Rethinking Our Classrooms

1 The text “Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice” (Bigelow 1994) offers a well planned and structured framework for introducing social justice and social action into elementary school classrooms. One of the overlying themes of this text is toincrease teacher awareness of the need to address and evaluate the biases and stereotypes portrayed in the curriculum we present in our classrooms across America. From the primary years of preschool and kindergarten, children become avid fans of fairy tales from The Three Pigs to Cinderella. These are seemingly well-intentioned stories to entertain children and increase their interest in learning to read, but, upon further inspection, there are clear underlying biases even in these classic simple writings. For instance, in all of the early Disney stories, there is always a helpless female being whisked away and rescued by her “knight in shining armor,” giving the underlying message that women are the weaker and more dependent gender who need men to rescue them and support them. The story of The Three Pigs, on the other hand, introduces a perhaps less evident but equally profound bias: that of societal class systems. The ‘brick’ home was the only one that withstood the huffing and puffing of the wolf, and the story alludes to the fact that the only reason the third little pig survived was because he was more educated and successful, and lived in the brick house. In contrast, his perhaps lazier and less affluent counterparts took the easy and cheap way out, building their houses of stick and straw, and therefore not “succeeding” in escaping the wolf! The opportunities for engaging students in learning about and addressing such biases in their curriculum are endless, and must be approached, according to Bigelow, by “untracking” our classrooms; that is, exchanging the classic “read, complete a worksheet, memorize, test and move on” method for simulation and response.

2 Throughout the history of education in America, there has been a notable lack of reflective dialogue as a method of presenting, discovering and learning curricula. Teachers have, for ages, depended upon text books and teacher manuals as the sole source of learning for their students. This somewhat “auto pilot” method of delivering the messages intended for our children is simply not enough. According to Bigelow (1994), “Unfortunately, a lack of reflective dialogue is all too common in American schools. Less than 1% of instructional time in high school is devoted to discussion that requires some kind of response involving reasoning or an opinion from the students. A similar atmosphere dominates all too many elementary classrooms, where worksheets and mindless tasks fill up children’s time. A teacher cannot build a community of learners unless the voices and lives of the students are an integral part of the curriculum” (p.30). Affording students opportunities to become part of their learning, as well as the content they are learning is essential for the material to have meaning, and for the concepts to become part of who they are as citizens. It is not our job as educators to create robots, storing factual data and information that can be spewed forth at will, to work in the progressive and rapidly increasing multicultural industries of our nation and our world. Instead, we have to embrace and encourage their input and analysis of the historical events they are learning about in their formative years. The word “formative” itself should be our clue as to how we are to educate our children. To define formative is to say “to mold, shape, fashion or develop.” Educational philosophers such as Piaget have confirmed that children’s cognitive development is largely dependent upon their

3 being actively engaged in their learning. Their development, according to Piaget, is dependent upon their experiences and the misconceptions formed as they grow and learn. If we continue to educate using only the stories in our history books, largely composed with deliberate omissions and biased representations, then we are molding, shaping and forming the same biased and incomplete understandings in the minds of our students. Bigelow presents us instead with workshop models for presenting curricula that encourage students to express their interpretations and reactions to stories and events, such as slavery and oppression. It does not undermine the importance of teaching factual data, but rather emphasizes the need for personal application and reflection on the part of the students, guided by the teacher, through group discussion, discovery, and simulations of stories in the texts. For example, poetry analyzed by students from more than one point of view allows them to consider the feelings and viewpoints of more than one person or culture. The use of “Honeybees” by Paul Fleischman (Bigelow 1994, p. 42) is written from both the viewpoint of the worker bee and the queen bee. One set of students examines and analyzes the poem from the viewpoint of the worker bee, while the other group analyzes the poem from the queen’s viewpoint. Following the analysis the teacher would implement a discussion and introduce the analogy between the worker bee and the working class citizen, and the queen bee and the corporate CEO or business owner. Prior to or following this discussion, students may role play the different positions and act out the viewpoints as expressed in the poetry, and then give their reflections as to how they would feel in these different situations, and perhaps which position is more comfortable or familiar to them, and which is less. They might also make connections with people they know that fall into one or the other category. This formative type of

4 learning creates not only more meaning but better retention, and most importantly, the atmosphere of belonging for all of the students who participate. Using current media issues and students’ personal problems and situations is presented as another highly effective means of teaching social studies and social justice. Taking current events to a higher level by not only having the students collect and summarize, but also enact and write and speak about their reactions to these events is a very powerful method of instruction. Most importantly, students must be allowed to react in truth and express their viewpoints without criticism or the premise of being considered wrong if their views conflict with popular media views or the majority of those around them. In Affirming Diversity (Nieto 1996) we learn of the importance of embracing the differences in one another and our cultures. To affirm this diversity and truly explore and develop our students’ understanding of it, an approach such as this must be used in our classrooms. Not only is it not enough to recognize multicultural holidays and celebrations, but most of those carry with them their own set of stereotypes which we need to teach our students to avoid. Nieto addresses that we must do more than have an additive approach to our curriculum, and Bigelow takes this teaching to the next level in pointing out the many flaws in additive methods. As early as kindergarten, for centuries, we have taught stereotypes to our students by being culturally ignorant as educators. Bigelow uses the example of the reenactment of Thanksgiving that we present in elementary schools all over our country, year after year. The children wear headbands with a single feather protruding from them, tap their mouths, chanting and say “How!”

5 This certainly does a grave injustice in affirming the diversity of the native American. In fact, it is a stereotypical insult to their heritage! In this practice, we are leading our students to believe that this is the accepted dress and behavior of native Americans. We neglect to teach them about the oppression and torture that the native Americans suffered at the hands of the white settlers. We do not delve into their deep culture to learn the meaning behind their music, their dress, their ‘rights of passage’ or any of their cultural beliefs and practices. This is because we emphasize instead the gracious and generous efforts of the white ‘pilgrims’ under the pretense that they were responsible for bringing a peaceful land agreement with the natives. Bigelow has, instead, created with the help of several editors, ideas for using workshop models, simulations, discussion, media and face to face visits within the community to teach not only the traditional biased and one sided facets of social studies, but to engage students in the workings of social justice, to formulate advocates for change as we allow the exploration of all sides, and the individual and group reactions and reflections to the issues. Examination of hidden messages in everything from textbook stories to television advertisements, opportunities to evaluate poverty and the inequity of wealth in America, as well as my personal favorite, looking at “expectations of at-risk children” is the purpose and promise of this text. According to Bigelow (1994), “I remain unconvinced that the explanation for the low performance of culturally different “minority” group students will be found by pursuing questions of cognitive and learning styles. I believe that he children, no matter what their style are failing primarily because of systematic

6 inequities in

the delivery of whatever pedagogical approach the teachers claim

to master…not because students cannot learn from teachers whose styles do not match their own” ( p. 127). For too many years, we have written off minority student achievement to poor innate ability, lack of background knowledge, or the students’ inability to learn from teachers of a different ethnic background than their own. In fact, as Bigelow points out, we must adopt instead the truism that it is the delivery and not the ability that is the problem! When presented by Eurocentric and Anglo-centric stories and events, there is little for the student of a diverse population to relate to or find meaning in. When we attempt to tell students what they must believe and accept, rather than engage them in the process of evaluating and reacting to events, we not only stifle their ability to formulate their learning, we also stifle their self-efficacy and their perceived value as human beings within their own culture. We also minimize the value of their culture on a global scale and thereby suppress and minimize their own view of the culture which they are a part of. We are conveying to them that they should envy and conform to the values and systems of the culture being promoted in their curriculum, regardless of the sacrifice of their own identity.

7 References: Bigelow, B., Christensen, L., Karp, S., Miner, B. & Peterson, B. (1994). Rethinking our classrooms: teaching for equity and justice. Rethinking Schools Publications. Nieto, S. (1996). Affirming diversity: the sociopolitical context of multicultural education. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon Publications.