about the deficits faced by African American students as a given, because overgeneralizing ignored the individual that exists beyond outward identity, and the way identity is processed within the individual. I love the varied stories of characters within the texts we read, and how they learned to explore and come into their own identities.