Reading Response

The article that I read in place of Ormrod’s Chapter 4 was “Critical Race Theory, Multicultural Education, and the Hidden Curriculum of Hegemony,” by Michelle Jay. I was immediately captivated by her approach, especially since I have just gotten a grasp on Critical Race Theory through a couple of English classes I took last semester. As a high school student, I was always quick to pick up on the fact that every textbook inevitably had a diverse sampling of people from different ethnicities and races scattered throughout its pages in forms of images, personal narratives or blips, or other perspective-giving means. Through this article, I began to wonder for the first time: is that enough? Multicultural education is defined by Jay as having goals “to reduce prejudice and discrimination against oppressed groups, to work toward equal opportunity and social justice for all groups, and to effect an equitable distribution of power among members of different cultural groups” (3, italics mine). Does the multicultural education we implement in schools distribute power to minority groups—whether based on race, class, gender, or culture? If multicultural education rather simply attempts to spread tolerance or “just getting along,” then the status quo remains, which in turn means that a hegemony exists: white males still have a larger share of the power. It seems harsh to put it like that, but I believe it to be so. Jay is not surprised by this fact, for she admits that “transformative knowledge,” or putting multicultural education into action, “is dangerous. It threatens those dominant groups in our society who have a vested interest in the… maintenance of dominant structures, long-present inequalities, and the current power arrangements” (5).

How can I as a teacher bring about change? I may be unusual, for I will (hopefully) be working in a school where the minority groups are the majority. Of course this does not mean I will not encounter prejudice from dominant groups; indeed, every day I imagine I will be combating stereotypes against whites, or perhaps a student who is poorer or has a parent in jail, or “blacker” students than others, or even a student of a different religion or cultural background. One stereotype I am especially passionate against combating is that “to be intelligent is to be white.” This is perhaps its own hegemony—that to succeed in a “white world” would somehow “acting white.” Instead, I want to instill great pride in my students’ background and race, so that they are confident enough to work through the hegemony of the “white world” they inevitably live in.

Chapter 3 Song

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht  
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye  
Your scarflette was apricot 
 You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte  
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner  
They'd be your partner, and...

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you 
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you  
Don't you? don't you?

You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive 
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair 
And that you would never leave 
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me  
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee  
Clouds in my coffee, and...

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you  
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you 
Don't you? don't you? don't you?

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee  
Clouds in my coffee, an
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you  
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? don't you?

Well I hear you went up to Saratoga and your horse naturally won  
Then you flew your Lear Jet up to Nova Scotia  
To see the total eclipse of the sun  
Well you're where you should be all the time  
And when you're not you're with  
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend  
Wife of a close friend, and...

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you  
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you  
Don't you? don't you? don't you?

This is the song I chose to represent an idea from Chapter 3. Especially the bold lyrics exemplify imaginary audience, in which young teenagers believe themselves to be the center of attention and as a result are often obsessed with their physical appearance. I will witness this much in my high school classroom.

Ch. 2 QtC's

I cannot assume that all the high school students in my English classroom will have achieved Piaget’s developmental stage of formal operational stage. In fact, Piaget concedes that some adults never even reach this stage. For those who are not yet at the stage, I will need to exert patience and spend extra time working with them. I can model my own cognitive processes in front of the class to display the way one would go about thinking through the dilemma or complex issue. For example, if a student cannot grasp logic “if then” scenarios, I could walk through the way my mind solves the problem verbally, or in a visual diagram on the board. In regards to books, students who have not reached this stage may also have difficulty imagining a fantastic story plot, or putting themselves in the shoes of unusual characters, or understanding metaphors or symbolism. In this case, I believe it will be extremely effective to have peers who have reached this developmental stage model their own thinking processes to the students who have not.

After looking over Table 2.2 for grades 9-12, I began to think about how I can incorporate activities which will encourage language development in this age group. Especially if I teach in an urban setting, there will be a great need for the “language” of middle class and professionalism to be explicitly taught to students who may only hear the slang of their socio-economic class and culture. I want to impress that like it or not, there is a certain “dialect” that is expected in different situations, such as job interviews or in college. I could do an activity where I put the differences between classes out in the open and allow my students to say whatever they think about higher classes than them. Then we could “translate” a passage full of slang or terms they would know into “middle class, professional” language. It would be okay if the activity was slightly humorous. As an English teacher, several of the other strategies are necessarily a part of the classroom, such as exploring complex syntactic structures or consider the underlying meanings and messages in poetry and fiction.  I am looking forward to being able to aid in guiding my students’ language development.