History Revisted

Hillary Janks article on Domination, Access, Diversity and Design: a synthesis for critical literacy education made me think of multicultural education in the United States. As I understand it, there continues to be a struggle in the implementation of multicultural education curriculum in our public schools, and I think it is due to the domination of the "American Culture" aka as "white culture." It's also a question of access as Janks points out "If we provide students with access to dominant forms, this contributes to maintaining their dominance. If, on the other hand, we deny students access, we perpetuate their marginalization in a society that continues to recognize the value and importance of these forms (p.176)." I see this happening with the text books in U.S. public schools. There is really one side that is presented in text books, especially history books that perpetuate the domination of the white culture and only now are they trying to superficially speak to a more culturally diverse audience. I read this great book called Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. It really does a great job in pointing out the myriad of inaccuracies in the history text books we read in high school. More importantly he shows how historical conflicts can be connected to modern day life. Something that most text books fail at and instead neatly package and compartmentalize the information into neat chapters.

Multicultural education also is able to appeal to a more diverse student population naturally, but it has the design or redesign component that Janks speaks to as well. Unfortunately, academic politics continues to get in the way. I liked her quote on "Knowledge cannot advance without contestation and movement." For without a critical discourse, how can we hear other voices?

Tenure revisited

As I was reading Sumida and Meyer's article, T4=Teaching to the Fourth Power: Transformative Inquiry and the Stirring of Cultural Waters, I was reminded of a class discussion we recently had in my Multicultural and Global Education class. We talked about different types of racism, but primarily focused on institutional racism that perpetuates the dominant white culture in US schools. We find it everywhere from our textbooks to the posters that adorn the school hallways. From the beginning of their academic careers, children who don't fit the in the dominant culture are excluded and are expected to give up their own cultures unique history.

I liked how the article stressed the importance of teachers needing to think critically in order to teach students to become empowered. So much of what goes on in our classrooms is what Freire (1970) described as the "banking" concept of education,"in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits" (p. 72). There is little time or support for exploration of critical literacy when teachers are charged with raising test scores under the NCLB act.

I was reading in Feb. 24-March 2 issue of The Economist that NCLB is up for renewal this year. While there have been some improvements under this act, such as the closing of underachieving schools and allowing parents to be informed of their child's school status, this by no means make the NCLB act a success. The author of the article suggests that the best way to improve our schools is to abolish tenure, since it's mostly based on seniority. His rationale for this is that the bad teachers continue to be protected by the teacher unions and that meritocracy is overlooked. I know I have had tenured teachers who feel they don't have to go above and beyond the status quo. The teachers who do make the effort to go beyond the scripted curriculum are often not recognized, unless it is reflected in their test scores. But there seems to be little support for teachers to implement critical literacy or multicultural education when their jobs are contingent on test scores.

I know tenure is a very controversial topic, but it seems to me that the way it is awarded should be revisited. If our schools are to become truly inclusive of all cultures, there needs to be a dramatic institutional change. It can't just be about test scores, too many kids are being left behind! Lawmakers need to support our teachers who want to make a difference, for they have the power to transform our students from simply memorizing information to becoming active agents in our society.