I would like to extend the discussion begun by Melanie Hahn and continued
by Jaime Phillip Munoz and Esteban Diaz and others about the complexity of
teaching multiculturalism or diversity. I would like to introduce the
example of teaching in a labor education context, as compared to a school
context.
A few weeks ago I collaborated on the design of a class to be taught to
union members (telephone company employees, nurses, electrical workers,
mostly white of European ancestry) during a several-day union education
conference held in Iowa. The name of the class was "Anti-racisim." The
class was to be an hour and a half long. It was to have 1 teacher, and
there would be about 100 participants in the class. The assumption about
the class was that people would not know much history and especially not
know much about race relations -- that is, that they would subscribe the
current popular claim that affirmative action has succeeded and race is no
longer a problem.
There existed a lesson plan that had been taught in similar conferences in
past years. This plan consisted primarily of a list of facts about race
relations in the workplace in the United States -- for example, that Asians
had been excluded from certain unions; that women made up most of the
workforce, that the leadership of the Chicago packinghouse workers was
primarily black. etc. There were facts about individual people ("the first
African American to...) as well as about alliances across racial groups.
The idea was that the people taking the class would post these facts up on
the wall in chronological order and get the order wrong, leading to
discussion, etc.
The instructors were dissatisfied with this exercise because its main
purpose was to confront the class with how little they knew -- to shame
them. (I note what George Cunningham said: "The standard technique of
trying to teach classroom of white students that they should be ashamed of
who they are because of the color of their skin is not going to work.")
The instructors felt that this was not a good teaching strategy. So they
wanted to redesign this exercise so that it still taught anti-racism but
didn't depend on merely confronting the class of white, middle-aged workers
(who live in the heartland of America and have relatively little
opportunity to meet people of other races) with their ignorance and
isolation.
But how do you do this? There has to be something else to learn -- not just
shame. Here is what we did. We expanded the list of facts, drawing them
from the last 200 years of labor history. Then we planned to distribute
packs of 8 or 9 facts to the 12 tables that would have about 8 people at
each table. On the back of each "fact" -- each one was on a separate piece
of paper -- was a small number that the participants wouldn't notice until
later. Their first task was to decide which facts they thought were true
and which ones were false. They did this as a group -- each table, talking
out loud. They also had to write down WHY they thought a particular fact
was true or false. When they were done (this took about 15 minutes) each
table was asked to put its true facts up on one wall and its false facts up
on the other wall. Then the instructor asked everyone to take a look at
the "false" facts. Now, actually, all the facts were true. What was
important was not whether participants KNEW whether facts were true or
false, but WHY they thought something couldn't have possibly happened.
The instructor asked for these reasons and listed them as they came up. It
turned out, as we had hoped, that the main misconceptions that people had
about racism were 1) that it was a thing of the past and 2) organizing
attempts that cut across racial groups were a recent phenomenon. In other
words, people found it hard to believe that racial discrimination was a
current, serious problem, AND they found it hard to believe that as far
back as the 1800's and earlier there were cross-racial group organizing
efforts that were sucessful and effective.
Once these two dominant myths about racism had been identified, the
participants were told that ALL the facts were true. Then one by one they
placed the facts in actual chronological order, using the small numbers on
the back of the sheets of paper, all on one wall. This gave them a quickie
overview of the history of race relations in labor (not the point of the
class, but a possible chance to learn.)
Now it happens, not accidentally, that historical periods during which
there was significant cross-racial group solidarity correspond with periods
during which good contracts were negotiated, good benefits, good wages,
good working conditions etc. were achieved. Where there were historical
clusters of cross-racial solidarity, there were labor successes. When
alliances and coalitions fell apart, labor lost. The instructor walked
down the wall of "facts" and pointed this out. That was the lesson -- not
shame at ignorance or privilege, but "here's what you have to do if you
want to succeed."
Xmca'ers will notice the difference between teaching in a labor education
context and a school context. It's not just the lack of grading, the heavy
emphasis on group process. It's also that the labor education context makes
its politics explicit. In the case of this topic, the lesson drawn is
about power and access to resources. The ethic, however, is collective
--"we" can do it -- not individual. Is this also true of language
acquisition? I guess it depends. But what if the choices -- the politics
of collective benefit, and the politics of individual mobility -- were made
explicit?
Thanks for your time and attention --
Helena Worthen
Helena Worthen
821 Dearborn Street
Iowa City, IA 52240
319-337-4639
worthen who-is-at soli.inav.net