Do you remember the days when you would come back to school from Spring Break and your teacher would have you write an essay telling about what you did during the break? I usually spent my days reading books and hanging out with friends, so I never really understood why I had to write about it- it seemed mundane to me. After spring break this year, I finally "get it;" we can learn as much from what other people do as we can from what we do. I, like several other students at Oregon State University, spent my spring break taking a class during which we interviewed many people who are critical to education in the state of Oregon. When we started out, there were 23 individuals (20 students and 3 "teachers"). After many hours of introductory activities and an intriguing lesson in listening, we started to merge into a single being; a group interested in how to prepare ourselves to enter the multi-cultural entity that is the world we live in.
Here, I present for you
a short photo-enhanced journey through our class adventure.
The first day of interviews,
we spoke to Senator Cliff Trow, Dr. Cal Henry, and Anthony Veliz.
Since we were all a team, we took turns "facilitating" the various speakers.
Basically, this meant making each speaker feel at ease while being in the
"spotlight" in front of the class. The speakers knew the topics we
were interested in, but not the actual questions that would be asked.
Luckily, Mr. Veliz was the person for whom Stuart and I facilitated.
He had so much information that my brain was (and still is) in a whirl.
The passion with which he spoke to us was so intense that I didn't want
him to stop talking. Unfortunately, we were scheduled to spend just an
hour with each speaker, so the time flew by.
If I had to sum up what Mr. Veliz said in just a few words, I think
a quote from him does it best:
"Silence does not mean acceptance."
Students may be scared to talk, especially if they don't understand
the language or the culture very well. More importantly, some cultures
encourage silence in the presence of certain people. As a future
educator, this tells me that I need to be sensitive and aware of cultural
differences. Going a step further, I need to show my students that
I care about them- and I can show them this by talking to them and encouraging
them to succeed. By not talking to students, we can not show them
that we accept them.
On Tuesday, we spoke to Willie Richardson, an advocate for schools; Judy Bryant, a principal in a Portland elementary school; Larry McMurray, Salem-Keizer school superintendent; Marshall Haskins, Self-Enhancement; and Carolyn Leonard and Geoffrey Brooks, teachers from Portland. This group addressed the issues of community support for education and some of the problems that are faced by educators in schools in low SES areas.
The group we met with on Wednesday was probably the most revealing to me, because we met with people who are not trained educators. These people- migrant workers and their children- echoed the sentiments we got from the other speakers. This is significant because it shows that the "ideal" supersedes the education system.
On Thursday, we met with a local bilingual teacher, Jan Byers; the OSU education reform coordinator, Robert Robson; and a journalist from the Gazette Times. This provided us with the opportunity to understand the university's role in multicultural education, especially where CIM/CAM are concerned, as well as a media perspective on this important issue. We were also able to compare the experiences of bilingual teachers from predominantly non-White schools (Independence and Woodburn) with those of a bilingual teacher in a predominantly White school (Corvallis).
Finally, on Friday, we met with Dr. Ataa Akyeampong, who works with EOP on campus. Her insights on programs that are available to students gave us an excellent closure to the week's activities. That is, we had heard throughout the week what some of the problems are, and Ataa gave us hope for the future. For more information on EOP, check out this link: http://osu.orst.edu/dept/eop/index.html
At the end of the week, when we gave our class presentation, we came
up with 4 major themes that our speakers kept echoing. We used these
themes to create a puzzle in the shape of Oregon, with each puzzle piece
representing one theme.
Okay, so the state is backwards. At least you can see what it's supposed to be! :)
This was just a quick journey of the many things we learned during
our class. I hope that between the webpages my cohorts put together
and this page, you will have learned as much as we have. Unfortunately,
I don't think I would have learned as much as I did had I not been an active
participant. The good news is, Dr. Plaza has similar course offerings
scheduled for future terms. I hope that you will feel compelled to
participate in one of his courses.
Here are some more webpages that you might find interesting- I know I got a lot out of them, and will probably continue to visit them as I discover more about myself and cross-cultural education.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/education/CMMR/ This goes to USC's Center for Multilingual Multicultural Research. There are a lot of informational tidbits and links to ideas critical to cross-cultural education.
http://www.iamme.com/ Another valuable website- I haven't actually become a member yet, but the bit of information I got sounds like this is a worthy website to check out.
http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/multicultural/
This last website that I'm including is chock full of information.
There are teacher information links, activity links, and a discussion board.
I highly recommend using this website to get involved in the multi-cultural
issues that our world is facing on a daily basis.
