Thoughts on the First Day of my Ninth Year Teaching EDUC240

For nine years now, I have been teaching EDUC240 at Green River Community College, "Multiculturalism and Anti-Bias Issues in Education". When I first started teaching this class it was geared towards preservice Early Childhood Education teachers. We discussed diversity in the framework of an Early Childhood Classroom. Over the years, I redesigned the course to accommodate preservice K-12 teachers--about half the students now are those who already have their Bachelors Degree and are taking the course as a prerequisite to the Masters in Teaching Program at the University of Washington and other universities.

Over the course of these nine years, I have seen some major changes in attitudes. I think these attitudes reflect some of the attitudes in our society. In general, I think that the students coming into the class have been more savvy about diversity-related issues which has made the conversations much more deep and meaningful.

In 2003, when I first started teaching the course, no one had heard of white privilege. I think possibly that may have been due to the fact that most people only hear about the concept of white privilege in academic environments, and most of my students in the early years were coming from owning their own daycares or coming from high school. Because of this lack of knowledge, and because of the nature of white privilege, most white people are oblivious to their own privilege and therefore deny its existence, this was a very difficult subject because of all of the resistance. Once we opened up the class to those who had already been to college, many had heard of white privilege in a sociology class. This made the discussions about it much easier, as there were many people aware of its existence and able to share concrete examples of it from their own lives. Also, having white allies in the classroom who confirmed the existence of white privilege, rather than having just me (a person of color) claiming the existence of white privilege went a long way in bolstering the argument (which just goes to show how white privilege works). Another helpful tool was the addition of the video, "White Privilege 101" in which dozens of people, whites and people of color, talk about what white privilege is and give concrete examples of how it manifests itself in their lives. This year, anti-racist activist Tim Wise came to University of Washington Tacoma to speak about white privilege and he is a white male who speaks eloquently and powerfully about white privilege from a white male's point of view. He is quite aware that because of his privilege, as white AND male, people listen to him about the concept of white privilege. He has said that when people of color can fill rooms and will be listened to when talking about white privilege, maybe then we will have arrived. That time has not yet come though. So until that day comes, I have my students watch YouTube videos of Tim Wise.

The other area in which I saw a change in attitude was sexual orientation. I actually first co-taught the class in 1996 with the director of the Early Childhood Education department. I remember talking about issues around sexual orientation and the pushback we got. Most of it was from those who were opposed to bringing up anything around sexual orientation because of their own religious beliefs. Now when we talk about sexual orientation issues, most people are quite aware that there are many LGBT people with children and that they deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect as any other parent. There is also much awareness of the tragic situations around anti-gay bullying and the resultant suicides that have happened. I believe that people have become much more intolerant of homophobia in the school environment. It's not that homophobia doesn't exist, I just think that someone who is outwardly homophobic now is going to be persona non grata in an educational environment, so it is not something I am seeing among my students.

Anyway, I love teaching this class. What I particularly love is when I see students of mine who I run into a year later who tell me that they were so inspired by the class that they changed their major. One of my students who really struggled initially with the content of the class ran into me at the latest Diversity Conference. She is now majoring in Early Childhood Education with a focus on Diversity Issues! She is committed to Social Justice and recently had some racist images taken off of the wall at a school in Auburn! Woohoo! This is why I love doing what I do!

"Ghetto" is not an adjective

One of the projects I assign my students in my Multiculturalism and Anti-Bias Issues in Education Class is to research articles on diversity issues in education and compile them in a Resource File that they can refer to later in their careers as educators. One of my students found this article and shared it with me. I found it very interesting because over and over again, I've heard subtle (and not so subtle) comments about the different schools in the Federal Way School District, and most recently, the school we are sending our child to.

The article my student sent me was written by a woman in Kent whose daughter chose to go to Kent-Meridian High School because of the International Baccalaureate program there. The mother admitted to having trepidation because she had limited experience with people of color and heard that it was "scary". Some would not send their children there because of the way it "looked". Yet once the mother went to the school, she had a completely different attitude, and is thankful that her daughter has experienced being with such a diverse student body. She feels that her daughter is more prepared for the reality of a more diverse society and she found that the school is very respectful in the way that people treat each other, not the place of horror stories that everyone assumed it was.

Just recently, someone questioned why we were sending our son to Federal Way High School, calling it a "ghetto" school. It is amazing to me that this person said this, given the fact that of all the Federal Way high schools, it is ranked the highest on Newsweek's list of top high schools in the United States. Yes, it has a high number of students on free and reduced lunch and a high number of students of color. But it also has the only center for the Cambridge Academy on the West Coast, a highly rigorous curriculum developed by Cambridge University. It has the highest percentage of students taking advanced classes. Do people assume a school is "ghetto" just because of the high number of black and brown students? Do people not realize the ramifications of using that word?

People who commit to anti-racist behavior realize that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. If you think the world is a better place without racism, then do your part and stop using racially loaded words like "ghetto" as an adjective. And if you think this is just about being politically correct, well if not using racist language is being politically correct, then I guess I'm guilty. I'd rather be politically correct than a bigot.