Multicultural Education 2014

Emily Crispell

Multicultural Education

Final Field Paper

May 8, 2014

Understanding Identity and the Latino Diaspora in Middle School

            One of my post-undergrad dreams is to find a way back to France, a country in which I had the opportunity to study abroad junior year. I figured that teaching English would be a way to gain experience in a classroom, keep myself immersed in French culture, and have the chance to explore other parts of Europe as well. Gaining an understanding about the White-Savior Industrial Complex, though, had me questioning my initial desires of wanting to teach English abroad. Did I want to teach abroad with the mentality of “helping” and “making a difference”? Did I subconsciously crave this opportunity as a way to please my ego? How might my own privileges as an American impact my pedagogy in the classroom, and relationship with the community? How would they differ if I were not a woman of color? These kinds of questions inspired my inquiry project into the implications and experiences of Americans teaching abroad.

BlackinAsia and English as a Tool of Imposition

Exploring Multiple and Intersecting Identities:

Themes and Suggestions for Action

Hummingbird, Kma, and Cece Lee

Introduction

            In Spring 2013, students working with Professors Jody Cohen and Alison Cook-Sather began facilitating focus groups to explore the way Bryn Mawr was supporting and could better support its increasingly diverse student population. This semester the three co-writers of this paper joined those facilitating focus groups as fellow student facilitators. While the groups were originally focused on the experiences of international students, we’ve broadened them this semester to look at all students on campus and their varied identities – acknowledging that even domestically we have a very diverse student population and that all members of our community face different challenges because of the way they identify themselves and feel perceived by others.

Project Based Learning and its Implications in a Multicultural Mathematics Classroom

When I was a junior in high school, I was placed into AP Calculus. On the first day of classes, I came to that particular class to find that my favorite math teacher, Mr. Best[i], was the instructor for this years AP class. He began the class explaining that we will be preparing for the AP examination in June, as well as preparing a final exit project. He went on to explain that we would be having two assessments: a midterm and a final, as well as this project. Our grade would consist of the two exam grades as well as the project grade, attendance, participation and homework completeness. He began to give us examples of projects that students completed in the past, and told us that literally anything is “fair game” as long as you’re able to describe it using mathematics.

            In David Nurenberg’s article “What Does Injustice Have to do With Me? A Pedagogy of the Privileged” the educator discusses his experience being raised in the upper middle class, while being knowledgeable about the hardships his Jewish family members encountered. He discusses his own accounts of harassment growing up, and brings readers into his struggle of teaching suburban white privileged students multicultural education and social justice education. “I specifically wanted to work with a suburban population, with the young people who would grow up into the college roommates and friends I had known and who had frustrated me… I felt I could act as some sort of bridge between the worlds to which my parents had exposed me to, and the one that produced the CEO’s and policy makers who I believed unwittingly perpetuated this unfair system.” (Nurenberg 53) This paper will act as spokes around this quote and highlight other figures who share this ideology and act as ‘bridges’ in the context of white consumers of Hip Hop industry, and what multicultural education can do for the white, privileged, and impressionable.

Teaching in Prison: Challenging Preconceived Notions