JPS Friends,
In the hope that the following message will reach not only the sharpest
minds in the social sciences, but also that you will forward this to
others on your campus who would be interested, I'm passing along this
announcement of a website sponsored by the Association of American
Colleges and Universities, University of Maryland, and the Ford
Foundation. I'm the moderator. I would be delighted to see messages
posted from JPS members and in particular to see efforts to strengthen the
discussion of multiculturalism, diversity, and pedagogical issues by
showing links to Piaget. Thanks for your help.
Jack
>From a student: "You wouldn't believe how relieved I am that this
course is over. For the past month I've been totally offended and
disgusted at what we, as a class, were asked to read and learn. I
could sit at my desk for only so long reading that white people have
it better."
>From a teacher: "What is it that makes us--as professors,
academics, researchers--assume that the experiences or the
knowledge generated or acquired by certain groups as a result of
their marginalization can be easily acquired by somebody who does
not share that marginalized position."
Interested? This is only a sample of what is being discussed in the
Curriculum Transformation Workroom at
http://www.inform.umd.edu/diversityweb/WorkRooms/.
Please note the capital W and R on WorkRooms. Also, please note
that this is a NEW URL.
Complete instructions for participating in the Curriculum
Transformation Workroom appear at the end of this message.
CONVERSATION THREAD # 26--STUDENT OBJECTS TO
COURSE
A true story: Towards the end of the term, a student using the class
listserv sent this message by e-mail to the other students in the
course:
"You wouldn't believe how relieved I am that this course is over.
For the past month I've been totally offended and disgusted at what
we, as a class, were asked to read and learn. We were forced to
read and learn about Gates despising and literally hating
Caucasians, putting them down and criticizing their cooking,
appearance, hair texture, and even intellect and about Kozol
blaming racism and blaming whites for the way impoverished
schools are today. Someone else in our class said that her mother
taught her there were two things people just shouldn't talk about. I
remember one was religion and the other was race. I could sit at
my desk for only so long reading that white people have it better.
Why couldn't Kozol spend more time discussing what the parents of
these Black children should be doing to help their children and their
schools? Why blame race?"
The two books referred to are: (1) Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1993).
Colored People (a memoir about growing up in West Virginia in
the 50's and 60's) and (2) Jonathan Kozol (1992). Savage
Inequalities: Children in America's Schools.
Questions for discussion: Should the teacher respond to the
student? How? Should the teacher bring this message to the class
for discussion? What should be the teacher's goals for the class
discussion? Could the teacher have anticipated this student's
response? How? What might the teacher have done differently in
teaching these books? Does this student's reactions raise some
general issues about student resistance and about how we go about
introducing issues of race to our students? Can you suggest some
pedagogical resources (books, chapters, articles, guides) for this
teacher?
PLEASE DON'T RESPOND BY E-MAIL. INSTEAD, FOLLOW
THE INSTRUCTIONS AT THE END OF THIS MESSAGE AND
JOIN THE DISCUSSION IN THE CURRICULUM
TRANSFORMATION WORKROOM AT
http://www.inform.umd.edu/diversityweb/WorkRooms/
CONVERSATIONAL THREAD # 27--HOW MUCH
PREPARATION TO TEACH?
Scenario: A teacher, recognizing that there are several minority
XXX students in his or her class, has asked for suggestions for
books to add to the course in order to diversify the course content.
Here are four different reactions to the teacher's request:
(1) Is it a good form of teaching for teachers to add a book they
know nothing about, in order to get the right
racial/ethnic/gender/etc. representation in a course? When I
consider the many years it has taken me to acquire competence in
the area of XXX studies, the prospect of someone "diversifying"
their teaching by a quick suggestion makes me shudder. Good
teaching requires a great deal more than this, I should think.
(2) The notion that one can teach about things to which one has
devoted years of study doesn't square with my experience at a
research institution that focuses primarily on undergraduate
education. I assume that anyone teaching a book will do a good
deal of preparation, but "a good deal of preparation" might involve
considerably less than "many years." Indeed, more than half of
what I currently teach and write about is material I'd never HEARD
of, let alone studied, in college or graduate school.
(3) Many of us--those who teach in small institutions--certainly do
not have the luxury of teaching only our own "expertise" and
develop a variety of "areas of expertise" as we go along. What is
almost always the case is that the professor knows more than the
students, and can therefore help them to use a book which, prior to
the course, the professor was unfamiliar with as an educational tool.
So I think of requests for good titles in a particular area as asking
for suggestions for places to start the process of self-eduation, so
that we can transmit the knowledge to others.
(4) There are a few things that have been said that concern me a
great deal. First of all, there is the reason given for the original
request, the fact that the need for the material on XXX studies was
the result of a particular composition of the class. I cannot help but
wonder if a similar request would have been made if there were no
XXX in the class. It is so much easier to ignore people who are not
there. Second, the colonialist language used concerns me--the fact
that we can assume that the experiences or the knowledge
generated or acquired by certain groups as a result of their
marginalization can be easily acquired by somebody who does not
share that marginalized position. What is it that makes us believe
that we--as professors, academics, researchers--can actually know a
good deal more than the students when it was already said that this
particular class contained a number of "minority" XXX students?
Questions for discussion: How much does a teacher need to know
about a topic--and those whose backgrounds and experiences might
be different from that of the teacher--in order to responsibly teach
that topic? Suppose this conversation were taking place in a faculty
development seminar, and you were the moderator. What would
you say or do next? What are the underlying themes or issues or
dimensions that structure this discussion?
PLEASE DON'T RESPOND BY E-MAIL. INSTEAD, FOLLOW
THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW AND JOIN THE DISCUSSION
IN THE CURRICULUM TRANSFORMATION WORKROOM
AT http://www.inform.umd.edu/diversityweb/WorkRooms/
It's EASY to Participate
(1) "Open" or "Go" to the DiversityWeb location using this URL:
http://www.inform.umd.edu/diversityweb/WorkRooms/
PLEASE NOTE THE CAPITAL W AND R ON WORKROOMS
(WorkRooms). THIS IS A NEW URL.
(2) REGISTER once to become a member and gain access to all of
the workrooms. You will be asked to provide:
a UserID--Enter the name you will go by when you chat and post
messages in the workrooms.
your E-mail address
a Password--your choice of a password with 6 to 8 characters
Write down your UserID and Password so that you don't forget
these.
(3) VISIT any of the workrooms by clicking on the name of the
workroom.
Institutional Vision, Leadership, and Systemic Change
CURRICULUM TRANSFORMATION
Student Experience and Development
Affirmative Action
Read any of the messages or a series of messages (a conversational
"thread") by clicking on the titles of the message.
(4) To REPLY to a message that you have just read, look at the
bottom of the message for the "Add Message" button and click on
this button. A new screen and instructions will appear for adding a
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the "thread" and add your reply to that message.)
(5) To INITIATE a new conversational "thread" in a workroom,
look at the bottom of the main workroom page for the "Add
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The following are some more ADVANCED FEATURES of the
DiversityWeb Workrooms. It is NOT necessary to use these
features to participate in the workrooms, but knowing about these
can make your participation easier and more useful.
(6) Here are some hints for NAVIGATING around the workroom.
To read MORE messages (or replies) in the conversational thread
(or to read MORE conversational threads if you are at the end of a
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To skip the replies and jump to the NEXT message in the
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button at the bottom of the main workroom page.
(8) Would you like to change the WORKROOM SCREEN
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MESSAGE TEXT IMMEDIATELY without having to click on
a message title? If so, try clicking on the three INLINE buttons:
Inline 0 is the default. NO message text is shown until you click on
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Inline 1 shows the message text for the FIRST message in each
conversational thread. This can be a helpful setting as you
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Inline All shows the text of ALL the messages. This can be a
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How many LEVELS OF OUTLINE would you like to view on the
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Click on Outline 1 to show only the first level of numbered outline.
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Click on Outline -1 to delete a level of outline that is currently
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Click on Outline +1 to add a level of outline to what is currently
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If you see ellipsis (. . .) on the screen, this indicates that at
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on Outline +1.
(9) Who can register and participate in the DiversityWeb
Workrooms? ANYONE! PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COPY AND
DISTRIBUTE THIS MESSAGE WIDELY. In addition to
participating in the DiversityWeb Workrooms, you are welcome to
explore the many other features of DiversityWeb (Leader's Guide,
Campus Diversity Profiles, Diversity Digest--the quarterly
newsletter, and Diversity Newsroom) at
http://www.inform.umd.edu/diversityweb.