Ken Cheney
EDMUL 205
Dr. Welsh
9/25/02
Equal Opportunity
School? Jamaican Me Laugh!
For a teacher, Rick Liston’s close-mindedness is shocking. His assumption that every eleventh-grade English class in the country can and should learn the exact same material is very close-minded. It is frightening that he was in charge of so many students and their futures, when taking into account his inability to be objective, as he demonstrated by believing that Jeff was on drugs, based on very circumstantial evidence. His lack of interest in his students’ problems, as demonstrated by his minimal efforts to help Jeff, is disgusting. Having relief at being rid of a “problem” instead of frustration for his inability to solve it is just sad. The worst part of this case study is that it was probably based on a true story that happens all the time in our country. White dominance is an important subject for any teacher to know.
Rick
was an example of the dominance paradigm before Jeff even stepped into
his classroom. Members of the
hegemonic group, such as Rick, use the educational system, through selectively
controlling the flow of information, to perpetuate their power. By teaching only works by “dead white guys”,
Rick was telling the students that literature created by minorities was
inferior, and not worth teaching. His
decisions are influenced by his white privilege. The case study states that Rick saw his students as having
problems at home that would prevent their success, but he chose to ignore their
problems. “Privilege
allows us not to know, not to see, and not to act.” Because Rick was privileged, he felt that his students’ problems
had nothing to do with him, and that it was unnecessary for him to attempt to
understand or help. He also
demonstrated the “phenomenal absolutism error”, which is
mistaking judgments for reality. He did
this when he became convinced that Jeff was using drugs based on his
colleague’s judgment, and when he assumed that Jeff would be no different than
the rest of his students, based on the color of his skin.
Rick
Liston is a racist, although not actively.
His lack of previous experience with minority groups set him up for a
big shock when, in his first year of teaching, he was assigned to teach a
predominantly black classroom. He then
entered the contact stage in the development of his white
racial identity. He failed to get
much farther than that, however. There
is no evidence that he ever questioned his beliefs about race. We are not told whether or not he ever felt
bad about his feelings about race prior to teaching, nor do we know whether he
reevaluated his values. By the end of
the scenario, he continues to be guided by unquestioned stereotypes, and remains
ignorant of white privilege. He remains
in the contact stage rather than having moved on to the reintegration stage,
because his racist feelings are unintentional.
The book states, “if one is a white person in the United States, it is
still possible to exist without ever having to acknowledge that reality.” Whites can remain blind to their racial
identity, while still asserting their dominance. Rick has made contact with “the other”, but has failed to
reevaluate anything about himself.
Rick belongs to the Fundamentalist White Identity Orientation. He seems unconsciously committed to White supremacy, demonstrating this by his assumption that his students have problems related to their race that make it unlikely for them to succeed academically. He is unaware of his status, however, because he does not see himself as a racial being. “Fundamentalist Whites harbor a strong emotional commitment to the rightness of their own perspective” (p.101.) Rick never questions his educational philosophy, sticking to his beliefs that his way of teaching is right, and that his students need to conform to him. While there is some truth to that, he must be somewhat flexible and adapt his teaching around his classroom. His way of teaching his class violates INTASC principle #3 (The teacher understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners).
Fundamentalist
whites claim to treat all of their students the same. Rick’s standard, set curriculum that avoids literature written by groups other than
“dead white guys” reflects this belief.
This western supremacist attitude continues to block out multicultural
education. When confronted about it, Rick
would probably defend himself by saying, “I’m just teaching the classic works
that everyone needs to know.”
Fundamentalists would be against expanding their curriculum to include
diverse works, unconsciously because it would jeopardize their position of
dominance.
Basically,
the class was “just being kids.” Adolescents
especially are vicious in their separation of each other based on the most
minor differences. Although not always
as blatantly disrespectful and rude as throwing spit-wads, most classrooms in
the United States have a dominant group that harasses members of the out-group
by extreme examples of spit-wads and fighting, to less noticeable eye-rolling
and whispering.
According
to Sidanius & Prato (p.31), one of the assumptions of social
dominance theory is that Human social systems are predisposed to
form social hierarchies, with hegemonic groups at the top and negative
reference groups at the bottom.
Although Jeff’s nice clothes, accent, and different background are not
negative traits, the dominant group perceived them as such, and treated him like
an outcast. His good grades and
qualities resembling dominant white society were seen as selling out to the
White man, and so he was called an Oreo.
This can be explained by minimal group paradigm. Humans form in-groups and out-groups even
when there is little distinction between the two. Within the group of the black students in Rick’s class, they
created the in-group, consisting of the students with clothes that were not
new, accents that were not Jamaican, educations that were not good, and dominated
over the out-group, which consisted of Jeff, who was different from them in all
of those meaningless ways.
Multicultural
education would have saved this situation.
“Students whose cultures are more consistent with the school culture
have greater opportunities for academic success than students whose cultures
conflict with the school culture.”
Jeff never had a chance, stepping into the hostile school that was so
different that the one he had attended, run by ignorant faculty. Had their goals as a school been slightly
different, the situation would have changed drastically.
An
ideal epilogue to the story would be that the school administration heard of
what happened and made changes to its teaching requirements. Cross-cultural teacher development
is necessary everywhere, but especially in all-black schools with all-white
teachers. This was clearly shown to be
a school-wide problem through comments made by Rick’s colleague and the
principal. A multicultural education
class required for each teacher would help foster the development of teachers
as racial beings, and would force them to “question their values, beliefs, and
how subjective understandings influence their teaching.” Cross-cultural teachers know how their
behavior affects their students’ behavior.
For example, Rick’s failure to address the name-calling made it
okay. When he laughed at his students
throwing spit-wads, he made it acceptable.
After
the introduction of cross-cultural teachers to the school, the curriculum
can begin to change. A goal of
multicultural education is to prepare students for survival in a diverse
society. Rick’s first mistake in his
curriculum was teaching only the material presented in the textbook. Textbooks are improving, but are still far
from the goal. However, this does not
mean that multicultural ideas cannot be taught using them. Observational studies by John Goodlad showed
that “textbook content accounts for approximately 90% of what is taught, and
only 1% of time in the classrooms is spent on critical thinking.” Ideas pertaining to social dominance and
minimal group paradigm can be taught using works by “dead white guys” if the
teacher presents the information correctly.
Lack
of multicultural education is a problem in our schools today. Students graduate with the perception that
stealing land from the Native Americans was cool, and go into the world without
an understanding of the problem of white dominance. We can teach our students about math and science, but we can’t
teach them about discrimination? I hear
racist comments all the time, and I wonder how the problem can be reduced or
eliminated. More cross-cultural teachers
could be the answer.