Curtis, A.C. (Jan -Feb 1998). Creating culturally responsive curriculum:
Making race matter. The Clearing House, 71, 135 - 140.
I chose to read the following article because I was looking for information
on how to develop a multicultural curriculum beyond the content contribution
stage. A. Cheryl Curtis shows through her own stories and others'
work that multicultural education and social change are linked together.
A. Cheryl Curtis, a teacher trainer at Hartford College uses a personal
narrative as a way to address racial and cultural issues in her classes.
As an African American woman on a predominantly white male campus, she
faces white privilege everyday. Curtis applauds Banks's approach to responsible
curriculum development. Curtis also mentions Peggy McIntosh's work (1989)
for having European Americans look at themselves and their position as
privileged.
This article is a personal one that shares some intimate struggles
and frustrations the author and other African Americans experience. The
information is easily transferable to other oppressed cultures. It is an
excellent article that is challenging in its bluntness.
Questions:
1. Do you believe that there is a place for single sex/ segregated
schools in our society today?
2. Do you think that the best way to learn about other cultures
is to have representatives from those cultures do the teaching? Is this
the only way?
3. Can education be multicultural without demanding social change
or is this a natural outcome?
4. Banks presents his five steps of multicultural curriculum
integration. Are there parallel steps for unlearning biases?
5. As oppressed groups struggle for more understanding, it is
the tendency for the people within the group to bond together in their
struggle. How can multicultural leaders that evolve within such a group
share their information and power without feeling like they are having
to give up one culture for another?
Submitted by David Anderson
Return
to Annotated Bibliography Page